The democratic tradition

Despite American efforts helped Japan and Germany to become well-functioning democracies after their defeat in the Second World War and the US played a significant role in ushering in the "third wave" of democracy in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s (the first wave being after the First World War and the second following de-colonisation), but for democracy to come about in any society it has to be strongly sought by the local actors -- elites, the masses, or civil society.

Fukuyama thinks that basically four conditions have to exist to facilitate democratic transition: (a) the level of development, (b) culture, (c) neighbourhood effect, and (d) ideas.

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Virtually all industrialised economies are functioning democracies, while relatively very few poor countries are democracies. There are of course exceptions such as India and Costa Rica which despite their relative underdevelopment have been thriving democracies, while Saudi Arabia and Kuwait despite having high per capita income are struggling with the idea of opening up their governmental machinery to their own citizens, despite American pressure on them to do so.

The West is particularly incensed by the fact that the majority of 9/11 terrorists had Saudi passports and Saudi munificence, unknown to its benefactors, helped Islamists like al-Qaeda to flourish. In the case of Kuwait, but for the US-led coalition forces in the first Gulf War, Kuwait could not have been liberated from Saddam Hussein's brutal occupation. The Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti examples also raise the profound question as to whether the Western reading of Islam hindering separation of religion and the state inhibits Muslim countries from becoming democratic societies.

Historian Bernard Lewis states that democracy is peculiarly a Western concept devised to conduct public affairs which may or may not be suitable for other people. Lewis mired in his belief of eternal clash of civilisations (Islamic vs. Christian and post-Christian, rigid theocratic hierarchy vs. permissive secular modernism) argues that the millennial rivalry between the two great religions has been caused Muslim humiliation over being defeated by the "inferior Christians and Jews."

He further argues that while democracy requires democrats, "even when in power to give freedom and rights to Islamist opposition. The Islamists when in power are under no such obligation. For Islamists, democracy, expressing the will of the people, is the road to power on which there is no return."

Fukuyama is, however, not totally convinced that Islamic culture, which does not separate the mosque and the state and therefore can not sustain a true liberal democracy and may use "one man, one vote, one time as a route to establishing theocracy of the sort that exist in Iran today" is necessarily reflective of the situation prevailing in the entire Islamic world. Fukuyama cites the examples of untiring efforts by the Islamist party ruling Turkey to change its laws in order to get into the European Union (now all the more uncertain after the French and Dutch referendum on the European Constitution), Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai and post-Suharto Indonesia as countries sustaining democracy.

Undeniably the Muslim world has been deficient in practising democracy perhaps because Islamic culture puts more emphasis on obedience than on asking questions challenging the conservative status quo. How else would one explain the upcoming elections in Iran where all candidates approved by the Guardian Council (former President Hashim Rafsanjani is leading the pack) are all conservative clerics though the majority of the population born after the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution question the concept of velayet-e-faqih (the supremacy of the Shia jurists), are unimpressed by the outgoing President Khatami's Islamic democracy, are irreverent to the Iran-Iraq war, and aspire for freedom and democracy?

But then again, the current Western pressure on Iran to abandon her nuclear programme despite the Iranian government's pledge not to build nuclear weapons can only fuel anti-Western bias in Iran and help strengthen the hands of the clerics. If there has been Islamic revivalism it has been caused by the failure of secular nationalism to achieve economic self-sufficiency, to stem the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and the overwhelming political and cultural hegemony of the West which sometimes acquire a conflictual position with the Islamist purists who consider Western culture as socially corrosive and threatening the identity and cultural fabric of Muslim society.

The Saudi Arabian case, described by Bernard Lewis as a "rejection of modernity in favour of a return to the sacred past," exemplifies the problem faced by many Muslim countries. Princeton Professor Michael Doran depicts Saudi Arabia as a fragmented entity in the throes of a crisis in which the monarchy functions as an intermediary between a westernised elite that looks to the West as model of political development and a Wahhabi religious establishment that holds up its interpretation of Islam's golden age as its guide.

Muslim efforts towards democratisation have been further impeded by post-9/11 Western adoption of extreme security measures and policies leading to an erosion of civil and political liberties, diminishing the welfare of Arabs and other Muslims living in Western societies. The predicament of the Muslim diaspora in the West has been aptly described as "susceptible to being essentialised as fanatical and irrational, a potential fifth columnist in a clash of civilisations and suffering from spiralling progressive alienation" from mainstream Western society, doomed to continually negotiating the parameters of minority citizenship.

While analysing the stages of development necessary for acquisition of democracy it was found that barring exceptions virtually all industrialised countries are functioning democracies. Indeed once a country attains per capita GDP of $6,000 it transforms itself from an agricultural society to an industrialised one and that country also attains sustainable democracy. Empirically it has been found that not a single country which became a democracy ever reverted back to authoritarianism. Fukuyama thinks that it is because of the growth of the middle class owning private property and getting education. Evidently people living in poverty are too busy making both ends meet to worry about elections and votes. Besides political scientists worry that even if countries have elections and make democratic transition, democracy's sustainability becomes a challenge "in a society that is close to subsistence, that does not have any kind of resources, have very low level of education, very severe ethnic and other kinds of cleavages."

On the other hand, countries with authoritarian governments who have transited from agrarian to industrialised stage have got out of the vortex of authoritarianism and have embraced democracy. Taiwan and South Korea are two such examples. One hopes that once China attains that stage of economic development its political system will also become democratic.

In support of his thesis that countries opt for democracy if their neighbours are democratic, Fukuyama cites the examples of Ukraine, Georgia, and Serbia where toppling of autocracy in one country had domino effects on neighbouring countries. In the case of former East European countries, Fukuyama believes that democratic transition came about easily because many of these countries believed Western Europe to be their real home and communism was only a barrier on their way to return to their natural abode.

But the argument of "neighbourhood effect" does not have universal applicability. While India continues to be the largest democracy in the world for close to six decades, both Pakistan and Bangladesh experienced extra-constitutional rule several times in their brief history. Nepal currently has no democratic government and Maldives has just taken a faltering step towards a democratic order.

The fourth factor Fukuyama thinks necessary for a sustainable democracy is that to have democracy the people have to believe in democracy. He cites the cases of Argentina, Brazil, and Peru in the 60s and 70s, Marcos' Philippines, Roh Tae Woo's South Korea, and US support of "no" referendum against Chile's Pinochet in 1988. Arrival of democracy in these and many others was possible because people believed in democracy and fought for its establishment.

This has also been Bangladesh's history, when people fought and died in the liberation war not only for freedom but also for democracy and later again fought against autocracy and died to re-establish democracy. Going by Fukuyama's conditions for sustainable democracy, Bangladesh lacks some but possesses others.

Since we can not reach $6,000 GDP per capita income in the near future, the people and the leaders of Bangladesh have to be very careful in treading the democratic path. Politics should not continue to remain the conduct of public affairs for private advantage. Our rulers have to understand the Aristotelian definition of democracy and oligarchy in the sense that wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an oligarchy, and when poor rule that is democracy.

Bangladeshis are too wise (though poor) to abdicate both their authority and conscience to a select few who may prove to be more adept at maladministration than at good administration. One hopes that regardless of Fukuyama's stated preconditions for sustainable democracy, in view of our long struggle for representative rule, Bangladesh's quest for democracy, peace, and prosperity will not be allowed to falter in the face of the parochial interests of a few.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and Ambassador.