2011-10-28

 

Tunisia Rethink

Well the results are in, and the Islamists have got a whopping 40% of the vote. I proceeded to go down the list of runners-up to see which party was actually decent and that I would support. Most of them were actually leftists, and there were none I really wanted to see.

Whereas the Islamist party supports the free market, and doesn't support any typical radical Islamic policies like banning bikinis. They seem to be moderate Muslims, and would seem to be a Muslim version of the US Republican party (ie the religious people vote for them). And according to this "Ask people here why they vote for the Islamists and they don't talk about religion".

So all-in-all, it seems like we have a fantastic success story. The Arab Muslims have managed to produce a decent democracy. One way or another, this result can be reproduced across the rest of the region (think - Saudi Arabia). The Muslims are not fundamentally ideological challengers to the West. That's the real danger to long-term prospects for world freedom and world peace - whether we have any ideological challengers to liberal democracy. With Taiwan covering the Chinese angle, Tunisia covering the Arab Muslim angle, and some semi-functioning African democracies, it looks like we have the Ultimate Ideology at hand - liberal democracy. It may not be Utopia, but it's a damn site better than whatever comes second.

So the prospects for the future look good, although there are still wars to be fought to get there. Winnable wars, because we're armed with an ideology that requires no resources to maintain. Democracies are self-maintaining.



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