On Democracy by Saddam Hussein / Paul Chan

On Democracy by Saddam Hussein / Paul Chan

Perfect bindings


FA.SB4.5076
136 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 21 cm
2012
Paul Chan
Jeff Severns Guntzel
Iraq--History--2003-
Softcover. Perfect binding. Offset printed. 

"In 2003, after returning from a month-long stay in Baghdad, American artist Paul Chan was given a gift from a colleague in the human rights group Voices of the Wilderness: a copy of three speeches on democracy written by Saddam Hussein in the 1970s, before he became president of Iraq. The speeches, compiled here for the first time in English, are politically perverse, yet eerily familiar. The then-vice president of Iraq characterizes social democracy as demanding authority, and defines free will as the patriotic duty to uphold the good of the state. This volume takes the speeches as an opportunity to ask what democracy means from the standpoint of a notorious political figure who was anything but democratic, and to reflect on how promises of freedom and security can mask the reality of repressive regimes"--Publisher description