Iraqi citizens vote for the first time

Posted Monday, January 31 2005 12:26:18 am

By Riki Parikh
Managing Editor

 

 

 

 

 

President George W. Bush acclaimed yesterday as a “great day in democracy,” as eight million Iraqis gathered across their newly liberated country to vote in their first democratic election in fifty years. At the same time, thousands of their Iraqi-American expatriates traveled far and wide to select cities to contribute to the same election.

Among them was Waleeta Canon, a first-year graduate student in International Development Studies at GW, who ventured through the snow and rain to the Ramada Inn in New Carrollton, Maryland, to exercise her newly developed Iraqi voice for her native country’s Transitional National Assembly.

Canon’s parents are Iraqi nationals who left the country in 1977 following years of oppression in Iraq. As Assyrians, a Christian minority group in Northern Iraq, they were subjugated and tortured for several years under Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime. “Our ethnicity got us in more trouble than our religion,” she said, adding that Hussein cared more for which party you were loyal to rather than what religion you practiced.

Her father, who was an Assyrian pro-democracy activist near Baghdad, was arrested several times in Iraq for promoting democratic processes via radio broadcasts in the dictatorial country. He eventually left the country with his wife, first moving to Greece and then settling in Chicago, where Canon has lived her whole life.

Canon, who graduated from Loyola University, clearly displayed pride for a native country which she never visited but speaks of as if she has lived there all her life. As an Iraqi-American, she was forced to remain neutral during the run-up to the war. “My feelings cancelled each other out as an American [and] as an Assyrian,” she said. “As an American I hated this war. I thought it was illegal.”

However, the Assyrian side of her could not help but celebrate that the regime of terror was coming to an end. “I’ve known who Saddam Hussein was since I was two years old,” she said. “This is all the Assyrians would talk about in America. They’ve all been through hell under that man. The Assyrian part of me wanted him gone, [and] I was happy it was happening.”

Despite her reservations on the flawed development of her country’s democracy, she came out to vote in this historic day in her family’s history. Nearly every member of her family came out to vote across the United States this weekend. Canon, who had originally planned to vote on Saturday, postponed her plans in order to allow her parents a chance to vote first. It “just wouldn’t have been fair,” she said.

“I’m so happy for Iraqis, I’m so happy for my parents—they get to finally vote in what used to be their country,” she added.

Last week, she and the other Iraqi-Americans who wanted to vote traveled from far and wide to the closest polling stations, armed with birth certificate and passport in hand. Her mission then: to prove that she was Iraqi.

In order to be eligible to vote in this election in the United States, a potential voter’s father—not mother—had to be born in Iraq. Canon felt it was important that she and her Iraqi-American comrades be able to vote in this first free election. “Most expatriated Iraqis left because they had to, not because they wanted to,” she said. “If it wasn’t for Saddam Hussein, I’d be in Iraq right now.

“I think it’s important because a lot of the people who have left Iraq are sort of the professional and academic elite that have left the country… If they weren’t allowed to vote, it wouldn’t do [the new] Iraq justice.”

So yesterday, for the second time in as many weeks, she traveled over an hour to the hotel in Maryland from her residence in Columbia Heights to participate in creation of her country’s democracy. Canon proceeded through two security screenings at the entrance of the polling station. Upon entering, she walked through to her assigned station, displayed her registration card, birth certificate and passport and proceeded behind a cardboard barrier with her ballot in hand.

She now had a new mission behind that board: ignore the other 110 candidates and go directly to ballot number 204, the candidate representing the Assyrian Democratic Movement. Naturally, this was the choice for her and her family, as part of the Assyrian minority, which typically resides in the north with the Kurds.

All around her were dozens of other Iraqi-Americans, together representing the dichotomy of the entire diasporic community: some knew little English and reveled in the ballot written completely in Arabic, while others spoke fluently to the western media as they watched their elders voting for their first truly democratic election.

Several came in traditional Kurdish dress, while others arrived simply in jeans and a t-shirt. One young man from Virginia came draped in an Iraqi flag with his parents and younger brother. “Whether there was six feet of snow on the ground or [it was] a sunny day, I was going to come out and vote,” he said.

Many women came to vote in this election, in their first chance to voice their opinion for their country. They all entered the security checkpoints and the polling area with nervous excitement, still unable to believe that they were actually about to vote.

Canon, however, stumbled across a little problem as she looked at her ballot: the entire thing was written in Arabic, a completely foreign language to her. The poll workers, unfortunately, could not direct her to the party she was looking for. “They couldn’t point to the one I wanted; it was against the rules,” she said. “All they could do was show me a list of Arabic numbers, and I had to put together which ones were 204.”

She eventually figured out which box correctly represented the Assyrian Democratic Party. As she and other Iraqis finished their ballots, they preceded to the middle of the station, where they dropped their ballots into a plastic container. As they did, their family members looked on, taking pictures, while poll workers individually applauded in congratulations. They left the polling area with their index fingers covered in purple ink - they had dipped into a cup of it, signifying their one vote; for many, their first vote.

The process took less than ten minutes, but the emotions could not be resisted. With water coming to their eyes as they reunited with the parents, several voters exited the building with broad smiles on their faces. Across the street, Kurdish Iraqis danced in the parking lot, waving their flag in exaltation and singing traditional songs.

“It was amazing,” said Canon of the experience she had. “I always feel happy when I vote in an American election, [but] this almost made me cry.”