Freedom needs more than simply removing a dictator

Egyptian leader Mohamed Morsi is gone, and his supporters aren't happy. There have been clashes between them and the authorities who replaced Morsi for several days now, and it appears they will continue, with much loss of life. Meanwhile, a civil war continues to rip apart Syria, and unrest threatens the peace in Gaza. All of this while the Middle East is still under the shadow of the vaunted Arab Spring which was supposed to move that area into the fold of supposedly enlighten democracies.

It's a dose of reality which, one would hope, might cause western liberals and libertarians to rethink themselves and their positions. They simply don't want to accept that merely removing a dictator doesn't mean that better days are ahead. Indeed if history teaches us anything, it teaches that, far too often, it simply puts in place another dictator.

The supporters of the Arab Spring are little different than those who cheered the fall of the Shah of Iran in the late 1970s. But what was left in its wake? An Iran under a far greater tyranny which lasts until today. An Iran which, you may notice, was strangely unaffected by the protests within other Arabic nations.

So while there appears to have been some progress towards more democratic societies in the Middle East, the steps taken have been small and uncertain. And that's where there has been no widespread violence or upheaval. Only the richer nations seem to be weathering the storm well.

That says something, something the left and libertarians don't seem to recognize. There are two factors at play here. The first is that popular uprisings or popular movements generally only work out in the long run where there is a reasonably educated leadership. The transition from apartheid in South Africa to a reasonably stable democracy was fueled by a body politic which had leaders who respected the people and had some idea of how to lead and where to lead them. What they sought was accomplished over much time, and with the needed patience necessary to the long term health of the movement and its host nation as well. The second is that of prosperity. The Saudis and the Kuwaitis made reforms because, while the demand for change was extant, there was a corollary understanding that they were reasonably well off anyway. No one wanted to rock that boat too harshly, lest it list and eventually sink.

You can't just throw out a dictator without a solid alternative available. Even then, that alternative must be reasonable; far too many people have the idea that the solution to a dictator is merely his removal. We see in Egypt that that is nothing less than shortsighted. At worst, it will lead to a worse dictator, or even something worse than that. It could well lead to a civil war which will only put a nation light years behind attaining a true and good democracy.