So the conventional wisdom of the moment seems to be that the unrest in the Middle East right now is most similar to the revolutions / protests of 1848*. If so, our expectation should be that the revolutions won't be successful in the short term but in a couple decades will lead to more stability for these countries.
I am partial to this analysis because it fits my more long term view of things. Stable democracies don't happen overnight. If you look at our own history, we needed two attempts to create a decent constitution and form of government and we had a major civil war 84 years after our independence.
In fact, this Foreign Policy post shows why the color revolutions from a few years ago have not shown immediate results and have even regressed. However, I think these will also have long term successes.
Basically, I think we should be prepared for the fact that some of these revolutions will regress (assuming they are successful in getting rid of their leaders). But we cannot and should not lose hope and we shouldn't give up on democracy. I just fear that if our hopes are too high and then we are inevitably let down, next time we'll think that the country isn't ready for democracy and we'll be unwilling to support it.
This fear is especially acute in situations when supporting democracy might be less appealing - like another Egypt. If our bar is too high, next time we might not support an Egypt. We must keep faith that democracy works in the long term and at every step we need to support it. In the long term, we'll be rewarded.
*Quite a surprise to me that there was actually a smart and useful Slate post.
No comments:
Post a Comment