A very enlightening serve-and-volley is going on between Michiel Visser and the good folks at OxBlog. Are democracy and the components of liberty too alien to work in Middle Eastern Arab cultures, or is a transformation possible? If so, under what circumstances?
Here's the debate sequence:
- Oxblog says: "The war on terror will only end when democracy reigns in the Middle East. If the Bush administration recognizes that, the war may not have to last as long."
- Michiel Visser isn't enamored of the odds, much as he likes the concept. Democracy rests on cultural foundations rather than legal or institutional ones, and Arab culture does not give him cause for optimism.
- Oxblog responds and explains. A very good examination of the foundations of Visser's argument, with thoughtful rejoinders.
- Visser: "Democracy is not some magic trick that will heal all wounds in the Middle East. The actual work of turning the utterly dysfunctional societies of the Middle East into liberal democracies is going to be long, arduous and frustrating. It is a dangerous delusion to think otherwise."
- Oxblog concedes some points, defends others in this post by David Adesnik.
- David then looks at Hitler's rise to power in the democratic Weimar Republic. Does this complex process demonstrate that democracy cannot succeed in the absence of strong cultural foundation? You decide.
- Josh Chafetz of Oxblog believes he can resolve the issue.
- Visser sums up: "What I am saying is that democratization in the Middle East is desirable, but not possible at this moment, since the backward cultures of the Middle East would be able to sustain feasible, healthy, and pro-Western democratic governments." He also says to expect a new post on the issue some time tonight.
UPDATE: See also Dale Franks' entry in the debate, a very good bit done in a Q&A format. If I had to create an 8th Grade primer on democracy and liberty, this might be it. Dale builds on a very good Tech Central Station column that distinguishes liberty from democracy (a distinction that was critical to the title of this post). Thanks to reader Mike "The Man w/No Life" Daley for pointing it out.
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