Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Dealing with Islamist democracies
What to do if Daniel Pipes' warning proves correct?
Pipes believes that radical Islamist groups may be uniquely positioned to ride, all the way to power, the wave of democracy sweeping the Middle East (see details in my post below).
One attitude to such an outcome may lie in the political reasoning of Israeli Deputy PM (and former Soviet dissident) Natan Scharansky, whose recent book "The Case for Democracy" was recommended by President Bush as containing "a glimpse" into his own thinking on foreign policy.
Scharansky believes that a democracy that hates a fellow democracy is much safer than a dictatorship that loves it; that the society that does not protect the right to dissent can never be a reliable partner for peace.
If future Islamist democracies go the way Turkey's present government, then there is strong reason in the west to hope for comfortable, peaceful co-existence. Anti-theocratic movements in Iran, also, show that the direction of popular opinion, if allowed to flow, has the power to override an aggressive government of the moment.
No-one needs to imagine that the transition of Middle Eastern countries to democracy will be be notably smooth. Nor should we assume that such transition is guaranteed of success.
Hitler's Nazis, who have provided a blueprint for much Islamist activity in recent years (see here), participated in numerous German elections until Hitler obtained the Chancelorship. Then they crushed democracy, a political system they openly despised (like Islamists), and one they saw as imposed upon their Fatherland by enemies (like Islamists).
We all know how those enemies were dealt with once the Nazis obtained power, and how the appeasement of Hitler by European nations (like ...) abetted his plans.
It took an unfortunate route, traversing two global wars interspersed with a failed democratic experiment and preceded - 100 rocky years before - by knitting several independent states into a single country, but keep in mind that the German story ended, eventually, in democracy.
