In response to my blog yesterday noting that the cultural left opposes democracy in the Muslim world, several people expressed indignation. One challenged me to provide a single example. Others lugubriously noted that they favored the idea of democracy but alas it wasn't succeeding in Iraq. Certainly it does seem odd that a left which is always calling for "more democracy" in America would resist democracy in Muslim countries.
Yet it's true, and my book The Enemy at Home provides chapter and verse. For instance, the leftist author Robert Fisk resolutely opposed America's attempt to introduce democracy in Afghanistan. Incredibly Fisk said that the Taliban government should be kept in power because it had nothing to do with 9/11. Leftist Howard Zinn also equated America's displacement of the Taliban and holding of free elections with the 9/11 attacks themselves, as though both were equivalent crimes. Leftist legal scholar Richard Falk called for a "negotiated settlement" with the Taliban in order to protect the country's "sovereign rights." If leading leftists such as Edward Said, Toni Morison, Jesse Jackson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Jane Fonda and Jim McDermott had their way, the U.S. would not have overthrown the Taliban government and Afghanistan would not have had free elections.
Immediately following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, leftist philanthropist George Soros warned that "I would consider Iraq the last place to choose for a demonstration project" in democracy. Why the Iraqis were ineligible to rule themselves, Soros did not say. When Iraq had its first free election, columnist Bob Herbert said it meant nothing because "a real democracy requires an informed electorate" while the Iraqi people were "woefully uninformed," apparently because they didn't make the choices that Herbert wanted. Leftist columnist Robert Dreyfuss said the Iraqi elections were invalid because "the Sunni community was tricked into voting" and moreover the elected Sunnis "do not represent the resistance." Apparently Dreyfuss thinks car bombers need representation too! Ivan Eland wrote in The American Prospect, "Spreading democracy doesn't reduce terrorism and, if anything, actually makes it worse." How democracy promotes terrorism, Eland neglected to explain.
Notice how the cultural left routinely condemns Bush for "hypocrisy" in using the rhetoric of democracy while the U.S. is allied with secular despots, but very rarely do leftists call for free elections in countries like Syria, Egypt or Saudi Arabia. There was even some cheering on the left when Turkish generals threatened a coup to subvert the elected government from holding free elections a few months ago. So why does the left hate democracy in the Muslim world? The reason is simple. Muslims are socially conservative and generally want a greater role for Islam in their private and public lives. Consequently Muslim democracies are likely to be more conservative socially than they are when secular despots rule them. The left fears Muslim democracy because it is terrified of Muslim values, especially sharia or Muslim holy law. Feminists and gays are not likely to fare very well under Muslim holy law.
When Iraqis rejected secular candidates and voted for a party that pledged to have sharia, at least in some forms of domestic law, the New York TImes howled that democracy could be "consigning Iraqi women to a life of subjugation." Columnist Maureen Dowd warned that "the Iraqi election may actually be making things worse" because "it is going to expand the control of the Shia theocrats." These complaints might have some plausibility if women or Sunnis were not permitted to vote. But women and men both voted for the Dawa party, and so essentially the Times and Dowd were arguing that if Iraqis don't want equal roles for men and women, their democracy is a sham.
Bush's attempt to introduce democracy to Iraq, and to expand the role of democracy in Egypt, Lebanon and Pakistan, is a brave and noble experiment. It might fail, and past historical experience is not promising. But if Bush succeeds we could see the beginning of an historical transformation no less significant than the transformation of the old Soviet Union. No wonder the left, not usually given to supplication, is praying very ardently this Christmas season that Bush does not succeed. If democracy fails, in Iraq and elsewhere, there is the added benefit that Democrats will have a better chance to take the White House in 2008.
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Why the Left Hates Democracy
Posted Dec 28th 2007 1:32PM by Dinesh D'Souza
Filed under: Breaking News, Iraq, Cultural Left, Islamic Radicals, Controversy
Filed under: Breaking News, Iraq, Cultural Left, Islamic Radicals, Controversy
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Reader Comments ( Page 27 of 27)
391. well since the comments on this blog have gotten so far off original topic i will make afew of my own. any one that believe's in evolution but supports homosexuality&abortion is a hipocrite since evolution say's these=death.no reproduction=
no evolution. no reprduction= species extinction.
if the so called pro choice movement were really
about choice then they wouldnt mind if citizens of individual states choose if they want abortion in
thier state (states rights).if you are against deathpenalty because a few(very few)on death row
are innocent then be against abortion since all the unborn(100%)are innocent.animal's dont have right's because they are incapeble of understanding that they have right's AND incapeble
of respecting the right's of other's.
felix at 6:06PM on Jan 4th 2008
392. No, the last two elections were not stolen but they had to survive a fierce, sinister attempt by the Democrats to steal them but obviously they did not succeed.
P.J.Ballard at 12:22AM on Jan 5th 2008
393. Don't you EVER think before you write? Such convoluted trash, too. Your arguments fail to consider all POVs and instead you prime the reader for the DD coup d'grace: it's those atheist radical leftist amoral culturist barbarians. Grow up, willya and start trying to act like an, ah, informed ready to see both sides reporter or whatever it is you are.
Your proposition that leftists "hate" to see "democracy" introduced into the middle east is
disingenous. The "rightest" are rowing the same boat, then.One would do well to go back 15 years to the political crises in Algerian. After being ruled by the military elite for decades, elections were finally allowed. The majority vote was overwhemingly in favor of the Pro-Muslim Party, a party informed by Islamic fundamentals and sharia ideals. When the military realized the outcome they suspended civil rights and ordered the various opposition party leaders killed or quarantined. The US, the big believer in democracy, could not accept that the Pro-Moslem Party would govern Algeria even if elected freely! Support for the totalitarian military junta was given: weapons, ammunition, special forces and CIA were on loan to quell the oppositon. A devastating civil war ensued killing hundreds of thousands in the name of what? It was a democratic election but not the type favored by America or Western nations. Algeria is again beginning to experience popular dissent and retalitory terrorism by the very pro-moslem party they attempted to eradicate.
Another ideal of democracy gone down the tubes: the former Yugoslavia. While Tito was, indeed, a hard-fisted dictator he could be seen as a strongman with wisdom. In order to keep the volatile ethnic factions in line, he ruled barring ALL dissent. Croats, Albanians, Montenegrans, Serbs and every other minority that made up the diverse country were to be tolerant of one another, work together and, in the process, develop the soviet union's most liberal and the richest economy in the block. His efforts,though successful, were short-lived. After his death, the country fractured into ethnic groups claiming superiority and national privilige. So much for the mess democracy made there.
Democracy as we know it is discrete western styled democracy. The rights we hold as universal-womens rights,religious freedom, political dissent,cultural non-interference and tolerance is not the democracy Iraq wants. Or needs. In fact, Iraq, like all its surrounding neighbors, has NO IDEA what democracy is. The entire region is controlled by aristocrats, dictators, oligarchs and tyrants. Musbarek in Egypt likes to believe he was elected freely and democratically but he wasn't.The oppossition was squashed and defeated prior to his election. Now he is grooming his son to take over. Doesn't sound much like a democracy to me. And our support for Turkey's brand of democracy will, inevitably, blow up in our faces. We are on a course to destruction when we say "rights for all" but really mean "no rights to any faction that dissents with the status quo."no matter how malevent and unfair. This janus-faced attitude is the oxymoron America perpetuates to further its goals. A lot of Turks of various persausions don't like being shut out. For an example look to the Kurds and the Turks and the Kurds and the Iraqis. These people are not especially interested in democracy except for the kind that brings them what they want. Many of the world's major and important countries are not democracies. Democracy doesn't work for everyone. From absolute monarch to totalitarian tyrants, Russia has no experience with democracy. They have to create their own brand not import ours. China's been ruled the past 5000years by absolute powers wielded by those who believe - communist, nationalist, monarch-that they have the Mandate of Heaven to RULE rather than govern. Singapore is a brave new world autocracy. Most of Indo-China and Thailand do have western democracy to guide them in their struggles. Look to south and central america for democratic success stories. The US and CIA did its best to squelch every democratic movement in those countries. Democracy, they realized would bring instability and with it those not disposed to US policies and plans for their countries (Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama,Gautemala,Chiapas,Columbia, Equador, Bolivia, Argentina,Peru).
America has been naive and has proven it lacks foresight and wisdom when dealing with the various disenfranchised peoples of the world: we dare to suggest American-style democracy should be the sole form of government to unite the world. O course,that would be that ugly american imperialist democracy forced on the captive citizenry with the caveat "our democracy is for your own good."
Look at the disparities in the Middle East. With democracy there would be chaos of a magnitude that would wallop the whole world. We hope to keep down the disssenting radical factions without really offering democracy as a cure. Democracy may sound reasonable to us but not to others.
Each nation must go its own way. Make its choices and depose those that enforce them if needs be. Our support has been given to both the Taliban and Ben-Laden to counter the Russian invasion during the cold war. Now we are in over our heads just as the Russians were. Musharref will stay in power, tyrant for life that he aspires to be (very democractic),if America decides it can't do business with Pakistan's alternate version of democracy. Get a grip, Dinesh, why don't you and get into the mix.
Democracy in America under this imperial presidency is frayed and withered. America is now more an acceptable example to the feudal power of the despots we support because it suits us more. As we have lealrned these past ominous years, democracy is a connotation denoted by the powers that be.
boredwell at 2:15AM on Jan 7th 2008