In a climate of cautious optimism, a new GMA ‘Reign’

PARIS, France – Radio Australia tracked me down all the way to Paris (from Melbourne) to interview me on what to expect from the incoming GMA six-year term. I was tempted to tell the news commentator, Ms. Adelaide, that the note to be struck was similar to that being utilized to describe the turnover by the Americans and the coalition of "sovereignty" to a new Iraqi government – "cautious optimism".

In truth, there will still be trouble to come. FPJ insists he was cheated, and the KNP opposition will contest the outcome in court – and, possibly, in the streets. Radio Australia asked this writer whether there might be a wave of protest violence whipped up. From this "far remove", Paris, I couldn’t really say. But my instinct tells me – I could be wrong – that our people are a bit sick and tired of trouble and mob action, even those open-ended threats of mutinies and coups. This was a very unsatisfying election. But it’s over. There must be some form of closure, to enable our weary nation to move on – better than that, to resume striving for progress and reform.

Will this be a "new" Gloria? Australia inquired. We hope for the best. Hopefully, an end to deal-making and compromise. Hopefully, that corruption will be tackled. Now that La Emperadora doesn’t have to dicker for support from the most unlikely quarters and has a full six-year term in which to redress the mistakes engendered by anxiety and the hunger for reelection (and vindication), I trust she will do the hard thing: Govern wisely and well.

As I write, the sun is shining outside my window. It is a balmy 26 degrees here in Paris, in contrast to rainy London and cold Edinburgh. Le ciel bleu, as Edith Piaff once sang in her immortal "Hymn à l’Amour" so memorably – evoking the romantic Paris of yesterday.

The French, of course, are pessimistic about America’s mishandling, they gripe, of Iraq. While the English and American newspapers speak of the handing over of so-vereignty to Iraqis "two days ahead of schedule", the popular daily here, Le Figaro, sarcastically bannered yesterday: "IRAK: SOUVERAINéTé CONTROLéE" – controlled sovereignty.

It took many years for democracy to take shape in the United States itself, and they even had to fight a bloody Civil War among themselves to determine states rights and the status of slavery. It took centuries to establish democracy of sorts (under a monarchy) in Great Britain and the United Kingdom – and the way to this status, long after the Magna Carta, involved civil wars, executions, even the beheading of monarchs, and other conflicts. In the postwar Europe of the late 1940s, with the Nazis defeated, Europe’s cities turned to rubble, it still required many years of four-power military then civilian-administered occupation, and billions of dollars of aid from the Marshall Plan, to reconstruct prostrate Germany, Austria, and other European states flattened by the conflict and install the network of vibrant democracies we see in place today.

In sum, it takes democracy a long time to flower and grow. (Just look at us in the Philippines, where we even seem to be backsliding.) In this light, we must not expect miracles in the Iraqi desert – not overnight, nor even soon.

The new Iraqi government’s leaders are under constant threat of death at the hands of the butchers al-Qaeda and other Islamic fanatics. Those idealistic leaders who’ve put their lives on the line to try to rebuild their nation are to be praised and given our moral support, at the very least, not scoffed at as stooges of the Americans.

An old friend, and an old "Philippine hand", Ambassador John Negroponte, 64, has just arrived in Baghdad as the new US envoy. He and his wife Diana lived in Manila for several years when he was US Ambassador to our country and made many friends among us. We wish him well – and pray for his and Diane’s safety.

For Iraq is a "war front" in more ways than one.

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I believe George "Dubya" Bush and Tony Blair meant well in their so-called "invasion" of Iraq and overthrow of the despot, Saddam Insane. That having been said, it may have been a mistake – but they, and we in the coalition, are stuck with it. And we must stay the course. Copping out like cowards at this critical stage would not merely be dangerous for the new Iraqi leadership, headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and President Ghazi al-Yaouar, but for ourselves.

My own preference would be for all of us to pack up and leave, and let the Iraqis, who can be very irritating, slug it out among themselves, with the survivors of that internecine conflict taking over what’s left – and the heck with their damned oil! Fortunately, emotional old geezers like me don’t run world policy, nor our own Philippine foreign policy. But, as Popeye once said, after wolfing down his spinach: "I yam whats I yam."

There can be no compromise with Islamic fanaticism, nor with any kind of religious fanaticism, even Christian. Alas, the Islamic terrorists – who’ve beheaded their victims in Iraq – carried the same kind of vicious war to our own archipelago many years ago. We’ve had beheadings in Mindanao and suicide-attackers there centuries before such atrocities hit the world press.

I say to those new embroiled in this conflict – welcome to our centuries-old battle, between the Infidel (yep, us Christians) and the juramentados and amoks of the Muslim faith. Even the Prophet Mohammad was driven out of Makkah (Mecca) by his enemies, and had to recapture that city many years later by force, at the head of an Islamic army. So, when they claim that Islam is a religion of "peace", let’s not forget that Allah’s militants can be as violent as the Christian crusaders.

This is not a safe, nor sane world. We must ever be vigilant and stand to our arms – even as we profess peace.