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If the benefits of democracy
are so clear and well documented as they are in the history of
the United States, why is it that the peoples of Iraq are
having such a tough time settling their squabbles and getting
on with it? |
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When I think of the founding fathers of the
UnitedStates, I am inclined to see among them the
guiding hand of Allah (swat). A group so
intelligent, so resolute, so diverse, does not occur
often in human history. Against great and violent
odds, among immigrants from all over Europe, they
set my country firmly on the path of democracy, the
self-identified greatest good for the greatest
number (with protection for minorities). At some
point in my life I want to explore in depth their
personalities, interchanges, writings and deeds to
see if I can ascertain what Allah (swat) might have
intended by grouping and inspiring these men.
As a child in the 1950’s, I inherited the fruits of their
struggle. Never before had their been such an abundance of material
prosperity for the common man as existed in post-war
America.
A daughter of high school graduates, a bookkeeper and a stay-at-home
mom who took in ironing to supplement the income, I was nevertheless
raised in leisure and with limitless educational possibilities amid
the latest inventions and advancements. Children of kings had been
raised like this. In the ‘50’s most of us were – in the
United States.
I would truly be in error if I were not grateful for what Allah (swat)
has provided, for my country and myself.
Allah (swat) has provided, too, the oil-rich substrata of
the great desert areas of the
Middle East. Peoples there would not have to establish their
liberty and wealth on beaver pelts, family farms hewn from the
wilderness or indigo plantations from the swamps. It would not take
them 200 years to secure their fortunes. If the benefits of democracy
are so clear and well documented as they are in the history of the
United States, why is it that the peoples of Iraq are having such a
tough time settling their squabbles and getting on with it? Why don’t
the citizens of
Saudi Arabia, the
Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iran, put their rulers out to pasture and elect
a functioning congress before their birthrights are squandered? Where
are the Washington's,
Jefferson's,
Madison's,
Adamses to usher in the era of Muslim democracy?
All that being said, and due respect having been paid to my
forbearers, I would like to examine the differences between the
situation in which the 13 Colonies established democracy and the ones
in which the various peoples of the
Middle East find themselves. Firstly, when they sat down to hammer
out the institutions that would serve them, the American Colonists had
already successfully fought their war, after which70,000 Loyalists
abandoned their property and fled to Canada, the Caribbean or back to
Britain, the rest causing little trouble. The biggest factions to
harmonize were the Federalists and those who believed in the primacy
of state’s rights. The European mixture of peoples wasn’t a problem.
After all, they were men who had willfully abandoned the traditions of
their homeland to risk building something better elsewhere. In
addition, if they didn’t agree with what was happening, they could
move their families further onto the frontier.
So, unlike the delegates dodging bullets in
Iraq, our Founding
Fathers could think and negotiate in peace. They did not have to
reconcile three large, noisy factions of people, two of whom had been
waiting decades for fair treatment, who have no frontier to run to
even if they would want. No. The factions, the minorities, the ethnic
groups that surrounded the Fathers had been effectively silenced for
years, and would remain silent for a century and more. Most east
coast Native Americans had died of disease or fallen prey to better
weaponry, their land, except for that in Pennsylvania, stolen. And
the slaves, whose existence on this continent predated the Pilgrims,
had not been able to say much that anyone listened to since being
ripped from
Africa.
There were others whose inalienable rights were
conveniently overlooked. For instance, indentured servants had no
democratic entitlements for the length of their servitude despite that
the United
States was built with their labor as well as the slaves’. And then
there were those self-selected, life-long servants who had no rights
at all: women. At the time no one noticed. The Fathers had no
international community insisting that their democracy shape-up
immediately to 21st century standards.
Finally, it was the people that the Founding Fathers
represented who had risen up to overthrow the rule they no longer
wanted. It was a ground swell that took a hundred years to develop,
and then involved only 1/3 of the colonists. The French helped, but
they did not start it. They did not march in, topple a statue of
George III, and take over the fur business and tobacco concessions
while insisting we fight for our liberty - but not against them.
The people of
Iraq are not in the
position of the American colonists. Rather, they are in the position
of the Native Americans during the French and Indian War. We
colonialists have entered their arena, destroyed the balance of power
between their tribes, demanded loyalty in the name of We’re Right and
You’re Wrong and have set ourselves to plunder their riches while they
kill each other, expire to our better weaponry, expire to disease
brought on by war and dislocation. To be fair, it appears as though
the Iraqi people are also victims of foreign radical “Islamists” who
distort the Quran in order to convince young men that it is martyrdom
if you blow yourself up along with Muslim non-combatants. But we and
they have finished with preliminaries. We now can stand back and
watch the Iraqis destroy each other.
What of the other countries in the
Middle East? Most
of them are not under siege and do not have Iraq’s excuses for not
establishing democracy. What of its neighbor to the East,
Iran,
that hotbed of Shia activity? Actually, until 1953 Iran was a
democracy of the type we would have recognized. It had escaped being
swallowed up by the Ottoman Empire, only to be beset by Britain and
Russia trying to plunder its natural resources. From 1905 to 1911 the
country had its own Constitutional Revolution and instituted
parliamentary democracy. Iran, like most of the Muslim regions in the
world, was enthralled by Western scientific, political and economic
advances and sought to reform their own systems to include the
benefits they saw.
But in 1953 British and American agents removed Prime
Minister Dr. Mohammed Mossedegh from power and installed Shah Pavlevi
as the rightful ruler.
Britain petroleum
countries did not like the cut that
Iran
was demanding regarding its own oil profits. Britain asked then
President Eisenhower for assistance in creating a more cooperative
regime. I’m sure not one American in 100 knows this part of our
history, and I’m equally sure almost every Iranian does. The Iranians
did not restore territorial and political integrity to their country
until 1979, an integrity that is decidedly anti-Western. They had
tried democratic reforms and were not protected from other democracies
in the world. Now they trust more directly in Allah (swat) and tether
their camel in the form of heavy weaponry.
Other Muslim Middle East countries have not had to turn
their oil profits into guns. Kuwait and the lands of the Saudi
Arabian Peninsula are rich, as peaceful internally as we ourselves
are, and yet as undemocratic as monarchies can be, (although Kuwait
does have an elected parliament and, projected for 2007, women’s
suffrage.) What holds their subjects back from demanding democratic
reforms?
First, the natives have a life full of incredible material
prosperity, which must go a long way in fulfilling the pursuit of
happiness. Perhaps they don’t notice that liberty, the second
inalienable right, is missing. And liberty in the form of license can
be bought. Any pleasure not allowed on the
Arabian Peninsula can be pursued elsewhere in the world. What more could
voting and an effective parliament bring its inhabitants?
Secondly, with foreigners performing all the manual labor
and with women safely under the control of husbands, fathers or
brothers, men must already have the illusion of liberty. The option of
ordering about others who are on a tier below oneself historically
provides a safety-valve to the build up of democratic demands. The
rich of the Saudi peninsula can even have the moral satisfaction that
they treat their laborers fairly, whereas in the
United States
illegal immigrants are not only exploited by industries that can’t
attract American labor, but are also criminalized by the government.
Thirdly, the monarchies of the
Middle East rule
with the assurance that any challenge to their domination will be
countered by American guns. The United States has often found it
easiest to make friends with the tyrants of the world. Democracies
can be so messy – I mean, which faction do you align yourself with,
for how long? Monarchies and oligarchies provide stability.
Each Muslim country in the
Middle East and
from the Magrib to Malaysia has its own particular story, its own
relationship to democracy and its own relationship to the United
States and the West. Some are functioning parliamentary democracies,
some are military dictatorships. Their form of government has little
to do with Islam and a lot to do with their histories of being
colonized, fought over, divided in ungainly ways by more powerful
countries. The countries that have managed to defend their integrity
and resist exploitation, should they have anything to exploit, have
often done so by defining themselves in opposition to the West. There
is no knowing how they would develop if the pressure was off.
Were a Washington or Jefferson to arise in the Muslim
lands, and there may already be some whose names we just don’t know,
before he could concentrate internally to lead his nation in
democratic reforms, he would have to face the Western giants and
decide just how he was going to negotiate with them. Or he would have
to wait until they exhaust themselves through wars and empire
building, as
France, Britain and
Spain exhausted themselves in the 18th century.
