Those of you who have read my Employment Manual know why I have a hard time getting Americans to work for me: I do not tolerate absenteeism, lateness, smoking, rude behaviour, hard drugs, alcohol abuse, laziness, goofing off, or sexual harassment (unless directed against me).
So it was with great pleasure that I recently hired my first employee from Mongolia. Here's all you need to know about the country: About the size of Alaska, it has the lowest population density of the world with 2.8 million Mongolians about 33% of whom live in the capital of Ulaanbaatar; 40% of the country has no religion while 50% are Buddhists. It is the largest landlocked country in the world and has an unusual legal code that is a mix of Soviet, German and American legal systems and contrary to all those liberal idiots who keep singing the song that you can't bring democracy quickly to a country that never had it before, Mongolia since 1992 has been a functioning democracy without any problems, thank you, despite the complete cutoff of Soviet aid in 1991 and the recent severe winters and summer droughts.
Here is another reason that non-Americans make great employees:
What could I do? I had to make her employee of the month.
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- "...contrary to all those liberal idiots who keep singing the song that you can't bring democracy quickly to a country that never had it before, Mongolia since 1992 has been a functioning democracy without any problems, thank you, despite the complete cutoff of Soviet aid in 1991 and the recent severe winters and summer droughts."
I assume you're referring to those who disparage the idea that an American-style democracy is unlikely to "work" in Iraq. But comparing Mongolia to Iraq is like comparing apples to pig snouts. The ethnic composition of Mongolia is much more homogenous (unlike Iraq: the primarily Arab tribes comprising the warring--since about the seventh century A.D.--Sunnis and Shiites are remarkably DISsimilar to the Kurds, for example) and it has virtually no inter-tribal rivalries (like Iraq does) and almost zero (with the rim kicked off) religious tensions (again, completely unlike the situation in Iraq). As well, Mongolia has an almost homogenous culture with little serious conflicts among the few minor variations of Mongol peoples for well over a millennium, apart from the settlement of tribal leaders--hardly the kind of tribal blood fueds common for the last couple of millennia in the Arabic tribes populating most of the area of the made-from-whole-cloth country, Iraq--some enmities long predating even the advent of the bloodthirsty Mohammed and his cult of death, torture, slavery and oppression.
Indeed, aside from excursions outside Mongolia, the peoples there, quite unlike Iraq, have lieved peaceably with each other for generations, scarcely needing the iron fist of a savage (such as the Ottoman) empirre or strong man ruler, as the various, disparate peoples of Iraq have always seemed to require in order to live with one another in a semblance of civiloized peaceableness.
Iraq, that country cobbled together by the French and British and ruled by the British as a mandate from 1920 to about 1932 (?) is scarcely a "homeland" to an homogeous people group/tribal group, such as Mongolia is, and faces enormous issues to overcome if one is intent on enforcing the silly cobbled-together country the British virtually gave up on in the 30s.
Yep. Like comparing Mongolian oranges to Iraqi pig snouts (with apologies to the Kurds who deserve far, far better than to be lumped in with the Arab barbarians.)
Comment by: David on November 14, 2006 03:18 PM
- My argument is that nations who have had zero experience in Democracy can become one. Sectarian differences in Iraq per se do not prevent democracy from taking hold. In point of fact, there is another democracy in the middle east where there are groups so opposed to each other that they assassinate each other. In this same nation there are even more differences than in Iraq where at least all three groups share the same religion whereas this nation is home to many religions. When this democracy started there were at least three different terrorist groups operating where each one tried to eliminate the other. This democracy is working today despite constant warfare for the past 68 years. Even today you will find that the government of this democracy even had to use the military to remove certain religious groups that are opposed and have been opposed to the government for decades. Despite this Israel exists as a Democracy. Those who doubt the ferocity of sectarian differences in Israel have not lived there. All out bloodshed between the various Jewish sects does not occur precisely because the Israeli military is strong beyond measure.
Some day the military in Iraq will be as strong and sectarian violence will be somewhat stifled as it has been in Israel. It is not sectarian and tribal differences that prevents democracy - it is lawlessness and disorder. Israel has, in point of fact, more tribal differences than similarities. When I lived there the Moroccan Jews were hated, now they are the largest ethnic group in Israel. When I lived there, Sephardic Jews resented the Ashkenazi and their privileged jobs and money. When I lived there the Ashkenazi Jews hated the Polish Jews (who were also Ashkenazi), the Polish Jews resented the German Jews and everyone hated the Ladino Jews from Istanbul.
I ate on the floor with Yemenite Jews whose world view was still tied to tents and sheep. I lived for two years with Farsi Jews who celebrated Persian holidays and spoke Farsi in their home. Iraq is a child's playground compared to Israel where Jews from over a hundred different cultures, nations, and languages converged. I lived in Moshav Germanit where waiting for a bus I could hear a dozen different languages being spoken, the least of them Hebrew. Iraq has more advantages: one needs only speak Arabic in 2/3rds of the country and Kurdish in the remaining third. Despite minor differences they have shared the same culture for decades. When I was in Israel in 1965 I was amazed that a country filled with so many people with so few cultural ties to one another could function as a democracy. Indeed the running joke in Israel in those days was "What do you get when two Jews get together?" A: Three Political Parties.
Iraq will become a democracy once law and order is established. Sectarian violence will probably not abate for generations just as in America blacks were still lynched almost a century after the Civil War. We still have race problems in America but none that cannot be managed. But we are still a Democracy.
Sectarian violence, tribal differences, all that stuff have nothing to do with preventing Democracy just as our treatment of Indians, Blacks, and even the Irish, Chinese and other groups did not prevent America from being what it is today.
In my humble opinion.
Comment by: planck's constant on November 14, 2006 10:29 PM
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