November 19, 2004

Czech Republic offers some hard-won lessons;
Iraqi politicians take field trip in democracy

By Bruce I. Konviser

A group of Iraqi politicians came here this month to learn how to build a democratic state from the ashes of totalitarianism.

The Czechs know a thing or two about this tricky business - all the better to provide the cautionary tales for those who must try to grow something so fragile as democracy in the violence and chaos of Iraq. Better even than going to learn in America, where democracy has been around a long time and where how it all began is found in history books.

Sallama al-Khafaji, an independent member of the interim Iraqi National Assembly, was impressed with what she saw at polling sites as the citizens of the Czech Republic cast ballots in parliamentary voting.

"The people watching the elections were from different parties," she said, "and they came to observe the results. It was beautiful. There were no police, no military - the situation was very calm."

"It's nothing special," Jan Ryjacek, program coordinator for the Czech-based Center for the Study of Democracy and Culture, said with a shrug, "just a normal thing for us, but it was not normal for them - they see it for the first time in their lives."

Not so normal not so long ago in the Czech Republic.

In 1968, in what was then the East-bloc country of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union sent tanks in to crush a democracy movement known as the Prague Spring. Communism was back, as ironfisted as ever.

Then, 15 years ago this week, in 1989, the Velvet Revolution gathered force with its first major demonstration that would lead to the collapse of the Communist government. In fits and starts, democracy took its place.

For the first 11 days of this month a group of Sunni, Kurdish and Shiite Iraqis has watched the day-to-day life of democracy unfold - everything from the campaigning, the organizing of polling stations, the first-round voting on Nov. 5 and Nov. 6, and the counting of ballots.

The Iraqis saw how representatives from each party verified each vote before it went to an election official and then into a computer - followed by the securing of the ballots and their transfer to a central election office. The Iraqis' trip is sponsored by the International Republican Institute, a Washington-based agency that receives government funding for international democratization programs.

More important perhaps than the lessons on the mechanics of democracy were the lessons on the tactics of democracy.

Marek Benda, a student revolutionary in 1989, is now a Czech senator. He met the Iraqis and offered this advice:

Do everything as quickly as possible - especially writing a constitution, because the more time you spend trying to decide what to do, the more influence other forces will gain.

Maintain good relations with the United States, if for nothing else than for the security guarantees - the Czechs joined NATO in 1999 and have not regretted it.

Confront the crimes of the past regime - the Czechs failed to do this, and many see this as the reason the Communist Party is supported by 20 percent of the public.

Benda says it is probably not possible in Iraq, but nationalist parties should be outlawed. Nationalists led to the breakup, albeit peacefully, of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Jan Urban, a longtime dissident, regrets that many things were not done differently after communism collapsed, but his biggest regret is that the Czechs did not form a Truth and Reconciliation Commission - as the postapartheid government did in South Africa.

Countries need to confront their histories honestly, he said, so that people feel, "My country is willing to listen to my grief and pain and is willing to think about it and what to do with it - it's much more important than retribution itself," Urban said. "It's about symbols - it's about how you define good and evil."

For Khafaji, the Iraqi assembly member, establishing democracy is everything. She has seen up close the horror of a country without laws. In May, she narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, but her son and a bodyguard were killed.

"Iraq is worth more than that," she said, "and really our lives and our blood is something not expensive to have Iraq build a democracy. I don't worry, if I lost my life."