The Poetry of Democracy

There is a saying in politics: "You campaign in poetry, but govern in prose." Our nation's foreign policy seems to follow that maxim. America poetically campaigns for the spread of democracy around the world, but uses a stilted prose when it comes to supporting democratic movements. The popular uprisings roiling the Middle East and North Africa are good examples. Because when it comes to many of those Arab countries, the democratic principles and concepts we so loudly proclaim as basic to human existence become too complicated and convoluted to implement.

For years, our presidents have spoken forcefully about the need to introduce western-style democracy to the Arab world, especially in those nations we oppose. Yet, when our "friends" find themselves pushed against the wall by people yearning for freedom, we become mute: our voices constricted, our principles diluted. And when that occurs, we find ourselves and our policies out of step with reality.

Just a little less than three months ago, the people of Tunisia set the Arab world on end, taking to the streets in protest against a corrupt and stifling government. The Tunisians were not asking for an Islamic Republic or seeking to install a communist regime, they were simply looking for the kind of dignity and rights we so often take for granted. The fervor that sent Tunisia's president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, packing erupted in Egypt, eventually leading to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

Since then, the movement has spread across the Arab world, igniting protests in Algeria, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, and other countries. Each country has responded differently, with leaders of Iran's Islamic Republic calling for the execution of opposition leaders, and Bahrain's royal family sending what amounts to mercenaries to crackdown on protesters. (Bahrain's Sunni minority so distrusts its Shiite majority that it has brought in Sunni Muslims from such countries as Pakistan and made them police. Those police are now cracking down on demonstrators, creating the Arab world's equivalent of Hessian soldiers.)

In the aftermath of these broad-based protests -- many of which crossed religious, ethnic, economic and educational lines -- our government issued constrained statements of support, particularly in countries where our friends were brutalizing their own people. We saved our most poetic democratic cries for those regimes we abhor. The result has been an uneven and crackling voice that at times seems to embarrass more than it informs.

America's tepid response is somewhat understandable. Too often we have reacted wrongly to the dynamics of the Arab world. The result is that we have become the Evil Empire to too many people there. To avoid such labels, we halfheartedly enter the dialogue. But we cannot allow our fear of Islamic extremists, nor our desire to be seen as not meddling in the politics of other nations, to keep us from standing by the principles we so loudly extol.

We are at the crossroads, where the youth of North Africa and the Middle East seem to be yelling for our support, pleading desperately for a chance to be a part of the world. We can help the protesters accomplish their dreams by showing our allies that they are empowered when they empower their people. Or we can withdraw and hope that the democratic movements sweeping that part of the world are not hijacked by extremists.

We don't have to do much to accomplish our goal of spreading democracy. The current generation has already shown that the Internet and social networking are viable organizing tools. Making such tools available to more of the world will help further the principles of freedom. And once those tools are available we can bring about change by not waging ideological war against a particular regime, but by opening new marketplaces for ideas.

For when ideas are accessed, great things can happen. Just look at Gene Sharp, a former professor living in Boston. Sharp is the author of “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” a 93-page guide to toppling autocrats that is available in more than 20 languages. According to The New York Times, leaders of the nascent democratic movements of the Arab world have adopted his tome as their road map to freedom. As a result, dictators seem to revile him as much as they do the United States government.