Sharansky has no time for the argument that certain societies are incapable of organizing themselves in a free, democratic manner. Just as people say the dream of Arab democracy is nothing but wishful thinking, people once said the Germans, Japanese and Russians would never evolve into free societies. Today, the notion that Japan or Germany will devolve into tyranny is almost impossible to believe, and while trends in Vladmir Putin’s Russia are worrisome, Sharansky calls the country a “bastion of freedom” compared with the old state that kept him in prison, and says it is far too early to write off Russian democracy. “To believe that the Russians long for a return to a totalitarian past...is like believing that African-Americans who suffer from unemployment and poverty long for a return to slavery,” he writes.
Sharansky, who led a Russian immigrants’ political party in Israel, served in several cabinets involved in the seemingly endless peace process with the Palestinians, and his experiences - and the lessons learned - make up the bulk of The Case for Democracy. Instead of promoting the development of a free Palestinian democracy, Israel and the West actually supported and strengthened Yasser Arafat’s tyranny, on the premise that he would provide “stability” and prevent the rise of Islamic fundamentalists like Hamas. Sharansky says the process was therefore doomed from the start, and that today Israel faces a Palestinian society even poorer, more disaffected and more “anti-Zionist” than it was during the first intifada.
The author also points to American policies toward the Soviet Union as models for how and how not to deal with dictatorial states. In the early 1970s, when the Nixon administration worked toward “detente” - coexistence and cooperation - with the communist tyranny, the Soviet leadership was emboldened. By contrast, when Ronald Reagan was willing to call the Soviet Union for what it was and act accordingly, it was the beginning of the end for a political system that enslaved a third of the world’s population. Sharansky says the USSR may never have collapsed had the American government not been willing to publicly support its jailed dissidents and human-rights activists, and even recounts the story of how Reagan’s much-maligned “evil empire” speech gave his dissident comrades renewed hope and optimism. “Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan’s ‘provocation’ quickly spread through the prison,” he writes. “The dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth - a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.” (Lest you dismiss Sharansky as a shill for the Republicans, he also praises the late Democratic Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson for his outspoken opposition to detente, and condemns Republican “realists” like Henry Kissinger and George H.W. Bush, the latter of whom urged Ukranians not to secede from the USSR in 1991. The promotion of democracy - and "realism" - transcends party boundaries.)
Article comments
1 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
When you talk to Russian Jews who live here, who know Mr. Sharansky, you do not get such a positive image of the man. I will not go into too many details - I cannot afford to fight a libel suit. Let us just say that he is not as highly regarded by those who have known him for a while, as by those who barely know him at all.
2 - Bliffle
An interesting theory and one that deserves to be discussed. I look forward to seeing what dicussions follow.
3 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
'Tisn't a theory, Bliffle. I'm unusually closemouthed because of libel issues that could pop up. There are lots of Jewish lawyers because Jews like to use them lots.
4 - Dave Nalle
Let us just say that he is not as highly regarded by those who have known him for a while, as by those who barely know him at all.
Given that this is a book review, all that really matters is what he believes in print. Whether he pays his grocery bill or gives drivers the finger isn't terribly relevant to his publicly expressed political theories.
Dave
5 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Dave, I used to watch carefully his latest political party, Yisraél b'Aliyá. I got a good stiff dose of the theories he espoused in the bnok - they are essentially the same ones he espoused as head of Yisraél b'Aliyá.
In the 2003 parliamentary elections my wife and I split our vote. I voted for the National Union Party, a small right wing party against ceding more land to Arabs. My wife voted for Yisraél b'Aliyá, seeing as Sharansky appeared to be reaching out to English speaking immigrants like us.
Yisraél b'Aliyá had been a Russian immigrants' party previously.
Apparently, he had not done a decent job of bringing home the uh "bacon" for his Russian voting base, because they ditched him and voted Likud or National Union. Left with only two mandates in the 2003 Knesset, Sharansky ditched us English speakers and joined the Likud where he thought the action was.
The long and the short of it is that Sharansky is full of shit. He uses people and dumps them. His political ideas are as sound as he is.