I am all for letting other cultures develop at their own pace-but I also think we should be honest about their differences from liberal democracy. Chris Mooney points out what “Islamic Democracy” usually means in practice. Here is an excerpt of a recent post:
More evidence comes from a 2000 piece in the Washington Post by Abdo, which celebrated the moderate Islamist movement in Egypt. “Unlike in Saudia Arabia,” wrote Abdo, Egyptian Islamists “would not advocate cutting off the hands of thieves or gouging out the eyes of other criminals.” (How generous of them.) “Rather,” Abdo continued,
…they would seek an accommodation between Islam and modernity, not a return to the Medieval Islamic period. They would, however, insist that books and films that do not conform to Islamic principles be banned. But this is in line with the wishes of a majority of Egyptians.
As if the wishes of the majority can justify censorship! If this is multiculturalism, I want no part of it. I’m not saying that we Americans need to go out and thoroughly Westernize every corner of the globe. But I do believe that principles like freedom of expression and thought, which are enshrined in U.N. documents as basic human rights, should not be negotiable in any government daring to call itself democratic.
What Chris is pointing out is that not all democracies are liberal – and that majority rule can sometimes lead to the curtailment of individual freedoms, something that Americans forget too often (and often fall prey to as well, for instance, the movement for the Flag Burning Amendment). This is the central theme of Fareed Zakaria’s new book, The Future of Freedom. We should also note that these restrictions on “universal freedoms” are not just limited to Islamic countries-censorship is accepted in much of the European continent, and to a lesser extent in England (blasphemy laws), when there is an overwhelming perception of detracting from the social good (particularly in areas of “hate” or defamation of character more broadly interpreted). Even in the United States, the First Amendment was not generally applied to state laws until this century, and even when it was broadened, the material still had to have some “redeeming social value.”
Apologists for Islamism as an acceptable form of political organization among the Western intelligensia are clearly among those who I consider “the enemy.” Though as a practical matter I do not believe we can change the world in our image (the Western, and more specifically Anglospheric & American) by force of arms, ceding the moral high ground is tantamount to admitting defeat. It’s an assertion of equivalence between liberal democratic regimes which serve as immigration magnets and repressive societies mired in neo-feudal stagnation and only now stumbling towards the Enlightenment (this last empirical point is telling, for though majorities often wish others to be controlled, they themselves yearn for freedom of action). To be more specific, I do admit that perhaps in this generation the women of Islamic countries may have neither control of their bodies/sexual lives nor equality before the law and society…but just because there are practical issues involved does not mean that I do not believe that one day all humanity will bend the knee before the principles of equality before the law and justice for all.
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