Via the Times of London, Peter Watson argues that the West should be spreading secularism not democracy. I wonder if it isn’t a bit arrogant, paternalistic, and more importantly counterproductive to have such a language about democracy and secularism, to assume that it has to be taught and spread and that the West is always the teacher. Sugary excerpt:
Democracy, we tell ourselves, is a hallmark of “the West”, the treasure that the rest of the World envies and that accounts for the pre-eminence of Europe and North America in economic progress, intellectual dominance and moral freedoms.
But it's not the case when you examine the chronology. The rise of the West had much less to do with democracy than with the rise of secularism. The West's advance was chiefly related to the decline in the influence of religion that sought the truth by “looking in” to see what God had to say, and its replacement by looking out, deriving authority from observation, experimentation and exploration.
[…] At a time when the world is calling for elections in Pakistan, this basic truth is being overlooked. Forcing Pervez Musharraf, a dictator but a relatively benign one, and most importantly a secular ruler, into elections that radical or openly political Muslims might win, risks a replay of Iraq, where the West deposed a secular ruler, a brutal one it is true, but nowhere near as threatening as the risk that will exist if radical Islam gains the day.
The same is true of Turkey, which has elected an Islamic party whose Prime Minister, according to The Times's own accounts, is taking the country surreptitiously into an intolerant Islamic and inherently anti-Western stance. Look at what democracy has produced in Iran, Palestine and Zimbabwe.
The inconvenient truth is that the West should be exporting secularism around the world before it exports democracy. Democracy implies not just one person one vote but
no less important that the political process proceeds by rational means, by argument, by persuasion, and is based on knowledge that is as objective, as scientific, as one can make it. The objective knowledge has to come first.
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