The smirking chimp on democracy

I saw Bush on TV today in the Great Falls International (smirk) Airport. He’s down at a conference for the Organization of American States, pushing the Central American Free Trade Agreement and, of course, more democracy in Central and South America. I’m sure they appreciate it.

At this point it is clear that Bush has no sense of history whatsoever. He totes around concepts like “democracy” and “freedom” with the same sense of blind belief that a six-year-old might have in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. They are the universal fix for any problem anywhere in the world. Pour a little democracy on it and it’ll be fine.

But what frustrates me most about Bush’s political alchemy is they way he defends it. When others point out that certain parts of the world might not be ready for democratic change let alone forced democratic change, he responds that he believes that the people of Iraq are “capable” of upholding a democratic system, implying that the rest of us do not. He’s daring the rest of us to come out and say that Arabs are somehow not as able to embrace their own collective destiny as those of us in the West.

So Warhank, you’ve inspired me to be the asshole here. They’re not. And why stop with the Middle East? The vast majority of countries in the Mideast, South Asia, and parts of Africa are not capable of supporting a democracy at this point in time because they lack the social, political, economic and cultural development necessary to foment liberal change.

Now one caveat here. I’m not implying that Arabs, South Asians, or anyone else lacks the capacity or intellect that democracy requires. I’m not arguing that there are any inherent differences that distinguishes the West. But as far as social institutions are concerned, the nations in theses regions are a long way from reaching the point at which democracy might foment.

In Does the U.S. Need a Foreign Policy, Henry Kissinger employs an analogy that some might find ethnocentric. Before evaluating American foreign policy toward an area of the world, he compares its current development to a point in European history. Yeah, it is ethnocentric. I don’t care. In many instances, he’s right on the mark.

His analysis of the Arab world is one of those particular instances. Kissinger analogizes the current Middle East to seventeenth century Europe. When I first read it about three years ago, I found the comparison to be somewhat arrogant. After all, how do you presume that one region either is developing or should develop along the same course as another?

Over the last few years, however, the parallels have crystallized a bit more in my own mind. At that point in European history, feudal society had completely given way to the rise of the monarchies. Monarchs claimed a divine right to rule and openly held that individual human beings lacked the capacity to govern themselves. Thomas Hobbes justified the same from a more realist standpoint, deriving his viewpoints from the state of nature and origins of government. But unlike today’s West in which Caesar and God are held to be completely separate, in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, God was Caesar. Despite the Protestant Reformation, there was still significant overlap between religion and government. Monarchs ruled because God wanted them to.

The situation is very similar in today’s Arab world. Islamists reject democracy because it implies rule by man instead of rule by God. Advocates of an Islamic republic would prefer to derive an answer to any political question from Sharia, as interpreted by the ruling clerics. In other words, they adhere strictly to the notion that God is Caesar and that they are His instruments. Only they are capable of making God’s intentions reality. Thus, their authority is divine and not to be questioned by those who might prefer an elected representative government.

The important part is not the parallel itself but the historical lesson. No one rolled tanks into Europe to impose democracy at the turn of the 18th century. The idea developed along with Western Europe’s social evolution. It grew along with education and middle classes, the primary elements in any stable democracy. The wheels took a long time to get rolling, but these movements were ultimately successful because they were home grown, not imposed by outsiders who knew a better way.

If George W. Bush and the neo cons are genuine in their desire to see democracy succeed in the Middle East, then they should have kept the armies at home. The best way to see this goal through would be to foster both education and economic development. A generation of frustrated young men is growing up in this region. They have nowhere to turn for an education or a job. As a result, they turn to Hizb Allah, Islamic Brotherhood, and countless other organizations that advocate terror and fundamentalism. Democracy imposed through violence will not fix these problems. A new Marshall Program could.

Bush’s assumption that democracy can succeed anywhere under any conditions is grossly incorrect. Most of the Middle East is not ready for democracy in any way, shape or form, but there is much that can be done by the West to hasten the day when they are.