Re: Sistani, Elections, and Sectarianism (was Poll: They really don’t want us there)
On Aug 30, 2006, at 12:31 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
I’ve never said that people in the Middle East do not want democracy. The common sense in America has us conflate democracy with liberalism, but these are not the same thing, and the habit of conflation makes us fail to accept other peoples’ democracy when they don’t adopt liberalism as well as democracy. Therefore, it’s crucial for us to develop a clear conceptual distinction between liberalism and democracy, so when we see illiberal democracy, we can see democracy, rather than merely lack of liberalism and pass if off as lack of democracy.
What do you mean by “liberalism”? Freedom of speech and assembly,
contested elections, etc.? Free-market capitalism?
Doug