The Dish

A reader writes:

Regarding the uses of Tocqueville to explain why the Middle East isn’t ready for democracy:

If we really want to know what Tocqueville thought about Islam and the Middle East, just skip the flattering portrait he gives us in “Democracy in America” and read his enormous body of work on France’s 1830 colonization of Algeria — a colonization that didn’t come to an end until 1962. Surprise: Tocqueville the liberal was an early and vocal supporter of the invasion, conquest, and subjugation of Algeria. In fact, he was such a fan that he made two trips there himself to determine whether he and his brother ought to buy land and become settlers. He also read the Qur’an, considered taking Arabic lessons, and positioned himself in the Chamber of Deputies as an expert on the “Algeria Question”. The man was committed.

So what can Tocqueville tell us about how modern Middle Eastern politics got so messed up? Stop me when this starts sounding familiar.

He sets out with the best of intentions, to civilize the barbarous Arabs and introduce solid French virtues like liberty and fraternity. But that doesn’t last long. When the native population turns out to not appreciate France’s virtuous conquest, a full-scale counter-insurgency is launched. And when other politicians begin to question the French army’s tactics, Tocqueville pulls a full Cheney: “I have often heard men in France whom I respect, but with whom I do not agree, find it wrong that we burn harvests, that we empty silos, and finally that we seize unarmed men, women, and children. These, in my view, are unfortunate necessities, but ones to which any people that wants to wage war on the Arabs is obligated to submit.” (1846)

Likewise, some of his colleagues began to complain that French liberals were being hypocritical, demanding equality at home but promoting despotism abroad. In words that might as well have been spoken by Netanyahu, Tocqueville reminds us:

“There is neither utility in allowing, nor a duty to allow, our Muslim subjects exaggerated ideas of their own importance, nor to persuade them that we are obligated to treat them under all circumstances precisely as though they were our fellow citizens and our equals. They know that we have a dominant position in Africa; they expect us to keep it. To abandon it today would be to astonish and confuse them, and to fill them with erroneous or dangerous notions.” (1847)

And contra Mitchell’s argument about the roots of “Islamic fundamentalism”, Tocqueville never once believed that the problem in the Middle East was too much tribal or religious linkages. Rather, his claim was the exact opposite, that the roots of Algerian violence can be found in the destruction of native institutions, habits, and social connections — and, moreover, that this is entirely Europe’s fault. French rule, he writes, has made “Muslim society much more miserable, more disordered, more ignorant, and more barbarous than it had been before knowing us.” (1847) Such was his faith in the importance of empire for France, however, that even admitting this failure could not undermine his ultimate support for the Algerian conquest.

I could go on. Others have at length. My point is just that if we really want to get into the business of shaping our Middle Eastern policy according to the theories of a man dead more than a hundred and fifty years, we should be serious about looking at what he actually said and wrote on the topic. And when we do, we may find that we bear far more direct responsibility than Mitchell or you, Andrew, seem to allow.

Well, this is unnerving:

Russian President Vladimir Putin and members of the Russian security council are reportedly considering a plan that would give the Kremlin the ability to cut off the Russian Internet from the rest of the world’s connection in the event of a national emergency. The plan, which officials say is necessary to protect Russian cybersecurity, has raised fears about tighter Kremlin censorship, though questions remain as to whether a national “kill switch” is even possible.

Reports first surfaced Friday in the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti, with sources saying, “Russian Internet service providers will be required to install equipment that would make it possible to shut off Russia’s access to the global Internet, in the event of an emergency.” The broadly defined “emergency” reportedly includes “military actions” or “serious protest actions,” possibly of the kind that came in the wake of Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012. The security council will also discuss a plan that gives Russia control of the country code top level domains (ccTLDs), the websites ending in “.Ru,” “.рф,” and to a lesser extent “.Su.”

Ilya Khrennikov and Henry Meyer contextualize the move:

Russia last month banned anonymous access to the Internet in public spaces and expanded the regulation of media to the blogosphere, requiring those with at least 3,000 daily readers to register their real names and contact information. In February the authorities had passed a law allowing them to close webpages without a court decision if material is deemed “extremist.”

Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who used to criticize Putin and reveal corruption among his inner circle, was the first victim of that law when his blog on LiveJournal.com was shut in March. Recent legislation requires Internet companies to store Russian users’ information on servers in the country, similar to Chinese regulations.

Emily Parker adds:

According to Freedom House, from January 2012 to February 2013, the number of websites flagged for containing extremist material and blocked by the Ministry of Justice increased by around 60 percent. In 2012, Russia enacted a law allowing for the blocking of certain websites without judicial oversight. The law supposedly protects children and controls other harmful content but has been widely viewed as an attempt to clamp down on free speech. According to one study, in the year that followed, more than 83,000 websites were put on an Internet blacklist, and the vast majority was blocked “without a valid reason.”

In other Putin punditry, Benjamin Bidder worries that Putin’s successor will be even worse:

The fear is that someone could seize control of the Kremlin who thinks and acts more radically than Putin. The president created the preconditions of such a possibility with his own failed policies. If the Kremlin insiders want to find a successor, they will have to recruit him from the immediate circle of the current president. But Putin has reinforced hard-liners and pushed out the liberals.

The revolution scenario is no less disheartening. Power could be seized by forces from the extreme right and left. The boundaries between both are vague in Russia, as the name of such groups as the “National Bolsheviks” suggests.

Motyl disagrees:

In the final analysis, Bidder’s assessment amounts to an unwitting justification of dictatorial rule, repeating the self-serving claim that all dictators make: après moi, le déluge. In fact, world experience and both Russian and Soviet history suggest that Russia is likely to experience a better future if and when Putin finally goes. Getting rid of him, as quickly as possible, is a bet worth making—both by Russia and the West.