QUOTES OF THE DAY
This is not your Baathist's country any longer
The Baath Arab Socialist Party is a Pan-Arab National Party , which believes that Nationalism is a living immortal fact and that the conscious Pan-Arab National feeling, which closely attaches the individual with his Nation, is a sacred feeling, full of creative power, sacrifice-invoking, spurring the sense of responsibility and is practically and effectively directing the individual's humanism
-- Article 3 of the "General Principles" of the Iraqi Baath Party Constitution
[The Iraqi people] have a right to be worried. I hope they would stay worried. All the people should be cautious. They should keep criticizing. I am not asking people to stop criticizing, to trust blindly.
-- Adel Abdul Mahdi, a leading candidate for Iraqi Prime Minister
(Dexter Filkins, New York Times)
The contrast between these two quotes is striking. The first bespeaks of the fascist mindset, which seeks to absorb the individual in the limitless embrace of the collective. The second describes the concern, anxiety and critical distance required of the citizen involved in the fragile processes of democracy. One would usurp God, and so becomes nothing; the second accepts human limitation, and thus becomes the fulcrum of history.