The rethorics of democracy continue unabated in the press. Here is an article by Fareed Zakaria:
As long-repressed societies in the Middle East open up, we are discovering that their core concerns are not global but local. Most ordinary Arabs, it turns out, are not consumed by grand theories about the clash between Islam and the West, or the imperialism of American culture, or even the Palestinian cause. When you let the Lebanese speak, they want to talk about Syria’s occupation of their country. When Iraqis got a chance to congregate, they voted for a government, not an insurgency. When a majority of Palestinians were heard from, they endorsed not holy terror to throw Israel into the sea, but practical diplomacy to get a state.
Bush never accepted the view that Islamic terrorism had its roots in religion or culture or the Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead he veered toward the analysis that the region was breeding terror because it had developed deep dysfunctions caused by decades of repression and an almost total lack of political, economic and social modernization. The Arab world, in this analysis, was almost unique in that over the past three decades it had become increasingly unfree, even as the rest of the world was opening up. His solution, therefore, was to push for reform in these lands.
The theory did not originate with Bush’s administration. Others had made this case: scholars like Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, the Arab intellectuals who wrote the United Nations’ now famous “Arab Human Development Report” and even this writer.
It is subtle because it puts aside cultural arguments (but then he still quotes chief propagandist Bernard Lewis) in order to focus on the one thing that seemingly pre-occupies the minds of the average Arab citizen: Democracy. Well how about food, jobs, and security? One would say that you need democracies to improve the latter, But I would say how about South Korea and a bunch of others? Didn’t they got democracy as a final reward once they reached “the top”? Weren’t they also protected by the US and had asymetrical trade deals? Why do we need to repeat all this stuff over and over?
Because no one learns from history and which is why history repeats itself. Example? Lebanon from the mutassarifiyah period to the post-Hariri assassination. Same old power struggles that could threaten to rip the country to pieces. (A small digression)
Remarkz 