That is the opening line of Unfit for Democracy?, the latest opinion piece from Nicholas Kristof, online now and appearing in tomorrow's New York Times.
I am going to suggest that people may want to read it carefully, and reflect on what Kristof has to say. For example, after exploring the concerns of many, often pushed by those benefiting from the current oppressive regimes, that the instability that would follow their toppling would be far worse, Kristof offers this:
I don’t think so. Moreover, this line of thinking seems to me insulting to the unfree world. In Egypt and Bahrain in recent weeks, I’ve been humbled by the lionhearted men and women I’ve seen defying tear gas or bullets for freedom that we take for granted. How can we say that these people are unready for a democracy that they are prepared to die for?
that they are prepared to die for - important words to consider.
Here in the US we wonder whether people will be willing to stand up for jobs, for the right to organize. Some might face being discharged from employment. Some might even be fined. But as of now we do not face murderous thugs turning anti-aircraft weaponry upon us, they do not threaten to rape our wives, they do not bomb our demonstrations.
As Kristof notes,
We Americans spout bromides about freedom. Democracy campaigners in the Middle East have been enduring unimaginable tortures as the price of their struggle — at the hands of dictators who are our allies — yet they persist.
We have seen that in nation after nation. It is not just the dominoes that have already fallen - Tunisia and Egypt. It will go further than Libya - there are demonstrations in Yemen, in Iran (granted, not Arab). The King of Saudi Arabia is showering money upon people hoping to forestall demonstrations there. Yet the people persist.
Kristof tells us of a double-amputee in a wheel chair in Tahrir Square who rolled his wheel chair to the front lines while Mubarak's thugs attacked. That is in one paragraph, immediately followed by this:
In Bahrain, I watched a column of men and women march unarmed toward security forces when, a day earlier, the troops had opened fire with live ammunition. Anyone dare say that such people are too immature to handle democracy?
There are other powerful images in the column, not all pleasant - heads carried on pikes, for example. Yet Kristof is ultimately optimistic, despite the inevitable bumps ahead.
I am of an age when I remember violence being used in this country against those who sought full democratic freedom. We had bombings of churches and synagogues, lynchings and assassinations. We had to send in paratroopers so 9 kids could attend a high school. Later we saw other kinds of violence as people protested - a war of choice, the assassination of a civil rights icon.
Still, those of us alive have not in this country had to face anything quite as serious as what some in the Middle East risk right now.
Are we so superior? We got our freedom in a war with Britain, but then continued to oppress a substantial part of our population by keeping them in chattel slavery for another 3/4 of a century. We criticize Arabs and Muslims for their treatment of women yet we have today those in our nation who wish to strip rights away from women, even to force them to justify themselves for the natural occurrence of a miscarriage.
I cannot offer all the insight contained in Kristof's column. I can only urge you to read it, to consider it, to pass it on.
Near the end he quotes a professor from NYU: “I don’t support autocracy in your society if I don’t want it in my society.” Wise words indeed, to which Kristof appends the following to end his column:
That should be our new starting point. I’m awed by the courage I see, and it’s condescending and foolish to suggest that people dying for democracy aren’t ready for it.
That is well said indeed. So let me end by repeating it:
it’s condescending and foolish to suggest that people dying for democracy aren’t ready for it.