What is the connection to American concept of freedom?
Posted on December 4th, 2011 by admin
In the book From wealth to power by Zakaria What connection does he make to american concept of freedom?
Zakaria’s books include The Future of Freedom and The Post-American World. The first argues that what we think of as democracy in the Western world is actually "liberal democracy," a combination of liberal constitutionalism and participatory politics. The protection of liberty and the rule of law actually preceded mass elections by centuries in Western Europe. Countries that try to simply adopt elections without laying these preceding conditions end up creating not "liberal" democracy but illiberal democracy, like Putin’s Russia. His second book, published in 2008, before the financial crisis, argued that the most important trend of our times is the "rise of the rest," the economic emergence of China, India, Brazil and other countries that are rapidly gaining ground. Zakaria argued that their new-found economic power was altering the structure of global economics, politics, and culture. The phrase "post-American world," has now passed into popular discourse.
After the 9/11 attacks, in a Newsweek cover essay, "Why They Hate Us," Zakaria argued that Islamic extremism was not fundamentally rooted in Islam, nor could it be claimed a reaction to American foreign policy. It had its roots in the stagnation and dysfunctions of the Arab world. Decades of failure under tyrannical regimes, all claiming to be Western-style secular modernizers, had produced an opposition that was anti-Western, religious, violent, and increasingly globalized. Since the mosque was a place where people could gather and Islam an institution that was outside the reach of censorship, they both provided a context for the growth of the political opposition. Zakaria argued for an inter-generational effort to create more open and dynamic societies in Arab countries, and thereby helping Islam enter the modern world.[16]