Every House Needs a Foundation
Jeb has a good post today at Foreign Policy Watch on the democratic gains the Islamists have presumably made around the world. Here’s the crux:
When put in positions of power, most Islamist parties have pursued an agenda of expanding political freedoms, increasing judicial power, and establishing stronger human rights laws. Put simply, they’ve worked to strengthen democracy, not undermine it. The two most clear examples of this are in Egypt and Turkey. In Egypt, when the Brotherhood won around 20% of the seats in parliament in 2005, they began a major push that, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, centered around achieving “genuine political reform in Egypt.” Indeed, rather than trying to establish themselves permanently in positions of power, or attempting to create a hard-line authoritarian state, Brotherhood parliamentarians have in the past few years worked to build up democratic institutions and establish human rights norms in Egypt. In Turkey, when the AKP party won big in 2002, they didn’t overthrow democracy either. On the contrary, they have generally worked to strengthen democratic institutions, and have actually made major inroads on expanding civil rights for women and Kurds.
To some extent, I agree here with Jeb. I think it’s true that you’ll see Islamists move to use democratic institutions in order to gain power; however I must take issue with his three examples of ideal, Islamic democracy.
Jordan is in fact a constitutional monarchy, wherein the king can veto laws and dissolve the courts as he sees fit. The legislature can overturn his veto with a 2/3 vote, however the executive maintains stewardship over the constitutional foundation of the country. Same goes for Egypt, where Mubarak has “governed” for over twenty-five years. The elections of 2005 were marred by controversy, and human rights groups like Amnesty International and HRW have repeatedly condemned Mubarak’s regime for stifling unrest and demonstration, which often stems from the Islamists.
Michael is far more qualified than I to speak on Turkey, but to my knowledge, Turkey has a longstanding legal foundation based on a mostly secular style of law and government. This is why the recent elections have caused some unease throughout the country, fearing a reversion to a pre-Ataturk society.
In all three cases, you have a state apparatus protecting the foundation of a predominantly secular government, vis-a-vis coercion or law. In other words, the Islamists are allowed to participate, while kept at an arm’s length. Perhaps with good reason–a better example of truly Islamic “democracy” is probably the Gaza Strip, where spoon fed elections created an anarchic scenario in which the majority party’s armed wing imposed total control over its own government.
Peter Viereck once said, while writing on the conservatism of Count Joseph de Maistre, that constitutional institutions were ”rooted in hearts, not handwriting.” The three examples provided by Jeb have in fact relied on the state in some capacity to keep the Islamists at bay, lest they be allowed to blur the lines between Qur’an and state.
(Cross posted at my blog)
In the case of Egypt, I don’t think its constitutional institutions are as much “rooted in the heart” as they are rooted in Mubarak. But the point is valid.