Le Monde des religions no. 47, May-June 2011 —
The winds of freedom blowing across the Arab world in recent months are worrying Western governments. Traumatized by the Iranian Revolution, we supported dictatorships for decades, claiming they were a bulwark against Islamism. We cared little that the most fundamental human rights were violated, that freedom of expression was nonexistent, that democrats were imprisoned, that a small, corrupt elite plundered all the country's resources for its own gain… We could sleep soundly: these docile dictators protected us from the potential takeover by uncontrollable Islamists. What we see today is that these people are rising up because, like us, they yearn for two values that underpin human dignity: justice and freedom. These revolts were not launched by bearded ideologues, but by desperate unemployed youth, educated and indignant men and women, and citizens from all walks of life demanding an end to oppression and injustice. These are people who want to live freely, for resources to be shared and distributed more equitably, and for justice and an independent press to exist. These people, whom we thought could only survive under the iron fist of a good dictator, are now giving us an exemplary lesson in democracy. Let us hope that chaos or a violent crackdown will not extinguish the flames of freedom. And how can we pretend to forget that two centuries ago, we had our revolutions for the same reasons ?
Certainly, political Islam is a poison. From the assassination of Coptic Christians in Egypt to that of the Punjab governor in Pakistan who favored revising the blasphemy law, they relentlessly sow terror in the name of God, and we must fight with all our might against the spread of this evil. But we certainly won't stop it by supporting ruthless dictatorships; quite the opposite. We know that Islamism feeds on hatred of the West, and much of this hatred stems precisely from the double standard we constantly employ in the name of realpolitik : yes to grand democratic principles, no to their application in Muslim countries in order to better control them. I would add that this fear of an Islamist takeover seems increasingly unlikely to me. Not only because the spearheads of the current uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Algeria are far removed from Islamist circles, but also because, even if Islamist parties are bound to play a significant role in the coming democratic process, they have extremely little chance of winning a majority. And even if they did, as in Turkey in the mid-1990s, there is no guarantee that the population would allow them to impose Sharia law and exempt them from electoral scrutiny. Peoples trying to rid themselves of long-standing dictatorships have little desire to fall back under the yoke of new despots who would deprive them of a freedom so long desired and so dearly won. The Arab peoples have observed the Iranian experience very closely and are perfectly aware of the tyranny that the ayatollahs and mullahs exert over the entire society. It is not at a time when Iranians are seeking to escape the cruel experiment of theocratic rule that their neighbors are likely to dream of such a thing. Let us therefore set aside our fears and petty political calculations to enthusiastically and wholeheartedly support the people who are rising up against their tyrants.