President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are
claiming that the elections in occupied Iraq are inspiring a yearning
for democracy throughout the Arabic-speaking countries. Every time
people under authoritarian government demonstrate against their rulers,
some Western media enthusiastically report the event. Usually they
assume that the demonstrators want Western-style democracy. That, however,
may be a fallacy.
In an apparent attempt to placate Mr. Bush, Egypt’s president
Hosni Mubarak promised that in his country’s presidential upcoming
elections other candidates will be free to run against him. Yet, he
is unlikely to allow his most feared opponents, the radicals of the
Islamist Brotherhood, to nominate a candidate. Given their deep roots
among the masses, they may win a majority and then try to establish
an oppressive Islamist regime. similar to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s
in Iran or the Taliban’s in Afghanistan. Dreading the rule of
religious fanatics, Egypt’s secular and relatively liberal upper
class considers Mubarak’s moderate one-party regime far more
acceptable than the often violent Brotherhood.
Other Arab governments, such as Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Jordan,
Libya, and Sudan, would face similar dilemmas with free elections if
they brought radical Islamists to power.
After the first round of national elections in Algeria in 1992, the
Islamists seemed certain to win power in the second round. Fearing
that, the army intervened and stopped the electoral process but thereby
caused seven years of savage guerilla war with militant Muslim fundamentalists.
The conflagration took several hundred thousand lives.
Although the Bush administration expresses satisfaction with the outcome
of the American-sponsored parliamentary elections in Iraq, it remains
unclear what weight the Shiite-led government will give to Islamic
demands. Ayatollah Ali Hussaini al Sistani has said that religious
leaders should not be directly involved in the government, yet he also holds that the state should respect
Islamic law.
The Kurds want a large degree of autonomy in the new Iraq but object
to the imposition of Islamic law. If the Bush administration disallowed
a strong role for Islam under Iraq’s future Constitution, it
would certainly be accused of interfering in the democratic process
that it purports to promote.
In 1996, election results in Turkey brought a pro-Islamic government to power.
Soon, however, the army, as guardian of Kemal Ataturk’s legacy of a secular
Turkish state, viewed the regime as too religious and forced it to resign. Similarly,
the European Union has stipulated that it will accept Turkey as a member only
if it is not ruled by an Islamic government, even if it represents the will of
the people in free elections.
In the Palestinian territories nine years ago, elections for the parliament of
the Palestinian Authority were free, as attested by international observers includingformer President Jimmy Carter. Yet, this Palestinian achievement was obfuscated
by the concentration of executive power under Yasir Arafat. In the upcoming Palestinian
elections, even the Islamic Resistance Movement, also known as Hamas, has agreed
to participate. If only the Sharon government ended the occupation, the integration
of Hamas into the Palestinian body politic would mark significant progress toward
democracy.
Even in Israel free elections have given voice to radically fundamentalist and
nationalist elements, mostly settlers and their allies, who want to see all Palestinians
ejected from the lands between the Jordan River and the Sea.
Under politically and/or economically unstable conditions, free elections and
the democratic process can rather quickly be exploited by anti-democratic forces.
The classical example of such a development occurred in Germany in 1933 when
free elections yielded the Nazi Party just enough votes—less than 50 percent—to
gain control of the government in coalition with a smaller party. Within weeks,
Hitler employed the powers under his command to silence all significant opposition.
Freedom is a two-edged sword. More often than not, it is used to create conditions
of tolerance and peace. Yet, it may also pave the way for forces that turn back
the clock.