ISO, Firstly, a refute on Lebanon: You have quoted Friedman's TINY PART of the book, that too, I THINK, is from the prelude. It has been many years since I read that book, but if my memory serves me well, Friedman accurately portrays Lebanese internal factors that was adding fuel to a looming civil war, but places EQUAL responsibility to the latter to the roles various Middle East actors -- particularly Syria and Israel -- played to take advantage of those situations. The overall Midlle East political crisis, particularly the Palestinian problem and the power struggle among the Arab states, contributed tremendously to brutal civil war in Lebanon. Nevertheless, if your quote of Friedman is anything to go by, it explains that it was NOT a failure of democracy that gave way to civil war in Lebanon, rather a DEPARTURE from democracy. allow me to copy-n-paste that quote again for reference: "But by the 1970s, rapid democgraphic growth among Lenbanon's Muslims had turned Lebanon upside down. The Christians had shrunk to a little more than one-third of the population and the Muslims and Druse had grown to roughly two-thirds, with the Shiites becoming the largest single community in the country. When the Muslims demanded that political reforms be instituted to give them a greater share in power by strengthening the role of the Muslim Prime Minister, the Maronites resisted." (Friedman, Thomas: From Beirut to Jerusalem. 1995). So, up until the Lebanese constitution -- which was truly democratic -- more or less reflected the demographic realities of that country accurately, it was rapidly growing, prosperous country. It was when the constitution started to become non-reflective of the realities, i.e., DEPARTURE from democracy, not FAILURE OF, the problems started. ********************************** I do not have much in disgreement with the likes of Kaplan and Zakaria who point out the fact that democracies in some countries brought more chaos. They are absolutely right. However, their analysis is only one "daanaa" in a whole "anaar daanaa" that needs to be understood in the context, rather than hug their implications as a reflection of reality -- that of the larger picture -- as a whole. You see, they write about momentary relapses in law and order and other chaos that particularly the beginning of democratic process entails. The tragic trend has been to dismiss democracy just because it brought some hardships in the beginning. Political and social transformations are not easy to come by, and are not always pleasant in the beginning. However, the problem of lack of basic structure that you claim needs to be in place for democracy to be fruitful -- satisfied janata (in terms of food and $$$), educated mass, properly functioning civil society, etc. -- can ONLY be most effectively address by democracy and freedom in the long run. As exemplified by the Panchayat era in Nepal, the more we wait for the "right time" to implement democracy, the more we lag behind in terms of human growth, which is crucial in democratic success. Ther greatest (and the best) irony of democracy is that it corrects itself. Better democracy is ONLY possible through democracy itself, and it is NOT a package that can be delivered once an authoritarian ruler decides that his people are ready for it. No one is, and noone will ever be, ready for democracy -- it is an ONGOING process that, if left intact despite initial problems, will inevitably herald a stronger, healthier and prosperous society. Therfore, I think the criticisms of democracy by the likes of Zakaria and Kaplan are either misplaced in their initial virtue, or wrongly misunderstood by some of their readers. Once again, they are absolutely right in pointing out the initial problems of democracy, But those problems are/shoud be expected, and they should not be reasons to bring the process of democracy to a halt because, as I implied earlier, the process sweeting of the entire fully grown "anaar daanaa" does not deserve to be destroyed by few bad "daanaas". This now leads me to another aspect of our discussion that I originally wanted to put forth: the seeming confusion among the people about democratization, westernization, and capitalization. Next post...