Can the Community of Democracies galvanize its legitimate members to confront the challenge from the new authoritarians? Should armed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah be considered as Muslim Democrats? Is China better placed than the democracies to withstand the impact of the global economic crisis?
These were some of the questions discussed at the meeting of the non-governmental side of the Community of Democracies in Lisbon, Portugal, this week. Civil society groups can – with some effort – make a genuine contribution to the inter-governmental process, delegates heard. “You have the answers they may not know that they need,” they were told.
Iran’s opposition has gained more from the recent protests than if Mir Hosein Mousavi had been elected, an Iranian activist, told the meeting. If elected, Mousavi would have likely been another Khatami, reluctant to challenge the foundations of the Islamic Republic.
“Now, for the first time, the regime has lost legitimacy,” said the activist, recently released from jail after being interrogated in Tehran, where police claimed he had been trying to foment a color revolution.
In its disciplined commitment to non-violence, the movement in Iran had shown “great civil maturity”, a rarity in the region, but had been let down by failures of leadership and communications. Nevertheless, people will look back at recent events and realize that this was “the beginning of the end” of the Islamic Republic.
For the first time, the COD has a permanent secretariat, based in Warsaw and headed by Vaclav Havel doppelganger Bronislaw Misztal. He invited delegates to provide out-of-the-box ideas for relaunching the initiative and for re-assessing democracy assistance.
Similarly, former Canadian diplomat Jeremy Kinsman invited contributions to a revised edition of his invaluable Diplomats’ Handbook for Democracy Development Support, a project supported by the National Endowment for Democracy. This basic primer for diplomats needing to understand the basics of democracy promotion include case studies of new edition will consider some of the harder case studies such as Cuba, China and Egypt.
In the face of the current democratic regression, democrats need to demonstrate greater vigilance, solidarity, planning and coordination among civil society actors globally” said Stanford’s Larry Diamond. We are in a period of “subtle erosion” of democratic standards and political space, he said, as documented by the NED, the World Movement for Democracy’s Defending Civil Society report and Freedom House.
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