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Petra Marquardt-Bigman is a German/Israel citizen with a Ph.D. in contemporary history with a focus on European public opinion relating to the Middle East, Islamic Terrorism, the US and Israel.
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By Petra Marquardt-Bigman
October 29, 2006
There is no shortage of Middle East experts and political commentators who support the notion that promoting democracy in the Middle East must be an integral part of any attempt to bring peace to the region. Indeed, the argument that democracies do not easily go to war is supported by solid empirical evidence, and the 'Arab street' has long castigated the US for securing its interests in the Middle East by backing authoritarian regimes -- so what better way to win hearts and minds for a comprehensive peace settlement that is needed more urgently than ever?
Unfortunately, anybody who would try to build a solid case for making democracy a centerpiece of a political strategy that seeks to achieve peace in the Middle East some time soon would come up pretty much empty-handed. Opinion poll data and developments in the Middle East in the past few years leave little doubt that, at least for the time being, peace and democracy are incompatible goals for the region.
The dilemma was reflected in the speech of President Bush at the opening of the 61st session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 19. Not for the first time, the President tried to interpret the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections early this year as a vote against the corruption of the PLO, insisting that Hamas scored a victory because it promised Palestinians a better life. The President?s speech writers must still have been busy putting the final touches on the speech, when newly released results of an opinion poll among residents of the West Bank and Gaza indicated that Palestinians might differ with the President?s reading of their motives. According to the poll, fully two thirds of Palestinians think that Hamas should not recognize Israel, even though support for Hamas actually declined by almost 10 percent, from 47 percent in March, when the group took office, to 38 percent currently. Moreover, the results of another poll conducted in July showed that almost 80 percent of Palestinians approved of the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, even though close to 50 percent did not believe that this action would eventually result in gains for the Palestinian side. A clear majority of 60 percent also favored the continued firing of rockets into Israel from Palestinian territories.
Peace and democracy seem similarly incompatible in Egypt, where the country?s best-known democracy movement has recently launched a campaign to collect 1 million signatures for a petition calling for the annulment of the peace treaty with Israel. Some 100,000 signatures have been collected so far.
Both the new Palestinian poll results and the Egyptian initiative have been interpreted as a reaction to the recent war in Lebanon. But this is hardly more than wishful thinking. A Pew Global Attitudes Survey of June 3, 2003, documents that similarly uncompromising attitudes towards a peaceful solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict were prevalent back then. When asked about their views on the conflict, most Muslim populations surveyed doubted by wide margins that it was possible to find a solution that would allow the state of Israel to exist and, at the same time, secure the rights and needs of the Palestinians. Among residents of the Palestinian Authority, eight-in-ten respondents expressed this opinion.
Moreover, the 2003 Pew survey also revealed that Osama bin Laden might do rather well if he were to run as a candidate for an office like the General Secretary of the Arab League: solid majorities in the Palestinian Authority, Indonesia and Jordan -- and nearly half of the respondents in Morocco and Pakistan -- said they would have confidence in Osama bin Laden to 'do the right thing regarding world affairs'; among Palestinians, fully 71 percent of respondents expressed confidence in bin Laden. Another Pew survey, released a few months ago, showed that bin Laden?s support had declined in most countries, except for Jordan and Pakistan, where confidence in bin Laden?s abilities was up five points (to 61%) among Jordanians, and six points (to 52%) among Pakistanis.
At the same time, there is no denying that the Muslim world wants democratic freedoms. Notwithstanding current anti-Western sentiments, the Pew Center survey found that in most Muslim countries large majorities believed that Western-style democracy would work in their countries, and many expressed a favorable view of freedom of expression, freedom of the press, multi-party systems and equal treatment under the law.
However, the apparent enthusiasm for Western-style democracy would seem to be qualified by the survey results that show a set of conflicting preferences when it comes to the role of Islam in politics: most Muslims want a prominent role for Islam and religious leaders in the political life of their countries, but at the same time, they also favor a separation between mosque and state. No less paradoxically, most respondents regard religious freedom as desirable, but, at the same time, most also believe that there can be only one true interpretation of Islam; accordingly, diverse interpretations were rejected by majorities in 10 out of 12 Muslim countries, and in several countries the question was not even permitted or was deemed too sensitive to ask.
King Abdullah of Jordan might have been right when he once observed solomonically that democracy means different things to different people. Anyone who wants to put it less solomonically might want to conclude that the subtle difference between democracy and theocracy is not appreciated everywhere. In any case, there can be no doubt about the results if elections were held tomorrow, or any time soon, in the Middle East: Islamic movements would win landslide victories everywhere, and the experience with Hamas clearly refutes the notion that, once these groups are in power, they will mellow into pragmatic political actors that are prepared to bring peace to the Middle East.
In his speech before the UN General Assembly, President Bush straightforwardly addressed the argument 'that the democratic changes we?re seeing in the Middle East are destabilizing the region' and pointed out that the Middle East?s stability had just been a 'mirage'. But he did not explain what democratic elections mean when voters go to the ballot box in an atmosphere that he described very accurately as dominated by 'propaganda and conspiracy theories that blame others for your country?s shortcomings. And everywhere you turn, you hear extremists who tell you that you can escape your misery and regain your dignity through violence and terror and martyrdom.'
The President might be very right when he believes that the lack of democracy has turned the Middle East into a breeding ground for extremism, but he would seem to be very wrong if he believes that holding elections will change that any time soon. While there can be no doubt that many people in the Middle East are eager to have the basic democratic right to vote, there can also be no doubt that far fewer are eager to accept the notion that democracy entails pluralism, power-sharing and peaceful coexistence.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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