27 February 2011
Fitness for Democracy
Questioning whether Arabs, or anyone else, are politically mature enough to handle democracy, as Nicolas D. Kristof does in his Opinion article in the February 27, 2011, New York Times, is presumptuous. He makes the same mistake as Francis Fukuyama in his book, The End of History—just because Western nations seem to have settled on liberal democracy as their favored form of government does not make it the ultimate achievement in fairly ordering human affairs.
Although the consent of the governed is necessary for rulers to govern legitimately, a majority of subjects may willingly acquiesce to other forms of government than a democratic republic. That they do does not make them less mature; it may derive from their general valuation of other considerations as more important than individual free will, such as communal cohesion or religious piety.
Mr. Kristof, like many in the media, too quickly generalizes from the beliefs of a few committed activists in a place like Tahrir Square to characterize most Egyptian citizens, for example, as liberal democrats. We shall see what form of government ultimately results from the overthrow of the Mubarak regime. Even if it is accepted by the majority of Egyptians, it does not have to be a liberal democracy to be a more legitimate political order than what preceded it.
Questioning whether Arabs, or anyone else, are politically mature enough to handle democracy, as Nicolas D. Kristof does in his Opinion article in the February 27, 2011, New York Times, is presumptuous. He makes the same mistake as Francis Fukuyama in his book, The End of History—just because Western nations seem to have settled on liberal democracy as their favored form of government does not make it the ultimate achievement in fairly ordering human affairs.
Although the consent of the governed is necessary for rulers to govern legitimately, a majority of subjects may willingly acquiesce to other forms of government than a democratic republic. That they do does not make them less mature; it may derive from their general valuation of other considerations as more important than individual free will, such as communal cohesion or religious piety.
Mr. Kristof, like many in the media, too quickly generalizes from the beliefs of a few committed activists in a place like Tahrir Square to characterize most Egyptian citizens, for example, as liberal democrats. We shall see what form of government ultimately results from the overthrow of the Mubarak regime. Even if it is accepted by the majority of Egyptians, it does not have to be a liberal democracy to be a more legitimate political order than what preceded it.
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