The Riddle of The Economist on Iran and Turkey

I read The Economist every week. I actually pay for a subscription, receive it through the U.S. Postal service, and read a large percentage of it. You can read it at www.economist.com, but I like the old physical format. At a time when most newspapers in the U.S. simply re-issue press releases from corporations and politicians, and even the NY Times seems like little more than a collection of Asssociated Press blogs, The Economist actually does a good job reporting what is going on the world of business and politics.

That said, they often mix editorial into news articles, and they can be astonishingly arrogant. Two bits of the July 21st, 2007 issue cry out for comment even more than usual.

There is an editorial on Turkey, "Of mullahs and majors," that democracy advocates should be able to agree with: If a moderate Islamic party has governed well (compared to its predecessors), why should it be considered undemocratic simply because it is Islamic?

But in the main news article, "Turkey's election: A battle for the future," the first sentence is "On July 22nd Turkey, still an adolescent democracy, goes to the polls."

Adolescent? In the rhealm of democracy is adolescence a matter of decades since voting begins, or are there other criteria? Take Britain, the home of The Economist, with editorial offices in London. What about the House of Lords? Is that a sign of democratic adolescence?

What about the United States, where the 38 million people of California get two votes in the U.S. Senate, just the same as 640 thousand people in North Dakota. Isn't such lack of democracy a sign of arrested development, and therefore adolescense?

Then there is the "special report on Iran", in which the article "The revolution strikes back" reports: "Although it has elements of democracy, including an elected president and parliament, the state is not ultimately controlled by elected institutions." In the U.S. the state is ultimately controlled by the Supreme Court; I don't recall ever having a chance to vote for or against that gang of black-robed jackals. And the politicians are mostly bought and sold by corporations.

Next sentence: "And even the elected bit of the system is a backstage game of personalities and factions, not a transparent process." What about corporate lobbyists. Do they have those in Iran? Are they banned from the halls of Parliament in Britain.

The Economist is, at times, critical of the state of democracy in Britain. I would certainly not want to have the task of arguing that Iran is a model democracy. I am a modern secular person, not an advocate of any religion. But I always wonder: are millions of people around the world shaking their heads, reading what I read and thinking, "those crazy Brit hypocrits," or are people actually lapping this up, feeling superior to those who have not inherited the pride of empire, if not the actual British empire?