The Brookings Institution senior fellow and the Atlantic contributor Shadi Hamid is back with a new book that is bound to give you a turn. The Problem of Democracy: America, the Middle East, and the Rise and Fall of an Idea could not have come at a more opportune time because Pakistan, like most countries, has increasingly faced a set of electoral paradoxes. While I hope to do justice to the book after more readings, something must be said about its central argument. Please do not think for a second that I use it to present an argument against democracy. Far from it.
Noting that in the Arab world, America’s mission to promote democracy assumes only a theoretical shape, Dr Hamid goes on to explore a fundamental conflict between the twin ideals of democracy and liberalism. Of course, when the west speaks about democracy, it essentially means liberal democracy. But as he points out, the problem with the traditional Muslim societies in the Middle East is that there are not enough liberals to get elected to public office. So, what do you do? The good doctor’s solution is to decouple the two and opt for democracy over liberal values. In its context, the argument has its merits. Consider, for instance, that the US could afford to look the other way when yet another military junta overthrew Mohamed Morsi’s elected government, but in Italy, where the hard right has finally returned after Mussolini, and in America itself, where Trump is pushing for a second term it cannot act with the same abandon. The problem is now too local for the west.
My first instinct naturally went in the other direction. While we can drop the term liberal because it almost universally triggers conservatives and even some centrists, fundamental values like human rights and civil liberties, in my view, take precedence over the ritual of voting periodically to oust a government. But I say my first instinct because I don’t think it is very reliable, and the reality is far more complicated than I would like to admit. Consider this. We have been there before. General Ayub and Musharraf tried to offer their versions of enlightened despotism. While the Ayubian era witnessed the weakening of the federation, which eventually resulted in the fall of East Pakistan, the Musharrafian period could not even protect the fundamental human rights of its citizens, given the grisly realities of the war on terror.
But here is what triggers me the most. The pretense that somehow the concept of fundamental human rights is alien to eastern societies. Do you mean that the value of human life is subject to change according to each society? We subdivide human rights into various categories like women’s rights, minority rights, trans rights, and so on, but here is a plain fact of life. They all, being human, hold the same station and should enjoy the same fundamental rights as any other. No prejudice is acceptable in the name of culture, customs or faith.
And these claims about eastern societies being different are based on hypocrisy. Most Muslim states today have inherited post-colonial societies. That would point to the fact that these societies were highly flexible, adaptable and prudent. The movement towards conservatism is a fairly recent phenomenon and an ugly byproduct of the cold war era when religious fundamentalism was celebrated rather than discouraged.
At any rate, in my humble view, Dr Hamid’s proposal to opt for “democratic minimalism” will not fly. If there is to be any exception to the rule it will be in the shape of more tolerance for the Egyptian model because it is politically and geo-strategically expedient. As pointed out earlier, neither enlightened despotism works for too long as such despots, in the long run, go peculiar and by that time have attained so much power that the society does not even know how to get rid of them. Is there a workaround then, because the democratic project with a capital d already seems to be going through a turbulent phase?
Decades ago, Fareed Zakaria warned us against similar eventualities in his The Rise of Illiberal Democracy. Proposed solutions remain the same. Decouple the two sets of values. Since then, all such subroutines have played out in various countries. From Turkey to Pakistan, from Egypt to Syria. And even a cursory look reminds you none of these solutions work.
In the west, the problem is further complicated by the rise of an aggressive far right that takes no prisoners, calls out every instance of liberal double standards, and in the end, weaponises the western core values like freedom of speech against it. How the Covid lockdowns and vaccine mandates were handled further complicated the matter. The same elements cite them as examples of liberal hypocrisy, coercion and a violation of their fundamental rights.
In my humble view, the current confusion within the liberal/democratic class is because of this noise. That should not obscure that these values are fundamentally sound and inextricably linked. There arises a problem when hard power is used to effect the change. If soft or smart power is used, there is no harm in it. Let us not kid ourselves that the change in Egypt had anything to do with democratic or liberal values. It was purely a geostrategic transaction because an Ikhwan government in Egypt was unacceptable to the country’s mighty neighbours (both Muslim and non-Muslim).
I keep returning to Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson’s brilliant works Why Nations Fail and The Narrow Corridor. There is plenty of evidence and wisdom in these two books to indicate that the democratic process is neither easy nor short or smooth. In fact, it requires a lot of attention and patience because of the messy ground realities. The problem with the liberals and democrats today is that they have stopped putting in the necessary effort and assumed a reactionary posture. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with your product. You have just forgotten how to be a good salesman. The technologies and techniques used by the far right are value-neutral by nature. If you invest enough time, energy, brain power, money and other resources, you will shift your product more comfortably than your rivals and detractors. While scenarios keep changing, operationalising your principles and not abandoning them is the answer.