The nonsensical rhetoric of “democracy”

The nonsensical and dangerous idea of imposing some unqualified “democracy” on Iraq just keeps rolling on. Here is an e-mail I sent to Clifford May, president of a the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and a regular columnist at TownHall.com:

Dear Mr. May:

In your article, “Nation-building,” you speak of nation-building as bringing “freedom and democracy” to Iraq, helping “nurture the growth of an unruly democracy.” But, before you have “freedom and democracy,” don’t you have to have GOVERNMENT, with AUTHORITY over the society, and the ability to ACT and DEFEND itself from its enemies, of whom in the case of Iraq there will be many? Yet none of those pre-requisites of a stable Iraqi nation-state are even mentioned in your article. This makes you sound dangerously naïve and utopian.

Thus, for example, you speak of teaching ordinary Iraqis “how to create an independent judiciary, a free press, contract law, minority rights, a multi-party system and the rest of the building blocks of a democratic society.” You talk about equipping them “to handle such modern, Western ideas as universal suffrage, women’s rights and separation of religion and state.” But nowhere do you talk about establishing in Iraq the primary political facts of an effective national defense, of national unity and sovereignty, of government authority and of voluntary obedience to that authority, without which there can obviously be no “democracy” or any other political system.

Just as you imagine that American-style democracy can be planted successfuly in Iraq without the foundation of effective state power and sovereignty, you indulge in contemporary egalitarian jargon that is completely inappropriate in a Muslim setting. Thus you write: “Our fighting men and women are the world’s best at doing what they have been trained to do—killing bad guys.”

First, we don’t HAVE fighting women. Women are not supposed to be in combat capabilities in our armed forces. Second, the very notion of “fighting women” is perverted. Do you really want to live in a society that has “fighting women”? And even if you do want that for our country, is this the image of democracy that you want to present to the Iraqis? Do you think they will welcome the help of a culture that talks the way you do, a culture in which it’s considered normal and desirable to have “fighting women”? If I were an Iraqi and heard you what you were saying, I wouldn’t want you having anything to do with the running of my country.

The tone-deafness becomes almost comical. Thus you write that the business of “our fighting men and women” is “killing bad guys.” First, since you’re such a believer in sexual equality, even to the point of making up U.S. female combattants that don’t exist in the real world, why do you deny that our enemies may have “bad gals” as well as “bad guys”? But more to the point, do you really think it’s a good idea to speak to Muslims about OUR women killing THEIR men?

In conclusion, I am troubled by your use of these thoughtless democratist slogans, by your failure to show any understanding of the basics of government that must precede any “democracy,” and by the fact that your mindset is typical of the supporters of an aggressive policy in the Mideast.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Auster

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 11, 2003 05:17 PM | Send