I also want to commend some remarks by Pat Lang on democracy and the Middle East to your attention. They’re fairly brief. I recognize that some of you may find his views on Israel objectionable. Israel is not mentioned in the post I’m linking to here.
Now consider Col. Lang’s remarks in the context of the situation that prevails in France, Germany, or the UK or, possibly, in the Muslim communities that may be developing here in the wake of mass immigration from the Middle East.
I largely agree with Lang’s assessment of the success, but disagree with his pronouncement about the future. Most Middle-Easterners want to live in a democracy. This is not some Neocon conspiracy, or position of some marginal Westernized-lberal, as Lang puts it. I also disagree with his pronouncement that Islamic culture likes the “strong man.” One of the reasons we know that the Arab democracies became autocracies is the extent violence and coercion was used against the people. Do North Koreans come from a culture that likes the “strong man?”
A lot of countries in the ME are too poor and backward to develop into viable democracies at least in my lifetime. Islam is a restraint as well, but its not a love of the “strong man.” Islam hates the King/Pharaoh; it idealizes a religious utopian vision of government that is largely egalitarian and responsive to the interests of every part of the community (Shura). This utopian vision remains a potent source of challenge when the government is seen as failing.
There were quite few democracies when France and UK administered the Arab mandates. Today, countries with some form of democratic capitalism have the highest living standards and wealth in the world. If a third-world country is not China or endowed with vast mineral wealth, it seems some form of liberalization is necessary to avoid falling further behind.
I probably take a different take on the immigration issue. People who really don’t like the strong man and like the sound of democracy and Western living standards are going to flee to the West. I’m not sure what the West’s response will be. Maybe European countries, mired in self-doubt and guilt, will create the first sustainable Islamic democracies, and prove the skeptics wrong.
What people say they want in polls is different from what they will accept in reality. A US example – “bipartisanship” polls really well, but when it comes to actually making policy, people are much less willing to compromise.
Yes, people in the ME like the idea of democracy in the abstract, but never like it in practice. Another example: The same Iraqis who like the idea of democracy cannot stand to be subject to a democratic system where the Shia are always the majority – because they know the Shia will use their democratic majority to impose their views on others (democracy as the tyranny of the majority).
So the only thing that really works is either very weak pseudo democratic systems like what you have in Lebanon or an enlightened constitutional monarchy like what you have in Lebanon.
Jordan, not Lebanon, for that last word.
There’s a big weakness built into democracy: voters.
Nice and succinct Michael.
@Andy, I agree that support for “democracy” can mean many different things and the polls should be understood in that light. They might not support or know about any objective standard for a liberal democracy.
I’m not sure it really matters. The Middle East governments have failed or are failing. The challenge of democracy was polled as a “preference” and will continue to be attractive, so long as autocratic rule is despotic and fails to improve people’s lives. Activists who want a more Islamic type of government understand the appeal and respond in one of two ways: (a) attack democracy (polytheism of the masses; or (b) incorporate it (Islam created the perfect democracy). Lang’s judgment on the past is mostly true, but not dispositive of the future.
” so long as autocratic rule is despotic and fails to improve people’s lives. ”
Except that it kind of does. It stops the violence. When every argument between tribes, religious factions or whatever, a despot at least can minimize the fighting and deaths, providing some semblance of security and safety.
Steve