Dictatorship is not all bad

I only ever got to hear my grandfather speak publicly once, at the CMC Athaneum in Claremont, during college. One of the things he talked about was the odd lack of linkage between political and economic freedom, which was a bit of a puzzle to someone who is in favor of both. The freest economies of the twentieth century, he pointed out, were places like Hong Kong and Singapore that had no political freedom.

One of the points I've been trying to make since the beginning of the Iraq invasion is that benevolent despots are not all bad, and depending on the population, democracy can be worse. Specifically, Saddam Hussein, although a power-hungry dictator who happily murdered his political opponents, was not in any way a Muslim fundamentalist. Quite the opposite, in fact, and his Iraq was (compared to other countries in the region) a pretty good place for education, women's rights, gay rights, etc. Today's Iraq, on the other hand, is much more dominated by religious interests.

This interview w/ Jared Polis provides some evidence for my point:

NL: What did you take back from your trip to Iraq?

JP: It was really interesting and very educational for me. I spent several days in Baghdad and several days in Amman, Jordan. In addition to meeting with many different Iraqis and members of our military off-duty and NGO relief workers, I also got the opportunity to talk to several gay and lesbian Iraqis, too, who have a particular plight.

Under the administration of Saddam Hussein, Iraq was one of the more tolerant Arab countries. It's a relatively low bar, but certainly gays and lesbians weren't openly hunted or killed. It was much like it was in Jordan today, where there is a somewhat thriving underground gay and lesbian community that was officially tolerated. But now, really, every gay and lesbian that could flee Iraq has fled Iraq. Anybody who's known, or even suspected, to be gay or lesbian is hunted down and frequently killed by some of the fundamentalist militias there. Most Iraqi gays and lesbians have fled to Jordan. There are a few remaining in Iraq, and a few safehouses do exist, but that only really reemphasized the need, including in this country, to include gender identity protections, because the first to be hunted down in Iraq are those who defy the gender stereotypes--men who are effeminate, or women who are masculine or otherwise suspected of being gay or lesbian.

It's a very real human rights issue that hasn't gotten as much attention as it deserves.

I'm not saying that the democratization of Iraq was a net negative for its citizens (although that may be the case, when you count the costs of war damage). But when you tot up the costs and benefits, you need to include things like this - areas where freedom has, ironically, been reduced by democracy.

Democracy reducing freedom is very counterintuitive to most of us, I think. We've been brainwashed from birth to believe that democracy is the greatest safeguard of human rights, and dictatorships are purely horrible things that ban all free expression. But that viewpoint is naive - some demoses are worse than some dictators in some ways - perhaps even overall.