Tom Friedman Reversal on Arabs and Democracy

Remember way back when Tom Friedman shredded liberals because we allegedly don't think Arabs are capable of Democracy?

I’m really sorry. Next time...I promise, I really promise, I’ll be a better liberal....I will view the prospect of Arabs forging a democracy as utterly impossible. They’re incapable of democracy.

Oh, yeah, it was last week. (Thinkprogress has the audio).

So what's he saying today, six whole days later?

If Arab Muslims can summon the will to protest only against the insults of "the foreigner" but never the injuries inflicted by their own on their own, how can they ever generate a modern society or democracy -- which is all about respecting and protecting minority voices and unorthodox views? And if Sunnis and Shiites can never form a social contract to rule themselves -- and will always require an iron-fisted dictator -- decent government will forever elude them.

As far as I can tell, the only difference between what he wrote today and what he viciously criticized last week is the "if".

As Hunter put it here last week, "Yep, he gets Pulitzer Prizes for spouting crap like that."

(Crossposted at MYDD.)

•  another difference

  The fiirst passage is about all Arabs.
  The sevond is about Arab muslims.

  And considering what is happening in Egypt, Gaza and Lebanon, I think it is a fair question.  How can they have a democracy when they allow violence to consume the poliical process?

  by Pumpkinlove on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 07:09:46 AM PDT

  •  Well, you've probably got a point there...

    However, the European powers and the US have been waging war on, and exerting control over, the Mideast for the better part of a century now and I suspect that has more than a little to do with the mess the Mideast is in.

    And, Tom Friedman damn well knows that too - or, he's a bigger idiot than I presumed.

    by Troutfishing on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 07:19:53 AM PDT

    •  Really, I am fucking sick and tired of asshats...

      ... like Tom Friedman pretending that a couple of centuries of rampant slaughter and theft of resources and people from African and Middle Eastern and South American and Central American people, destruction of their native systems of government, and the imposition of artificial borders designed to keep them from ever reconstructing their self-reliance in any meaningful manner never fucking happened.

      The worst of the problems that the people of these parts of the world suffer are the direct result of European and USA imperial and economic colonization;  colonization that continues under corporatist globalization.

      It is fucking disingenous of asshats like Friedman to refuse to face up to that fact.

      by tbetz on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 07:32:33 AM PDT

      •  Um, "The native systems of government?"

        The native system of government in some Latin American countries consisted of priest-kings ripping the still-beating hearts out of captives.

        It's up for debate as to whether Spanish incompetence & corruption was any better.  Or incompetence & corruption provided by a US-backed dictator.

        But most countries in Latin America are (with one exception) kinda-sorta more or less democracies.

        Heck, the French and the British slaughtered the First Peoples of Canada, exploited their resources and drew artificial borders.  And later, the US stole some of their hockey teams.  And Canada's going OK.

        by Utahrd on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 08:09:15 AM PDT

        •  Depends on who you ask

          The descendants of European settlers in Canada and Latin America are doing ok. Indigenous people throughout the hemisphere are doing better than they were before, but many are still functionally enslaved in mining and agricultural industries without much political power or relative wealth.

          Maybe if all of the private contractors and corporate employees in Iraq settle down and create a new ruling class that success will repeat itself in a few hundred years. With the mass exodus of Iraq's professionals and intellectuals there is a big vacuum to fill.

          by Jonathanonymous on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 08:32:39 AM PDT

        •  Look into the practices of pre-enlightenment...

          ... Europe some time.

          The point is that Europeans had no right to impose their religion and systems of governance on native peoples, and did nore harm than good.  If you have a good system, you don't have to force it on people, they will steal it.

          Canada and the US are doing "OK" because the native people were elminated for all intents and purposes, and the people doing "OK" are the Eurpoeans. The few natives who survive (those who don't own casinos, a very recent historical development) aren't doing all that well.

          by tbetz on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 08:49:51 AM PDT

          •  The inquisition for instance....

            ....not human sacrifice at all, oh no. Auto de fe? Just a mistaken thang....

            by Salo on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 09:43:35 AM PDT

        •  oh please this is overblown...

          ...the accounts written by the biased priests mainly. Very unreliable witnesses.   Although you don't hear the MAyans complaining about imperialism they just get on with their lives and try to thrive.

          It is quite possible that democracy is a hard match with certain violent strains of Islam in it's current form. Democracy was more or less rejected by German voters in 1933 and given over to terroristic thugs.

          by Salo on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 09:42:39 AM PDT

    •  Doesn't matter.

      At some point, you have to put your bullies down and let the rule of law prevail.   There can be no democracy until they do so.  Make all the excuses you want for why it is happening but until it happens, there will be no democracy.

      by Pumpkinlove on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 07:33:17 AM PDT

      •  Possibly

        But the operative "you" has to be the Iraqi people. The US can't create democracy by knocking off all of the bullies. Most of experiments in decolonization in which the colonial power has mandated elections and then gradually withdrawn military power have resulted in dictatorship or civil war within a few years.

        Unfortunately, power will probabaly end up in the hands of whoever forces the US to leave.

        by Jonathanonymous on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 08:19:22 AM PDT

    •  Si se puede!

      We screwed over El Salvador, Panama & Guatemala and those countries are kinda-sorta more or less democracies.

      by Utahrd on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 08:04:08 AM PDT

  •  The French...

    ...an early mover in the thing called Deomcracy had enormous amounts of violence. Althought hey practiced dissent.

    by Salo on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 09:39:00 AM PDT

•  He has lost it long ago...

  Now he is turning to racism to find a way to chicken out of his reponsibility to create and aura of letimacy for the greatest blunder of American foreign policy in his generation.

  All I say is: "The horror, the horror..."

  by jandsm on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 07:19:17 AM PDT

  •  It's quite grotesque really.

    I'm convinced at this point that Freidman is wholly unprincipled, that he simply says what's good for Tom Friedman.

    Bootlicking rationales for global corporate excess get printed, sure, and Arab bashing plays well in the US.

    by Troutfishing on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 07:22:18 AM PDT

  •  Firedman (sic) is talking to himself ...

    There's a limit to how many times one can be wrong, while enjoying direct access to a national pulpit.
    He's as irrelevant as Brooks over at NYT.

    by SteinL on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 07:26:15 AM PDT

•  Wrong again

  How can someone say something, then say the opposite, and yet be dead wrong both times?

  Of course Arabs (like all people) are capable of democracy.  The problem is that we dont know what democracy is.  Democracy is the freedom to vote, and nothing else.

  Even if you extend the definition to what often goes by the phrase 'democratic institutions', the fault is with the constitution that [should have] set up these institutions, not the voters.  USA needed the institution of a non-representative senate to allow the formation of the nation, not to mention numerous other compromises.

  by sny on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 07:23:52 AM PDT

  •  not quite

    Democracy is about way more than just voting. Democratic votes often produce undemocratic regimes if proper protections are not in place -- from Hitler to Hamas. I would add Bush in between but hasten to add that as bad as Bush is, I am not saying he is as bad as either Hitler or Hamas. ;)

    by JoelBloom on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 08:06:31 AM PDT

    •  Love your tagline

      by Jonathanonymous on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 08:35:49 AM PDT

      •  Thanks!

        It's from Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book. :)

        by JoelBloom on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 08:42:52 AM PDT

    •  you are describing liberal-democracy.

      ...

      by Salo on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 09:46:07 AM PDT