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Muslim Countries Need Civil Society Before Elections

(FrontPageMagazine) Daniel Pipes - * Rather than passively accept decades of totalitarian rule, Washington should actively help Muslim countries navigate from autocracy to democracy without passing through an Islamist phase. This is achievable. * As I wrote a decade ago in response to the Algerian crisis, instead of focusing on quick elections, which almost always benefit the Islamists, the U.S. government should shift its efforts to slower and deeper goals: "political participation, the rule of law (including an independent judiciary), freedom of speech and religion, property rights, minority rights, and the right to form voluntary organizations (especially political parties)." * Elections should only follow on the achievement of these steps. Realistically, they could well take decades to achieve. * Elections should culminate the democratic process, not start it. They ought to celebrate civil society successfully achieved. Once such a civil society exists (as it does in Iran but not in Algeria), voters are unlikely to vote Islamists into power.
2005-06-23 00:00:00
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