Hardly.
Here's an excerpt from a superb essay published by the Huffington Post and written by Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison:
...Now, we are told, democracy is on the rise in the Middle East. It was fashionable some years ago to say that doubting the prospects for democracy in the Middle East was an example of "the soft bigotry of low expectations." So let us state, for the record, that no racial or ethnic group is incapable of democracy or unworthy of liberty. That doesn't mean the Middle East is going to be free anytime soon.
Let's start with religious liberty. Twenty years ago, Rothman and Lichter did a seminal study of the media elites. They found that more than 90% of top journalists never attend a religious service of any kind. As CNN's Bill Schneider acknowledged, the media doesn't "get religion."
So, if religion is not important to them, does that mean journalists cannot understand its importance to others? It shouldn't. Harvard's great scholar Perry Miller understood the Puritans better, perhaps, than any professor at any American university. But Miller himself was an atheist.
Still, the democracy boosters seem blissfully unaware that 84% of Egyptians say anyone who departs from Islam should be killed. This is a killer stat. It means, bluntly, that Egyptians are not going to see political liberty any time soon. And there is a real danger they will come under the sway of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Democracy is not just a matter of voting and showing off purple fingers. Respect for religious differences must come before anyone can accept the right of a neighbor to hold different opinions on political and social matters.
Democracy requires not only religious liberty, but representative institutions, a vibrant civil society, respect for property rights, the rule of law, and a free and open press. The Middle East has no history of these building blocks of democracy...
