Description
Democracy is an advanced structural product of advanced societies, and while not perfect, it is the most sophisticated and rational political system devised by humanity throughout its long history. This rediscovery of the “virtue” of democracy is perhaps the most defining characteristic of the critical consciousness of the generation to which this writer belongs at the end of the twentieth century.
However, the euphoria of discovery, or rediscovery, especially after prolonged frustration and disappointment, carries with it its own dangers. Democracy is threatened with becoming—and indeed has already become, for a large segment of the intelligentsia producing contemporary Arab discourse—a democratic ideology replacing the fading revolutionary or nationalist ideologies.
Within this comparison, George Tarabish’s articles in this book are included. Their greatest contribution lies in cautioning against falling into this trap, and in the shift from critical awareness to an ideological consciousness that ignores the historical context of democracy, establishing it instead in an idealistic, redemptive lyricism. These articles, though published some time ago, do not claim any inherent importance for themselves. Their significance stems from the growing importance of the democratic question in contemporary Arab discourse. However, given that democracy seems to have become a point of consensus in this discourse without a corresponding theoretical foundation, it has imposed itself in this problematic comparison, which raises more questions than it offers answers, and explains premises more than it dictates conclusions. At the end of the book, the author dedicates space to the arguments of writers who, in their view, constitute the “antidote” of democracy as a cure-all for all political ills.
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