[Islam]
Is an Islamic Democracy Possible?
One strain of American foreign policy is guided by the neocons, who hold a sort of neo-Wilsonian ideal of bringing liberty and democracy (but most liberty, which is a precondition for a good consumer base) to dangerous regions. It is held as a faith that these regions both want the kind of liberty neocons offer, and that liberty is a good thing. In this year's State of the Union, Bush framed it perfectly:
You see one of the things that--one of the inherent parts of my foreign policy is my strong belief that liberty is universal, that everybody desires to be free, that freedom is not just a Western idea, or an American idea, freedom is lodged in the soul of every person. I used -- I put it -- let me put it another way to you, I believe there's an Almighty. And I believe the Almighty's gift is freedom to every single person in this world.In one clear statement, he combines these two ingredients, and then leavens with a little religion. For Americans, the notion that people want personal liberty is an article of both secular faith ("We hold these truths to be self-evident...") and also a religious tenet that springs from American DIY Protestantism. You can almost hear Bush echoing John Calvin, telling Muslims that they, like the poor Catholics before them, don't need a stinkin' Mullah to tell them what to do.
But there are large swaths of the world where liberty is not so well regarded. Bush should understand this, because the modern GOP paradoxically shares the fundamentalist notion that permissiveness (aka, "liberty") is the sign of degeneracy and will bring about the wrath of God. But we have a 230 history with democracy, so there are certain freedoms Bush figures you gotta let go. Will Muslim clerics be so easily convinced?
Islamic democracies are obviously possible. Turkey has the most stable, most authentic example, but others have experimented. Bangladesh, with one of the poorest populations and most severe barriers to governance, has managed to become a functioning democracy. Malaysia and Indonesia have experience with partial democratic rule. Jordan may or may not be sidling up to democracy.
(There are also the "republics" in the Egyptian model -- dictatorships with elections -- which, for obvious reasons, don't bear examination.)
What do Islamic democracies all have in common? Far greater levels of autocracy. Within Muslim countries, this tendency toward top-level control is justified in rhetoric that social permissiveness is incompatible with Islam. But historically, countries move from highly autocratic regimes toward democracy, and they also usually identify the authoritarian leadership as a national characteristic. Does this mean that a European-style democracy, where citizens are granted great personal liberty, is just a matter of time?
Going back to Bush's quote, I'm not prepared to say yes. We tend to underestimate culture's influence in government and society. Why do we think that the the American model is the pinnacle of development? This is national hubris. When Bush talks about the Almighty's gift of freedom, he's reflecting the American cultural mores to which he is himself blind. Muslim countries will evolve with differing levels of personal liberty, based not only on their religion, but their history and other facets of their culture. But it seems certain that in no other country will the American fetish for "liberty" guide policy. A Muslim Patrick Henry?--inconceivable.It is a particular facet of American culture to believe in the purity of democracy. Most of us don't actually believe that a government is legitimate if the people don't have a say, or enough say. We're liberty junkies. That's why when we envision democracy, our image is a filtered one. I suspect governments will continue to evolve, and I wonder whether Muslim "democracies," when they emerge, won't be a new stage in that evolution. We'll still consider them inferior, but they may well serve a population with different cultural mores better than anything American neocons could craft.
5 comments:
Fascinating post. Who'd have thought an acolyte of Emma Goldman's would advance a vision of organic political culture trumping universalist, Enlightenment pleas for liberty!
This will send a frisson of horror down your spine, but I think Bush is closer to Emma than you. Don't be fooled by the religious guise of his universalism. He is claiming that the appetite for liberty is a feature of universal human nature.
Perhaps what the Neo-Cons are trying to advance is not all that different than the Enlightenment effort to jolt the population into a kind of personal maturity, which can in turn shape political institutions. Consider the "priest-ridden" condition of so many in the Islamic world and think about the idea of maturity expressed in Kant's famous esssay "What Is Enlightenment"?
Don't get me wrong, I think the Neo-con project is fraught with peril too; it's just that I'm a little surprisedd to hear this kind of argument from you as opposed to, say, Jeanne Kirkpatrick.
I'm sure you have lots more to say. Again, excellent post.
Idler, you wound me--Jeanne Kirkpatrick! Your comment reminds me of a couple things. First, this isn't a call for repression. It's an attempt to recognize that "freedom" is culturally specific and may look different outside the US. On the other hand, the postmodern critique has led some liberals to abandon any sense of universal morality, and I'm not in their company. Whatever form of democracy that might emerge would have to include basic freedoms and a level of human suffrage. If women aren't allowed to vote and their behavior is regulated by ruling men, it would be hard under any definition to accept it as a democracy (to use one example).
Second, I absolutely stick with Emma's radicalism on American soil. I do know our culture, and I'm not afraid to say that the current administration is out of step.
Fred, you raise an interesting point: if Christian nations can handle democracy, it's difficult on the face of things to see why Islam would prevent democracy from blossoming elsewhere.
Jeff,
Your clarification shows you clearly in the camp of universalists such as Emma, as well as having an astute appreciation for local cultural variation. Interesting combination. Let's call it Burkean rather than Kirkpatrician! During the cartoon controversy it occurred to me that people on the left are likely to be divided along the fault line between Enlightenment universalists and post-modernists influenced by identity politics theory.
I find Fred’s argument surprising in its misapprehension or, forgive me, ignorance of Christianity's core beliefs and its history. The point isn’t that an individual is inferior to God, it’s that he is the moral and spiritual equal of any other person. The fact that Christianity perpetuates the idea that man is subject to the judgement God is no more politically significant than the fact that the scientific culture makes observation that man is vulnerable to the weather and to death. In the end, whether you're a theist or an atheist, you recognize that our lives are highly contingent and vulnerable, and that we are physically insignificant against the backdrop of God, nature, the universe or whatever you want to call it.
Nietzsche criticized Christianity for its elevation of the humble over the strong, the powerless over the powerful. He saw it, if I may put it colloquially, as a religion of losers, affording them the means of lording it over the earthly lords. The losers were the Jews, the winners the Romans, at the outset, but the religion preserved a sense of the elevation of the meek.
Over the centuries Christianity came to be mingled with worldly power, but it also generally acted as a check on temporal powers, retaining a sort of parallel status as one of the “estates of the realm.” Occasionally great rulers were put to humiliation owing to the Church’s influence, such as the German ruler Henry IV’s prostration at Canossa in 1077 following his excommunication, and the punishment of Henry II of England after the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170. The latter case demonstrates how bothersome the church could be to secular rulers, and thus how much influence it had over their affairs.
With the Reformation Christianity became more radically individualistic, emphasizing the freedom of the individual even when it came to the nature of his relation to God. In time that would include the presumption that each individual could interpret scripture according to his own lights.
It’s impossible to imagine the Western idea of liberty evolving apart from these roots. Remember the line in the Declaration of Independence that says, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
That said, it should be noted that Islam shares Chritianity’s notion of the spiritual equality of individuals (as contrasted, for example, with Hinduism), though it never went through anything like the Reformation and any number of other religious and political permutations. That ultimately could provide a doctrinal basis for a movement toward a concept of liberty not very different from our own. Plus, if the desire for justice and liberty are simply part of human nature, as universalists believe, that alone could be the basis, allowing for some accomodation to tradition. Personally I don’t see any fundamental reason the Islamic world couldn’t adopt forms of government much like the West. They have to differing degrees already in some places. I think the biggest obstacle is the degree of resentment that arises from cultural and economic failure. Islam in other times and places has been tolerant and open owing to its confidence. Under the right conditions it could be so again.
I'm not saying it's likely to be easy, and I'm speaking on a theoretical rather than a practical plane, but If a Hindu country can convert to democracy, why can't an Islamic country do it to?
hayzooos- man that's dustin off the ol master degree.
yer context is a little skewered- democracy predates the this whole christian fad by a few hundred years, at least.
Zemeckis,
I don't see how the context is "skewered." You have to bear in mind that Christianity arose in a Hellenized cultural context and thus Greek thought was very important to the development Christian thought. Plato was the man early on, and Aristotle became the point of reference in the 12th century with the work of Thomas Aquinas.
But even if that weren't the case it wouldn't matter anyway. It's entirely possible for two (or more) separate traditions to come up with similar notions about human dignity at different times. The question here is whether Western traditions of liberty have roots in Christianity, at least in part.
I think it's much harder to argue that the Christian era didn't influence the emergence of modern notions of liberty than otherwise.
Finally, ancient Greek democracy was different than modern democracy and its notions of individual rights and the spiritual worth of individuals was quite different also.
Post a Comment