A Dangerous Fetish

The MSM of the world have been filled with praise for the "Arab Spring," the purported new wave of "democracy" crashing the old shores of the Mideast regimes with the force of a tsunami.  Hosannas beyond count have been sung for the assorted heroes of democracy whose protests and deaths have caused the collapse of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt and threaten the stability of still others from Syria to Yemen.  The loudest praise of all has gone to the ill-organized rebels of Libya whose lives now are dependent upon the will and ability of a few NATO countries to keep their planes over the heads of government supporters.

Americans more than most in the West have a charming almost childlike faith in the magic contained in the word "democracy."  We--and our government--act as though the word itself constituted a sort of reality.  We believe, or at least pretend to believe, that democracy constitutes as sort of universal anodyne.

Is your country ill?

Does it suffer the constipation of chronic repression?

Is the economy somewhere deep in the tank?

Are your idealistic, overly educated urban youth unable to get a meaningful, remunerative, and not very demanding government job

If you answered yes to any of these questions, bucko, then try democracy!  Democracy will cure all these ills and many, many more.  Just ask us, the Americans, we know.  All of what we are and will be is based on taking democracy regularly.

Democracy, the universal, never fails panacea, just get out there and vote!  All will be right as soon as the votes are counted.  And, if for some reason they aren't, well, vote again next time.  You can't lose them all.

If only it were so simple.  So easy.  So guaranteed to work.  If only democracy could be the universal solvent in which all the problems confronting human polities, societies, and economies could be painlessly and swiftly melted away to nothingness.

Of course, in the real world, the authentic nitty-gritty place where hopes and fears, aspirations and anxieties coexist, democracy is not in and of itself a certain path to a better future.  In the real world, in contrast to the imaginings of academics, journalists, and politicians, democracy is nothing but a process, a process beset by unending opportunities for failure, limitless ways in which the hoped for better tomorrow can transmogrify into a dystopian today.

If Americans were not so abysmally ignorant of their own history, they would be the first to point out to Tunisians, Egyptians, and all the others hoping that they can vote themselves a better tomorrow that the reality is much less brilliant.  We the People have been trying in a rather consistent way to get the process of democracy right.  We have made some great strides.  No longer is the franchise unduly limited on the basis of race or gender for example.  At the same time no one would argue seriously that we do not have a great distance to go on the rocky road to democratic perfection.

We Americans are, for example, only a half century removed from the last presidential election in which criminal vote fraud in at least two states altered the final result.  And, we are not yet a decade from a presidential election called into widespread disrepute by an unjustified Supreme Court intervention.

Would any American contend with a straight face that the most important factor in any and all elections is money?  Any and all elections require truckloads of dead presidents to purchase services, and, above all else, TV airtime.  While the capacity to expend bucks by the tanker load is not a guarantee of election, having oodles of boodle is no handicap.  Is it any wonder that those who provide the requisite mounds of money have had, continue to have, and will persist in having a seat at every policy table?

We the People know all the flaws in our version of democracy and chaff under the strictures this reality imposes.  Showing a degree of doublethink which would do Winston Smith proud, we are simultaneously cynical about the process but extol its virtues to all foreigners who will lend us their ears.  We roll our eyes at every campaign promise made by every candidate but will urge the Egyptians, the Tunisians, and all others to emulate our example--get out there and vote!

We the People would be well advised to take a moment and consider some non-American exercises in democracy.  We might, for example, urge consideration of the several elections held in Germany in the early Thirties.  If that is too far in the fog of the past, folks might have their attention directed to Iran, the final stages of the Iranian revolution.  That's right, bucko, an election.  The Iranians voted themselves a quasi-dictatorship with all the customary features of such a regime--abetted by theocracy.

Don't like the past?  All that dead history is irrelevant, right?  Let's try some forward thinking.  Let's consider the linking of religion and politics.  No, not the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, that's been done.  Anyway it is too simple, the MB and akin religiously predicated outfits have the organization necessary to profit handsomely from the short time between now and the scheduled parliamentary and presidential elections.  The only unknowable unknown right now is how austere their version of state imposed Islam will be.

Now, let's consider Israel.  A recent demographic study predicts that the very religiously motivated Haredi will be the largest political bloc in Israel by 2030.  The implications of this development are extensive ranging from economics to politics to international affairs.

The ultra-orthodox Haredi will be able to dictate the politics of Israel.  This could--more properly, would--alter the internal dynamics of Israel in a number of ways.  The international relations of the state would be more hardline than is currently the case.  Internally Israel would change as well particularly as regards immigration, domestic law, entertainment, economic development.  In the worst realistic case Israel would lose its secular aspects completely becoming a Jewish version of Iran's theocracy.

In all probability the more secular Israelis would emigrate giving the Haredi even more political clout.  All of this would mean quite simply that elections would move Israel ever further to the religious/political "right."  Over time Israel would become more and more "foreign" to the US and the rest of the West.  This would not promote US interests in the region.

Since all the developments implied in the demographic changes would express themselves via elections, the US would have no alternative but to accept them regardless of their impact on bilateral relations.  Elections are, in our view, an unquestionable expression of sovereignty.

The same would be true in Egypt.  Or Syria.  Or Libya.  Elections are the unquestionable expression of popular sovereignty.  Given the nature of the political cultures which exist throughout the Arab Mideast, it is highly probable that the elections would have compromising features.  Yet, provided they have sufficient appearance of honesty, the US would be policy bound to accept them as we have other far less than open, honest, and fair votes.

If the people of Egypt or any other country vote themselves an austere government which imposes Islamic law in all its barbaric fullness, we would have to accept it.  If the folks in Egypt or elsewhere vote into power a government which espouses violent political Islam we would have no alternative but accepting the results as legitimate albeit unfortunate.  Unless and until such a regime launched an attack on the US or harbored and facilitated a non-state actor which did such, there would be nothing the US could do to address the situation.

It should be patently obvious now that democracy in and of itself is no panacea, no sovereign remedy for all that ails a nation or a state.  It should be equally apparent that democracy by itself does not necessarily mean a coincidence of interests between the US and the new "democratic" polity.  Nor can there be any certainty for the people of any given country that the trappings of democracy will address the problems within.  By itself democracy creates no new jobs, assures no international peace, provides no new measure of domestic tranquility or internal harmony.  Indeed, the historical record shows that the all too often uncritically celebrated fetish of democracy is more likely to bring in its wake both internal discord and international conflict.

There is an old cliche which has relevance for all those flacking democracy as the salvation of the Arab world: Be careful what you wish for--you just might get it.