While the world moves ahead with democratization, the Muslim world moonwalks like Michael Jackson back into authoritarianism.

The Facts:

In the third wave of global democratization that occurred during and especially after the decline of the Soviet Union the only civilization that resisted the trend is the Islamic world. The figures are particularly embarrassing; “since 1974 the absolute number of democracies in the world has nearly tripled, while the percentage of the world’s states that are democratic has doubled.” (1) Even in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union “the number of democracies has gone from none to 19, or 70 percent of the 27 states. In Latin America and the Caribbean, 30 of the 33 states are democracies… In Asia… the number of democracies has increased from 5 in 1974 to 12 in 2002, or about half of the 25 states… Even in Sub-Saharan Africa, which came late to the third wave, the number of democracies has increased from 3 to 19, about two-fifths of the 48 states.” (1)

Where as the number of democratic Muslim countries is a paltry 7 out of 43. And this includes countries with minimal (read: dubious!) democratic credentials like “Bangladesh, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Indonesia, Turkey and Albania” (1). The case of Middle Eastern countries is particularly shameful; there were 3 democracies in 1974 – Israel, Turkey and Lebanon. Now only the former two remain and even Turkey has had military interventions in various regimes over the years.

On the 7 point Freedom House scale where 7 is the least free and 1 is the most, Muslim countries have the unenviable position of ranking last. Furthermore the Muslim world is the only “region” of the world to have become less free since 1974 – its rating fell from 5.29 to 5.33. Back in my day as a Muslim youth I experienced first hand the rampant corruption and the draconic curbs on political participation and freedoms. As a troubled patriot, the childish panacea of our humiliating condition was always the thought that we were better off than someone else. In this case Africa, but sadly not even that is true any more! Sub-Saharan Africa is now ranked at 4.33, up from 5.51 in 1974, which means it is freer than the Muslim world!

I feel baptized in the waters of a shameful reality. Don’t you?

You can check the latest Freedom House ratings of individual countries here.

The Theories:

While these statistics are damning, unfriendly critics of Islam and the Muslim world derive over-arching, anti-Islamic social theories from them to suit their own political agendas. But their theories have major anomalies and discrepancies; of the 27 non-Arab Muslim countries, roughly a quarter of them are democracies. A closer examination of these democracies shows an unusual occurrence; the level of economic development usually thought to be necessary to sustain democracy is not yet achieved. Therefore these democracies are what we call “electoral overachievers” (1). Somehow I have the faintest suspicion that the Muslim world might not erupt onto the streets in jubilation at these statistics. Read More »