Response to Prager's Revolutionary Skepticism

In a recent article, conservative columnist Dennis Prager warns readers to temper their enthusiasm about the revolutions sweeping across North America and the Middle East.
He reserves his most wary caution for the recent capitulation of Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt has a history of Anti-Semitic undercurrents, with a very disorderly political process. The strongest political force in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, threatens the peaceful existence of the Jewish state.

On a more general note, Prager asserts, the ouster of homegrown dictators does not spawn liberal, democratic regimes.

To this concern I submit that we do not want purely Democratic regimes sprouting all over the Middle East, only to be taken over and transformed into greater tyranny. Natan Sharansky, former Soviet-dissident and current Zionist and civil rights activist, has outlined at length in his work The Case for Democracy that a full-function liberal state requires time, dedication, deliberate (and deliberated) reform, and a fundamental respect for human rights, including freedom of speech and religion.

True, the track record for tyrannical regimes transforming into civil republics is a poor one, but we should not disdainfully despair of its possibility.

Consider the United States, which began as a very weak regime that committed far too much power to the several states at the expense of a stable central government. The Framers of the Constitution may have exaggerated their healthy fear of an encroaching central power, but at least their work set the foundation for significant, albeit slow, reforms. For example, even though the United States Constitution originally endorsed slavery, the Framers incorporated a process whereby future stakeholders in the United States could make necessary amendments.

For a stronger example of slow but certain liberalization, consider the revolutions which plagued England, from the execution of Charles the First in 1649 until the Glorious Revolution of 1688. For nearly two decades, civil war ravaged the English countryside, only to be restored to order by a Puritanical dictatorship more loathsome than the Royal Despotism of the Stuart Dynasty. However, bloodshed eventually gave way to bloodless transition, with the a weakened co-regency extending greater powers to Parliament. Besides these political reversals, it is important also to keep in mind that the English citizens' very conception of right and due process evolved over centuries, from the Magna Carta in 1215 to the English Bill of Rights published in 1689. Despite the incredible length of time required to develop these institutions, liberal republicanism did take shape in the United Kingdom.

Though the world today should maintain some skepticism in the face of these dramatic political upheavals overtaking the Middle East, we must not discount the sincere opportunity that regimes more favorable to human rights and international peace may emerge in lands which have for so long been barren of individual liberty.