noteworthy wrote:

if there is a big opening up in the Egyptian political system and it looks like the banned Muslim Brotherhood could capitalise on such moves to come to power -- the same concerns Hamas in the Gaza Strip -- would the US be happy with the outcome, would it want, for instance, Hamas to be the dominant political force?:

this is an important point,I think, democracy in the Middle East may not conform with the United States best short term political interests however if such forces come to power democratically they will have to learn to accomdate ( a process Iran is currently going through although of course it is only partially democratic but certainly more so than Kuwait or Saudi Arabia) they must learn to live in the wider global civil community.

"America has never created democracy abroad. People who live in a society that want it have created democracy. The US can't simply decide it wants to democratise this part of the world, it has to build on internal discourse that is pushing in that direction.

"There is," Fukuyama insists, "no single global strategy that works in terms of democratic openness. Sometimes it happens from the bottom up and sometimes it happens from the up down, and to be successful it usually has to work in both ways. There has to be elite that wants change, though that desire can be supported and driven by popular participation. For example in Chile, the Philippines and Korea it required pressure on leaders on top to open up their systems and those pressures couldn't have come only from civil society. In Ukraine and Georgia on the other hand there was obviously a big push from below -- pressure in both directions is necessary. There is not one single strategy that produces democratic transition."

thats great
we need to encourage civic society
unlike Fukuyama I believe we need an International Criminal Court which by its very existance instills the values of human rights and the notion of the rule of law

Fukuyama is, after all, on record -- in an interview with this paper last year -- as arguing that the Muslim world is long overdue the kind of reformation spearheaded by Martin Luther in Europe. Is it possible a more liberal Middle East could arise from such a process, and where would that leave civil society?

i understand the argument in that medieval Catholic power models were fundamentally dictatorial and Protestantism arguably led to the English Civil War, John Locke and thence liberal political theory and over time liberal democracy but a lot of blood was spilled note the 30 years war in Germany as example 1.

noteworthy said

He holds out hope that Arab governments can improve without becoming fully democratic

surely the point is that a civic society can grow and mature
the US wasn't the democracy we know today 200 years ago (i believe like Britain you had the property qualification to vote, women couldn't vote and there was slavery)
clearly Singapore isn't ideal but while yes it could fall back into corruption and dictatorship it is our place to encourage human rights, the rule of law and freedom of expression. Democracy in certain countries is more like a plant which requires careful nurturing. Encourage education, economic stability. It is not our job to impose democracy but rather "to prime the pump", to quote Roosevelt. Create the necessary conditions and day will follow night.

In order to move past this we must get people to observe that ideaologies don't work. In order to do that, there must be a word for the ideaological fallacy.

an aside to decius
either formally or informally we all work within idealogies but sometimes it is our capacity to understand and "walk around in" another persons idealogy which gives us greater understanding
the cry I do not have an idealogy (i was taught by my left wing teachers) is the cry of a person so immersed in what Gramsci called hegemony that their idealogy is held entirely unconsciously. I believe in my idealogy as truths which i feel to be at some level self evident but that all assumptions need to be questioned and tested (itself a belief taken from western empiricism but just because I know the history of the meme doesn't mean it has a less firm grip on my intellect).

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