On the Ground: 'Are Democracy and Islam Compatible?'

With 127 government regimes recognized as democracies and nearly as many types of democracies to choose from, the U.S. model was the standard mentioned repeatedly both to emulate and to avoid during a November conference at the American University in Cairo.

More than 250 attendees listened and responded to speakers from seven countries debate the conference title, “Are Democracy and Islam compatible?” over the two days. Sessions focused on topics such as the importance of free elections, corruption in democracies, Muslim perspectives on democracy, and examples of current democratic regimes in the Middle East. While the conference was in Cairo, its focus on electoral processes would be a familiar one to Americans, now beginning their own process of changing leaders as the 2008 primary season heats up.

During the conference, speakers highlighted a definition of democracy centering on the chance to regularly change leaders, rather than on vague ideals of freedom and justice. Though several stressed that there are different goals for democracies at different stages, they said a legitimate electoral process is the first step in discussing larger democratic ideas.

Interactions between religion and politics are nothing new to the American political scene either, especially this year. Former Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R-Mass.) Mormon beliefs have influenced how he has approach his campaign strategy and are a critical issue for evangelical and other voters. Opponents of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) have used his early years in a Muslim school in Indonesia, despite his Christian beliefs, to discredit him, a strategy that calls into question Islam's place in American society.

But it is Islam’s role in developing Mideast democracies — a key discussion point during the conference — that will most influence the next U.S. president’s foreign policy as Iraq continues to attempt to form a fledgling democracy and Islamist parties continue to gain popularity in several countries, even though that did not come up explicitly at the conference.

The speakers included Abd El Monem Abo El Fotouh, a member of the executive council of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group now seen as moderate among Islamists for its reluctance to condone violence in most cases. Abo El Fotouh said the enforcement of Islamic Sharia law and mandatory veiling makes those who do not believe into hypocrites, reflecting how some Islamist thought is beginning to accept a synthesis with democracy in certain areas.

While speakers discussed the ideas behind an Islamic democracy, audience members questioned the practicality of such a government. Several said the question is not whether Islam and democracy are compatible, but rather how to prevent fraud and create competing parties under a domineering regime like the current Egyptian one. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is an illegal opposition party.

Jerry Leach, director of the AUC's Center for American Studies, one of the conference's co-sponsors, said he left feeling that democracy is held in much higher regard in the Middle East than he had previously believed. But it would not necessarily be the kind of democracy Americans would envision, he said.

“At the same time, people do not want to lose their identity and adopt a particular model,” he said. “It must be a democracy that preserves Islamic ideals.”

He also said understanding that people in all countries are frustrated with their governments is vital. Although the conference focused on the American democratic system, it too has its flaws and Egyptians are not alone in being dissatisfied with their leaders, he said.

Doaa Mohammad, an assistant editor for IslamOnline.net who attended the sessions, said she found it interesting to hear a Western viewpoint on democracy and the progress that Middle Eastern governments have achieved.

“I had never thought much about democracies in the Middle East itself,” Mohammad said. “I hadn’t considered the activities in Bahrain and other Arab countries.”

Learning at the conference was not limited to the political realm. Essan Badran, a political science senior at AUC, said he was surprised at the resemblance between certain Muslim and Christian viewpoints that heard about during the conference.

“We discussed some ideas that I had thought of as Muslim ideas, on abortion and gay marriage, that are very similar to those of evangelicals [in America],” Badran said. “These ideas seem to be like religious conservatives in many places.”

In the final session, Pastor called the conference “the beginning of a journey” with no firm conclusions, an outcome that Leach said was a goal from the beginning.

“We didn’t want the conference to prescribe any particular answers,” he said. “We wanted to push people in their thinking so the discussion could move off campus and continue to grow.”

Badran said he would like to see further discussion on the future of political Islam as a religious force and as a political system.

“Many of the speakers focused on democracy alone, but we should look more at these groups that are in Egypt and Jordan and other places, and try harder to understand them and their relations,” he said.

AUC’s Center for American Studies has sponsored an annual conference in the past, but this was the first joint event with the American University in Washington, Leach said. The idea for a conference co-sponsored by the two American Universities originated during Leach’s visit to the Washington school last year, where he met with Robert Pastor, AU’s vice president of international affairs.

They decided on the democracy theme after polling students to gauge their interest in such a conference, Leach said. Narrowing the discussion to focus on Islam’s role in such a government fit with questions such as, “What would an Islamic democracy look like?” — questions that many have on their minds today.