Mobs storm newspapers in Baghdad
Source: CNN
The angry mobs barged into the newspaper buildings, in the heart of bustling Baghdad. They smashed equipment, stole files, beat up guards and workers, and tossed one person from a roof.
The assaults, which unfolded simultaneously Monday, apparently stemmed from outrage over a story seen as critical toward a Shiite cleric in Karbala. Police investigated the incidents on Tuesday.
The U.N. mission in Iraq slammed the assaults as "unacceptable under any circumstances." UNESCO in Iraq stressed concern over the impact of the attacks.
"Freedom of expression is a crucial element for establishing true democracy and building sustainable peace in Iraq," UNESCO Director in Iraq Louise Haxthausen said.
Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/02/world/meast/iraq-newspapers-attack/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
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. . . has been the whole notion of "planting democracy" around the world. I have long held that modern, representative democracy arose and developed out of a particular (i.e., western) cultural milieu, which milieu was steeped in a very particular history, and interplay, of religious, political and philosophical thought. That history extends from ancient Greece, through the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, and on through the Dark Ages, the Medievel period, the Renaissance, the 16th C. Protestant Reformations and right on through to the Enlightenment philosophers, whose thought lay the foundation for the concepts that shaped the founding of this country. Every one of those movements was, in some respect, a reaction or response to what had come before. Eventually, over many centuries, that interplay gave rise to 18th C. rationalism (i.e., "The Enlightenment"
. But as a culture, we didn't just wake up one day to find ourselves embracing rationalism and humanism. Those were strains of thought that developed over many generations and centuries.
So the whole notion that you can simply "plant" democracy as we know it in a part of the world that doesn't share that philosophical history (or something fairly comparable to it) is, I believe, incredibly naive.
