Khartoum Clashes & the “Democracy Dilemma”

by Drima on March 31, 2007

The Darfur fighting has come to town . . . I was following closely the developments of the fighting between Minawi’s forces and the police. It is a clear indication of the tension between the former rebels and the government, the severity of the degree of mistrust.

No matter who was responsible, the police should have known better instead of being trigger happy. The Khartoum police are notorious for fuelling these kinds of tensions. There have been several such attacks between former SPLA forces in Khartoum and the police over the flimsiest of issues. They lack the power to diffuse tensions. Whether intensionally or not, it does not add to trust.

Meanwhile, Khartoumers have to brace themselves for more of the same . . .

And this is from the comments section of the same post:

Aaron in South Sudan said…

As long as there is an authoritarian government to keep the peace I doubt it will blow up like Baghdad.

Black Kush said…

That is the irony of it all Aaron: Sudan needs a strong authoritarian government to keep it together, but at the expense of the people. If it breaks down, the alternative is too bad to imagine. But what is the way out of the misery do you think?

Sigh! When’s the enlightenment going to arrive? How can we actually formulate a strategy to bring about real life changing action instead of simply just relying on spreading awareness? No wonder so so many people in Sudan have despaired. No wonder so many just want to go to the mosque or church, pray, die and hopefully go to heaven. Sigh! Baby steps. We need books, not bullets.

UPDATE: And just as I posted the above, I immediately stumbled upon this excellent post by Lawrence of Arabia, an American Christian who writes at Eteraz: States of Islam.

Instead, current American policy is alienating those whom it has the greatest ability to actually reach, and disrupting and further degrading the lives of those who over whom it has the least influence. Democracy is tyranny without liberalization, and America is helping to bring that new tyranny to the middle east at gun point.

Sad but true. Read it all. It’s a must! His post is strikingly similar to this post of mine, which I wrote last year. I consider it one of my best. I’m a huge Lawrence of Arabia fan by the way but I must admit that some of his stuff on philosophy are just way too complicated for me to fully grasp.

{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }

1 tsedek57 03.31.07 at 1:50 pm: It stays guessing. You never know what would be acceptable and how it would work out. There is leaway to so many things that could go wrong with liberalizing instead of democratizing. In the end they could both present the same result. Although I do admit that the ‘outsider’s interference for what’s good for us’ attitude adds to resist to ‘what is good for us’ just because an outsider is telling it so.
2 Roman Kalik 03.31.07 at 5:47 pm: I am sad to say that I expected the anarchy in Sudan to expand and grow.

As for democracy versus liberalism, the democracy has to come first. Only then can the people learn from their mistakes, and reach liberalism.

The alternative is to wait for a benevolent dictator to come along. One who cares for education and cultural development. Those don’t come by often, and don’t always do the job right. So better a democracy that will eventually grant more freedom than a dictatorship that *may* grant democracy.
3 Roman Kalik 04.01.07 at 12:29 pm: That said, both Jordan and the UAE are on the path to liberalism. Lebanon used to be, but most liberal-minded people are leaving the country these days.
4 Finnpundit 04.02.07 at 2:42 am: I’m a huge Lawrence of Arabia fan by the way but I must admit that some of his stuff on philosophy are just way too complicated for me to fully grasp.

On your recommendation, Drima, I read the post, but I must confess I wound up immediately dismissing it as facile claptrap. He is a left-winger masquerading as a liberal, which is even worse, as such people have little understanding of economics, and tend to concentrate on coming up with apologist arguments as to why socialism still matters.

I don’t have the time to go to at length right now (maybe a little later), but the key terms he used provided the clues:

One wonders how much of the foreign policy failure of the United States in the middle east is itself a failure of language.

The notion that policy failure is a failure of language is rooted in postmodern French Marxist deconstruction theory, which (and I speak very broadly now) states that power is rooted in how people speak (duh!). If we speak differently, - the theory goes – then power gets implemented differently.

That’s all fine and good, if you try to change the world with words alone. However, the postmodern French failed very miserably in verbally convincing the Serbs not to kill 200,000 Muslim in Yugoslavia. Other examples abound…

Democracy is always, taken on its own, mob rule.

This statement, on purpose, ignores the most important theorists of democracy: namely, Greek historians writing on Athenian democracy, Roman historians, French and Scottish philosophers of the Enlightenment, and American founding fathers, all of whom knew that democracy has to be structured. Democracy was always structured, even in ancient Athens. They structured it in order to avoid mob rule. Lawrence of Arabia’s suggestion that liberalism is what makes democracy work is quite ridiculous: structure, such as the checks-and-balances on power, is what makes it work.

Liberalism, a word that Bush is seemingly incapable of speaking, is the commitment to the universal rule of law, the tradition of human and civil rights, a belief in universal human dignity, negative freedom (i.e., freedom from constraint)…

The term “negative freedom” is what gives this author’s political leanings away. That term is used by many in European welfare states to justify subsidies to unproductive sectors of society. For example, northern Lapland in Finland receives a lot of state subsidies, simply because people want to live there (mostly because they were born there), instead of moving to the southern cities where there are jobs. The idea that the taxpayers of southern cities need to subsidize the personal preferences of these northerners is founded on the notion of “negative freedom”, i.e. that society should guarantee the lifestyle choices of all, - make those lifestyles free for pursuit – instead of constraining them with the “negative” effects of economic cost (yes, sounds ludicrous, but that’s the theory in a nutshell).

The rest of Lawrence of Arabia’s rhetoric is just the standard gibberish, which I don’t have the time to pick apart, - and I trust most readers have heard his notions before, and arrived at their own, independent conclusions, whether thoughtful or ideological.
5 Finnpundit 04.02.07 at 2:44 am: Sorry, I missed an HTML code there, earlier. Here’s a repost:

I’m a huge Lawrence of Arabia fan by the way but I must admit that some of his stuff on philosophy are just way too complicated for me to fully grasp.

On your recommendation, Drima, I read the post, but I must confess I wound up immediately dismissing it as facile claptrap. He is a left-winger masquerading as a liberal, which is even worse, as such people have little understanding of economics, and tend to concentrate on coming up with apologist arguments as to why socialism still matters.

I don’t have the time to go to at length right now (maybe a little later), but the key terms he used provided the clues:

One wonders how much of the foreign policy failure of the United States in the middle east is itself a failure of language.

The notion that policy failure is a failure of language is rooted in postmodern French Marxist deconstruction theory, which (and I speak very broadly now) states that power is rooted in how people speak (duh!). If we speak differently, - the theory goes – then power gets implemented differently.

That’s all fine and good, if you try to change the world with words alone. However, the postmodern French failed very miserably in verbally convincing the Serbs not to kill 200,000 Muslim in Yugoslavia. Other examples abound…

Democracy is always, taken on its own, mob rule.

This statement, on purpose, ignores the most important theorists of democracy: namely, Greek historians writing on Athenian democracy, Roman historians, French and Scottish philosophers of the Enlightenment, and American founding fathers, all of whom knew that democracy has to be structured. Democracy was always structured, even in ancient Athens. They structured it in order to avoid mob rule. Lawrence of Arabia’s suggestion that liberalism is what makes democracy work is quite ridiculous: structure, such as the checks-and-balances on power, is what makes it work.

Liberalism, a word that Bush is seemingly incapable of speaking, is the commitment to the universal rule of law, the tradition of human and civil rights, a belief in universal human dignity, negative freedom (i.e., freedom from constraint)…

The term “negative freedom” is what gives this author’s political leanings away. That term is used by many in European welfare states to justify subsidies to unproductive sectors of society. For example, northern Lapland in Finland receives a lot of state subsidies, simply because people want to live there (mostly because they were born there), instead of moving to the southern cities where there are jobs. The idea that the taxpayers of southern cities need to subsidize the personal preferences of these northerners is founded on the notion of “negative freedom”, i.e. that society should guarantee the lifestyle choices of all, - make those lifestyles free for pursuit – instead of constraining them with the “negative” effects of economic cost (yes, sounds ludicrous, but that’s the theory in a nutshell).

The rest of Lawrence of Arabia’s rhetoric is just the standard gibberish, which I don’t have the time to pick apart, - and I trust most readers have heard his notions before, and arrived at their own, independent conclusions, whether thoughtful or ideological.
6 Finnpundit 04.02.07 at 2:46 am: Oops, now something’s not working, as I didn’t code all italics. Hope everyone can decipher…
7 Finnpundit 04.02.07 at 3:06 am: Well, well. Now that I open on a different browser, all the HTML is correct.

If life’s problems could be that simple…
8 Finnpundit 04.02.07 at 3:38 am: Sigh! When’s the enlightenment going to arrive? How can we actually formulate a strategy to bring about real life changing action instead of simply just relying on spreading awareness? No wonder so so many people in Sudan have despaired. No wonder so many just want to go to the mosque or church, pray, die and hopefully go to heaven. Sigh! Baby steps. We need books, not bullets

Actually, how about just starting business corporations with fellow shareholders and imbuing all your workers with the notion that their poductivity and creativity matters in the corporation? Forget the mosques, which are always dependent on handouts. Corporations will not only guarantee you jobs, but it will give you a sense of common mission, which add to the gross national product for the benefit of all of your societies. With the growing wealth that usually accompanies successful corporations the opportunities to shape the values of a culture begin emerging. Sounds like win-win solution with the maximum beneficial effect to all of society.
9 Drima 04.02.07 at 4:53 pm: As usual Finnpundit, whether we agree or disagree, I still value your opinions. You’re always looking at things through the lense of economics.

I can’t really respond to your first comment as it’s about things I don’t have much knowledge about but your point on structure Vs liberalism is well taken.

However, your second comment is logical. I do strongly believe that entrepreneurship can solve many problems faced by Africa/ME or the Muslim world but I don’t think it’s that simple. Much if not all information available on entrepreneurship is based on healthy and well functioning capitalist models which don’t exist everywhere. Plus illiteracy is way too high. I can go on and on but you get the idea. Maybe I’ll elaborate and be more articulate later. Gotta run!
10 Drima 04.02.07 at 4:56 pm: testing, italics off…. . off
11 Drima 04.02.07 at 4:56 pm: off damn it
12 Drima 04.02.07 at 4:57 pm: OFFFFFFFF
13 Drima 04.02.07 at 4:58 pm: Yes! It’s off
14 Michael Herzog 04.02.07 at 5:44 pm: “Lawrence of Arabia” is a full-fledged idiot.

The current policies of virtually all ME and Islamic states, as well as the conduct of an unduly large number of ME expatriates in the West, are slowly but steadily alienating an ever larger number of Westerners in Europe and the US.

Why, then, should “outrage”, intimidation, targeted religious violence, etc. pp. for all time stay a monompoly of Muslim states, groups, and individuals? In principle, it’s a two-way street, and there may come a point when those procedures are turned against the original copyright holders. When that happens, those that originally opened Pandora’s Box will have no justification to complain.
15 Nobody 04.03.07 at 12:43 am: In principle, it’s a two-way street, and there may come a point when those procedures are turned against the original copyright holders. When that happens, those that originally opened Pandora’s Box will have no justification to complain.

it’s a two way street but in a different sense ,,, the procedures have been already turned against the original copyright holders … it is just that the copyright holders are now applying the procedures to each other and as far as i can see we have not yet seen the peak of all this
16 Finnpundit 04.03.07 at 8:11 am: In principle, it’s a two-way street, and there may come a point when those procedures are turned against the original copyright holders.

Indeed. I’m wondering how long will it take until some charismatic young neo-Nazi convinces frustrated bigots throughout Europe that they need to stop obsessing about Israel and the Jews, and recognize Muslims as worthy of extermination.

I also tend to think special hit squads will be organized, with serious corporate financial backing, to circumvent state failures in dealing with recalcitrant European Muslim immigrants. I’ve read of several such cases already, and given how quickly the news on their activities was suppressed, there seems to be some real concern on state levels about the viability of such threats.

Perhaps one of the main reasons for the US to continue a presence in Europe, through NATO, is simply to make sure Europeans won’t eventually butcher their own Muslim immigrants.
17 Roman Kalik 04.03.07 at 5:34 pm: Many nationalist parties in Europe have already turned their gaze towards the Muslim immigrants. A few have already smartened up enough to swallow the bitter Jew-pill and go to them for vote-gathering. For now, the parties in question are still the relatively sane nationalists, but this is likely to become worse in time.

And the immigrants themselves aren’t exactly helping, as the condemnation against the acts of the fanatical few are just as few.
18 Finnpundit 04.04.07 at 1:06 am: Drima: However, your second comment is logical. I do strongly believe that entrepreneurship can solve many problems faced by Africa/ME or the Muslim world but I don’t think it’s that simple. Much if not all information available on entrepreneurship is based on healthy and well functioning capitalist models which don’t exist everywhere. Plus illiteracy is way too high. I can go on and on but you get the idea.

I agree mostly, but I tend to think that entrepreneurship, though dependent on the non-interference of the state, is nevertheless not dependent on literacy. The poor are usually quite motivated to entrepreneurship, and can exhibit great talents in that field.

I’m a big fan of Hernando De Soto,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernando_de_Soto_%28economist%29

(Google him for the complete lowdown) the Peruvian economist that did a study of the capital pool that the poor sit on (in terms of their shanties and hovels and tiny plots of land), who are unable to make use of their claims to those assets because of lousy property rights in poor countries.

His groundbreaking studies, I believe, point to a rather obvious truth: you cannot have human rights, without first having property rights.
19 Finnpundit 04.04.07 at 1:07 am: P.S. I hope you understand how hated I would be for enunciating something like that in welfare-statist Europe.