Arabian Democracy Is Possible

OTHER COUNTRIES Arabian Democracy Is Possible

Joshua Muravchik, "Bringing Democracy to the Arab World," Current History, January 2004 (currenthistory.com)

While a large and growing percentage of nations on every continent has freely elected governments, not a single one of the 21 Arab

Joshua Muravchik divides the world into two camps. One, represented by the likes of U.N. secretary-General Kofi Annan, believes that poverty causes terrorism. The other, which President George W. Bush represents, believes that tyranny itself results in terrorism. Bush, consequently, has attempted to "drain the fever swamps" of Middle Eastern tyranny and sow the seeds of democracy all around the region. Muravchik places himself clearly in the second camp. While Muravchik says "the claim that something in Arab culture makes it resistant to democracy cannot be refuted until the first Arab democracy comes into being," he also finds that "there is reason to be skeptical of the skepticism" that Arabs cannot run a democracy.

Muravchik notes that Arabs are not the first group judged incapable of selfrule. At various times eminent thinkers have declared Roman Catholics, Asians in general, Japanese, and blacks incapable of self-government. History has proven them wrong. he also points out that democracy has existed in the Arab world before. Between World War II and the 1970s, Lebanon had an essentially democratic government. Muravchik notes that poverty needn't veto democracy. Sub-Saharan Africa, significantly poorer than the Arab world by nearly every measure, surpasses the Arab world in democracy.

Muravchik proposes that a combination of foreign aid, diplomacy, and international broadcasting can speed real democratic change in the Middle East. Military force will not be necessary. "Democracy, or at least its rudiments, has suddenly become the norm," he concludes, "a norm that one day will extend to the Arab world."