Democracy in the Middle East: An Indigenous Assessment

During the previous century much of the world has taken great strides in adopting and implementing democracy and yet the Middle East has notably faltered. More recently with the rise of religious extremism, the region has fallen farther behind with many states retaining authoritarian forms of governance demonstrating gross humanitarian abuses. Most notably since the turn of the century, the resurgence of Islam as a driving force in regional politics, has proven a daunting challenge for the increasingly secular statesmen and academics of the West. Likewise attempts to understand the situation from an outside perspective and apply remedies concocted in western institutions have met with repeated failure and have in fact only served to bolster the anti-democratic narratives of fundamentalists and terrorists. In order to fully appreciate the roots of the dilemma and help create better communication between East and West, the people living in the Middle East need to be heard and included in the dialogue. In this study, interviews were done with a broad selection of sixteen students from the Middle East studying at the Eastern Mediterr ne n University in G zim usa, Northern Cyprus. This selection included Arabs, Turks, Iranians and Kurds from all major political and religious backgrounds. Each was asked for their thoughts on the state of democracy in the Middle East. Their answers highlight the fact that although most Middle Easterners welcome incre sed freedom they don‟t w nt the incre singly individualist democracy promoted in the West or the political and economic strings often attached to it. Their responses also underscore the essential role that Islam continues to play in the political psyche of their region, the nature of which westerners largely misunderstand. This study should prove helpful in highlighting the real concerns of the up and coming generation of Middle Easterners with a view towards fostering better understanding and communication. Keywords: Democracy, Middle East, Secularism, Human Rights, Islam, West.