Iraqis in Canada prepare
to hit the polls
Thousands cast votes today for Sunday's election The `oppressed'
see this as chance
to right the wrongs
NICHOLAS KEUNG
IMMIGRATION/DIVERSITY REPORTER
Nearly 11,000 Iraqi citizens in Canada
- 8,019 in Toronto alone - are set to become part of history
by taking part in the first democratic election in Iraq on Sunday.
They are among the 280,303 Iraqi exiles
in 14 countries who have registered to cast ballots, according
to the International Organization for Migration, which is organizing
overseas balloting.
In the GTA, voters for representatives
to the national assembly in a transitional government will mark
their choices today through Sunday in a three-day out-of-country
polling period. Polling stations in Scarborough, North York and
Mississauga, as well as Ottawa and Calgary have been set up.
One block of eligible voters in Canada
is especially interested in the election: Assyrian Christians,
who hope the vote will be a step toward making their homeland
more welcoming.
Fil Isaac sees it as a chance to put
the 3 million Assyrian Christians worldwide back on the map.
"All these years, Assyrians have
been oppressed by the Persians, Mongols, Turks, Kurds and Arabs.
We no longer have a home country, and our people's 7,000-year
history, culture and traditions are vanishing," said the
65-year-old native of Iraq, a retired software engineer who now
lives in Woodbridge.
Assyrians have faced the double whammy
of being both an ethnic and religious minority among Iraq's population
of 27 million, despite being the indigenous people of their region,
which has been occupied and ruled by foreign powers for centuries.
Isaac, who will cast a ballot in Toronto,
is one of thousands of Assyrians in the GTA, part of a worldwide
exile community of about 2 million. "Hopefully, the election
will bring us democracy," he said. "It is the only
chance for us to survive."
To conceal their identity in a majority
Muslim society where intolerance of minorities is rising, their
women in Iraq must wear hijab headscarves or risk being disfigured
by religious hardliners who throw acid in their faces. Men have
been forced to trade biblical names for Arabic ones like Amir,
Amil or Nabiel.
"But our fairer skin still gives
us away," lamented Isaac, who came to Canada in 1966.
"Every one of us is thrilled about
the election. It gives us hope."
Ramsin Benjamen, a Toronto co-ordinator
for the Assyrian Democratic Movement, said his party has 28 candidates,
of which nine are women.
"Thousands of (campaign) brochures
have been distributed in churches, community centres, stores,
and published in community newspapers," he said, adding
that mini-buses have also been rented to bring in voters from
Hamilton, London and Windsor.
"We realize that many terrorist
cells from different groups are operating in Iraq and opposing
the process of democracy, but I am optimistic that democracy
will prevail in the end."
The assembly's seats will probably be
dominated by the three majority groups in Iraq: Shiite and Sunni
Muslims (although many Sunni leaders have urged a boycott), along
with the Kurds.
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