Vivek Chibber
The second one is important because it’s being brought up again and it will make the rounds if the United States starts saber rattling again. This is the view that Bush’s mistake was to import democracy to a culture that wasn’t ready for it. Ironically, this is the favorite liberal criticism.
The problem, this criticism goes, is that these are regions that have never had democracy. And you can’t shove democracy down a people’s throat through a military invasion if they’re not ready for it. In a minute I’ll get into why it’s empirically mistaken. But let me just point out how profoundly racist it is. It presumes what colonial masters have been saying for a hundred years, which is that the darker nations, the nations in Africa, in Asia, the problem they have is that they’re not ready for democracy and it’s the West’s job to either tutor them or to wait till they’re ready. And that’s what the relationship of trusteeship is.
The idea is that the West will rule them until they’re ready. And then when that golden hour comes and they’re culturally suited to govern themselves, the West can dutifully hand over power to these nations.
The way you learn about democracy is by having democracy. So when are the people in any region of the world culturally ready for it? Well, they’re always ready.
It’s racist because what does democracy actually require? Democracy is simply the institutionalization of people’s desire for some kind of self-determination, for having control over their own fates. Now, why is that something that’s deemed to be absent in the Middle East or absent in other parts of the world?
Where was it in the West? When the West got democracy, was there a foreign power that tutored them? Was there a period of tutelage?
The way you learn about democracy is by having democracy. So when are the people in…
Auteur: Vivek Chibber
