May 19, 2006
Vee haf VAYS of teaching you to bicycle...
You must read--you've probably already read--Amir Taheri's assessment of Iraq. this is one interesting point (out of many)...
....Their critique can be summarized in the aphorism that democracy cannot be imposed by force. It is a view that can be found among the more sophisticated elements on the Left and, increasingly, among dissenters on the Right, from Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska to the ex-neoconservative Francis Fukuyama. As Senator Hagel puts it, You cannot in my opinion just impose a democratic form of government on a country with no history and no culture and no tradition of democracy.
I would tend to agree. But is Iraq such a place? In point of fact, before the 1958 pro-Soviet military coup detat that established a leftist dictatorship, Iraq did have its modest but nevertheless significant share of democratic history, culture, and tradition. The country came into being through a popular referendum held in 1921. A constitutional monarchy modeled on the United Kingdom, it had a bicameral parliament, several political parties (including the Ba'ath and the Communists), and periodic elections that led to changes of policy and government. At the time, Iraq also enjoyed the freest press in the Arab world, plus the widest space for debate and dissent in the Muslim Middle East.
To be sure, Baghdad in those days was no Westminster, and, as the 1958 coup proved, Iraqi democracy was fragile. But every serious student of contemporary Iraq knows that substantial segments of the population, from all ethnic and religious communities, had more than a taste of the modern world's democratic aspirations. As evidence, one need only consult the immense literary and artistic production of Iraqis both before and after the 1958 coup. Under successor dictatorial regimes, it is true, the conviction took hold that democratic principles had no future in Iraq, a conviction that was responsible in large part for driving almost five million Iraqis, a quarter of the population, into exile between 1958 and 2003, just as the opposite conviction is attracting so many of them and their children back to Iraq today...
Actually, I think the argument "democracy cannot be imposed by force" is fallacious. It's an example of a "strawman argument." Nobody is, in fact, imposing democracy by force--it's always invitational. The voters can always stay home, or vote for the most anti-democratic party. But they never do.
Not only is this a strawman, but the truism is itself, I think, false. All humans "get" democracy; it's part of our natures. We can all do it. The argument is like saying "you can't impose bicycle-riding by force." In fact, you could, and if you did, almost all able-bodied people would learn to ride bicycles. What you can't do by force is keep people from falling down while learning.
Posted by John Weidner at May 19, 2006 11:29 AM
May I make an addendum?
The real problem with speaking of "imposing democracy by force" is that it completely misleads regarding on whom the imposition is made. Any country on which one might even contemplate "imposing democracy by force" is, almost by definition, some kind of autocracy prior to the "imposition". Thus, if/when we choose to (try to) "impose democracy by force", the imposition (such as it is) is being placed on the elite of that country who currently run it in an anti-democratic fashion. We are telling them: stop ruling without a democratic mandate. Your unearned position of privilege is over. That is the "imposition", and sorry, but boo freaking hoo.
Yet people who speak of "imposing democracy by force" speak as if, and seem to think, that the "imposition" is placed on the general (non-ruling) citizenry of that country. Um, the citizens of that country, in this context, already do have something "imposed" on them currently - they live under an autocracy they have no voice in, with the elite on top. When one "imposes democracy" what one is doing is removing that imposition and providing the people with an alternative.
It may not be a utopian alternative but there is no such thing. It may not be "what they want" on some theoretical political-ideological level but on the other hand "democracy" is, almost by definition, the best real-world attempt we can come up with to figure out what the people "want". In other words, there is no valid way to verify a claim that the people "don't want democracy", other than by using democracy. So the claim "yes autocracy is bad but the people want it" is virtually self-nullifying.
True, the process of removing autocratic elites can have a cost that is felt by their subjects (if only because the extant elites will not go down without taking innocents with them), and this is perhaps what most people are really trying to say by the "imposing democracy" phrase. Nevertheless, it is perverse to speak of removing autocratic elites as if it is "imposing" something on the population whose ruling elites we are attempting to remove. It would be like saying that to apprehend and jail someone who owns slaves and then asking the former slaves where/how they now wish to live, is to "impose non-slavery" on those slaves - there is a difference of degree between the two situations of course, but not of kind.
IMHO people who speak of dethroning autocracies and replacing them with a government chosen democratically as if to do so "imposes" something on the public the autocracy was ruling over are essentially admitting that on some default level their sympathies lie with the elites of the world - that they subconsciously equate all nations with their rulers. After all, we are "imposing democracy on The Iraqis" only if The Iraqis == The Husseinist Ruling Regime. Which, is not true. People who feel sorry for those on whom non-privilege and power-removal was "imposed" by the United States perhaps are revealing that they covet undemocratic privilege & power and fear the United States' ability/willingness to destroy it. Thus, they invent an argument ("imposing democracy never works") which via sleight of hand equates elites with their subjects and pretends that removing elites is an offense to the subjects. Ironically, most of the people who foist this nonsense call themselves "liberals".
Posted by: xmath at May 19, 2006 12:44 PMAll humans "get" democracy; it's part of our natures. We can all do it. The argument is like saying "you can't impose bicycle-riding by force." In fact, you could, and if you did, almost all able-bodied people would learn to ride bicycles. What you can't do by force is keep people from falling down while learning.
Just had to comment with a bravissimo here...very nicely put! Seems like lately I've just been disagreeing with you, which is odd, since this is my one must-read blog, the only nationally-oriented one I always make sure to stop in at (though when events warrant, I'll round out the rotation a bit) - and it's because, in part, you so often put so succinctly things I'd spend eight or ten paragraphs trying to say.
Posted by: Ethan Hahn at May 19, 2006 08:03 PMX, I like it a lot. Lincoln was "imposing non-slavery" on people. Something surely doomed to fail if people are "not ready" for "non-slavery."
And thanks for the kind words, Ethan.
Posted by: John Weidner at May 19, 2006 09:12 PM
