the eloquent delinquent

The Democracy Haves & Have-nots

An enlightening discussion with a friend today on the issue of the spread of democracy in the world helped me to clarify some of my thoughts on the matter and to come to a few (as yet, not fully developed) conclusions. Of course, we had to begin with the neoconservative experiment on exporting democracy to troubled states, and of course we began with Iraq. Marjane Satrapi, author of the delightful book Persepolis (made into an equally delightful movie), once said during a lecture before an MIT audience two years ago that you cannot bring democracy to a people by first bombing them. Her assertion was correct but how then can democracy spread? Each country is different, we need to at least acknowledge as much, some in profound ways and some in minor ways. Territories that have been peopled by the same ethnic group(s) continuously over long periods of time have their own unique political histories. When Martin Luther, a German monk, posted his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle in 1517, he set into motion seminal events -- most notably the Protestant Reformation -- that would radically alter the trajectory of European history & politics. Five hundred years ago the seeds for modern European democracies, a "government by the people for the people", were established whose fruits including freedom of speech, separation of church & state, independent judiciaries, checks & balances, people in free societies take for granted everyday. The reformation represented a movement to question authority, to disavow privilege, to emphasize rationality, and most importantly to respect individuality. A period of profound instability ensued spanning four centuries involving endless wars & massive destruction and eventually culminated in the triumph of modern republican ideals through populist revolution and overthrow of monarchies. The Islamic world, at the time in the sixteenth century a comparably devout though culturally advanced medieval society (as evident in numerous achievements in mathematics, astronomy, visual art among others), never experienced such an awakening and one could argue that its legacy is manifest today. And so when on March 19, 2003, American troops poured into Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's government, the incontrovertible dichotomy of many centuries of political evolution reached a boil. Now of course I am glossing over many, many events & details, but I simply wish to make the point that a serious failure to fully appreciate the nuances of the regional situation lead to such a catastrophe whose history is currently being written. The United States & other European powers had been continually meddling in the region since oil was discovered in the early 20th century. Autocratic, despotic regimes ruled by tyrannical dictators - the Shah of Iran, the Saudi Royal family, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and Saddam Hussein himself -- had been continually propped up in order to guarantee access to cheap oil, that most vital of commodities driving the world economy in the post Industrialization age. Is it any wonder then that such cruel suppression of the people gave rise to such violent extremism, fanned by the flames of fanatical religion? I am continually puzzled when I hear native-born Americans tell me that their government is not acting in the interest of its people when pursuing such deleterious foreign policy. Yet it is usually the same people who demand cheap fuel for their oversized, gas-guzzling automobiles or insist on paying almost nothing to consume meat (produced from animals raised on very cheap corn harvested by fossil fuel-based fertilizer). There is indeed a "hidden" (and ugly) cost to the rampant consumerism that exists and I am not suggesting that capitalism and by corollary globalization are ills to be singled out. I am only suggesting that we raise our consciousness, to borrow a phrase from Richard Dawkins (though used in an entirely different context), and be mindful of the ramifications our materialistic lifestyles.