Bernard Lewis Revisited.
What if Islam isn't an obstacle to democracy in the Middle East but the secret to achieving it?

Was Christianity an obstacle to democracy in Europe or the countries created by European colonialism elsewhere? No, but different Christian Churches tried to be. But then they were part of the elite and true democracy was not a goal for the traditional elites and not to the new bourgeois elite either. We have to shed this idea of democracy as some pre-determined goal towards which European history has moved. The development of modern democracy was not a certainty. Even in so-called Western Europe there were several non-democratic countries until the mid-1970s. In those that were democractic, all adult men got the right to vote usually from the 1910s to the 1930s - before that the right to vote belonged to only those who were considered wealthy enough - and women gained it usually little later. In Switzlerland, women were given right to vote in national elections in 1971 and the last canton to give women the right to vote did so only in 1987. This democratization process in Europe could have been stopped or reversed several times.

In the Muslim countries the situation is even trickier, as Islam really has far greater part in the lives of average persons than Christianity has ever had in Europe. Islam is as much a culture as it is a religion. Exaggerating, one could claim that trying to make the Arab countries democratic without taking Islam in to the equation is like trying to make the autonomous republic of Athos a democracy without taking Orthodox Christianity as integral part of the process. And in the end all these efforts towards change that are directed from outside - even if the people behind these efforts wouldn´t be ignorant and incompetent - would be futile if the populations themselves wouldn´t accept these changes. And in all human societies, outsiders even if they have good intentions, don´t have great record of persuating the natives to go with their schemes. The simple fact is that if some foreigner thinks that he knows which is best for you, your country and your religious group better than you and you countrymen and fellow worshippers, then you don´t do as he says. Nobody likes to be pushed around and told what to do.