THE continuing crisis in Egypt has triggered the
usual silly comments to the effect that the Arab nations cannot
cope with democracy. Strong-man leadership is what they expect, and
so the army's taking over is a return to the natural status
quo.
Those who make such comments are likely to go on to
praise the Sultan of Oman for the clean streets of Muscat and
gentle hospitality of the Omanis, which they ascribe to the
benefits of benign dictatorship. Such views are condescending: the
Arab Spring started in a demand for genuine participation in
government.
But what the demonstrators in Tahrir Square do not
seem to have reckoned with is that there is an inevitable downside
to democratic government. Democracy does sometimes come up with the
"wrong" answers, as Egyptians have discovered after their brief
12-month experiment.
This should be no surprise. Even in mature
democracies such as our own, there are limits to what any
democratic government can achieve. Turkeys don't vote for
Christmas, and no one is going to vote for constant austerity,
unemployment, and rising prices. When democratic governments try to
push through such policies, people come out on the streets. Freedom
of speech, freedom to demonstrate, and a free press are part of the
democratic package.
There are other problems, too. Our oppositional
democracy falls down badly when it comes to any kind of long-term
planning. In EU countries, democracy is limited by the need to have
stable EU-wide institutions, which are, as our Eurosceptics
constantly complain, inherently undemocratic. American democracy,
for all its virtues, requires candidates who are rich, as well as
media-savvy, well dressed, and with a full head of hair. Those who
trumpet the moral virtues of Western democracy should be aware that
we all live in glass houses.
Democracy is vulnerable to those who participate in
it. This is why it cannot work without educated voters, wide
participation, and rational argument. In Egypt, those who support
the Muslim Brotherhood are among the poorest, least educated, and
most devout of the population. They are not especially concerned
about press freedom or human rights; their needs are more
basic.
Our democracy suffers from different problems -
indifference and cynicism. Party membership is at an all-time low.
We are quick to spot corruption, and slow to appreciate political
virtue. So we need to be careful about claims that democracy
represents the best of all political systems. As C. S. Lewis once
said, it can claim only to be the least bad.