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The Mother of all Parliaments is shaken by its very foundations. The British public is reeling from the scandalous financial abuses of so many of their elected legislators. Political grandees are licking wounds which will never heal. Embarrassing public exposures of sleaze and corruption at the highest levels. People are incensed by their MPs' immoral manipulations of expense allowances at times of economic hardships...

These are just some of the headlines which have rightfully dominated the news for the past week or so, as indeed they should. There is however a by-line which is worthy of far more attention than it is receiving: Democracy is alive and well and thank God we live in one.

This is not a soothing balm being applied to a festering sore by a spin-doctor. This is a statement of fact and a heartfelt sentiment by millions -who like me- have experienced life on the flip-side of the political coin.

Ask the countless million who live in the shadows of dictatorships or false democracies, about corruption at the highest levels of government, where trillions of public dollars are unaccountably stolen or misspent, whilst the people suffer deprivation, poor health, oppression, torture and death at the hands of those who are supposedly entrusted with their welfare. They would laugh-off the British parliamentarians' manipulation of the expenses allowance, as a mere piffle in comparison to what they have experienced.

If you are unable to reach out and pose the question to the people of Central and South America, most of Asia, the Middle-East and the entire continent of Africa, ask me. I am here to speak-out on behalf of most of the aforementioned, as I happen to be one of them.

I was born in Iraq when it was a constitutional monarchy based on the UK model. The system was by no means perfect, but it worked to the best of its ability. The people had real elected representatives in a real house of parliament and had enough voice to elect governments in or out of office. The country's oil wealth was just beginning to filter through when disaster stuck on July 14th, 1958 and Iraq was plunged into decades of darkness and turmoil.

A bunch of nationalist army officers, with a collective IQ unequal to that of a troop of baboons, took it upon themselves to remove the decadent and corrupt monarchy and declared Iraq a republic; Run by the people for the people. The Iraqi population was swept by nationalistic fervour and went along unwittingly on the path to catastrophe.

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