History is on the side of democracy
By Philip Stephens
Published: January 20 2011 23:03
I once heard a senior European official remark that the trouble with democracy was that George W. Bush was its cheerleader. He had a point. Iraq had recently descended into bloody chaos. As long as the then US president was proselytiser-in-chief, democracy was a pretty tough sell.
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Western values have been out of fashion ever since. First came the post-Iraq realisation that it is not that easy to impose them at the point of a cruise missile. Then it dawned on neoconservatives and liberal internationalists that there is more to all this than a ballot box.
Western values have been out of fashion ever since. First came the post-Iraq realisation that it is not that easy to impose them at the point of a cruise missile. Then it dawned on neoconservatives and liberal internationalists that there is more to all this than a ballot box.
There are small matters such as the rule of law, an independent judiciary and robust institutions. All these have to fit the cultural circumstances. The lesson from Afghanistan is that the west lacks the stomach for nation-building.
The balance of global power has shifted much faster than anyone imagined. It was always going to be easier for a US president to climb into the pulpit when Washington felt secure in its hegemony.
Declining US power, the speed of China’s rise and authoritarian rule in oil-rich Russia have tempered any residual missionary enthusiasm.
American and European politicians still preach the virtues of freedom and democracy, but the sermons are delivered sotto voce. The European centre-left often paints democratic values in the colours of western imperialism. In this curious contortion, promoting human rights is somehow an act of oppression.
The electoral success of the Palestinian Hamas movement has seen self-professed foreign policy realists caution that we must be careful what we wish for. Elections are fine as long as they produce the right answer. The Middle East may well produce the wrong one.
In any event, there are geopolitical bargains and lucrative trade deals to be struck with repressive regimes. In the new age of realpolitik, David Cameron’s British government loudly applauds as the energy giant BP throws itself into the arms of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The European Union rolls out the red carpet for despots such as Uzbek president Islam Karimov.
Events long ago exposed as vapid lofty post-cold war predictions of the irresistible march of democracy. The scholars who once imagined a world of shiny democracies have climbed on to other bandwagons. Now they see a challenge from a new, self-confident model of state capitalism. At least, you hear these pundits say, the autocrats get things done.
Democracy has also been in retreat on the ground. Freedom House, the Washington-based think-tank that tracks the fortunes of political pluralism, calculates that global freedom suffered a “fifth consecutive year of decline in 2010”.
The number of countries worthy of being designated “free” fell from 89 to 87, and the number of electoral democracies dropped to 115 – eight fewer than in 2005. You do not have to agree with Freedom House’s precise methodology to agree that the autocrats have had the upper hand.
Five years ago Mr Bush promised a democratic transformation in the Middle East. The ambition of his second inaugural address was abandoned almost as it was spoken. Offering a voice to the Arab street, it was soon agreed, risked empowering extremists such as Hamas.
Better to slip back into the comfortable cold war posture of cuddling up to friendly tyrants. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak could sleep easily again.
There was always, though, a snag. People quite like democracy. Rising nations may decry US imperialism and European meddling and resent the west’s innate sense of its own superiority. But freedom, the rule of law and human dignity have an appeal well beyond the west.
That is what we have seen in Tunisia. The uprising that put an end to the 23-year rule of Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali exposed what western governments always knew, but preferred to forget. Even the most seemingly secure autocrats are vulnerable to popular discontent.
Almost until the moment Mr Ben Ali was forced to flee Tunis, the rich democracies took the side of “stability” against the street. France, the former colonial power, showed particular cynicism. But almost everyone turned a blind eye as long as the regime was “pro-western”.
It is impossible to predict the effects elsewhere in the Middle East. Some see the overthrow of Mr Ben Ali as the spark to a slow-burning fuse comparable with the birth of Poland’s Solidarity movement in the shipyards of Gdansk in 1980.
Others suggest that other repressive regimes – Egypt is most often mentioned – could be toppled much sooner. Either way, it is evident that youth bulges, economic hardship and popular frustration are rekindling the embers of democracy.
The US and Europe need to think again. A few years ago a US secretary of state spoke in Cairo of the manifest failure of a decades-old policy of propping up despots in the Middle East. It had planted the seeds of violent extremism and sacrificed long-term stability to expediency. Condoleezza Rice got it right. Unhappily, she worked for Mr Bush.
The Tunisian uprising has been a reminder of the power of political ideas; and of the popular pull of democracy. The protesters did not take to the streets in support of US or European values; they did so to demand the freedom and dignity conferred by pluralist systems.
One of the striking things about today’s world is that it is full of despots pretending to be democrats. Even regimes that disdain anything that smacks of a western model want to claim the legitimacy conferred by democratic choices.
Beijing has a more nuanced view than it often seems. This week saw Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, acknowledge that China had to do better on human rights. In Russia, even Mr Putin feels compelled to pay lip service to the rule of law.
None of this argues for a Bush-like crusade. But the west should show much greater confidence in universal values. It is one thing to treat with the world as it is; another to find yourself on the same team as the likes of Mr Ben Ali.
History was never going to end. It remains, though, on the side of democracy.
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