As blood spills out of the Middle East again, Americans sit back and ponder why some people cannot just get along.
In Palestine’s 2006 election, a unified government was created which divided power between Hamas and Fatah. From that point, civil war was inevitable. Hamas’ declaration, established in 1988, calls for the destruction of Israel and the implementation of an Islamist state and cannot really coexist with Fatah and its relatively open approach to foreign policy.
While democracy, unquestionably, is a positive force, it cannot exist without a secular foundation and a basic respect of human rights of all people.
Without these foundations in place, a young democracy will collapse upon itself. Without secularism, democracy will slide into a theocracy, and without a respect for human rights, democracy will slide even faster into tyranny of the majority. The foundations of tolerance and respect for life must stand above the majority’s wishes. From the onset each political party must be willing to compromise and to work together.
Hamas, as a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, cannot maintain a totalizing position in Palestine and work for peace.
In Egypt, where the Brotherhood holds considerable political sway, President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak goes as far as to claim if free elections where held tomorrow the Muslim Brotherhood would takeover and roll back democracy, canceling any future elections.
There is no evidence that Hamas would accept the more open and liberal social structure, which is the cornerstone of democratic nations. To quote former Supreme Guide Mustafa Mashur of the Muslim Brotherhood, as cited by Refaat al-Said in Against Illumination,
"We accept the concept of pluralism for the time being; however, when we will have Islamic rule we might then reject this concept or accept it."
For nations that have brutal dictators who resist free elections, claiming that they would only lead to the election of new dictators, the only solution is a cultural shift from the bottom up, towards an acceptance of toleration as the highest social value.
It is paramount that toleration and a prima facie respect for human rights must replace military-religious dogmatism. Without this shift, civilization will be plagued with an unstable Middle East for decades and possibly centuries to come.
Totalizing positions that put human life on a second tier to religious domination cannot and will not foster peace. Praying for a compromise between two rival groups is hopeless as long as one does not respect the right for the other to exist.
While secularism and toleration can grow inside these rival groups, the policy of the West must not be one of forcing democracy from the top down, but strengthening the humane ideas that will inevitably lead to democracy.
Though tolerance and humanity are dealt constant setbacks in the region, hope is not all lost.
Hamas’ Ahmad Youssef stated in 2006 that peace by truce is possible. But, as Americans, let us not forget that positive peace, not just the absence of war, can only exist once the foundation for democracy is set in every mind of every citizen.
Then, and only then, can there be peace, not through power, but toleration.
Guest columnist Gilson, a business sophomore, can be reached via [email protected]
