The observation was tucked away in the next-to-last paragraph of a two-page report on the status of democracy in the world. The statement observed that “democracy and freedom remain the least rooted in the Middle East’s 14 countries.”
Only one of the region’s 14 countries was rated free by the 2001 Freedom House survey. That country was Israel. Three states were ruled partly free — Turkey, Jordan and Kuwait. The other 10 Middle Eastern nations were found to be not free. That means citizens are denied a broad range of basic human freedoms.
The Freedom House survey also reported that only two of the area’s nations — Israel and Turkey — are governed by electoral democracies.
Examining the report more closely revealed several interesting findings. Democracy is expanding. In 1987, 66 of the world’s 167 nations were governed by electoral democracies. At the end of 2001, there were 121 electoral democracies out of 162 nations. That means the percentage of democracies has grown from 40 percent to 63 percent in less than 15 years.
Democracy is gaining worldwide. One would expect the Western nations to lead the way in democracy and they did. All 24 nations were rated free. In the Americas, 32 of the 35 nations are electoral democracies and 23 are rated free. Only two — Cuba and Haiti — are rated not free.
In the non-Islamic states of East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, 11 are reported as free countries. Interestingly, the report said, “There is not a single free country among the countries (in this region) with a majority Islamic population.”
Adrian Karatnycky, Freedom House president and coordinator of the survey, said, “There is a growing chasm between the Islamic community and the rest of the world. While most Western and non-Western countries are moving toward greater levels of freedom, the Islamic world is lagging behind.”
The report said a non-Islamic country is more than three times likely to be democratic than an Islamic state. Only 11 of the 47 nations with an Islamic majority have democratically elected governments. None of the 16 Arab states of the Middle East and North Africa is a democracy.
In the 145 remaining nations of the world, 110 are electoral democracies.
Of the nations with an Islamic majority, only one — Mali — is rated free. Eighteen are rated partly free and 28 are considered not free. In the non-Islamic world 85 countries are free, 40 are partly free and 20 are not free.
The Freedom House report found, “The gap in freedom has only widened during the last 20 years. While every other region of the world has registered significant gains for democracy and freedom, the countries of the Islamic world have experienced a significant increase in repression.”
Seven of the 10 nations rated lowest for political rights and civil liberties are majority Islamic nations. They are Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Turkmenistan. Two countries — Cuba and North Korea — are one-party communist governments. Burma is a military dictatorship.
It was also interesting to see that the 41.40 percent of the world’s population living in free nations produced 87 percent of the global economic activity. The 23.25 percent living in partly free countries accounted for 6 percent of the global economy. The 35.35 percent of people living in not-free nations produced only 7 percent of the world’s economy.
Recently speakers from the Islamic world have said the events of Sept. 11 have challenged them to prove their religion has not been hijacked by religious extremists. The Freedom House report indicates another challenge. It is incumbent on Islamic nations to demonstrate their respect for basic human rights including the right to live in a free and just society.
Perhaps tensions in such hot spots as the Middle East could be lessened if all the parties were democratic countries whose citizens enjoyed the benefits of freedom.
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