[throwaway75]

On the one hand, the west seems to think that people have a fundamental right to protest and affect change in government, because, yeah, democracy, will of the majority and all that.

On the other hand, if you let democracy get a foothold in many of the muslim-majority states, the winner of a democratic process will very likely be what the west perceives as a religious fundamentalist group whose values are antithetical to almost every single value that the west holds dear (including democracy itself). It will mean the rise of groups such as the muslim brotherhood that have pan-islamism and the establishment of sharia as their stated goals.

So you can either support the right of the people to overthrow an authoritarian regime and establish a democratic process that will lead to a fundamentalist islamic state, or you can support a regime that is authoritarian but will allow the practice of some western liberal values.

Which is it, and why?

[atoav]

I don't think the two choices described are the only choices available. The point of a democracy is that — if the people are unhappy with those ruling them — they can change those in power without a revolution, civil wars or similar violence. Such a change is hardly imaginable with radical islamist powers.

This principle of being able to get rid of those you voted in is more important in a democracy than the actual representation of the "will of the people", because the "will of the people" can change and so the people should not be allowed to make a democratic choice that robs them, the oppositions and the coming generations of their future democratic rights. This is what we in Germany call "wehrhafte Demokratie" ("militant democracy").

If your democracy can be lost by voting in facists or religious nuts it is not a sufficiently enough militant democracy, seperations of powers didn't work as intended etc. Democracies should be designed for this case in mind, not for the normal "we have leaders who are a tad bit corrupt but things are otherwise ok"-case.

So every nation should be able to vote in whoever they please, but those voted in should not have the power to abolish democracy, human rights, etc. because it, is not their right fundamentally.

This is why one can be for democracy in a state and at the same time be against certain antidemocratic powers that will ignore, circumvent, undermine democratic guarantees like the ones mentioned. But the whole discourse is quite old already and had been well discussed by Karl Popper: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Should we tolerate the intolerant in a tolerant society? No. Not even if they are the majority.

[colpabar]

But who will be the tolerance police? If a majority votes for something that is intolerant, does that give an outside faction the right to start bombing them until they vote the right way?

[mattrighetti]

Who decides who is intolerant?

[zozbot234]

Democracy is meaningless without liberal values. So no, there is no "fundamental right" to a tyranny of the majority that oppresses minority groups and opinions. This was very well understood in the West; it's why many Western countries have Bills of Rights that cannot be overruled by the ordinary democratic process, including the United States.

[quetzthecoatl]

are you even aware of your own history? Genocide, slavery, segregation, oppression of religious and sexual minorities etc ? You did wars to spread christianity. Even now gays don't have equal rights. Whatever little rights they earned was just recently. Bill of rights was in the 1700s. Genocide, slavery and all that rest happened while your bill of rights was in full force.

How do people write these shit with a straight face knowing western history? especially United State's history.

As for the topic in hand, the Bahraini govt is accused of doing to select people what US govt does to everyone, and you are getting self righteous? Lmao this is hilarious.

[dragonwriter]

> So you can either support the right of the people to overthrow an authoritarian regime and establish a democratic process that will lead to a fundamentalist islamic state, or you can support a regime that is authoritarian but will allow the practice of some western liberal values.

> Which is it, and why?

It has to be the former, because the latter is unsustainable and builds further local opposition to liberal values equating them with shams covering Western imperialism in the service of commercial interests of foreign elites (because in that case that's exactly what they are, once you limit “liberal values” to those that can be enjoyed without giving substantive power to local opposition to the Western-imposed regime.)

Of course, the thing is, the actual motivation, not just the incidental result, is commercial imperialism in the Middle East—“liberal values” are an excuse, access to and influence over global markets for resources (particularly oil) are the actual critical concern.

[Ar-Curunir]

Lol what a long-winded comment just to demonstrate your racism.

Tell me, how long did you live in any Muslim-majority country, let alone the Middle-East? Because I’ve lived in, and regularly visit, one for the past 21 years.

They have as much capacity for democracy and “liberal Western values” (whatever that means) as the West.

I could flip your question around and ask why the US deserves democracy, since it inevitably elects a bunch of war-mongers that have wrought untold destruction across the world.

[snarf21]

It is such a travesty what we've done in the middle east. We kept toppling people we thought we're bad and are surprised that the puppet doesn't have support. Maybe the stability that was there was hard one. Maybe everyone in Iraq hating Suddam equally was a very stabilization lodestone instead of them all fighting each other. What we did is like dropping a bomb into a river, it is going to take decades for a new stabilization to occur.

[itsoktocry]

>Maybe the stability that was there was hard one.

Stability is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition.

Propping up dictators because they are "stable" is something the West has done - to little success - for a long time.

[afroboy]

This is same thing that happened in Algeria back in the nineties, in Algeria if you let a clear and honest democratic process in the country make assure that an Islamic group will win by majority and that why Europe union (France) will not ever make it happen and Algeria now is in really very bad situation with corruption running by an authoritarian regime so that they can milk them with stupid economic trades.

And to put it in the bigger picture why USA will never let a democratic process in Muslims majority country happen is simply the existence of Israel, you know exactly what the first thing Muslims will do if they united.

[sharikous]

Nah keep Israel out of this. First, it would benefit from secular democracies in the region. Second it has seen far worse things than "Muslims united" and it has won.

The only factors are that big global/regional players (USA, Iran, Turkey, SA) like their vassal state to be easily controlled. And that most cultures there do not have a history of democracy, or for that matter of national states.

[ipaddr]

Isn't Iraq democratic now?

[buzzwords]

It always fascinates me to read comments like this in here. Because it shows quite clearly that we all buy into narratives pushed by states. This post says that only winner of democracy in middle east is a fundamentalist religious governments. This is totally untrue. For example Iran, which was way more religious in 1950s managed to establish a secular democracy. It was the foreign intervention that derailed it. The same people who derailed the very democracy then pushed the idea that middle east is not suitable for democracy.

[cutemonster]

In addition to that, @throwaway75 (GP) sounds unaware about eg the US supporting religious dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Oman and elsewhere, providing the dictators with weapons.

I'd rather look at this as it's the West that perpetuates religious dictatorships, by supporting the dictators in exchange for eg oil.

And that people in general in the middle east want democracy any especially the women want to get to dress however they want (can be both with or without the hijab). But @throwaway75's home country likely gives weapons to the dictators oppressing the women and people.

Human rights (or rather, lack thereof) in Saudi Arabia, a US weapons and military training receiver: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia

That's the West upholding sharia laws

[yardie]

If we've learned anything from Afghanistan and Iraq, the will of the people will eventually win out. So western liberal values should always support democracy because they still haven't been able to show a unicorn self-sustaining, liberal authoritarian.

[blackhaz]

Could you provide an example where a democractic process has legitimately elected a religious fundamentalist group? That is how I understand "the winner" in your statement, as if the group was elected by the people.

[mikevm]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Egyptian_presidential_ele...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...

[turbinerneiter]

If the people want Sharia, than they should be free to chose it.

Meanwhile, the west can go back home and instead of bombing democracy into these countries, we compete with their model (like we did with communism), we outperform their model and they will want our model.

We didn't win against communism with bombs, we won against communism with widespread increase of wealth. We had more wealth, more rights, more freedom, a better life.

Our own democracy and our own values have severely suffered after the downfall of communism, we are not on top of our game anymore. If young people from poor countries look at our countries and feel _hate_ instead of _envy_, then we are doing something wrong.

What we did is saying "here, look at our awesome democracy, which bombs your weddings, no matter if a Black progressive or and Orange lunatic is in power, doesn't even make a difference".

Almost all young people in Northern Africa are trying to run to Europe. They want what we have. Let's proof to them that democracy and liberal values are the way to get what we have.

[IncRnd]

If the people of your country vote that you are a second class citizen, and you are stripped of the rights that everyone else enjoys, should they have been free to choose that?

[throwaway75]

But if that's the chosen path, then you'd have to be ok with the imposition of majoritarian laws on the minorities of the country - at least until the majority wakes up and tunes into the west's liberal values, or until the minority ceases to exist - whichever occurs first.

[lucian1900]

They run to Europe because we bombed Libya and continue the economic warfare and exploitation against the entire continent.

The Cold War was also won with coups and invasions and death squads and infiltration. What you see now is entirely in character with western imperialism, merely turning inwards as it collapses.

[howinteresting]

The problem is that people aren't a monolith and fundamentalist sharia, like all religious nationalism, tramples all over minority rights. This is what makes me uncomfortable with the "if people want sharia" argument.

[cutemonster]

> If the people want Sharia, than they should be free to chose it.

That sounds disturbing to me.

As if you had said, if the majority of the voters in the US want to enslave all black people, they should be free to do so.

Sharia laws enslave women.

[saagarjha]

> We didn't win against communism with bombs, we won against communism with widespread increase of wealth. We had more wealth, more rights, more freedom, a better life.

Didn't this backfire with China? I mean, yes, it's moving away from communism, but it doesn't look like human rights are necessarily getting better.

[dundarious]

The US has been propping up (mostly secular, but not exclusively) authoritarian regimes, and instigating coups, since at least the 1950s -- either to guarantee favorable terms for oil or shipping, or to destroy local communist/socialist/not-capitalist-enough movements.

One of Chomsky's oft-repeated facts is that Eisenhower commissioned a report while president, to figure out why is the US hated so much on "the Arab street" (but presumably including Iran, etc.)? The report concluded that the US is perceived to have installed and propped up authoritarians, and generally to have meddled in internal affairs and elections, and what's more that it's all pretty much true. I never found the report he's referencing, but you can easily find info about meddling, even on CIA's own website (pre-revamp), such as an internal CIA historian's favorable review of a history of their commission of the Iran coup.

I think this has to be taken into account when trying to explain the current dynamics.

[einpoklum]

> On the other hand, if you let democracy

That's your problem right there. Many of these countries are either under direct occupation of the US or its allies, or having a puppet government which answers to them and not to the population in any significant sense (e.g. Jordan, Bahrain when it's not occupied by KSA). So when you write "you let", the subject is the foreign occupier.

The most important thing which should happen is for "you" not to be able to "let" or "not let" people manage their lives one way or the other.

> get a foothold in many of the muslim-majority states, the winner of a democratic process will very likely be what the west perceives as a religious fundamentalist group

On the contrary. This happens when, in that country, you have fundamentalist forces which have been trained, equipped and sometimes even ferried in by the US (e.g. via the CIA) or its allies. Examples: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya. There is also the effects of decades of trying to suppress left-wing forces in various places in the world, which leaves a vacuum which fundametalist Islamist forces may fill, as in the case of Iran.

When that's not the case, you get something like Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen in the 1960s, Egypt in the 1950s, Iraq in the 1950s, Palestine in the 1930s etc.

Bottom line: When the US (and other Imperialist powers) don't intervene and manipulate things, the results are not what you're worried about.

> every single value that the west holds dear (including democracy itself).

Assuming "The West" means the EU states and the US, then I don't see how they hold democracy dear. They routinely prefer their national ruling classes' interests over democracy. We have even seen a recent example of this within Europe itself, where nobody opposed the Spanish Monarchy's suppression of Catalonian democracy.

[ipaddr]

You let them go fundamentalist because it will swing back the other way.

This only works if social changes are made allowing for these things to happen.

[Siira]

The assumption that “democracy” will be pro-fundamentalist is problematic on two fronts:

- A lot of protests are anti-Islamic.

- Democracy is still bound by its constitution to protect the minorities, so a democratically elected fundamentalist government that is bound by a proper constitution can still be a viable regime.

[stuaxo]

There is another dimension: when there have been liberal governments, but that want to do things like nationalise western oil companies, western countries prefer to destabilise those countries - the end result is often authoritarian regimes.

[dijit]

> So you can either support the right of the people to overthrow an authoritarian regime and establish a democratic process that will lead to a fundamentalist islamic state, or you can support a regime that is authoritarian but will allow the practice of some western liberal values.

Democracy is "dangerous" in that people who wish to secretly concentrate power can become elected; Once elected they figure out ways to remain "elected" forever.

Any democracy that fails to listen to the will of the people is a failed democracy; so inherently anything that's "installed" is immediately failed.

There's also a huge populism argument here too, things that sound good are often very _not_ good; and it's difficult to make that kind of call for yourself let alone making it for other people.

But we should not be in the habit of installing governments, that shit is colonialism v.2.

[mschuster91]

> I think religious fundamentalism _should_ win out because that's the will of the people and we in the West are not supposed to be interfering with others in such a way.

Good point, but there are a couple problematic things in that take:

- What is the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" actually worth if no one enforces it?

- Religious fundamentalism at its core - Christian fundamentalism, Islamist fundamentalism, Hindu fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, even entirely agnostic fundamentalism - is incompatible with democracy and human rights at its very core. Women's rights, equality of all people no matter their heritage, gender or sexual orientation, freedom of (and from!) religion... there are lots of conflict potentials.

- Can (or rather, should) we as Western countries turn a blind eye against grave instances of human rights abuses? No matter if they label themselves democratic or not? In case of "no", can we truly claim we as a species learned anything from the horrors of the Nazi regime? What is a sensible threshold to intervene?

And that's just the ideological side. There are also practical issues:

- How can "the will of the people", even if it were to live under Taliban rule, even be determined amidst widespread corruption, vote fraud, exclusion of societal groups from voting or running for an office, corrupt/demagogic/government-dominated media or mistrust in the voting process? It's hard enough to guarantee that in developed Western-ish countries as we saw with the entire US re-election fiasco, the media takeover by the government in Hungary, Murdoch being labeled a threat to democracy or the bought Brexit and outright impossible in cases like Russia or China.

- How can abusers be meaningfully sanctioned? China and Russia are already cozying up to the Taliban, just as the West has done with Saudi-Arabia and its chainsaw-loving prince.

> Once elected they figure out ways to remain "elected" forever.

Which is why it would make sense to expand the UN into an actual worldwide oversight committee. The problem with that however is that the majority of governments represented there isn't democratically backed and, given historic UN voting, would probably band together to dissolve Israel in an instant, probably followed by the US. Additionally, how should voting weights be distributed? By population? By economic quantities?

> Any democracy that fails to listen to the will of the people is a failed democracy.

That is coming close to a "tyranny of the majority" scenario, especially when throwing in demagogues into the mix. Any democracy worth calling it by that name must guarantee the human rights of its most powerless.

[swiley]

Don’t forget that the US democracy started with a religious fundamentalist regime.

[tempay]

I have no ties to the US and very little knowledge of it's history but I thought the ideas around the separation of church and state can be traced back to the founding of the US?

[bigbillheck]

> So you can either support the right of the people to overthrow an authoritarian regime and establish a democratic process that will lead to a fundamentalist islamic state, or you can support a regime that is authoritarian but will allow the practice of some western liberal values.

In Latin America, given the choice between 'a democratic process that will lead to socialism' or 'a regime that is authoritarian (with or without any "western liberal values" included)' the United States picks #2 basically every time.

[FridayoLeary]

Wasn't that paradox already apparent during the cold war, when the US tried to block Communism by propping up right- wing dictators?

[eschaton]

There are other movements in the region but they tend to be seen as even more antithetical to western governments.

For example, the PKK wants to establish a modern secular Kurdish state. Turkey, Iraq, and Syria are opposed because it would be in “their” territory (never mind the desire of the people in that territory for self-governance).

But why is so much of the “democratic” west unwilling to support the PKK? Because they want a socialist state.

Similarly, there is a large contingent of Palestinians that want to establish a modern secular and non-anti-Israel state, but you never hear about them and they never get a seat at the table—even though lots of people hate the PLO and Hamas—because they’re socialists.

The west really does prefer authoritarian rule with the minimum of western liberal values to democratic socialism with a full embrace of western liberal values. Profit above all else, so any attempt at socialism must be opposed even at the expense of those values.

[kome]

the only and correct answer is: you let them to do whatever they want as a collectivity, and you stop your imperialist project.

You can use all the softpower you want, and i see no problem with this, but it's up to the majority of the people to decide what to do.

[refurb]

So if the country decides to exterminate a specific ethnic group you just try and use soft power and if that doesn’t work then oh well?

[tomjen3]

False dichotomy. You left out the obvious US style republic with heavily enforced rights that can't be voted away.

[rory]

Who enforces those rights in that scenario?