114. Reconciliation in Egypt

The news from Egypt is so heartening I can't resist commenting on it. You remember what we were looking at there, this impasse over the new government? The military council and the Muslim Brotherhood dug in? Do you remember your feelings? Me, I was asking, "What hope is there when junta generals and religious zealots go up against each other? When has either one ever softened?"

Then Monday, the word from Cairo: an accord reached on "the creation of a presidential-parliamentary government, a legal system no more Islamic than the previous one and broad guarantees of freedom of religion and expression." It would include some degree, still to be worked out, of civilian control over the military.

There was little doubt in my mind about the zealous fundamentalism of the Brotherhood. I believed what Mary Crane said about it (for the Council on Foreign Relations), that it "seeks to Islamicize societies from the ground up and compel governments in Muslim countries to adhere to sharia, or Islamic law."

Nor did I have much doubt about the generals' determination. I believed that their position let them run and profit from a lot of key industries, knew that they did not pay taxes, and figured they had a lot of income they'd lose if they lost power. They had every reason to dig in.

So there they were, strongmen and zealots, staring each other down, and by the track record of every other horse in either stable there was no way they were going to send me home happy. Yet that's what they did! They sat down and said, "Hell, we're both in this together. Let's work something out." You'd think they were veterans of the democratic process. That's what we say over here, in this old democracy, isn't it? Isn't it?

102. How Should We Speak the Word "Democracy"?

"You don't really believe in democracy, you English-speakers, you believe in it only when the right guys are going to win." Try to answer that and you're hit with the names of the democratically elected wrong guys our guys moved out of office, Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran, Salvadore Allende in Chile. Or, worse, a quote from Dwight Eisenhower backing Ngo Dinh Diem's cancellation of elections in Viet Nam: "80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh." Hold on, Vietnamese, you're not going to get any support from us for democracy.

So, if we state, "America is a democracy" proudly we're going to get a lot of noise. Can we quiet it down by making the statement doggedly? "We know, we know, but everybody has to compromise their ideals sometimes. In those times that you mention national self-interest trumped the democratic ideal, sure. But we had a good reason for that: serving our interest served the interest of democracy. The nation keeping democracy alive around the world has to keep itself alive, doesn't it? The Soviets used the same argument about communism and their country."

Say that, and then point out that we still have an election every four years, don't we? Peaceful transfer of power, that's our big claim. Democracy gives "power to the people most likely to be troublesome if deprived of it, the majority" (Post 39). We've got the essentials.

Clearly doggedness in that line can buy us some peace and quiet. But will it ever last? Aren't there always going to be some bad guys we want to keep out of power? And aren't there always going to be people of our own, maybe a majority, crying, "Bad! Bad! Keep them out! Keep them out!" Right now we've got Islamists threatening to win elections all over the Middle East. In Egypt there are some generals ready to keep them out. If we say, "Go ahead, generals, deprive them of power," how dogged can we be about those essentials? That's just what the generals will be violating. "Oh no," they'll hear us saying, "those people aren't going to be troublesome. They're just the majority." Yes, and we're the voice of democracy.

We don't know whether we'll talk like that yet but we know that if we do the word "democracy" is going to stick in our throats. And dogged repetition isn't going to help.

So, how will we speak the word? Should we maybe not use it? Find some other word for what we represent? No, we are still doing many things that only the word "democracy" identifies. And some of these are the ones that get us into the deepest trouble. Why do our leaders listen to those voices crying simply, "Bad! Bad!" — over communists in Viet Nam, or tyrants in Mesopotamia, or Islamists in Egypt? They know that the situations in those places are, or were, very complicated, and simple good-bad calls are very dangerous. They must know that. Educated people know that. Ah, but these educated people must, to stay in power, have the votes of the majority, which has never, in any country yet, had time (or inclination) to educate itself. So there you are. Democracy. There's no other word for it.

All right, we just have to find a becoming way of saying the word "democracy." It's tough. Luckily, though, we have some pretty good guides. Winston Churchill, after admitting that democracy was a terrible form of government, once added that it was "just better than all the others." There's our cue. Say it resignedly, or wryly. "Ah me, America is a democracy." In a store full of trash you've got to make the best of a bad bargain.

96. Complimenting Middle Easterners: "Liberal"

"Liberal" is still a compliment-word when a Westerner is talking to a Middle Easterner about changes in his country. It's sort of a handclasp: welcome to democracy, to tolerance, to progress, to freedom, to equality, to human rights, to the rule of law — welcome to the Enlightenment.

I'd like to use the word, if the occasion ever arose, but I have some problems with it. It's clear that I can't apply it to authoritarian Islamist regimes imposing Sharia on their people, or to secular despots putting the clamps on everybody, but beyond that it gets difficult, especially when regimes are changing.

Consider Egypt now, where thousands demonstrated yesterday against the despotic military council. The Times tells us that "most liberals stayed home" (11-19-11). Why? Because they "looked to the military council to act as a hedge against a religious takeover." They feared that liberal democracy would bring an illiberal party to power. So who am I to compliment for their liberalism, those who support the generals for wanting to keep the illiberals out, or the demonstrators for wanting the democracy that lets them in?

I think that instinct, or long school training, moves most of us Americans to declare for the demonstrators simply because their opposition is, like that of King George III, despotic. And reflection commonly justifies this in Enlightenment terms — the "liberal" cluster.

If we here deny those terms to the Egyptian military council, though, what are we going to do with them when we come to the many despots in Western countries that our history books have for years called "enlightened"? How about Catherine the Great, and Joseph II of Austria, and Frederick II of Prussia? Prussia, for heaven's sake. Yet in that country we see industry promoted, schools established, religious freedom protected, prejudice discouraged. And then there's Napoleon, forcing French enlightenment on the countries he conquered — feudalism ended, peasants freed, church courts abolished, Inquisition ended, the great Code established, legal equality of all individuals assured. Everything but representative government. Unless you're an impossible Anglophile, grant Napoleon a piece of the word "liberal."

I think I'm left without options for a sincere handclasp over the Tahrir Square demonstrations. To those who stay home I'm saying, "Thanks for your help in preventing a retreat (with Shariah) into darkness. Congratulations on your progress. Welcome to our tradition of enlightened despotism." I'm complimenting them for murdering democracy. To those who demonstrate I'm saying, "Thanks for your help in advancing your country into the democratic light. Congratulations on your faithfulness. Welcome to our tradition of representative government." I'm complimenting them for democratically risking loss of every feature of the Enlightenment, including democracy. Either way, there's no escape from irony.

And what is my Egyptian, hearing it, going to say? "This man (or maybe the entire West) is as confused about the Enlightenment as we are." Of course. The word I used, "liberal," is just one of those words that calls up a confusing cluster. That's what I'm stuck with.