Press Releases & Statements
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Secular Democracy Not Up To The Test |
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Issues Explained
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Sunday, 02 December 2007 |
 Events in countries as diverse as Georgia, Lebanon, Somalia, Pakistan
and Ukraine over the past few months have once again shown us how
fundamentally fragile secular democracy is as a political system. After
the invasion of Iraq, many in the west claimed that democracy was
breaking out everywhere, in the Middle East, in Eastern Europe even in
Africa, just as they said it would. Invading Iraq they argued would
provide the catalyst for democratic revolutions everywhere. Yet all the
evidence today points to a completely different conclusion, countries
cited as being the “democratic stars” are now unravelling before our
very eyes.
Afghanistan has seen more deaths in 2007 then in any year since the invasion in 2001 once again demonstrating that Afghanistan‘s democracy has been unable to bring security to the Afghan people. In Pakistan the imposition of a state of emergency by Pervez Musharraf and the return of discredited politicians Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif has showed the sham nature of Pakistan’s democracy. Georgia the home of the rose revolution has also seen how weak and fragile democratic systems are in reality. President Saakashvili the west’s favourite son since the revolution declared a state of emergency on 7 November in response to major anti-government protests calling for his resignation and for early elections. Over 500 people were injured in a brutal Soviet style police crackdown that followed. In Ukraine instability has wrecked the country with many now looking fondly to the days before the orange revolution. Lebanon the home of the cedar revolution was also cited by the west, yet Lebanon’s democracy following the Israeli attacks in 2006 is now paralysed with western political interference increasing day by day. In Somalia which had enjoyed unprecedented stability during the latter half of 2006 under the Union of Islamic Courts now experiences escalating violence with hundred killed following Ethiopia’s illegal invasion. Once again a western agenda of secular democracy in Somalia has led to chronic instability and insecurity.
Yet democracy has always been fragile. In 1862 Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and under military law imprisoned 13,000 members of the ‘Copperhead Democrats.’ When the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court declared Lincoln’s actions unconstitutional, Lincoln issued an arrest warrant for the 84-year-old Chief Justice. Similarly during the Second World War, Franklin Roosevelt, interned 120,000 Americans of Japanese origin in inland concentration camps, their only crime was their racial origin. Guantanamo Bay, Belmarsh, Abu Ghraib, the Patriot Act, anti-terrorism legislation of all guises, stop and search, internment, torture, sexual humiliation, executive ordered arrests, detention without trial, rendition of suspects to despotic regimes, brutal interrogations and illegal and imperialistic wars are not the only evidences of an idea that is inherently fragile and weak. Add to that the financial scandals in modern democracies, the disproportionate influence of big business and the sheer incompetence of much of the legislation that is passed and you have to agree with John Adams, the second President of the United States who said. “Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
Secular democracy with its basis of popular sovereignty has yet to be challenged effectively, the modern day equivalent of the emperor with no clothes. Most western leaders believe that it is political heresy to even question the suitability of secular democracy believing in it’s absolute universality However as Pat Buchanan a prominent American commentator correctly observes, "democracy-worship suggests a childlike belief in the wisdom and goodness of the people." For instance a majority of Americans in the south in the nineteenth century supported slavery and a majority of the German people elected Hitler and if opinion polls are to be believed a majority support the draconian anti terrorism legislation that has been passed since 2001. America’s founding fathers no more trusted the people than they did absolute monarchs. Hence the need for multiple checks and balances, an electoral college, a Supreme Court, an elected Senate to watch over the House of Representatives and the veto power of a President. Thomas Jefferson made it very clear what he thought about leaving it to the people when he said, “Hear no more of trust in men, but rather bind them down from mischief with the chains of the constitution.” How can democracy with its central tenet of popular sovereignty be seriously considered by the Muslim world when the very founding fathers of the US constitution were so dismissive of it?
It is the height of cultural hubris that only the west’s chosen political system, secular democracy can build an effective society. This view also ignores completely the fact that the Islamic political system, the Caliphate also delivers a system that can bring representation, accountability, a rule of law and which redistributes wealth. Yet despite centuries of evidence of Islam’s effective rule, and the abundant realities of secular democracy’s failings, many in the west still prefer to believe the emperor’s naked body remains fully clothed.
What Georgia, Lebanon, Ukraine, Pakistan, Russia and numerous other cases show us, is that secular democracy is simply not up to the test.
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