"Democracy is flawed"


Depending on the rule of law
Austin Bay tells it like it is.

Hamas versus Fatah in Palestine illustrates a political dilemma all too common in the developing world: a choice between rule by corrupt autocrats or violent revolt led by religious or ethnic zealots promising glory and utopia.

But is this really a choice? Afghanistan buckled and broke after the Soviet invasion and a decade of chaotic war. Taliban religious zealots offered an end to conflict and corruption. Of course, in short order, the entire Taliban government became a creature of violence, intimidation, graft and theft -- in other words, heinously autocratic and corrupt.

That's the track even the zealots follow: Once they are the government wielding power, and if that power is unchecked, unchallenged and unpoliced, corruption inevitably follows. The revolutionary promises of sectarian or egalitarian utopia, recovered tribal glory or national resurrection then become propaganda tropes masking "the gang in control."

Democracy may not be a perfect defense against the Mafia -- obviously, it is not. American mobsters exist. They intimidate judges in New Jersey, own aldermen in Chicago, and slide cash to congressmen via K Street. Democracies, however, tend to marginalize gangsters, in the same way they tend to marginalize political extremists. With checks and balances like the rule of law, the free press and electoral politics, Al Capones and Jack Abramoffs end up in jail. Even a president can lose his law license for "misleading" a federal judge.

Democracy is no perfect defense against religious and ethnic terrorists, either. Hamas won an election, soundly drubbing secular Fatah.

Democracy is flawed -- the other choices, however, are fatal.

I do not see Hamas being able to govern. I think they need an enemy to confront, and I don't think Israel will be what Hamas needs to stay in power.

It does make things hotter there though.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - February 3, 2006 at 04:44 AM  Tag


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