Americans remain justifiably concerned about al Qaeda and related terror groups, but it is worth pausing to note the considerable progress that already has been made in Muslim countries since 9/11 to undermine the jihadis. G.W. Bush correctly insisted that democracy should be promoted in the Middle East, even though democracy is not always an unmixed blessing.
Fareed Zakaria has a good wrap-up of the situation in Newsweek that actually provides some credit to Bush and to King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, where real and potential terrorists are being re-schooled or, if necessary, physically thwarted. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, huge efforts are made by the West to promote republican institutions (not just democracy, but ordered liberty, including minority rights and free speech). Economic development is included, but mainly on the basis of infrastructure. There is no particular emphasis on free markets, though all you have to do is look at the Kurdish region to see the relevance--how free markets encourage peace as well as vice versa.
However, one of the most interesting and under-appreciated models within the Muslim world is Turkey. There the old guard are the Kemalists who are such ardent secularists (though not as bad as the Baathists of Syria and Iraq) that they persecute Muslims as well as other religious peoples. Mustafa Akyol has written extensively on Turkey's history, politics and culture, and has tried to help the West understand that while the arch-secularists control the bureaucracy, the military and most of the media and academia, the pro-Muslim party in Turkey is actually the more tolerant of diversity of religion and of political opinion. Most crucially, Akyol is showing that the Kemalists are mercantilists (though that is not the word he uses) who advance business activities through government connections, while the conservatives--almost all of them Muslim--promote free enterprise. You can get much of the story from Mr. Akyol's frequent columns and articles, but watch also for his forthcoming book on the topic.
The key to cultural transformation within Islam--including freedom in politics-- may be the reclamation of free markets that Akyol describes. Religion and free markets do--or, at least, can--go together. And in Turkey, religion and free markets seem to go together a lot more than secularism and free markets do.
As I mentioned in the previous post, the Enlightenment that shaped the modern West was either pro-religion and limited government (the Scottish school) or anti-religion and authoritarian government (the French school). It was the French example that influenced modernization in Turkey after World War I, unfortunately. The Ottomans that preceded them, ironically, had become more open to classic liberalism. This latter tradition seems somewhat more fruitful as a source for political and economic reform in Muslim countries today.
Leave a comment