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Liberal Values and the End of History

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Liberal Values and the End of History FEATURE LIBERAL VALUES AND THE END OF HISTORY The Arab Spring’s call for the institutionalisation of liberal values is reason to pause and reconsider Francis Fukuyama’s famed and reviled end of history thesis, argues Benjamin Herscovitch n the dying days of the Cold War, Greg Sheridan objected to Fukuyama’s thesis Francis Fukuyama claimed the world was on the grounds that it was ‘fantastic nonsense’9 witnessing nothing short of ‘an unabashed and ‘spectacularly wrong, rendered almost idiotic victory of economic and political by the turn events have taken.’10 Iliberalism.’1 Since making this stark claim, a To claim that Fukuyama’s thesis was seemingly endless stream of academics and dicredited by an event like the 9/11 terrorist commentators have betrayed their petty attacks betrays either a failure of basic prejudices and intellectual shallowness by comprehension or a failure to actually read condemning Fukuyama as an ignorant liberal Fukuyama’s works. The shockingly sloppy and triumphalist. Rather than a serious comment superficial critiques of Fukuyama’s position on the almost irresistible gravitational pull of advanced by the likes of Sheridan and others liberal values, Fukuyama’s view that ‘there are indicate their total ignorance of the specificities no serious ideological competitors left to liberal of Fukuyama’s thesis. Fukuyama nowhere democracy’2 was taken to be the high-water claims that major events of world historical mark of solipsistic liberalism. significance will not take place. If Fukuyama’s To be sure, it was perhaps both bold and earnest critics had taken the time to first read confrontational to claim we had arrived at his works and then critique, they would have ‘the end of history’3 and that in the wake of realised that what Fukuyama ‘suggested had ‘the twin crises of authoritarianism and socialist come to an end was not the occurrence of central planning,’4 ‘liberal democracy ... [is] the events, even large and grave events.’11 In saying only coherent political aspiration that spans that we have arrived at the end of history, different regions and cultures around the globe.’5 Fukuyama was simply arguing that beyond Be this as it may, and despite the likely cries of capitalist liberal democracy, there is ‘nothing protest from his detractors, the Arab Spring gives else towards which we could expect to evolve’12 us reason to pause and reconsider Fukuyama’s because it is ‘hard to find a viable alternative famed and reviled end of history thesis. type of civilisation that people want ... to live in after the discrediting of socialism, monarchy, A false Fukuyama fascism and other types of authoritarian rule.’13 Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on This means that liberalism, democracy and America and the increased awareness of Islamic capitalism are preferable to their alternatives fundamentalism, a chorus of commentators and that, as a consequence, we have reason recounted the hackneyed slogan that history to think that societies will adopt liberal had restarted. Commentators of significant democratic political institutions and capitalist stature such as Daniel Pipes, George F. Will, economic systems. and Fareed Zakaria asserted that ‘[t]he end of history is not yet here,’6 that ‘the nation’s decade- long holiday from history came to a shattering Benjamin Herscovitch is a PhD student end,’7 and that we were witnessing ‘the End of in philosophy at the University of Sydney. the End of History.’8 In more strident terms, 40 POLICY • Vol. 27 No. 4 • Summer 2011-12 LIBERAL VALUES AND THE END OF HISTORY Liberal values and the Muslim world a viable ideological competitor to liberal values Quite aside from misrepresentations of in the Muslim world. Fukuyama’s thesis, the available evidence Detractors will likely say that the Arab Spring indicates that Fukuyama was right to suggest was driven by economic impulses, and that the history had come to an end. Indeed, even the resulting liberalisation and democratisation forceful rise of radical Islam does not invalidate will produce an illiberal and undemocratic Fukuyama’s thesis. Thermidorian Reaction. The reason for this is two-fold. First, despite On the first point, although economic the influence of radical Islam on global politics, factors undoubtedly played an important role this strain of Islam has few adherents in the in fomenting dissent in Egypt and elsewhere,19 Muslim world, and notwithstanding a number it is equally true that whatever the specific triggers of high-profile cases, virtually none outside the for the unrest, the protests quickly became more Muslim world.14 Second, and more importantly, generalised calls for liberal democratic political liberal values are in fact in the ascendency in reforms. As important as the inflated grain the Muslim world. For all of the hand-wringing prices may have been, there is no doubt that of the conceptual contortionists in academia at the heart of the Arab Spring was a call for and the commentariat, the empirical evidence the institutionalisation of liberal values. that liberal values are of extremely broad On the second point, the fact that the Arab appeal in the Muslim world is nothing short of Spring has enabled the electoral victory of the overwhelming. As Waleed Aly notes, a 2003 moderate Islamist Nahda Party in Tunisia20 in US study showed that levels of support for no way implies the abandonment of the liberal democratic ideals in Muslim countries were values that drove the Arab Spring. The precise almost identical to those in the West; Gallup significance of the institutionalisation of liberal polling has found majority Muslim support for values is that individuals can legislate for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and themselves. While the electoral success of the freedom of religion.15 What is more, a 2006 Nahda Party is consistent with that basic liberal Pew Global Attitudes Poll found that 74% principle, the imposition of a party that is of Jordanians and 65% of Egyptians believed liberal by, for example, Canadian standards democracy could work well in their countries.16 would betray that liberal commitment to Moving to Southeast Asia, recent research individuals living as they see fit. indicates that the average level of support for The progressive institutionalisation of liberal liberal values in Indonesia is 47%, and that 38% values in Tunisia and elsewhere in North Africa of Indonesians are consistent democrats (they and the Middle East, and the continued resolve subscribe to both democratic and liberal values).17 of liberal democratic reformists in cities like Despite ongoing doubts about the precise Homs in the face of brutal reprisals, is testament causes and the results of the Arab Spring, recent enough to the central role of liberal values in the events in the Middle East and North Africa only Arab Spring. This role and the gradual ongoing serve to strengthen the findings of these polls. spread of liberal values in Muslim societies The appeal of liberal values over fundamentalist point, in line with Fukuyama’s thesis, to a liberal religious ideology in these regions is strikingly future for the Muslim world. captured by Paul McGeough’s observation: ‘the people of Tunisia and Egypt have done in The Beijing Consensus challenge days, with hardly a single “Allahu Akbar,” what Like radical Islam, the supposedly emerging the al-Qaeda diehards could not achieve in two Beijing Consensus21 does not undermine decades—the ousting of Mubarak and Ben Ali.’18 Fukuyama’s thesis. Although such evidence by no means Even the leaders of the Chinese Communist constitutes an exhaustive examination of Party (CCP) insist that liberal democracy is contemporary attitudes towards liberal values China’s future. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao among Muslims, these polls nevertheless has emphatically stated he is confident that substantiate the claim that radical Islam is not ‘tomorrow’s China will enjoy not only economic POLICY • Vol. 27 No. 4 • Summer 2011-12 41 LIBERAL VALUES AND THE END OF HISTORY prosperity but improved democracy and legal to an extremely broad range of the world’s systems. It will be a country based on the rule populations. This spread of liberal values should of law.’22 Premier Wen further highlighted his really come as no surprise. As Amartya Sen liberal aspirations for China when he argued famously pointed out, ‘no substantial famine that ‘[f]reedom of speech is indispensable for has ever occurred in any independent and any nation; China’s constitution endows the democratic country with a relatively free press’.27 people with freedom of speech. The demands of Beyond what might be seen as a happy but the people for democracy cannot be resisted.’23 coincidental correlation between certain key Given that there is a severe disconnect between liberal indicators and the provision of the basic these statements and the political realities of material necessities of life, it might be further contemporary China, and that these statements argued that liberal values have spread so widely were made specifically to the international throughout the world because they service the media, it would be hasty to conclude that liberal most primordial of human needs. In particular, democracy is China’s future solely on the basis drawing on G.W.F. Hegel’s account of of Premier Wen’s claims. recognition,28 we might argue with Fukuyama Leaving aside the statements of CCP leaders, that ‘history is being driven in a coherent direction contemporary trends in China point to, at the by rational desire and rational recognition.’29 very least, deep flaws in the Beijing Consensus. This is to suggest that ‘liberal democracy ... As China specialist Richard McGregor observes, constitutes the best possible solution to the ‘[D]ouble-digit growth can cover all sorts of human problem’30 because ‘modern natural blemishes.
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