Fareedian Slips

For Zakaria, "liberal democracy" is the norm all societies must aspire to. Countries that moved furthest toward it followed the European pattern: "Capitalism and the rule of law first, and then democracy." His exemplars are South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia and Chile. This is astonishing. Chile’s elected regime was overthrown in 1973 in a bloody CIA-supported coup. Thailand has had a history of corrupt regimes, and Malaysia has a constitution that makes racial and religious distinctions among its citizens. For South Asia, Zakaria speaks of the connection between British colonialism and democracy. He has India in mind (the emergence of a mass democratic movement and Gandhi’s ahimsa also had a role in this, surely?). How do Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Burma fit into this schematic link?

On Nazism, his analysis is imbalanced—premature democratisation caused the collapse of the Weimar republic. Zakaria omits the role of big business and the Catholic Church under Eugenio Pacelli in supporting Hitler. Is this because capitalism and Catholicism get high marks from Zakaria for their part in developing liberal democracy? Zakaria ignores the contributions of labour to constitutionalism. Keynesian economics had much to do with the need to reduce class tensions during the Great Depression. The socialist concept of a regulated economy furnished Western ruling classes with the will to give capitalism a human face. Why not also reflect on the role of the ussr in Hitler’s defeat? The Red Army bore the brunt of the fighting for the crucial years, and a balanced historian would acknowledge this war effort as contribution to the security of the West.

Zakaria is critical of American politics. He criticises conservative opposition to land reform, and reminds us of America’s links to the royal families of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. He notes the politicisation of Protestant fundamentalism. He believes that California, the home of tax-cutting dogma, is a state "as close to anarchy as any civilised society has seen". Neither the American people nor politicians have any control over government. Direct democracy, campaign finance and lobbying have undermined political institutions. Politicians are not to blame, because "the system pushes them in this direction". Here’s where the questioning stops. What system? Can the answer exclude structural links between economic and political power?

Zakaria uses "democratic capitalism" to refer to the growth of share-holding and credit cards. Are not these the means of transferring risks to the public, without diminishing the power of the super-rich? What of the global economy? America is the only country with a veto in the imf. Joseph Stiglitz, once the World Bank’s chief economist, denounces the imf for its closed-door decisions. Why do people need protection from capitalism? Why does this system make the mobility of money rather than of people the sine qua non of liberal democracy? Were Zakaria to pursue his own queries about the commercialisation of culture, politics and religion in the US, he might reach different conclusions about the immutability of capitalism. His call for "not more democracy but less", conflates the need for good regulation and stable public institutions with "less democracy". The argument that public institutions need protection from crass populism can’t be fine-tuned to imply that there are no means of running the economy democratically, that ‘markets’ can run themselves. Autonomous central banks and benign public regulation are Zakaria’s ideals. Who’ll bring about this state of affairs? What places the exercise of US military power and global economic institutions beyond the ambit of regulation?

Zakaria warns against the hijacking of democracy by the rich and fanatics, and stresses the need "to make democracy safe for the world". But he segregates the ills of "democratic capitalism" from capitalism itself, believing that well-intentioned elites can stay the decline of public institutions. Did the behaviour of the US Supreme Court in Bush vs Gore inspire confidence? Problems caused by elitism cannot be mended by more elitism. The reality of an undemocratically-run capitalist order must be placed at the centre of arguments on freedom. He observes that the deregulation of democracy and that of the economy have gone too far. We could stretch this to the world system. It is not democratic to award commercial contracts in Iraq to US multinationals without consulting the Iraqis. Why are questions of economic democracy left out of Zakaria’s argument?

Zakaria appreciates culturally nuanced explanations of backwardness. What about the militarisation of American culture, obsessed with generating and defending against violence? Gandhi is never mentioned. Nor is the military-industrial complex. The utilitarian ethic that the end justifies the means is writ large upon Zakaria’s judgements. So is the world-weary acceptance of violence and tyranny in the name of ‘freedom’. Musharraf is well placed to "modernise and secularise his country", but "governments that usurp powers do not end up producing well-run, stable countries". Zakaria is dismayed by the "state supported pogrom" in Gujarat, and blames the bjp for instigating violence. Why do the US-Israeli establishments ally with a government that organises pogroms and idolises Hitler? Does an illiberal world-view unite neo-con Republicanism, Zionism, Pakistani militarism and Hindu nationalism in a communally inspired "clash of civilisations"?

A historian must be able to incorporate inconvenient facts into his argument. Zakaria avoids them. His observations on Iran begin with the revolution in 1979. But Western intervention there began with the overthrow of Mossadeq’s secular government in 1953, for fear it might nationalise oil companies. Has he forgotten that Saddam and Osama both collaborated for years with the US? That anti-communist jehadis were hailed by President Reagan on White House lawns as "the moral equivalent of America’s founding fathers"? Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s National Security Advisor, admitted in 1998 that Afghan Islamism was made in Washington. Links between the US and Saudi Arabia remained strong despite the Saudis’ support to the Taliban. Why does not Zakaria mention Western investment in Islamic fundamentalism?

After stating that Arab politics is "not unique, just stuck in a time-warp", Zakaria describes its cultural and institutional weaknesses. He reminds us of Saddam’s poison-gassing the Kurds. We know that Western companies sold Saddam the machinery to produce poison-gas, that the West was quite happy for him to gas the Kurds. The hypocritical backdrop of Western intervention is left out of this account of Arabian history, from the Balfour declaration of 1917, the failure to curb Zionist terror groups in 1947-48, the 1956 British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt, to military support to Israel despite its illegal settlement policy.

Zakaria could have interrogated Western double standards. Can America maintain liberal democratic institutions while practicing terror abroad, venerate the rule of law at home whilst throwing it to the winds in Iraq, Chile, the West Bank or Nicaragua? Could he imagine the reaction in America were an Arab general to become prime minister after presiding over the massacre of innocent Jews or Europeans? Yet Ariel Sharon, directly implicated in the killings of Palestinians in Lebanese refugee camps in 1982, is the idol of today’s neo-con think-tanks. The new ‘civilising’ mission will bring neither liberal democracy, nor growth, only more violence. No state that launches imperial adventures can maintain liberty at home. The Patriot Acts, racial profiling, manipulating public opinion over WMD, show that the chickens always come home to roost.

This is a readable book, written by an intelligent man. Zakaria will fly high along this trajectory as long as jingoism is in demand in the US. But his vision is blurred and ethically challenged. Zakaria should remember Gandhi and Ghaffar Khan, who did not need to bomb people to teach them liberal democracy or civic restraint.