Voting against is also democracy

Anwar Ibrahim has an opinion piece in the Herald today (which looks like it ran previously in the LA Times) that resonates with some of the thought I was trying to express yesterday in my post Unpopularly elected, where I criticised Bush for failing to nurture democracy, as opposed to ramming democratic form down Middle Eastern throats. Anwar Ibrahim was Mahathir Mohamad's Deputy Prime Minister and annointed one until he started to have his own ideas - and express them - when he got bundled up, beat up and jailed on trumped up charges of homosexual acts.

The vote alone won't set them free

SINCE September 11, 2001, the US has pursued what it calls a "forward strategy of freedom", predicated on the belief that a dearth of democracy in Muslim countries has led to the spread of a deadly strain of Islamic extremism. Emboldened by a hard-won ideological victory over the regimes in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, the US has again sought to foment democracy abroad to ensure security at home.

But as the first returns come in, there is growing anxiety in the US about the character of these nascent, freely elected governments. Some have begun to question whether these countries have the innate ability to sustain democracy.

Although it cannot be denied that US initiatives have contributed significantly to developments in the Middle East, fear is growing that radicals might hijack democracy. Recent Islamist electoral successes in Iran, Egypt and the Palestinian territories have prompted questions about the ability of liberal forces to prevail against fundamentalism.

For the US, the fear is real, although perhaps tinged with a bit of Islamophobia: how terrible an irony it would be if this grand effort to spread liberty abroad resulted in anti-US Islamic states imposing Sharia, or Islamic law, on their people.

The example of Hamas's ascension in Gaza and the West Bank presents obvious difficulties. But it would be fallacious to assume that it was democracy that voted in Islamic extremism. More correctly, it was the years of corruption and abuse of power by the Fatah-led administration that voted Hamas into power. If the exercise of democracy is about venting people's anger and dissatisfaction with the powers that be, then the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Be that as it may, there are some people who say "stability", not liberty, is what the US should be promoting in the Islamic world. Their view is that championing electoral democracy does not immediately serve US interests abroad, particularly in the war on terrorism, and that the hearts and minds of terrorists and suicide bombers are not turned by the virtues of democracy. They say the war against terrorism must be waged with an iron hand, not soft gloves woven from the fabric of constitutional liberties.

These views on democracy and stability in the Muslim world are not only wrong but carry grave consequences.

In a way, Washington's strategy might be viewed as expiation for past sins, when the US was a stumbling block to democracy in the Middle East. Iran was a democracy in 1953 when the CIA engineered the coup that transformed it into an absolute monarchy. The US has supported other tyrants in the region, including Saddam Hussein. All of this in the name of stability and security in the decades-long confrontation with the communist bloc.

Is the US really caught between the Scylla of supporting dictators and the Charybdis of promoting democracies that could bring Islamist radicals to power? The best answers to the question of whether the US should reassess its strategy lie in Indonesia and Turkey, refreshing examples of Muslim democratic self-assertion.

Seven years ago, Indonesia plunged headlong into democracy after more than 30 years of autocratic dictatorship. As the largest Muslim nation in the world, it stands out as perhaps the most significant political phenomenon in the recent history of democracy. Indonesians have gone to the polls twice since, and they overwhelmingly rejected the Islamist radicals, who then tried to push their agenda through other avenues. Again, this was met with a resounding "no" by the Indonesian people, including major Muslim organisations.

The media in Indonesia are free and the elections are fair. Fundamental liberties are enshrined in the constitution and recognised and respected by the powers that be. For example, unlike in neighbouring Malaysia, Indonesians may gather to protest against government decisions and policies without fear of reprisals. Arbitrary arrests and political detentions are unheard of.

As fledgling democracies, Indonesia and Turkey still have a long way to go. In Indonesia, it is in fulfilling the socioeconomic objectives of democracy that can happen only over time. In Turkey, the containment of an unrestricted military establishment has aided that country's European Union ascension. Nevertheless, they now stand as beacons, for Muslim nations and for those who seek to help them.

To be successful in its efforts to spread freedom, the US must remember that constitutional democracy cannot take root in a society, secular or Islamic, without the firm commitment of the politically empowered to protect the fundamental rights to liberty, equality and freedom of all.

The true cultivation of democracy requires more than the introduction of elections. It also requires establishing democratic processes and levelling the political playing field. It needs the guarantee of a separation of powers and the liberation of the judicial system from the stranglehold of autocrats and tyrants. Most of all, it requires the protection of fundamental liberties and a free press.

It is in these prerequisites that the US and the Muslim world need to invest, with far more effort, for the causes of liberty to truly prevail.