How Democracy Shouldn't Work

March 28th, 2011

Anyone looking at the state of democracy in Iraq, after the investment of so much American blood and treasure, will despair for the outcome of the various revolutions now in train across the Middle East—that is even if, especially if, they proceed as far as popular elections. In the case of Iraq, we see Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki (a Shiite) personally taking over the running—and budgets—of various ministries while finding legalistic ways to deligitimize elected opposition Sunni politicians through de-Baathification committees. As for those who take to the streets to protest corruption under Maliki—he calls them “terrorists” and shuts down their political parties.

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Western observers have already raised red flags over the nature and political tendency of groups behind the recent democracy movements around the Middle East. What if they are largely fuelled by Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood? What kind of democracy will result? How long can it last? In a region where it took despots to keep ethnic and sectarian fissures at bay, what kind of forces will now prevail? In Egypt and Iraq, Christians with a pedigree going back to the earliest churches are leaving their ancient homelands in droves. Freedom, it turns out, was not such a blessing for them.

The point, in case anyone has missed it, is surely this: you cannot have democracy without the kind of cultural values that underpin democracy. You can implant or foster elections, encourage political parties and free speech, but if you provide no cultural backup for enlightened views, politics alone merely turns into a jostling for power between corrupt politicians and sectarian forces. In short, the West must get into the business of exporting, even implanting, the best of its cultural values along with its political and economic values.

Melik Kaylan writes for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes.

Read his recent World Affairs article, “The No-Show: Why Values Should Have Mattered in Iraq”