Q.Iraqi constitution-writing saw conflict between ethnic groups post-Saddam. What do these groups stand for? Compare with EU and India cartoons.

A constitution's deepest function may be that it actually creates the political community it governs, rather than simply regulating a community that already existed beforehand. A scattered collection of individuals only becomes a single political community — capable of holding a shared identity and acting together — by agreeing to common norms about how it will be governed and who will be governed by them; it is this very act of agreement that constitutes a people's political identity. A constitution also supplies a moral identity, because its authoritative norms define the fundamental values the community will never allow itself to violate, forming an overarching framework within which individuals then pursue their own personal freedoms and goals. Because many basic political and moral values (democratic government, protection of core rights) are now widely shared across very different constitutional traditions, constitutions around the world resemble each other in these broad respects even as they differ sharply in procedural detail. Where constitutions differ …