From the bottom up: determining national identity

I have a house full of guests right now over the holidays, and little time to do things like….blog. But lifelong journalist that I am, I’ve taken every available moment to track news and analysis following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Below, I mentioned the idea of freedom that democracy represents. And the fact that you can’t kill that, even when you murder someone committed to it. But in writing that, I was wrestling with the question of democracy, and whether it can be made to fit in any country around the world.

When I hosted “The Right Questions” on Relevant Radio, my producer and I kicked around the question “Is democracy right for the world?”, and thought about pursuing it, since I ask a lot of questions and we thought that was a good one. For various reasons, we never got to it.

But the murder of Bhutto raises countless questions, and that one has slipped quietly into some debates. In the span of the past day, I’ve seen a few good resources for information that actually informs you.

In considering the role of democracy in the world, my seminarian son reminded me of the Church’s teaching. After all, Catholic social teaching is about social justice. Pope John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus explains it clearly.

The Church values the democratic system inasmuch as it ensures the participation of citizens in making political choices, guarantees to the governed the possibility both of electing and holding accountable those who govern them, and of replacing them through peaceful means when appropriate. Thus she cannot encourage the formation of narrow ruling groups which usurp the power of the State for individual interests or for ideological ends.

So weigh that for however it applies.

Authentic democracy is possible only in a State ruled by law, and on the basis of a correct conception of the human person.

That’s absolutely key. All of Chapter 46 directs itself to this question.

Then there’s this analysis by the editors of National Review Online, which probes the deeper truths of Bhutto’s life and death.

Bhutto was neither a saint nor a miracle worker…But she had courage: It was the obverse of her manifest hunger for power. She had shown a capacity to learn from her mistakes. And her prescription for Pakistan — “the reconciliation of the values of Islam and the West and . . . a moderate, modern Islam that marginalizes extremists, returns the military from politics to their barracks, treats all citizens and especially women equally, and selects its leaders by free and fair elections” — aimed in the right direction even if it would have been harder to achieve than to outline.

Then there’s the critical analysis of Michael Scheuer. He was interviewed this evening on Fox News and said democracy is a “bottom up” proposition rather than a “top down” one. Fox’s John Kasich asked probing questions about democracy, and the idea of trying to impose it from the top down when a populace isn’t ready for that.

Was Pakistan ready for that? More importantly for Americans going about our business…..should we care whether Pakistanis were ready for democracy? You bet. This was a major strike, with global repercussions in the war on terror and the spread of radical Islamic rule.

I switched to CNN, and found good and compelling coverage by Anderson Cooper live from Pakistan, asking questions I’ve been wondering, with terrorism experts trying to make sense of what we know so far.

The idea of a democracy can’t be killed with the murder of one person, or a group of followers. But the people have to want that freedom, and specifically the form of government outlined in Centesimus Annus, or it’s incoherent and untenable.

No matter what, Americans should be paying close attention to the news out of Pakistan, and what the candidates for the presidency offer as their worldview on the issues of counterterrorism, liberty, and how the two reconcile. This election is so important, it transcends mere politics.