Imposing kindness

America is a country that strives on equality. It has gone through trials and tribulations, to then rise from the ashes into the democratic country that it is today. A beautiful progression that did not happen overnight. What happens when a country like the U.S. imposes its government on a country like Iraq? Iraq is a country that is suffering from the same growing pains that America did prior to its colonization.  In The Kindness of Strangers, Robin Fox talks about the relationship between America and Iraq, and how sometimes well intentioned acts of kindness are not always well received. Sometimes the imposing of ones’ assistance or advice can be invasive.

Fox expresses the idea that a country cannot be pulled from the grasps of a corrupt government even with the insistent help of another nation. He writes, “The goals set, beyond the toppling of Saddam, were impossible, and the real mystery is why our leaders ever thought they could be achieved. The administration may, by increased force and bribery…patch up some kind of ‘order’ for a while. But it cannot recreate the whole civil infrastructure and the sea change of values that underpin a functioning liberal democracy” (21).

            America’s efforts to implement democracy in Iraq is like lecturing to a person who has a drinking problem, but he/she is at the place in their life where they want to continue to drink. You cannot instill the desire to change in the person, it must come from within themselves. Iraq is not ready for democracy is what Fox is saying. They have not endured the phases that must come before a society truly becomes democratic. America is trying to bypass this progression is as if man tried to create the grand canyon. It’s impossible.