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COMMENTARY
What if real democracy rears its
head?
By Ian Urbina
When
administrators sit down in Baghdad to draft a
constitution for the new country and turn toward holding
elections, they will likely run into the thorny issue of
what role to grant religion in the state. After years of
repression, religious fervor is swelling in postwar
Iraq. On the local level, especially in the Shi'ite
south, it is often clerics and religious groups (not US
forces) who have stepped forward to fill the void and
restore order while providing basic social services.
If elections are truly fair and open, there is a
real possibility that Islamist parties backed by these
clerics will hold considerable sway in the post-Saddam
Hussein era. Washington's reaction on the matter will
determine whether its true goal is democracy or not.
Either the administration of George W Bush will opt to
craft the constitution and slant the electoral playing
field so as to guarantee a secular pro-Western
government, or it will lean strictly toward transparent
and clean elections, come what may.
It's
anyone's guess how this issue will play out. But one
voice within the administration in Baghdad clearly leans
toward putting full US faith in strict democracy. Noah
Feldman is a law professor from New York University and
is advising the future Iraqi interim authority on how to
design a new constitution. He is under the auspices of
retired US General Jay Garner - Iraq's current de facto
leader - in the Office of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian Assistance. Last week, Feldman held a
number of underreported interviews in which he expressed
his clear preference for letting democracy run its
course, even if this means voters going to the polls and
rejecting Western-style secular liberalism.
In
Feldman's book After Jihad: America and the Struggle
for Islamic Democracy, he argues that one of the
biggest problems with US policy in the region over the
years has been a Machiavellian willingness to support
thugs so long as they were pro-American. According to
Feldman, ever since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran,
the United States has been so afraid that other
anti-American Islamists would take over that Washington
has been willing to prop up dictatorships and monarchies
in countries such as Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
"Western governments that pride themselves on
their own democratic character ... embrace dictators for
reasons of short-term self-interest, forgetting that in
the long run the support of autocracy undermines their
own democratic values and makes enemies of the people
who are being oppressed with Western complicity." It is
hardly a new critique, but it is significant for its
timeliness and considering that it is coming from
someone who may have weighty influence in the political
modeling of reconstructed Iraq.
For Feldman, who
was raised an Orthodox Jew in Boston, there is nothing
incompatible about Islam and democratization. As a
scholar of the religion, Feldman frequently turns to the
Koran to back up his perspective with proof of solidly
based democratic roots in the holy book. He also points
out that many Islamic thinkers these days argue that
democratic thought actually draws its first historic
roots from early Islam. The original leaders in Islamic
communities were supposed to be chosen by the people.
The Koran says these leaders are also supposed to
consult with the people.
Whether Feldman will be
a lone (and perhaps relatively powerless) voice among US
planners in Baghdad is still unclear. In interviews, he
cited comments by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer,
who said that Turkey's Islamic democracy was a good
model for the region.
Still, there may be some
check mechanisms that will have to be implemented so as
to prevent external and religious meddling from
governments such as that in Iran. Feldman conceded that
it might be necessary to have laws preventing foreign
funding of elections.
For Feldman an Islamist
government is not by definition prone toward being harsh
and backward like the Taliban. His vision seems to be
one in which a space is opened up for an Islamic
equivalent of European-style parties like the Christian
Democrats. Just as in Turkey, moderate Islamists can
hold considerable strength with no intention of trying
to cut civil liberties, or impose classic Islamic law on
every aspect of life.
If pure democracy were
given a chance in Iraq, in the short run it might
produce a government that is strongly critical of the
United States. But in the long run, such a gesture would
begin putting the US on the side of the masses and
working democracy rather than on the self-interested
side of dictators and a radicalization of Islamist
parties.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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