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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (216643)	2/6/2007 5:07:37 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

What has happened over the past few hundred years to destroy opportunities for democracy in the Middle East? I think the better way to look at it is to determine the conditions under which democracy flourishes, then compare to the conditions in the ME. True liberal representative democracy requires a more or less homogenous set of people who have fought bitterly in an attempt to assert themselves as superior to others. At some point, the not unreasonable realization takes hold that it is better to accommodate each other's interests, to compromise, to debate the merits of each other's positions honestly and forthrightly, than to continue to fight and shed blood. The democratic impulse flows from the point at which this elemental recognition takes place, IMO. Without it, no democracy can flourish. Quite obviously, Iraq - the rest of the ME for that matter - are nowhere near this kind of inflection point. The failure to recognize this is the elemental neocon mistake. The recognition that it is best to compromise, debate honestly, etc., happened in the UK after centuries of bitter battles, intrigue among nobles and royals, etc. I think we can see the same pattern if we examine other successful representative democracies, but I have only studied the English example in any kind of depth. Three impossible obstacles to democracy exist in the Mideast: First, the notion that it is shameful or dishonorable to compromise. Second, the tribal culture in which your village, place of birth, etc., matters more than the nation. Third, the tradition of strong men, dictators and despots is not compatible with representative democracy as we know and enjoy it. Each one of these obstacles to democracy are probably by themselves sufficient to prevent democracy from taking hold. That they exist in combination makes the obstacles almost insurmountable, IMO.

To: one_less who wrote (216643)	2/6/2007 10:12:28 PM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Keep in mind that the term ‘Democracy’ is not going to appear in ancient literature since its development as a political term is relatively recent. The birthplace of democracy was ancient Greece. "Dem" is derived from the Greek for "many". Aristotle wasn't all that keen on democracy as a form of government, but then he's dead. We are somewhat abusive of the word "democracy". What we have is a democratic republic and choose to emphasize the word democratic when it's convenient, i.e., pretend the government is following the will of the people, and emphasize the word republic, when it's convenient, i.e., when the government does what it thinks is in the best interests of the people, irrespective of what the people want. Any religion is incompatible with democracy to some level. Religion is a top down structure, while a democracy is a bottoms up structure. There may be an overlap of "values" when the population is homogeneous, but they can never be fully compatible. Jefferson didn't espouse the wall of separation between church and state for giggles. He looked at history and saw the conflict and corruption that inevitably occurs when the two intermingle. jttmab