The Arab Spring protests brought to the surface some interesting tension between elite rhetoric about democracy and U.S. interests. It’s not that you always heard pundits taking the side of autocrats and dictators; more often it was couched in language about security or “stability” or the “delicate tightrope” the United States was forced to walk, as the government’s dictator allies were thrown out of power.
And then you have Fareed Zakaria, who in his latest Washington Post column (1/30/13) argued that pro-democracy movements would be better off with less democracy.
Zakaria contrasts the violence and political chaos in Egypt with relatively peaceful Morocco and Jordan–where dictators are still in power, but are making gestures towards a more democratic future:
Compare the differences between Egypt and Jordan. At the start of the Arab Spring, it appeared that Egypt had responded to the will of its people, had made a clean break with its tyrannical past and was ushering in a new birth of freedom. Jordan, by contrast, responded with a few personnel changes, some promises to study the situation and talk of reform.
But then Egypt started going down the wrong path, and Jordan made a set of wise choices.
To Zakaria, Egypt tried too much democracy too soon. “In Jordan, by contrast, the king did not rush to hold elections”– shocking!–but instead “appointed a council to propose changes to the constitution.” As Zakaria concludes:
The best role models for the region might well be two small monarchies. Jordan and Morocco have gone the opposite route, making measured reforms and liberalizing their existing systems. The monarchies have chosen evolution over revolution.
Whatever one thinks of the state of things in Egypt, this is not a particularly convincing case. Zakaria points to one particular problem with Egypt’s constitution:
Some of its provisions ban blasphemy and insult and allow for media censorship in the name of national security. These are all ways to give the government unlimited powers, which the Muslim Brotherhood has used. More journalists have been persecuted for insulting Morsi in his six-month presidency than during the nearly 30-year reign of Mubarak.
That’s certainly not encouraging. But how is the evolution-not-revolution kingdom of Jordan faring on the same score? According to Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index 2013, things are getting worse:
A repressive royal decree in September was one of the reasons why Jordan (134th, -6) fell. The decree changed the press law and drastically restricted freedom of information, especially for online media, brushing aside all the reform promises that the government gave at the height of the popular unrest in 2011. Journalists are being tried before military courts, especially when they criticize the royal family.
That paints a very different picture than Zakaria is giving readers. (Egypt, though it ranks below Jordan at No. 158, actually gained rose eight places in 2012.) Then again, this might not be a big surprise, coming from someone who was an enthusiastic supporter of George W. Bush’s wars, which to Zakaria were likely to usher in a new kind of freedom. Zakaria wrote in 2005 that Bush “has been fundamentally right about some big things,” adding:
Bush’s capacity to imagine a different Middle East may actually be related to his relative ignorance of the region. Had he traveled to the Middle East and seen its many dysfunctions, he might have been disheartened.
By that logic, the people best suited to bring democracy to the Arab world could very well be invading American presidents and monarchs.
I guess you either have a problem grasping the concept of “dictatorship”, or are prodigiously misinformed about the situation in Morocco and Jordan. Either way, you’re way off the mark here. Time will tell, and you can wait and see, as you obviously don’t have to live and have a say in either places.
Pundits berating pundits, such fun!
Same rationale used against Lincoln’s push for the 13th Amendment. Too much freedom too soon. Lets stop worrying endlessly about stability and security and stop believing the elites are smarter than the masses and let the mess of democracy proceed.
Zakaria’s comments, especially the last, fit neatly into the niche of Newspeak.
(Ignorance begets insight?)
But I have what I think is a more precise eight letter label for them.
“egypt started going down the wrong path”….??? its really the GALL and the unlimited hubris of the american commentariat, willing stooges like ol’ zac which infuritates, even more than their (assumed) ignorance..the protesters hadnt removed from Tahrir square before the US was rolling boulders, changing road signs and putting up toll gates along the “wrong path” for the people of Egypt. The only thing zacharia is really whining about is that the Egyptian people arent quietly submitting to the conservative stooge the US placed in power.
Democracy??????Where do you see democracy?At least the American form that is intertwined with unalienable rights tied to individual freedoms?I see ELECTIONS.Usually one and done- once characters like the muslim brotherhood get their hooks in.Is that arab democracy?Of course the idea/belief that Arabs are to cowled ,to broken,or to violent- for anything resembling open discourse, and individual freedoms within a governance is most troubling.Does the intractability of the modern corruption of the muslim faith lead to this dead end?And of course the old opine of “its all bushes fault” is always a good liberal fallback.Look …the Arab world has always been charged with living beyond the mayhem, and hatred that has so marked it in modern times.So far they have done a poor job by any estimation in that direction.Did you hear that word……THEY have done a poor job.For a long time it has been other countries that have carried the blame.Germany.England.America.Israel,the list goes on and on..Now the Arab spring has been markedly without the influence of the US.Just ask Hilary and Obama.Result……Mayhem and hatred marked by a destabilized middles east.Same old same old.Israel as always is the one true shining example of Democracy in the middle east.
Zakaria used his brown skin to establish his progressive bona fides before he sold out to the neocons.
It’s difficult to say how any political movement will turn out, slow may be better, it probably depends on how slow, and how desparate the pubic wants change. !
Who put that stooge, Zakaria, up on the soapbox?