Democracy: With Us or Against Us?

As the protests in Egypt continue, one phrase seems to be on everyone's mind: Mubarak out, Democracy in.  This is the goal of the Egyptian protestors occupying Tahrir Square in Cairo, and it is what hundreds have died and thousands have been injured for in these past two weeks.  Finally, after the lives of thousands of American soldiers have been lost in two wars waged to spread democracy to the Middle East, the people of a Middle East nation have gone to the streets in a revolution for representation and freedom.

And yet, America is afraid.

The United States fears the ouster of Egyptian "President" Hosni Mubarak (I use quotes because the word president implies a real election), a dictator we have supported for 30 years.  Despite his despotic rule, Mubarak has taken billions in US foreign aid to maintain a "cool peace" with Israel, and Americans from Obama down fears democracy will allow Egyptians to elect leaders less willing to compromise their beliefs for some cash.

But, as columnist Nicholas Kristof insists in his recent blog post, we should not worry about democracy in Egypt.  Indeed, I say, we should celebrate it.  And here's why:

Americans have been taught to see democracy and Islam as diametrically opposed; one is Western and just, the other is foreign and dangerous.  The protests in Egypt, however, have come to show that democracy has an increasingly crucial place within Islam.  In an opinion piece written yesterday in The New York Times, policy expert Reuel Marc Gerecht asserts that democracy not only represents the justice and freedom so integral in the Islamic religion, but it can work well in Egypt.  And he cautions us not to think of Egypt today in terms of Iran in 1979.

In 1979, a fundamentalist Islamic movement took power in the political vacuum left by the removal of a Western-supported despot carried out by a democratic revolution of the people.  Sound familiar?

The stage seems set in Egypt for a repeat of '79 Iran, a political shift that led to the rise of an oppressive Islamic regime that continues to pose perhaps the greatest threat to peace in the region.  But the movement in Egypt offers several stark contrasts.

First of all, as both Gerecht and Kristof note, the Muslim Brotherhood that seems poised to take the lead in the democratic process in Egypt has been forced by the Egyptian populace to abandon its most authoritarian theories of government in favor of representative rule.  The long-term rule of the Muslim Brotherhood is subject to a large group of Christians within the country that will be at the polling places keeping them in check.

In addition, the Islamic population of Egypt is mostly Sunni, not Shi'ite, and thus the leaders of the Brotherhood are not Ayatollahs and religious heads - those that fill the power structure of Shi'a tradition - but lay people, some with liberal beliefs.  Both columnists note that these leaders can and must be more receptive to the needs and wants of the Egyptian populace, and, even if they do rise to power, they will be held accountable by the energized voters of their nation.

The Egyptian protests offer Americans an important lesson: Islam and democracy are not mutually exclusive.  Although Mubarak's ouster could worsen relations between the Egyptian government and both the US and Israel, at least in the short run, this does not mean we should prevent democracy from taking hold.  For, as the bringers of democracy to the world, we cannot choose to whom it goes and when.

Indeed, I say, it is a sign of America's grand successes over the past 250 years that people in far regions of the world, who hold ideologies quite opposed to ours, want to model our system.  Egypt's democracy may come about just how ours did - in a hard-fought revolution against an oppressive regime.  Let's take this opportunity to separate ourselves from this oppression and be the nation that escaped the grasp of tyranny and created a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Just because, this time, these people aren't all white Christians, does not mean they're not people.