Demokratie in der arabisch-islamischen Welt
“Do Islam and democracy mix?” fragt Nicholas J. Xenakis im “National Review” angesichts der Schwierigkeiten im Irak, einen Verfassungsentwurf vorzulegen:
The difficulty in diagnosing the current state of affairs in Iraq is that democracy is naturally tumultuous, so it is difficult to tell whether the problems the assembly is encountering are merely symptoms of the democratic process or signs of a deeper issue.
Welche Probleme eine irakische Verfassung mit sich bringen könnte, macht Dr. Nathan Brown vom Washingtoner “Education for Peace in Iraq Center” im Interview deutlich:
Q: There’s concern that Iraq might revert to a neopatrimonial system, in which leaders buy loyalty and the Iraqi electorate is made up of “subjects,”not “citizens.” Do you think that this is likely, and how does the constitution deal with this?
A: I think this is possible. The constitutional drafts that the Shiite parties have been pushing are very strongly majoritarian. They give the majority a very, very strong role. It’s very easy to understand why they would do this. The Shiite parties anticipate being the majority. But it could be a system that sets up, not necessarily a patrimonial system under a specific ruler, but a patronage system dependent on a political party or movement. Some of this seems to be happening on a local level right now in Iraq.
How to prevent it in the constitution? By focusing on institutional safeguards and mechanisms of accountability. There’s nothing wrong with some decentralization, but it can’t be done in such a way as to create simply local fiefdoms that are run by individual leaders or political parties.
In der saudischen al-Sharq al-Awsat erklärt der in den USA als Nahostfachmann lehrende Mamoun Fandy im Interview, warum er skeptisch gegenüber der Schaffung demokratischer Strukturen in der arabischen Welt im Allgemeinen und im Irak im Besonderen ist:
None of what I am saying is new; some time ago, I wrote an article, published in the Middle East Policy, in 1992, arguing that the history of the Arab world is full of examples demonstrating that, in any confrontation between ideology and tribal or blood affiliation, the latter will always triumph.
Tribalismus und Patronagesystem müssten daher zuerst überwunden werden, wenn Demokratie eine Chance haben soll:
Even the Islamic movements of today, which many believe are headed by the likes of Abu Qatada or Abu Dardaa and others like them, are based on bloods relations: Abboud al Zomar and his first cousin Tariq al Zomar, Mahmoud Islambouli and his brother Khaled Islambouli who killed President Anwar Sadat, and Mohammed Atef a relative of Osama bin Laden, Mamoun al Hodeiby and Hassan and Hodeiby are mere examples of the importance of kinship. The perpetrators of the attacks on U.S cities and London were also closely related; members of the same family also carried out the latest bombing in Tahrir Square in Cairo. What are the implications of this closeness for democracy in the Arab World?
Democracy, as the product of modern society where citizens are related based on intellectual affiliation, is currently on display in the Western world and reflected in its institutions. In weaker societies, these institutions intermingle with blood relations. This type of democracy where individuals are affiliated by choice and not blood ties or tradition is unlikely to emerge in the Arab world, a region where family ties prevail and modernity has yet to appear.
Michael Young wiederum kritisiert im “Opnion Journal” die Gleichgültigkeit gegenüber dem vormaligen Terrorregime Saddam Husseins:
It is politically, however, that Arab societies, specifically liberals, failed to see the advantages in the removal of Saddam, regardless of their antipathy to the Bush administration. (…) Saddam’s fall was welcomed by shamefully few Arabs (…): The “humiliation” of seeing an Arab leader toppled by Western armies far outweighed that of seeing one of the most talented of Arab societies, the Middle East’s Germany, subjected to a ferocious despotism responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. Nor was there much interest regionally in the discovery of the Baath’s mass graves. One reason was the secondary concern that many Arab societies have for Saddam’s foremost victims–the Shiites and Kurds; but the main cause of indifference was that Saddam’s crimes, if acknowledged, threatened to imply the Arabs’ inability to responsibly manage their own emancipation.
Dementsprechend, so schlussfolgert Young, bleibt Demokratie in der arabischen Welt ohne Aussicht, solange sie nicht von ausserhalb gefordert wird:
–––In other words, applauding his ouster meant admitting that the Arab world could produce no better, and deserved no better than Western armies in its midst. This rationale was nonsense, but spawned a cliché that Arab intellectuals routinely peddle: that Arab reform must come “from within”–though the notion would have been laughable in Baathist Iraq. Arab societies must indeed open up from inside, but absent an echo, sometimes a determining one, from outside–including the option of foreign military action–little will change.