Arab
Democracy's Failures Elude So-called Experts
by Andrew E. Harrod
American Thinker
November 17, 2016
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[Text differs slightly from that at AT.]
Given American policymakers' ignorance of Islam, "I am just
worried about people like me running around with big theories trying to
set foreign policy," stated famed intellectual historian Francis Fukuyama in Washington,
D.C. His confession occurred at "Democracy in the Arab World: The
Obama Legacy and Beyond," a recent conference
that did little to alleviate the knowledge deficit among hackneyed
Islamism apologists.
Fukuyama's luncheon address at the downtown JW
Marriot luxury hotel focused on the cultural factors that aided the
development of modern societies. While China benefited from the
appearance 2,300 years ago of the "first modern, relatively
impersonal state," Fukuyama said, the "Arab world [is] where I
think the fundamental problem is" for human progress today. Although
he worried that the U.S. had not made an effort to understand Muslim
societies comparable to its Cold War study of Russia, Fukuyama's own
knowledge of Islam was spotty. He described an often repressive and
all-encompassing sharia law as a mere "balance to political
power."
Referencing the late scholar Ernest
Gellner, Fukuyama maintained that "contemporary Islamism is
basically just a different version of European nationalism in the
nineteenth century." Just as Europeans transitioning from intimate
rural communities to urban anonymity during industrialization sought a
new identity, Islamists invoke a "universal umma that extends all
the way from Morocco to Jakarta." Similarly, this Islamism appeals
to alienated second-generation European Muslim immigrants. Left
unexamined was whether the cosmic worldview of a faith like Islam has
considerably more ideological content, and can incite far more zeal, than
nationalist allegiances, particularly in an increasingly globalized
world.
At least Fukuyama didn't minimize jihadist terrorism, unlike the
preceding panelist, anti-Israel
commentator Peter Beinart.
He decried the "rise of ISIS and a massive increase fueled by cable
news [coverage] of the threat of terror that emerged in 2014" and
reflected upon President Barack Obama's shared view that the "threat
of terrorism had been exaggerated." Obama rejected former President
George W. Bush's "war on terrorism" as the "new Cold War,
the new World War II; there was fascism and communism, and now there was
jihadism."
In contrast to totalitarianism's past appeal to, and rule over,
millions, few "believed that you could build a new prosperous world
based on the ideas of Osama bin Laden," Beinart declared. His
sanguine analysis ignored that faith-based jihadists have eternal
timeframes capable of minimizing material setbacks. Contrary to the Third
Reich's twelve-year nightmare and the Cold War's long twilight victory,
Pope Francis's warning
of a "third [world] war ... fought piecemeal" with jihadist
movements and regimes worldwide has no end in sight.
Conference literature omitted the unsavory connection between this new
kind of Third World War and Azmi Bishara,
an Israeli-Arab writer and accused Hezbollah
operative who gave his conference keynote address online from Qatar.
With terrorism charges hindering an American entry visa, this general
director of the Qatari Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies
(ACRPS) hosted the conference via ACRPS's Washington, D.C. affiliate. The former Knesset member
fled Israel in 2007 to escape charges of helping Hezbollah plot terrorist
attacks against Israeli targets.
Reiterating his anti-Zionist
take on Palestinian "territory occupied in 1948," Bishara's
address
text condemned Israel's "colonial apartheid" and claimed
conspiratorially that "Israel's security was the fetish for whose
sake [the] rights of people were sacrificed" during the "Arab
Spring." Contradicting Fukuyama's speculations, Bishara insisted
that "it is not the Islamization of society that makes people afraid
of change" and that the "obstacle for democracy in the Arab
world is not the political culture." His assessment that
"post-Islamic Brotherhood" parties with an "Islamic
identity," such as the "Christian Democratic parties of
Europe," are emerging in Tunisia and Turkey was wildly optimistic.
Likewise, Princeton University political science professor and
boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) supporter
Amaney Jamal labored to blame
Israel for democracy's poor prospects in the Arab world. In yet another
example of what Islam scholar Martin Kramer critiques as the false "linkage"
between Israel and sundry Middle East problems, one of her slides listed
the "Arab-Israeli Conflict as an Obstacle to Reform." Another
slide alleged that the "percent who say it is an impediment"
from Arab countries ranges from 84 percent (Lebanon) to 33 percent
(Algeria). Because dictatorships seek international investment by
suppressing anti-Israel sentiment, Jamal maintained that the Arab-Israeli
conflict is "always going to keep investors out of the region."
ACRPS associate researcher Abdulwahab
Al-Qassab strained credulity elsewhere by stating that in 2003 in
"Arab society in Iraq, we had many strong unifying factors."
Such a claim reflects al-Qassab's outlandish
assertion at a 2014
conference that Iraqi "society was known throughout history to
be a well-integrated one, notwithstanding its diversity." Critical
observers should maintain a healthy skepticism toward a former
major-general under the brutal Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein promoting
"diversity."
More realistic were the comments of Qassab's fellow ACRPS associate researcher, Marwan Kabalan, and Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace Arab studies scholar Michele Dunne.
Kabalan rightfully noted that "moderate" Syrian rebels are
"lacking the ideological motivations that exist among the
jihadis," who "are actually bound by a very strong ideological
bond."
Dunne emphasized that Westernization had made Tunisia, the Arab
world's current hope for democracy, a "bit different from other Arab
countries." The "population was in general more educated ...
women were more liberated and empowered ... the middle class was a bit
larger ... [and] the military was less involved in politics," while
Tunisia "was more connected to Europe." "All of these
things turned out to be very, very important," she concluded.
Such realism reflects Fukuyama's insight that not all cultural beliefs
equally favor the development of peaceful and prosperous societies with
liberty under law. Critical inquiry into Islamic doctrine and its
troubled relationship with democracy will be necessary for overcoming the
knowledge deficit in the free world's latest struggle against tyranny.
Whether ACRPS, based in Muslim Brotherhood-supporting
Qatar, can alleviate this deficit is highly questionable.
Andrew E. Harrod is a freelance researcher and writer
who holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a J.D.
from George Washington University Law School. He is a fellow with the
Lawfare Project. Follow him on Twitter at @AEHarrod. This essay was
sponsored by Campus Watch, a
project of the Middle East Forum.
This
text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an
integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its
author, date, place of publication, and original URL.
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