WASHINGTON, July 20, 2006
Myths Of Arab Democracy
CBS’ Meyer: The Mideast Crisis Is About War, Not Political Theory
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(AP / CBS)
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Photo Essay Crisis In Lebanon Israel and Hezbollah exchange attacks across Israel's northern border with Lebanon.
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Who's Who Iraq Insurgency More on the militant groups behind the insurgency in Iraq and their motivations.
Arab and Muslim nations and peoples are not "ready" for democracy.
This is a matter of great debate, and intellectually it's a fascinating issue. President Bush for years has argued it is a form of racism or prejudice to think that Iraqis, Muslims or Arabs are not "ready" for democracy. He believes democracy is good for everyone. Others believe that certain societies, many of them Muslim, are not ready for democracy. They think that forcing democracy onto a society that isn't ready for it is dangerous, as proven by today's fighting.
The mistake here is in thinking about democracy anthropologically, even biologically. Democracy is not a human capacity like sadness or empathy. Democracy is an invention; it is an idea and a practice.
When ideas like self-determination, free will, equality and liberty become current in societies, when they become values, when they capture the moral and artistic imagination, popular sovereignty and democracy tend to follow when circumstances allow it. Obviously, these ideas and values conflict with nationalism, divine justice, predetermination and theocracy. Thus, the invention of democracy is unlikely to be employed widely in Arab world; that is no change from all recorded human history. This doesn't mean these countries aren't ready for democracy or that we have any business trying to figure out who is and isn't ready for democracy.
Militants and Islamists must be stopped from "kidnapping" democracy in the Arab world.
Thomas Friedman wrote in a recent column, "What we are seeing in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon is an effort by Islamist parties to use elections to pursue their long-term aim of Islamizing the Arab-Muslim world." This is clearly correct. He concluded, "The whole democracy experiment in the Arab-Muslim world is at stake here, and right now it’s going up in smoke."
While the "democracy experiment" is awfully new and thin to be hijacked, Friedman's basic point is right. But his argument assumes that success in the Mideast is to be measured by how far democracy marches. I think that's risky, premature and confused. It assumes the best way to fight Islamist radicals is through democracy, something that's not at all clear. It assumes the best way to protect Israel and a broader peace is through Arab democracy, which is not at all clear. It treats democracy as a panacea, which is not at all true.
Many American intellectuals of the left and right who supported the war, or who did not clearly oppose it, are fervently rooting for democracy to take hold in the Mideast because that is their last chance for redemption, the last remaining justification they can use for losing so many American lives — and others — in Iraq. I can sympathize with that.
But the Mideast is too cruel for wishful thinking. Democracy is our ideology for the place, the form of vindication we want. It is not yet a pragmatic foreign policy or a realistic program. Success in the Mideast is still best measured simply by the absence of blood.
Dick Meyer is the editorial director of CBSNews.com.
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By Dick Meyer
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