Democracy is...human

What does democracy mean to you? Democracy is more than just ballot boxes, politicians, and foreign policies. Democracy is freedom, democracy is empowerment, democracy is humanity. The context of democracy may vary from country to country and culture to culture, but the basic tenets are universal.

Photo: Democracy is the coexistence of different religions, freedom to worship, freedom from worship, freedom to be an individual without having your religion required on an identity card.

From (many of) the same organizations who brought you the Democracy Video Challenge comes the Democracy Photo Challenge.

The Challenge

Take a photo that completes the phrase Democracy is… and share it with the world.

The Prize

Special exhibition of your photo at the United Nations and at galleries in New York and Los Angeles.

The Timeline

* July 7 – July 28 – Submit Photos
* July 28 – Submission Deadline, Midnight GMT
* Aug 19 – Online Voting Commences – International Photography Day
* Sept 15 – Winners Announcement – United Nations Day of Democracy

The Details

* You must be 18 or older to enter.
* Submissions must be original photographs (digital or analog) taken by the submitter.
* Contestants may enter anonymously.

Visit the website for more information and to see photo entries.

Here are some photos of mine that I could enter. With the exception of the last one, taken in Nicosia, Cyprus at the open border crossing, they were taken in Beirut.

Democracy is seeing the glass as half full, not half empty. It isn't easy. Getting people to cooperate for the greater good of society is a daunting task. Does democracy have its problems? Heck yes, a great number of them. But consider the alternatives: dictatorship, dictatorship, dictatorship. No matter what form a government claims to have - monarchy, communism, theocracy, fascism, sheikhdom, etc. - a dictatorship is a dictatorship is a dictatorship. Though there may be bumps along the way, democracy gives you the freedom to travel the road of life in your own vehicle (though speed limit signs may be posted so you don't endanger the lives of others.)

Democracy is information and access to it. Freedom of speech and press are essential components of democracies, as well as the right of people to peaceably assemble to exchange information. Transparency in government and access to public documents make a government of the people by the people for the people. In democracies, websites aren't blocked, and people aren't arrested for posting negative comments about a president on Facebook. A democracy facilitates access to information by ensuring people have access to technology through updated infrastructure, fair regulation over telecomms companies, and provision of access through public libraries, school equipment, and government websites that give the people transparent information.

Democracy is economic opportunity and empowerment, workplace safety laws, labor rights, unions, fair compensation, entrepreneurship, property rights, access to capital, strong institutions, private sector participation in policymaking, good governance, no corruption...Democracy doesn't discriminate against race or ethnicity or religion.

Democracy is hard work, yes, but in a democracy, there is no line on the horizon - the possibilities of life are endless!

Democracy allows people hope for the future.

Democracy is peace. The oft used phrase "democracies don't fight democracies" is true. Security, safety, peace of mind, these are the things that democracy brings. When people have control over their own destinies, when they have enough food to eat and a roof over their head and healthcare when they are sick, they tend to be content. Of course there are exceptions - there are always exceptions. It's called life. But generally, in stable, strong democracies, people enjoy their rights and tolerate the enjoyment of rights by others.


Democracy has gotten a bad rap for various reasons, and the whole West versus East mentality to which people on both sides of the Atlantic stubbornly cling has much to do with that. Look, democracy isn't perfect. Everyone knows that. No form of governing can be perfect, because it's people who do the governing, and we all know how flawed is the homosapiens species (and the sub-species politicus sapius is even more flawed than the average Joe or Yusef or Jose.) But I'll take a voice in things that affect my life over someone telling me how to live any and every day I am sipping that sweet, sweet oxygen that keeps us roaming this tiny rock we call Earth.

Pulling Torn Pictures of W out of Arab Trashcans

The Westerners who melded the Mayan religion with the writings of St. John the Divine and then turned it into what is apparently a horrific movie may have been right, because I’m quite certain what I heard at the National Endowment for Democracy at the conference on “Middle East Democrats and Their Vision for the Future” means the end of the world is coming.

An Arab said he wished George W. Bush would come back.

This wasn’t just any Arab, this was perhaps the most famous civil society activist in the entire Middle East North African chain of dictatorships pretending to be democracies, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, founder of the Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies, former political prisoner in Egypt, Wallerstein Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Drew University, and generally all around hero for humanity.

Dr. Ibrahim was part of a panel discussing “What assistance can the international community provide?” I’m really taking his idea out of context. His point – and there were others who agreed – was that the Obama administration is very weak in its democracy promotion efforts and that the level of pressure on regimes to change is not there. It is not the first time he has criticized President Obama - his August editorial in the Wall Street Journal outlined his disillusionment.

The panel – which consisted of Tamara Cofman Wittes, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs; Daniel Brumberg, United States Institute of Peace; Scott Carpenter, Keston Family Fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Vidar Helgesen, Secretary-General of International IDEA; Dr. Aseel al-Awadhi, one of the four women members of the Kuwaiti Parliament; Musa Maaytah, Minister of Political Development in Jordan; and Nouzha Skalli, Minister of Social Development, Family, and Solidarity in Morocco – discussed the lack of pressure on Arab governments to reform, unlike during the Bush years, when even Pharaoh Mubarak relented a bit and held presidential elections (even if the elections themselves were a farce).

Cofman Wittes is a well-respected, academically-minded individual who up until her appointment was Senior Fellow and Director, Middle East Democracy and Development Project, Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Her CV is here. Her appointment means that she oversees the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). Daniel Brumberg has written a lot about liberalization and Arab reform. Vidar Helgesen talked about European approaches to foreign assistance and spoke of the need to stop being so condescending to those groups receiving aid.

The tone of the conversation changed when Scott Carpenter began to speak. Carpenter formerly held Mrs. Cofman Wittes’ post under the Bush administration. He told us that an Egyptian civil society activist said to him they were pulling their torn pictures of Bush out of the garbage and taping them back together. Dr. Ibrahim agreed.

The problem, they say, is that the Obama administration focuses on talking to regimes rather than people, that the level of pressure on regimes to reform just isn’t there, and it is affecting what civil society reformers can accomplish.

Is the criticism warranted? Well let’s see. You have a prominent civil society activist saying there was more done during the Bush years than there has been under Obama. You have an appointment to the head of USAID that takes ten months. You have NGOs on the ground waiting to see what direction the administration is going to go.

Yet.

Even during the twilight of the Bush years, the international community wondered if decades of foreign assistance to the Middle East North Africa region was all for naught. Nothing was changing, and regimes seemed to be getting stronger. In fact, the space created – a sort of Bizarro World kind of freedom – allowed just enough room for “Islamists” to have a voice that was loud enough for regimes to crack down on their people, claiming they were fighting terrorism. There was no political reform, no economic reform, just lip service spilling from the mouths of dictators (no matter how benign they were).

This was enough for the international community to begin asking itself how to change its approach to foreign aid. (In 2003, for example, Daniel Brumberg wrote Liberalization Versus Democracy: Understanding Arab Reform," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Working Paper #37). Throwing money at groups intent on loosening the dictatorial reigns of the Arab World has resulted in…the dethroning of Pharaoh Mubarak? No. The election of someone other than Ben Ali in Tunisia? No. The House of Saud becoming the House of Someone Else? No. Bashar Assad giving a concession speech after hotly contested elections? No.

I was four years old when Pharaoh Mubarak came to power. Lebanon was trying to commit suicide then, and Yemen was split into a microcosm of the commie vs. democracy world order. Habib Bourguiba had been Presidictator of Tunisia for twenty years and lasted another ten before Ben Ali became Presidictator in a coup. An Assad was the Presidictator of Syria. Jordan was ruled by the current king’s dad. Morocco was ruled by the current king’s dad. Saudi was ruled by the current king’s brother or half brother or something like that.

No, change has not come to the Middle East despite all of my tax dollars being funneled there. No we can’t!

Finally, though, someone woke up and started to ask why nothing is different except there are more people willing to blow themselves up. The international community began to reconsider its strategy to “make the world a better place” and decided that bandaids are not appropriate when your arm has been cut off. More democracy people began to say, “Forget the dinosaurs, let’s help the kids!” and youth and community development programs started to receive attention. Foreign assistance programs began to focus on the future rather than choking on the present.

I think like so many other aspects of his presidency, Obama is a victim of history when it comes to strategies towards foreign assistance. Seems that everyone is asking why hasn’t this worked, why have we failed, what can we do differently. He’s jumped into a time of uncertainty and transformation even in the approach to foreign aid. There is a reason it took ten months to appoint someone as head of USAID, and it isn’t because Obama was chopping brush on a ranch in Texas.

And who can honestly say his public diplomacy approach to international relations is a bad idea? Do those civil society activists longing for a return to foreign assistance under the Bush years want the bombs that come with it? That’s part of the package – scare dictators with bombs just enough to allow for some space, isn't it?

Look, President Obama’s deliberate approach to everything is frustrating, especially in the Twitterverse we live in, when two seconds is too long a wait for so many people. It has been ten months, hardly enough time to solve all of the world’s problems. With the appointment of Rajiv Shah as head of USAID and Cofman Wittes to Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, it looks like the approach to foreign assistance is coming around, that a new strategy focusing on the long-term is being shaped, rather than bandaid fixes to election and economic laws that have been applied for so long now.

Right now, I guess it’s just wait and see.