| Spanky |
03-31-2005 04:57 PM |
promoting democracy in the Middle East
Quote:
Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Serious question -- not intended to be a vote on one side or the other of this debate:
Do you think that Palestine would have had elections but for Arafat's death? And if he had died five years ago, would there have been an election to replace him? If not, what?
I will note that, while I certainly supported the war in Afghanistan it's very hard to say that the county is functioning very well as a democracy -- our attention has been drawn elsewhere, among other things -- and a lot harder to say that it's part of the "Arab spring." (Cue Hank to point out "different towels.")
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I think Democracy is a highly contagious and almost incurable disease. I think it is contagious, because people are bascially egotistical and selfish. Everyone thinks they should have a say in how the government should run (no matter how little they really understand government). I don't think people necessarily think other people should have a say on how the government is run. Hence, who every runs the government and anyone who has a say usually don't want to add to the number of decision makers. However, what happens is that a large swath of the population figures out that the only way they are going to have a say in how the government is run is if there is a democracy. So they push for Democracy. When a citizen of a country sees that a citizen half way around the globe gets to vote it does not mean much because they cannot relate to that person. But when there cousin, or friend in the neighboring country gets to vote, they think "hey why not me". The other problem is once a people get the right to vote they are going to want to keep it. They get spoiled. In the middle east many Arabs in neighboring countrys of Iraq are saying, hey if they get to vote why not me?
1) While Yassir Arafat was alive a palestininian democracy was relly a joke. Now that he is dead Democracy can happen. But I don't think Israel would allow such elections without pressure from the US. So the Palestinian thing adds to the pressure - but since they are really occupied by Israel, it doesn't mean much. But Iraqi elections really puts on the pressure. It will be even worse once US forces leave.
2) Afghanistan did not have that much influence, and yes their democracy is shakey, but I think it just supplements the pressure created by Iraq. I think Afghanistan and Iraq together are putting a lot of pressure on the Iranians. Not only did the Iranians used to have a democracy, but now they see that those dirty backward Arabs have a democracy and so do those peasant uneducated and uncultured Afghans. |
