Nashat: Since the demise of the Soviet Union
many countries of the world have been moving
more gradually towards more democratic government
the only place in the world where this hasn’t
happened is are the Islamic countries of the
Middle East. And as a result of this some
pundits some political commentators and even
scholars have been saying that basically Islam
and democracy are not compatible and to me
this seems like a false dichotomy because
I look at England which was the beginning
which is where this modern move towards democracy
began and England to this day in theory at
least is a theocracy the sovereign is the
head of State and Church and this didn’t
stop England from become the model for democracy.
What do you think have you given this issue any thought and what do you think about this question?
Donner: Well I’ve given it little thoughts
and I guess I would agree with you that it’s
a kind of false dichotomy here, I mean I think
that any cultural tradition as variegated
and important in history as Islamic tradition
is going to embrace huge diversity of opinions
and of practices of ways of interpreting it
and to that that it is sort of by its very
nature incompatible with Islam I think is
simply not going to be true anymore then it
would be true for any other great world tradition
you can interpret this tradition in any way
that you as a particular Muslim want to interpret
it and some Muslims interpret it in a very
autocratic way and some others would want
to interpret it in a very democratic way.
I don’t think there is any intrinsic contradiction
there. I think that there are two things that
I would like to emphasize in this. One is
that I don’t think we can see democracy
as being sort of like pregnancy that is either
you are or you aren’t I think it’s a process
as you suggested some are more and some are
less democratic it’s a path it’s a state
towards which government societies move and
some are further along on this path to democratization
then others. In that respect I think it’s
not fair to say in fact that the Middle East
hasn’t seen any democratization I think
there are some actually noteworthy examples
today of states in the Middle East that begun
to make significant progress towards democracy.
Nashat: Yes
Donner: I think certainly in Turkey there
has been a kind of on again off again but
never the less a real experiment with democratization
for decades
Nashat: Yes
Donner: And in Iran there were elections that
seemed they seemed to be open and fair elections
in which actually the people who were opposed
to the regime won a lot of seats. So and there’s
actually quite a bit as I understand quite
a bit of open debates of issues of governance
and so on in Iran. It’s not fully a democracy
of course not yet but it’s well on the way
I would say to that. There were recently election
in where was it Bahrain?
Nashat: Right
Donner: In which women ran ah voted and some
women ran for office this is a tremendous
step towards democratization. So I don’t
think it’s fair to say that there isn’t
any more towards democracy in the Middle East
in Islamic states and in other state like
Jordan for example has had regular elections
and it’s still a monarchy. But you know
it’s a state in the process of moving towards
a greater democratization. So that’s one
point
Nashat: Yes
Donner: That you know it’s not just on or
off democracy
Nashat: Right
Donner: not just yes or no it’s a process
and many of these states are in the process
of moving towards it.
Nashat: I quite agree with you yeah. What
was the second point you were going to mention?
Donner: The other one is that democracy tends
to arise not simply because shall we say the
principles of the dominant culture are supportive
of it or doesn’t arise because they’re
not supportive of it. It arises as much as
anything because historical conditions are
right for its emergence. I think in addition
to having sort of the basic principles of
your civilization let us say be ones that
could accommodate democracy you also have
to have the right conditions for it to arise.
For example we consider the history of Europe
and go back to say 1700 we could say well
there seventeen hundred years of the history
of Christendom but hardly any democracy at all, most European , Christian governments
were highly autocratic until the 18th century.
Nashat: That is true yes
Donner: So if we looked at the picture then
only we’d say well Christianity doesn’t
accommodate democracy does it. Well I don’t
think it would be fair to say that obviously
the conditions weren’t right for the rise
of democracies in Western Europe until the
18th and 19th centuries and the 20th century.
And I think the same is true for the Middle
East. I mean the Middle East is hasn’t found
itself in a situation where the general socioeconomic
conditions of the society or historical conditions
of the society are those that really would
be conducive to democracy.
