Sunni Arab activists are going door to door to supporters' homes and using mosque imams in a final drive to persuade the minority community to go to the polls on Saturday and vote against the Iraqi constitution. The stepped-up campaign against the draft document comes as leaders of the Sunni Arab community are in the thick of last-minute talks with Shiite and Kurdish leaders to reach a compromise on the divisive charter.Sunni-led insurgents are warning Sunnis not to vote at all, backing their calls with threats and violence. Iraq's Sunni Arabs — about 20 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million people — boycotted last January's historic general election, but this time only insurgent groups are calling on voters to stay away from the polls. Dominant under Saddam Hussein, Sunni Arabs say the charter will cause the breakup of Iraq, discriminates against their community and ignores the country's Arab identity. The controversy over the charter has exacerbated Iraq's already simmering ethnic and religious divisions.
| They get all fired up over that "Arab identity" thing. Up until the Arabs showed up, Mesopotamia was the home of a sophisticated civilization that regarded the camel herders as hicks. Occasionally — only occasionally — some remote descendant of the civilized will remember, and briefly hold his head a little higher. Then some Arab will cut it off. |