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January 28, 2006

Can there be an Islamic Democracy?

This was exactly the question that the Fares Center for Middle Eastern Studies at The Fletcher School tried to answer last Friday in a series of panel discussions at their conference, Democratizing the Middle East?. The answer, as it turns out, is more difficult than one might hope. Progressive ideas were, nonetheless, achieved and the intellectual back-and-forth proved not only informative, but substantive.

As director of the Fares Center, Issam M Fares Professor of Lebonese and Eastern Mediterranean Studies Leila Fawaz aimed the conference at trying to tackle a topic that the entire international community is currently grappling with. To accomplish this, the center lined up several experts in the field for a series of discussions on topics covering the historical precedents for Middle Eastern democracy, the constitutions and laws of the Middle East, elections and civil society of the region, how religion and democracy played out, women’s roles in democracy in the Middle East, and finally what the American interests were in the area.

Friday’s lineup began with interesting perspectives on how elections and the civil society worked in the Middle East. With distinct legal and financial systems, that generally revolved around the Islamic religion in place, both of these factors certainly played into the ideas of democracy that may or may not be apparent there.

When it came time for Vali Nasr to speak in the following panel, Religion and Democracy, he recognized that, “It was no longer about compatibility of faith and democracy, but about sectarian balance of power,” which he identified primarily as the struggle between the Shia and the Sunni. Coming to the point, he said that “Democracy needs enough parties, enough elections and space for debate, and economic reform and privatization,” in order to be successful.

Lunch provided a respite for all attendees to discuss what they’d heard thus far. A group of attendees were able to dine with many of the speakers, inquiring further into their work on the subject and exchanging ideas.

The afternoon began with a serious discussion on women and their place in an Islamic democracy. As speaker Andrea Rugh highlighted, “Arab women’s concerns are very difficult to address because of the social issues they raise.” She identified that these issues usually take three different courses: they are set aside for later, the state tries to appease everyone with ambiguous and often ineffectual statutes, or the state applies controlled reforms where they decide the changes and who is involved.

Many of the speakers of this panel expressed optimism, however, in the situation. Mahnaz Afkhami spoke of her research on grassroots organizations in various Arab countries that were brought together to talk about women’s rights and human rights. For most, it seems, Islam has been a source of nourishment, values and growth for women across the world.

The last session of the day was a discussion on what America’s interests were in the Middle East. In passing, one international student joked, “It would have been more well-rounded had we had someone from the administration up on that panel.”

At the end of the day, people found the conference incredibly informative, with an excellent line-up of speakers and faculty members. Professor Fawaz closed with a heart-felt satisfaction and an even more heart-felt gratitude towards everyone who participated.

By Katharine Beecher Brodock, MALD ‘07