Can the Arab world, Western democracy save? "
Our democracy sails now tricky waters. Clouds troops together and the water to the drains. Nearing the democratic an iceberg? Is the explosion of mass culture and popular entertainment on the European continent the equivalent of the aristocratic dancers on the Titanic? closer to collapse, the more intense the desire for entertainment. There is a very unexpected sun shines on the horizon.
Two Cheers for Democracy
with statements about the end of democracy we move on thin ice. In itself his concerns regarding the survival of democracy an oddity. Winston Churchill since we already know that the founders of democratic states in the mid 20 th centuries at least lovers were very cool system. It was seen as the lesser evil. And what was more, democratic principles and reforms which the head emerged within their own borders were very easily violated in the colonies in Indochina and Africa. It was the British writer Forster that best describes the mood surrounding the birth of democracy reflected in the following phrase: Two cheers for democracy.
Normative power
Nevertheless it is undeniable that we have come to love our democracy. Maybe not through the typical patriotism that we know from the pride that arose around the former imperial empires of the British jingoïsme as undeniable highlight, but still. During the nineties of the last century, we saw more and more politicians and intellectuals from both right-and left-wing located on the chest knocking under the banner of democracy. Radical critical thinkers like Noam Chomsky are rightly always been very critical. Very soon he realized that democracy was registered by some within the framework of the old hegemonic discourse. Especially the United States used the promise of bringing democracy to the world increasingly want to impose their own. First through a neoliberal economic policy. Just think of the structural adjustment plans would the World Bank and the IMF or the huge neo-liberalization of world trade: taking away money from public institutions and subsequent component huge increase in capital flows. Then came the neoconservatives. Under the mantra of the war on terror their long-cherished program of democratization in the Middle East set in motion.
short, democracy is tainted because it was hijacked by the new liberal imperialism that so aptly described by Professor David Harvey in his book The New Imperialism.
The attempt to impose a neoliberal American world hegemony tells only part of the history of the last 20 years. Equally important is the growth of the European Union. The European Union in the eyes of the German sociologist Ulrick Beck the first cosmopolitan political entity. It reflects the vision of Jürgen Habermas who sees the EU for years as a beacon of light in the new global post-national political constellation.
According to Habermas and Beck embodies the EU norms and values that can serve as a moral example for the rest of the world. And this precisely because the history of Europe has been so horrible. Because the EU is probably the first political entity that originated as a collaboration between all losers. And not just losers. Oppressed peop boxers who had a bump removed from the final knockout. Former superpowers between 1939 and 1944 already with all their property had taken place in the limbo of hell.
The malaise of the EU
But let's be honest. Proclaiming the EU as a cosmopolitan entity with normative power is laughable in the year 2011. Not only were the Europeans during the nineties of the last century, totally incapable of a sustained cycle of genocides in the Balkans a halt, the whole process of European integration since the Treaty of Nice in 2000 on the sidelines ended . The European parliament is packed with Eurosceptics, the reform of European institutions was such a cut and paste job that only inveterate Europhiles there anything of understanding, and developments within the member states within the EU have also been unedifying to mention.
It's like Italy for a while at last gasp. This paradise of macho corrupt Silvio Berlusconi still associate with democracy is a violation of good taste. And of course it is not alone. The disastrous economic policies of Greece, Ireland and Portugal now ensures that the population there is literally emaciated. Tony Blair seems to be going down in history as a clumsy liar, and Chirac and Schroeder there are even little cheer to write chronicles.
Unfortunately we can about the malaise in the EU almost the entire Internet fill. I think of the continuing problem of the Roma gypsies, suppression of free press in Hungary, or the advancing racism under the wings of an American-Jewish-sponsored network of politicians that the culture wars to the incorporation of the U.S. to EU. In short, democracy and EU store today as a rod on a pig.
And yet there is hope.
Arab spring
Nevertheless it may be that Western democracy is not the end of its tether, and that, in contrast, at the beginning of a new and unprecedented boom period. The reason is a surprise from the most obvious kind. Something that even the most optimistic early this year was wholly ignored. Even a science fiction movie about this new development would then have been too radical unbelievable. And yet it is happening. Before our eyes.
The popular uprisings that to happen in the Arab are indeed a groundbreaking development. Or revolutions in the traditional western conceptual frameworks isnog unclear. That it is democracy in its purest sense is clear. Two features are responsible.
1. What we see is a real uprising of the people. There are no clear leaders. No parties or religious groups stands a send direction. In fact, individuals and groups who are still trying up as the leaders did not succeed. Even Mohammed el Baradei not. The image of these revolutions are Libyan citizens who monitor police stations so that the police soon will be able to pick up her work and Egyptians contend that after days of massive Tahrir Square cleanup.
2. There is hardly hate to see. Admittedly, the former dictators must go. They are hated. But revolutions have in common is a total absence of big stories. Arabs want a new leadership and a new system along with freedom. Point on the line. We barely hear or read about anti-Americanism, let alone calls for pan Arabism echo. No, this is a revolution, pure and simple: people want the regime gone, they want freedom, then follow the pragmatic work of recovery.
Naturally the revolutions in the Arab world is not a fait accompli. How could it be after so many years dictatorship. But it is clear that the success of the Arab spring is not about the political future of the Middle East alone. Nothing more or nothing less than the future of democracy is at stake. Based on the above two characteristics, these are perhaps the most democratic revolutions in world history. Whether they will succeed is a question that cuts into the essence of democracy itself.
In fact it also comes down to this: Can the growing Arab lethargic state of the Western democracy model revive? If the answer is no, then the 21 st century is indeed the century of the colliding political entities, the new mercantilism and the rise of authoritarianism such as the EU technocracy, a Confucian China and a Russian gasdictatuur.
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