9 11 and the New Authoritarianism

The Problem is Authoritarianism, Not Islam

Aren't those just the foundations of xenophobia and authoritarianism and Puritanism?

That was the only way possible to reach agreement in addition, of course, to the imposition of elements and to authoritarianism.

For now, Thailand is trapped between authoritarianism and democracy, between the past and the future and will likely remain there, until the long royal twilight has passed.

The phenomenon of quasi constitutional reelection has become so widespread in Latin America that Georgetown University professor Héctor Schamis has dubbed it the new authoritarianism in the region.

So, while Russia s modernization and democratization are in Europe s interest, its return to an imperial foreign policy and barely veiled authoritarianism at home is not. Most Russians look westward.

More than a decade ago, the international community realized that it was necessary to help Haiti to break out of the vicious circle of poverty, authoritarianism, violence and desolation.

Around the world, people worry that political freedom is disappearing in Vladimir Putin's Russia. Indeed, about the only people who are unconcerned about creeping authoritarianism in Russia are the Russians themselves.

Like the peoples of other United Nations Members who have fought for their freedom, thousands of Nicaraguans have died for it, victims of a perverse pendulum that swung from authoritarianism to totalitarianism.

But those who think that China s mutant political authoritarianism and mighty economy can long prevail are guilty as well. Such a system is as unsuited to the future as Mao s system was to the past.

This time, however, the plan backfired. Syria s Sunni population, inspired by the revolutions in other Arab countries and outraged by the regime s brutality, simply stopped being afraid a potentially game changing development for Arab authoritarianism.

This time, however, the plan backfired. Syria s Sunni population, inspired by the revolutions in other Arab countries and outraged by the regime s brutality, simply stopped being afraid 160 a potentially game changing development for Arab authoritarianism.

The referendum s outcome will prove an important guide regarding the direction the country is likely to take. Will it embrace a new Islamic authoritarianism, or build the democracy that Egyptians have risked their lives to secure?

For both sides, full mastery and control is the only option, though neither has even a rudimentary understanding of how to modernize the economy and society. So, whichever side gains the upper hand, authoritarianism and economic stagnation will prevail once again.

It wasn t long ago that Turkey appeared to be a bright beacon of democracy and moderation in a region accustomed to autocracy and radicalism. Now it looks more like a country heading towards authoritarianism at home and embracing adventurism abroad.

A large majority of Mexican voters continued to suspect it of corruption, authoritarianism, and economic incompetence. Peña Nieto s predecessor, Felipe Calderón, had bequeathed him a war on drugs that had already caused more than 60,000 deaths at least another 22,000 Mexicans were missing.

Russia and China may no longer be communist, but they certainly are illiberal and definitely not democratic. Russia is poised somewhere between authoritarianism and totalitarianism and, for all of China s recent economic progress, the rising Asian power remains squarely in the same camp.

Dramatically, the Arab world has been swept by a revolutionary spring, though one that is rapidly becoming a chilly winter. Indeed, for the most part, the new regimes are combining the old authoritarianism with Islamism, resulting in further social stagnation, resentment, and instability.

This summer, St. Petersburg (dubbed by local wits St. Putinsburg ) may see a repeat performance Russia will preside over a G8 summit for the first time, despite increasing authoritarianism, the ongoing bloody war in Chechnya, and now support for Iran s nuclear program.

Reinforcing this shift is Turkey s drift toward authoritarianism, which is undermining the viability of its candidacy for EU membership. As for Ukraine, recent gestures of solidarity, such as the signing of an association agreement, are unlikely to develop into anything substantial in the foreseeable future.

But the globalization of commercial interests does retain some power to restrict Chinese authoritarianism particularly its efforts to suppress the peoples of Tibet and Xinjiang if only the world s democracies will seize it. Weak states, of course, tend to be cynical about China s growing might.

Regrettably, most of the rest of the world has never given Lee proper credit for crafting a hybrid system of authoritarianism and democracy that vastly improved the wellbeing of his country s citizens, without subjecting them to the brutality and oppression to which many of Singapore s neighbors have resorted.

Such a direct method is the wellspring of authoritarianism. We must recognize that and understand that it emerges not only when the public is apathetic or frightened, but also when there is no apparent stable advanced guard, such as powerful political parties, which choose the leaders and control them.

This influence does not imply a hegemonic relationship, but rather points to an alternative path for reform and economic development that other primarily Muslim countries might take. The EU is associated with peace, democracy, and economic development, while the Middle East is characterized by instability, authoritarianism, and economic backwardness.

At a time when more and more Russians are being denied passports to travel outside the country, those tempted by authoritarianism would do well to recall the elementary point made by John F. Kennedy in his Berlin speech in 1963. Freedom has many difficulties, and democracy is not perfect, Kennedy said.

Yeltsin s tragedy, and Russia s, was that, when the country needed a leader with vision and determination, it found an agile political operator instead. By not permitting Russia to disintegrate into anarchy or leading it back to authoritarianism, Yeltsin kept the way open for such a leader to one day emerge.

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali s ouster in Tunisia signalled the collapse of the Arab stability model, praised by many Western leaders, consisting of authoritarianism and overrated economic performance. The surge of anger and revolt in Egypt, whatever its final outcome, marks the beginning of the end for authoritarian nationalist Arab regimes.

The fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States were Saudis crystallized a long held view of the kingdom as a bastion of authoritarianism and intolerance. In some respects, this perception is accurate, but it cannot be applied to the broad Saudi public.

Tandja, originally democratically elected, had become increasingly autocratic, dismissing the National Assembly and the constitutional court, and eliminating presidential term limits. As his governance descended into authoritarianism, the military and at least a visible part of the population came to view a coup as the only way to stop Niger s downward course.

What the political establishment overlooks is the broader damage that such behavior does to Parliament s public standing, and therefore to democracy itself. The shambolic performance of elected parliaments in Europe, especially in interwar Germany and Italy, had a great deal to do with the rise of authoritarianism and fascism in the first half of the twentieth century.

As I strolled through Tiananmen Square, the paradox that struck me was that the very system of democratic capitalism that the West has so ardently believed in and advocated now seems to be failing us. At the same time, the kind of authoritarianism and state managed economics that we have long impugned now seems to be serving China well.

To loud cheers from the crowds, the populists damn elected politicians as thieves and looters, but in the process disparage the institutions and processes of representative government. In the not too distant past, widespread denigration of this sort in Africa, Latin America, and other parts of South Asia often made it easier for populist authoritarianism to take hold.

The old post Ottoman grand bargain Western acceptance of authoritarianism in exchange for the secure flow of oil, use of sensitive sea lanes, and some tolerance for the existence of Israel has broken down. What replaces it will be determined by the shape of the new political order that finally emerges in the western Islamic world.

More broadly, the US should stop using countries like Syria as proxies against Iran. Withdrawal of US financial and logistical support for the rebellion, and calling on others to do the same, would not address Syria s authoritarianism or resolve America s issues with Iran, but it would stop or greatly reduce the large scale killing and destruction in Syria itself.

A second issue likely to blow the G 2 apart before it has actually taken shape is the impact of China s authoritarianism on the free movement of information. China s clash with Google and US protests at cyber attacks on American targets remind the outside world, as well as America s media and political elites, of the difference in values between the two countries.

Now political Islam can no longer be contained, because democracy cannot be built by driving underground parties that have a strong social base, as was tragically demonstrated in Algeria 15 years ago. The only alternative to authoritarianism is to craft a transition that allows Islamists to participate in public life and encourages them to accept unequivocally the rules of the democratic game.

In this sense, last week brought two victories not just Barack Obama s over Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the presidential election, but also the victory of America s democratic system over China s one party authoritarianism. In a few sentences of his victory speech the space of a magic moment Obama celebrated the mystery of democracy in a very concrete, but also nearly religious manner.

These unfortunate and ultimately disastrous events established an unstable foundation in a strategic country at the core of a highly troubled yet vital region of the world. As Iraq moved through progressive phases of mismanagement over the subsequent ten agonizing years, the country fractured, shattering the dreams of Iraqis who saw their beloved homeland once again sliding toward authoritarianism, with almost daily violations of the constitution.

Years of Western backed repressive authoritarianism nipped in the bud any potential growth of a liberal alternative to the incumbent Arab regimes, and turned any abrupt move to free elections into a dangerous exercise in Islamic democracy. A democracy that produces governments led by Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Muslim Brotherhood is inevitably bound to be anti Western and opposed to an American inspired peace process with Israel.

Mousavi s campaign, and its aftermath, showed clearly that those who professed to see no difference between the candidates, except in style and presentation, were wrong even if the election was rigged, the voices of opposition to clerical authoritarianism were heard. The quiet dignity of the protests that followed did more for Iran s standing in the world than any amount of belligerent posturing by a populist president.

RANGOON Across the Middle East, and now in Burma (Myanmar), one of the great questions of contemporary global politics has resurfaced How can countries move from a failing authoritarianism to some form of self sustaining pluralism? Foreign ministers everywhere, in turn, face crucial policy questions When a country launches such a political transition, when should other countries help, and what is the best way to do so?

One cause for this shift toward authoritarianism is that many countries no longer view the United States as a beacon of democracy and a model of stability and prosperity to be emulated. Putin s claim that democratization is actually an American plot to gain unilateral advantages resonates with many societies following the disastrous invasion of Iraq and revelations about the National Security Agency s spying on citizens and leaders worldwide.

But a ban might not have halted the German people s general disenchantment with liberal democracy, and an authoritarian regime still might have followed. Indeed, whereas West Germany banned a neo Nazi party and the Communist Party in the 1950 s, some countries particularly in Southern and Eastern Europe, where dictatorship came to be associated with the suppression of pluralism have drawn precisely the opposite lesson about preventing authoritarianism.

Now that Putin has made muscle flexing his main form of diplomacy not merely in Ukraine and the Baltic states, but also in the Balkans and the North Sea it has fallen to Germany to shape Europe s response. The motive today is not to defend ethnic Germans abroad their expulsion in the millions in the 1940s ended that particular concern so much as the more laudable desire to preserve the values of a democratic EU against the new authoritarianism from the East.