The Blue Badge
of Courage
Commentary by Greg Lewis / OpinionEditorials.com
January 31, 2005
Although there are many things that struck me about yesterday's
election in Iraq, the overwhelming impression I took away from following
the day's events as they unfolded was a sense of the utter courage of
the Iraqi people in the face of what would surely have been for so many
of us the debilitating threat of terrorist violence.
Because of the security lockdown on virtually all vehicular
traffic, Iraqi citizens traveled on foot, often over many miles, to polls
whose very locations were closely held secrets until the last. And as
if the fact of their simply being on the roads wasn't enough to reveal
their intent and make them terrorist targets, they frequently walked in
groups, implicitly defying those who would deny them the opportunity to
exercise their rights under the incipient Iraqi democracy.
Indeed, in the run-up to election day one of the television
commercials broadcast by the Iraqi interim government to encourage Iraqis
to vote portrayed a lone Iraqi man, on his way to a polling place, turning
the corner into a narrow street. At the other end of the street appeared
several menacing figures, obviously terrorists, their faces hidden behind
hoods and masks. They were clearly bent on preventing, by any means, including
murder, the citizen from casting his ballot.
As the scene unfolded, first one, then several, then a
large group of Iraqi citizens rounded the corner to join the first voter.
This group, quite simply and profoundly, stood its ground, staring down
the street directly at the terrorists, daring them to so much as think
about trying to deprive them of the newly-won right to vote.
The commercial is a powerful emblem of the courage of
Iraqi citizens, not only on election day, but in the face of abhorrent
threats to their lives and the lives of their families that they face
daily and which the act of voting would indeed seem to exacerbate, if
that is possible. It is a call to action, evoking the resolve of the human
spirit — against paralyzing odds — to bring into being through
the force of the collective will of the Iraqi people a society which reflects
desires that are constant in every human heart.
Each of millions of Iraqi citizens (initial estimates
put near 70 the percentage of registered voters who actually cast their
ballots) came away from the polling place with an indelible blue ink mark
on his or her index finger. In other words, not only did they brave the
threat of terrorist violence to make their way to the polls, they came
away bearing an ineradicable and difficult-to-conceal sign that they had,
indeed, voted.
Iraqi voters in effect said to their terrorist adversaries,
"I defy you to take your revenge on one of your own. I defy you to
try to desecrate the right and the obligation that each one of us has
partaken of to begin to control our own destiny, to shake off the yoke
of murderous tyranny that has been our lot for more than a generation.
"You may continue to kill us, your fellow Iraqis,
your fellow Muslims, in the cause of re-imposing your heinous will on
us, but by our actions today we are serving notice that your cause is
a lost cause and that the cause of liberty and justice for all Iraqis
will triumph. We know the day is coming soon when your time on this planet
will be over. We are taking but another step to hasten your demise."
Every Iraqi who voted for democracy and against Islamist
tyranny wears on his or her finger the mark of national immortality in
the form of a "blue badge of courage." Participating in a free
and democratic society confers on us a kind of immortality, a sharing
in the fulfillment of a commitment to the universal spiritual truth embodied
in the manifestation of the principles of freedom and justice.
It is the courage of the Iraqi people in making such a
profound and powerful statement of national will that has moved me to
the bottom of my soul. It is above all their courage and witness that
I salute on this glorious day.
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