Minority Rights Leaders Point to U.S. History

by Treespeaker

 

The morning news brought a new slant to the current state of the War in Iraq and surges of fighting in Afghanistan.  Minority rights activists are pointing out the racist history of the United States since Anglo-Saxon Protestant males stepped foot on American soil.

 

Activists are teaming up with scholars of Native American and African American history.  Starting with the westward expansion that saw the devastation and near extermination of an entire native culture of Native American tribes resulting in the French and Indian Wars.  Move on to slavery in the American south bringing the Civil War to fruition.  Finally, step up to present day America where the current day army is fighting yet another "dark skinned human culture". 

 

Some activists and scholars will go as far as to say this war, like all the others in our young past have been about oppression.  The Native Americans were displaced from their homes and lead about much of the plains states like refugees only to be dumped onto Reservations, occupying some of the most inhospitable masses of land the US had to offer.  Likewise, examining the emancipation of slaves post Civil War found displaced and broken slave families living, many, near poverty status and many becoming indentured, closer to that of a serf in a feudal society than that of a free man working his own land.  Successful ex-slaves built their lands together on community farms where the working of abandoned land could be used efficiently and by the help of each resident in cooperation.  Few free families had enough money to invest in such successful communities though.

 

Fast forward to the present.  The argument becomes what will happen to the nations for which the US has invaded in the name of democracy and freedom?  As the new Iraq scrambles and squabbles to write a Constitution worthy of Iraq's deep cultural and spiritual way of life, the thoughtful observer wonders what American stipulations are being woven into policy making wording?  When yet another extension to complete and approve the Constitution of Iraq is appears, will oppression of a dark skinned nation be evident under the mandates of the Bush Administration?  Or will Iraq break the vicious pattern of oppression and obliteration of culture?  Will the new Iraq show that it is stronger than the Nations who last encountered the warring fist of the US military and its doctrines?

 

Indications of the rough draft for Iraq's constitution are promising; especially in the eyes of minorities.  For example, the rough draft suggests that the Iraq version of the Senate hold 25% of their seats for office holding women.  This far supersedes the US Constitution by leaps and bounds.

 

Could Iraq, in all that it has borne, from dictatorship to foreign occupation to reconstruction, prove it will shine even brighter than its invading counterpoint?