From Charles Moore’s diary in the current issue of the London Spectator

(the diary is not online):

“‘I’ve just spent three months in Iraq,’ said the woman sitting next to me

on the platform of our country railway station is Sussex. She turned out to

be the feminist Lesley Abdela, and she is, to use the phrase I invented to

tease her, a mercenary for democracy. Working for an American university

project, she was funded by the Coalition to help build civil society in the

South Central province, the most populaous of Iraq. She has worked in about

40 countries, and says she has never before found such an intense interest

in what democracy is and how to get it. Her organisation helped run

elections for neighbourhood councils (glorified parish councils) right

across the province, and these were popular and peaceful. The main

religious leader in Hilla, ancient Babylon, has a following of about half a

million people, and attracted crowds of 1,000 or so for each of his many

pro-democracy talks. Though religious, most people she met opposed the

extremists’ demand for the Sharia imposed by Shiites in Shiite areas and

Sunnis in Sunni ones, preferring the rule of secular law throughout. She

was ‘incredibly impressed,’ she said, by the dedication of the Americans

with whom she worked, from the ‘visionary’ head of the Coalition Provisional

Authority in the province to the laundry manager who gave jobs to a deaf and

dumb couple who needed help. She is not very optimistic, believing that

democracy needs at least 20 years before it can become a ‘homegrown tomato,’

and that the West won’t have the patience. But she bridles at the idea of

the famous 52 ex-ambassadors that it is ‘naive’ to help build democracy in

the country. Before a country has democracy, its coming must always seem

improbable, but without some outside help, it must surely be impossible.”