|
Those of you who read my column know that I seldom write about politics. There are plenty of well qualified, articulate people who do that and many of them write fine articles for Payam-e-Ashena. Lately, however, I have been thinking about this whole issue of democracy or, better said, western style democracy and its implications for countries in the Middle East, including our beloved homeland, Iran. You may recall the whole premise of Bush administration’s push to Iraq in 2003 was this idea of "spreading democracy and freedom." Remember that? While it sounded very noble at the time, few thought it will get us to where we are today; a region marred by civil war in Iraq, tensions in Lebanon, continued tribal wars in Afghanistan, and the whole sad story of Israeli-Palestinian conflict getting nowhere near a peaceful resolution soon. Worse yet, these policies and actions have heavily damaged America’s reputation amongst many in that volatile region of the world. So what went wrong? Again, the subject has been debated, articulated, and discussed by many well qualified thinkers and I dare not even begin to list the reasons. Put bluntly, the administration screwed up big time (and I mean big time) and unfortunately many lives, including those of our brave troops and innocent people in Iraq, have been and will continue to be lost in the process. I did not vote for George Bush and do not approve of his policies but his "freedom policies" on the surface, at least, had merit. Over the last 40 years, as the rest of the globe progressed economically and politically, the countries in the Middle East, especially the Arab world, moved backwards. Decades of tyranny and stagnation, mostly under the auspices of secular, Westernized regimes like those in Egypt and Syria, have produced an opposition that is extreme, religiously oriented and, in some cases, violent. Bush and his NeoCons probably had the right idea, but too wrong a strategic approach in thinking that they could export democracy.
Can You Export Democracy?
As US troops were pushing into Iraq back in spring of 2003, I remember reading a New York Times article where a reporter stopped a waving bystander and asked him what he hoped the Americans would bring to Iraq. The man shouted out four words, one louder than the other, “Democracy, whisky, and sexy.” The reporter stated that it will not take much effort to bring whisky and sex to Iraq, if indeed they ever left. But bringing democracy to a region that has not known it will be more complicated. That to me is what is wrong with the NeoCons; thinking that they could remove a dictator and the next day you have democracy flourishing. That has never happened and will never happen. Democracy will take hard work and the oil riches of the countries in the Middle East will not make it any easier. Above all, you can not rush it. This is not because the people in the region don’t want democracy or aren’t capable of it. The scenes of liberated Baghdad right after US troops arrival and similar scenes in Kabul after the Afghan war showed us that people, in any part of the world, do not like to be oppressed. No culture or religion makes them content to forgo their basic rights. But wanting democracy and achieving it are two different things. Over the past decade, the developing world has been littered with examples of quick transitions to democracy that have gone badly awry. The countries of Central Europe—a long-standing part of the Western world—have been the exceptions to this dismal pattern. The awkward truth is that whisky and sex have proved much easier to export than constitutional government.
What is called democracy in the West is really liberal democracy, a political system consisting of free elections, rule of law, the separation of powers and basic human rights, including private property, free speech and religious tolerance. In the West, this tradition of liberty and law developed over centuries, long before democracy took hold. It was produced by a series of forces; the separation of church and state, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Reformation, capitalism and the development of an independent middle class. England and the United States were considered free societies 200 years ago. More recently, Hong Kong, for decades ruled as a “crown colony” by Britain, was one of the most economically and politically free societies in the world. Today, democracy and liberty are intertwined in the Western political fabric, so we can’t imagine them as separate. But around much of the developing world they are coming apart. Democracy is flourishing, liberty is not.
Do Elections
Bring Democracy?
Many people believe elections are the main pillar of democracy, but elections do not produce democracy. Consider Russia, where Vladimir Putin was elected but rules like an autocrat- and he’s one of the success stories. In Venezuela, the elected demagogue Hugo Chavez has turned himself into a dictator, running his rich country into the ground. In Africa, 42 of the continent’s 48 countries have held elections in the last decade, but almost none of them have produced genuine democracy. Even the former and current regimes in Iran hold regular "elections" and I don’t have to tell you what the outcomes have been.
People often say that American democracy is not necessarily the best model for countries in the Middle East. Perhaps, but the central philosophy behind the American Constitution, a fear of concentrated power, is as relevant today as it was in 1789. “In framing a government,” wrote James Madison in Federalist No. 51, “you must first enable ...the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” Order, then liberty. So the best model is to first establish a stable security environment and create the institutions of limited government—a constitution with a bill of rights, an independent judiciary, a sound central bank. Then and only then, move to full-fledged democracy.
The Role of Oil
Some people think the oil resources of Middle Eastern Counties, the largest in the world, is a “significant advantage” when building democracy. Unfortunately, the opposite is closer to the truth. With the exception of Norway, virtually all the world’s oil states are dictatorships. This is not an accident. Oil, like other natural resources, does not help produce capitalism, civil society, and thus democracy. It actually retards that process. Consider this: countries with treasure in their soil don’t need to create the framework of laws and policies that produce economic growth and create a middle class. They simply drill into the ground for black gold. The regimes in these countries don’t work for their wealth and thus don’t modernize economically or politically. After all, easy money means a government doesn’t need to tax its people. That might sound like a good idea, but when a government takes money from its people, the people demand something in return - like honesty, accountability, transparency, and eventually democracy. The relationship between taxation and representation is at the heart of Western liberty. After all, that is why America broke away from Britain. It was being taxed but not represented in the British Parliament. The royal family and other dictators in the Middle East offer their people a very different bargain: “We don’t ask much of you [in the form of taxes] and we don’t give you much [in the form of liberty].” It’s the inverse of the slogan that launched the American Revolution: no taxation without representation.
Oil actually strengthens state power in that region. Regimes in the Middle East always have enough money for the army, intelligence services and the secret police. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, and others spend a large percentage of their Gross Domestic Product on the military and security to just save their regimes. This was true during the Shah and is still true in Iran. Oil also means that corruption infects every aspect of the society. Businessmen are valued not for what ideas they have or how hard they work, but for who they know: “Party Bazee.” Since the wealth created by oil is under the complete control of the rulers, (read: dictators) they and their families are the great beneficiaries, instead of the nation.
Prospects for the Future
Another obstacle to democracy is religious and ethnic diversity. Elections require that politicians compete for votes. In societies without strong traditions of tolerance and multi-ethnic groups, the easiest way to get support is by appealing to people’s most basic affiliations - racial, religious, and ethnic. Once one group wins, it usually excludes the other from power. The opposition becomes extreme, sometimes violent. This does not have to happen, but it often does. Even in India, a reasonably mature democracy, Hindu fundamentalists have pursued an extreme form of nationalism that terrorizes the country’s Muslim minority and greatly appeals to hard-core Hindu voters.
Diversity, properly handled, can be a great source of strength in countries of the Middle East. But power will have to be divided, shared and checked. The greatest modernizer of the Middle East, Turkey’s Kemal Ataturk, was able to revolutionize his country in large part because he had unimpeachable credentials as a nationalist. He fought the Western powers even while he westernized his country. It is impossible to know who will rule countries of the Middle East in the future, but no one can doubt that it will be someone who can appeal to his or her country’s nationalism. The single most important strength a society can have is a committed, reformist elite. That has been at the heart of the success of Central Europe, weathering through all its ups and downs. Among the reformist elite, sometimes we find honest and competent leaders who could move the country to the new era of democracy. The only hope I see to cure the ills of many years of dictatorship in the region is a surge of more open and liberal culture that has made its peace with modernity. We find, for example, two countries, Malaysia and Turkey, whose people are conservative and religious Muslims but both are also reasonably successful economies, open societies, and functioning democracies. As a result, they don't produce swarms of suicide bombers. Unfortunately, due to the events in Iraq, not a single Arab regime feels any pressure to reform. They say to their people, "Do you want a democracy like they have in Iraq?” So in the short term at least, the outcome of events in Iraq will determine the faith of democracy in the Middle East for a long time to come. What we know for sure is the percentage of young people in those countries who are now well connected to the rest of the world via internet and satellite technology. As the saying goes, "You cannot oppress the informed population forever."
Let’s hope for a day when people of the region live in peace and enjoy the many rights that we enjoy in our adopted homeland, America. Happy New Year!
|
