I can’t say anything about Iran that hasn’t been said by many others. I’ve been watching with horror at the endless YouTube coverage and Twitter updates of those right in the thick of it. Now things have died down a little, mostly due to threats of violence against those who would protest, the ideologues come out to try to get their version of history out there.
Such as Janet Albrechtsen, who today somehow manages to use the situation in Iran to try to re-write history in favour of her idol George W Bush.
Could it be that history will now record George W. Bush more kindly than his critics would prefer? What is happening in Iran cannot be separated from what has happened in Iraq. This year, during provincial elections in Iraq, Iraqis came to polling booths in their millions to vote, by an overwhelming margin, for national, secularist parties. Iraqi security forces – not coalition troops – ensured Iraqis could vote safely and securely. There were no suicide bombers endangering polling stations. People turned up with their children to cast their vote.
In an almost complete and unrelated tangent, ignoring the on-going and seemingly never ending problems in Iraq, Albrechtsen claims that by comparing the situation in Iran – where an estimated 20 people have been killed in protests – to an Iraqi election held rather peacefully amidst a near 100,000 documented deaths since the invasion, Bush will be vindicated.
Janet is right, Australian students should be taught about the history of democracy; just not her version of it.
