November 28, 2005
BUT....THEY'RE WOGS!:
A fraught but worthy mission (BOB RAE, 11/28/05, Toronto Star)
The decision by the U.S./U.K.-led coalition to invade Iraq in the spring of 2003 had several consequences. One was the ouster and eventual capture of Saddam Hussein. Another was the unleashing of forces that the brutality of the dictatorship had kept under firm control for generations: a religious Shiite movement, largely in the south, which seeks to see more traditional values enshrined and protected in the constitution; and a movement of people who had been unable to express themselves for decades and who want a liberal, secular democracy, with groups advocating women's rights, greater academic freedom, environmental protection, the protection of minorities, and the modernization of the Iraqi economy.The Kurds were strong supporters of the invasion because it meant that their oppressor would finally be brought to book, and it could ultimately provide a protected constitutional status within a federal Iraq.
The decision to disband the Iraqi army and police and prohibit members of the Ba'athist regime from participating in civic life had far greater effect than was realized at the time, with two major consequences: first, a vacuum in the maintenance of civil order, which left foreign armies to assume basic police responsibilities; and second, a large and idle army of the downwardly mobile and disaffected.
A huge portion of the public sector lost their jobs, their vocation, and their pensions. They were, for the most part, Sunni, and now form an important base for the domestic insurgency that has engulfed Iraq since President GeorgeBush's declaration of an end to major combat operations two years ago.
To this maelstrom add the terrorism of the Osama bin Laden surrogates, led in Iraq by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who has used the vacuum of civil order in Iraq as a breeding and recruiting ground; neighbouring countries, each with a different stake in Iraq's continuing failure and weakness, and a tribalism whose full force had been pushed down by Saddam's army and bureaucracy, but which now has very little to hold it back.
What is remarkable is that given these conditions and the consequent level of violence, some constitutional progress has been made. [...]
Federalism, it is said, is essentially a foreign idea, a Western idea. It has no place in an Islamic state.
"Federalism will lead to separatism" is the next argument. It is an imported ideology that will put Iraq in a rigid straightjacket from which it will never emerge. The world, the oil companies, the West, will pick at Iraq's remains. These arguments must be answered.
The demand for federalism has come from Iraqis themselves. Every federal country is different. There is certainly no single path to federalism. It is an approach, not an ideology.
The evidence would also show that, far from leading to separatism, an effective federalism counteracts those determined to break up a country.
By insisting on one language, one religion, one official identity, it could reasonably be argued that a dominant majority gives a smaller nationality no reason to stay.
It is the abuse of majority power that fuels the secessionist urge, not the dispersal and sharing of power, which is at the core of the federalist idea.
The key is "effective federalism," which is different from confederation. The central government must have the sovereign capacity to relate to each citizen, to maintain the defence and foreign affairs of the country, and to ensure an economy where goods, services, commerce, and people are mobile.
If Iraq's regions are feudal fiefdoms, separatism will indeed be built into the constituent parts but not because of federalism. After all, the idea of building a stronger and more perfect union is as important a part of the federal project as is the recognition of the particular nature of different regions.
Just as the myth of the ethnically homogeneous state denies the reality of diversity, the borders and powers of the regions themselves should not be based on notions of ethnic exclusivity.
Assyrians, Turkmen, Aziris and others have expressed strong anxiety that their interests would be lost in some simplistic ethnic carve-up. Given the absence of any strong pattern of protecting the rights of minorities, their concerns are understandable. Modern federal practices have made a consistent point of not allowing provincial or states' rights to squelch human right
The built-in beauty is that by giving the majority power you allow them to be more tolerant of minorities they needn't fear and at the same time apply pressure for conformity to those minorities, so that the whole system reinforces stability. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 28, 2005 11:47 PM
Readers may not know that the author of this article is none other than the former socialist premier of Ontario.
Not many leftists would be caught dead supporting the invasion of Iraq. I was sure surprised.
Posted by: Randall Voth at November 29, 2005 4:22 AMRandall:
Yes, he single-handedly wrecked Ontario's economy and thus laid the groundwork for eight years of tight conservative rule, but he has also openly taken on the anti-Semites and Israel bashers on the left. Flawed, but decent.
Posted by: Peter B at November 29, 2005 6:35 AMDoes the word 'wog' in your title not have the same force in the US or something? What do you take it to mean?
In Britain that is a deeply offensive word: at least as bad as the 'n-word.'
Posted by: Brit at November 29, 2005 8:29 AM"Wog" isn't an American word. It has about the same force here as "bloody"; cute but meaningless.
In any event, wogs start at Windsor.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 29, 2005 9:23 AMThey begin at Calais according to the usual parlance, but nobody has said that since the early 1970s even as a joke (unless it is with very obvious post-modern irony, and even then it's frowned upon).
I probably should make clear that I meant Windsor, Ontario, Canada, the only point in Canada due south of the United States.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 29, 2005 10:03 AMI wondered what you had against the inhabitants of Berkshire...
Posted by: Brit at November 29, 2005 10:15 AMThanks for clearing that up. I thought of Windsor castle and wondered how the royals got involved with a leftist PM in Ontario.
Posted by: erp at November 29, 2005 11:07 AMBrit:
Yes, I mean it in its most deeply offensive sense--that's how the Left and realists think of Arabs, which is why they don't think they can be democrats.
Posted by: oj at November 29, 2005 11:26 AMThe word, "Wog" is not in common usage in the U.S., and has almost no recognition.
As is the case with slang in general, and derogatory slang in particular, is meaning is shifting and uncertain. Such words are not subject to the linguistic discipline of dictionaries, schoolteachers, formal writing and the law, and thus are sort of adrift, cut loose from their etymology, and liable to be of uncertain connotation.
The word is fascination to conservatives as an illustration of the futility of politically correct, Orwellian manipulation of language.
Sources describe different origins for the word. Australian usage might possibly be related to the word "pollywog," having to do with the tradidians surrounding crossing the equator. The traditional theory of the British slanf term was described by Robert Rouark is Something of Value. The Foreign Office was having a problem because British troops were insulting their Egyptian allies with racial epithets, so the were commanded ". . .to refer to them only as Worthry Oriental Gentleman, which they are."
The politically correct title was shortend to W.O.G., then to Wog and the rest is linguistric history.
In our own time we have seen the exact progress of the arabic word, Hajji, and of course the word, "gay." Words are not to be politically manipulated, and language should be respected for the life of its opwn it possesses.
Posted by: Lou Gots at November 29, 2005 11:32 AMThere's no doubt about the origins or the inference at all in Britain - in today's Britain anyway. It's short for gollywog and it refers in the most offensive manner possible to blacks.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=wog
If you said it in a room here, there would be terrible embarrassed silence. (Always useful to know these things, I think).
Posted by: Brit at November 29, 2005 11:43 AMBrit:
Exactly. But if you just said that George Bush was a moron for thinking Arabs were capable of democratic government you'd get knowing nods of agreement.
Posted by: oj at November 29, 2005 11:49 AMOnly in Windsor.
Posted by: Brit at November 29, 2005 11:53 AMhow can "wog" refer to "blacks" if the word originated before there were any blacks in the u.k. ?
Posted by: h g wells at November 29, 2005 12:00 PMh.g.: that's the whole idea. It means blacks now--it meant Egyptians in the 1890's, and certainly black Africans by the 1950's.
I'm not going to look this up, but I would expect that "gollywog" came from "wog" and not vice-versa. We would have to trace how the word appeared in the corpus throughout its history, which is almost impossible with vulgar slang.
Vulgar speech is like vulgar music--truncated and debased. Such a word may have different meanings on different sides of the same city.
Posted by: Lou Gots at November 29, 2005 1:06 PMBrit: Americans are probably not going to know it is that offensive. For what it's worth, the first time I encountered the word was in a book on the Falklands War, out of the mouth of some crusty old colonel in the Paras or the Marines; something to the effect of we didn't expect much trouble from them. After all, we were British, and they were wogs. So we gather that it is an epithet, but not that it's that ill-humored.
Posted by: joe shropshire at November 29, 2005 1:16 PMH G Wells:
I don't know about the distant etymology, but this is the recent etymology:
http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/golliwog/.
They appeared in Enid Blyton's Noddy books and Robinson's Jam jars in less enlightened days.
Posted by: Brit at November 29, 2005 1:24 PMJoe:
No - it obviously doesn't have the same meaning in the US - as I've now found out. In Britain golliwogs were once popular children's characters and dolls - now long removed and edited out of 'Noddy'. If you didn't have them much in the States, you wouldn't have the same associations.
Uttering the word 'wog' in a crowded room here would be the precise equivalent of talking about 'n**gers' in the US.
Quite rightly, as attitudes change certain words which are used deliberately to offend or dehumanise certain people (as 'wog' was used about blacks in the middle decades of 20th century in the UK) then become less acceptable in mainstream society. 'Paki' has also become taboo here, but only in the last 15-20 years or so.
Posted by: Brit at November 29, 2005 1:34 PM'Paki' has also become taboo here
So I guess I have to burn my copy of My Beautiful Laundrette, then.
Posted by: joe shropshire at November 29, 2005 2:04 PMI thought that, in Britain, "blacks" were Indians and Indians are from the sub-continent.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 29, 2005 5:06 PMDavid:
'Indians' are from India.
We somtimes refer to the Carribean as the 'West Indies' - the origin of most of our black population - but we really only call members of their cricket team "West Indians" (that is what the cricket team is officially called).
The acceptable modern term for blacks - which the black community prefers - is the same as it is in the US: "blacks".
Members of the older generation of whites often refer to blacks as 'coloured', thinking it polite, but that term is now seen as outdated and patronising.
Whatever it's distant origins - which Lou may be right about - 'wog' is now unambiguously a vile term used principally by British racists about British blacks.
It is equivalent with "spade", "nigger" or "coon", so if you were ever in British company and thought you could drop it into the conversation as a bit of mild, almost affectionate slang about foreigners, you'd be making an appalling gaffe.
Posted by: Brit at November 30, 2005 4:10 AMIt would seem, from this website that "black" in England is broader than in the states, and includes people from the subcontinent. A number of those MPs would never be referred to as "black" in the states.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 30, 2005 7:44 AMI think that Operation Black Vote is concerned with all ethnic minorities, so that's why those MPs are included on their list.
'Black' means African or Carribean. The others would normally be refered to as 'Asian'.
Posted by: Brit at November 30, 2005 8:04 AM