Democracy, the American Way

Do Arabs have the right to dream of a democracy that transcends doctrinal divisions, sectarian partisanship, and geographical conflicts or cracks in the vertical-society system, among which is horizontalism?

Since the fall of Iraq, it has become clear that the example of Yugoslavia forms the largest concern and basic incentive for projects based on the model of U.S. democracy. Perhaps, what we most need today is to stand together and face the mechanisms of destruction that no longer serve any region, nation, sect or family.

What sort of democracy are we speaking of, as the prospects of religious and racial divisions haunt us? And, what sort of political result are we speaking of, when we are forced to request a DNA test certificate to determine the nature of our dealings with people and places? Have we fallen into the trap of false democracy? Democracy is a cultural behavior, resulting from cumulative consciousness and the sum of positive and negative experiences. However, the kind of democracy that is not guided by an ideological compass, in short, further roots a state of civil war, liable to explode at any instant for the smallest of reasons.

There is a clear difference between the American and European mentality of the true nature and concept of democracy.

Europeans consider ideology to be the most important factor in forming political parties that are capable of administering the democratic system. However, Americans remain insistent on a policy of leveling and simplification, dividing society into numerous components on the basis of geography, race, religious sect and doctrine.

Despite this, centers known as promoters of U.S. democracy still spend millions on dividing and fracturing us according to their own view of us, not the reality in which we live. The fact is that democracy cannot be built upon ethnicity, factions, or even opportunistic partnerships.

A true democracy-building project is a tool capable of wiping out racial and sectarian divides, within an ideological, intellectual and political framework. It is able to put an end to all forms of sectarian partisanship and all religions and racial conflicts.

From the instant the Lebanese civil war ended, there has been a peculiar insistence on bringing forth what is called the “democratic” model, which has exposed the Arab way of thinking to systematic marketing campaigns aiming to root this model into Arab mentality. In reality, the Lebanese model is not a democratic model, but rather, closer to a temporary coexistence model that contradicts any real democracy project. The practice of democracy by way of entrenching ethnic, religious and doctrinal concepts could not be further from democracy: This consecrates a state of loss of harmony and widens the already existing cracks in Lebanese society, making civil war a permanent option on the political table.

Thinking about this problem leads us to a more precise diagnosis of our socially and politically wretched reality. The totality of national identities, which were not produced within the context of a societal assimilation plan and deeply rooted national constants, do not exceed personal characteristics. The circumstances today — unfortunately — produce fragile identities incapable of facing any challenge or shake-ups.

Perhaps, the resemblance of most of these identities, during the circumstances in which they were formed, helps us to more accurately understand the problem. These identities moved from the colonial period to the “civil state” very rapidly and did not spend any time in incubation, so that the process of intellectual development — development in issues of human worth, state formation, and basic concepts of freedom and equality — could take place.