Democracy in Muslim world

Arab News Editorial:Democracy in Muslim world 10 April 2009

Islamophobes in the West (and they are invariably in the West) who boldly state that Islam and democracy are incompatible cannot continue with this patronizing lie. They should know the political picture today across the Muslim world is of democracy growing and strengthening. Yesterday, Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, went to the polls. Apart from an odd incident, the elections were peaceful and the turnout was impressive. This is only the third time that Indonesians have elected a Parliament and it is only ten years since real democracy was introduced in the country. Yet it is clear that it has put down roots. Last year saw elections in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the second and third largest Muslims nations. In both, the pundits' warnings about the dangers of the door being opened to extremists were confounded. Traditional political parties won. As for Turkey, the fourth largest which had a general election the previous year, no one can have any doubts about the Turks' attachment to and respect for democracy. That is not to say there are not issues. Democracy is no guarantee of political stability in Pakistan or other places (and not all of them Muslim). But the problem is invariably with the parties and their leaders. It is certainly not the people's readiness for democracy. Invariably, there are those who try to twist the system to their advantage. In Algeria, which also went to the polls yesterday in presidential elections, the opposition, both secular left wing and the Islamists, boycotted the ballot. They want a low turnout so as to undermine its legitimacy and, with it, the mandate of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika who is certain to win. This is scant respect for democracy. The events of 1991, when the army suppressed the elections after they were won by the Islamic Salvation Front and which then triggered a civil war in which over 150,000 people died, may linger in the opposition's memory but this is not 1991. Algeria has changed and there is no reason to believe that, had an opposition candidate won, there would not have been a smooth transfer of power. Significantly, observers from the African Union say that the campaigning was free and fair. So why the boycott? Is it that the opposition knew that enough people were not going to vote for them? They certainly would have stood if they thought they would win. As to low turnout, it does not undermine anything. In the UK's general election in 2001, the turnout was 59 percent, about the same as in the last Algerian presidential election, which the opposition boycotted too. What political parties get up to in places such as Algeria or Pakistan does not mean that Muslims understand or respect democracy any less than Americans or Germans or Britons. Parliamentary democracy may be a Western invention but the idea of electing leaders is as old as mankind itself. In any event, universal suffrage does not have a long history in the West. In France, women did not have the right to vote until 1944 and in Switzerland, not until 1971. What reason, then, for this patronizing attitude toward Muslims and democracy? None. Touched by crassness Buffoonery has been a recurring feature of Silvio Berlusconi's political office, said The Times of London in an editorial yesterday: Berlusconi is in his third separate term as Italian prime minister. When he lost office for the second time, in 2006, his successor, Romano Prodi, promised Italians a "governo serio" — a serious government. The phrase was well judged. Critics of Berlusconi have generally focused on his controversial business dealings and his exploitation of his position as a media tycoon. Another objection to him is his crassness. His advice to those made homeless this week by the country's most destructive earthquake for 30 years was to treat it as if it were a weekend of camping. To call this advice insensitive would risk according it the status of a blunt truth. It is rather an instance of the buffoonery that is a recurring feature of Berlusconi's political office. Berlusconi's foghorn-voiced greeting to President Obama at the G-20 summit last week irked even so accomplished a public figure as the queen — as Italian newspapers were quick to note. It was, even so, a less excruciating instance of attempted bonhomie than his pointed reference to the then President-elect Obama, last November, as "tanned". Berlusconi's defense of such remarks is to complain that his critics lack a sense of humor. But it is difficult to imagine that in any age his bons mots would have been classed as witticisms. He has suggested that a reason for overseas investors to put money in Italy is an abundance of beautiful secretaries. He once claimed that he had successfully wooed the president of Finland to secure her agreement to a particular decision. Such remarks do more than demean half the population. They embarrass Berlusconi's compatriots, and diminish his office.