From The Australian, 13/6/06, June 13, 2006 ...
From Iraq to Solomon Islands, Australians have a special duty to help extend the blessings of liberty and democracy across the world, argues the Foreign Minister
AUSTRALIANS have a laconic attitude to patriotism. Our love of our country is no less fierce because of the understated way we display it. Our commitment to Australian values is no less passionate because of the casual way we express it as a fair go for all.
We are similarly coy about how we express our attitude towards freedom and democracy, despite our strong support for these principles. We are squeamish about the more jingoistic style of some American pronouncements on the spread of freedom and democracy. Yet we are committed to the same goals.
Australia continues to be a significant force for the spread of freedom and democracy. We have fought wars for these values in the past, we continue to fight for them now and we will work in many ways to achieve the same outcomes in the future.
In doing so we are not simply working for an ideal. We are supporting values that deliver practical success for ordinary people. We are delivering tangible outcomes for people who deserve the opportunity to forge a future of their own. And we are looking after our national interests.
We must not lose sight of these goals. We have seen freedom triumph over tyranny in world wars and at the conclusion of the Cold War. But we now confront a new struggle. The extremists of al-Qa'ida, Jemaah Islamiah and their fellow travellers seek to impose another kind of tyranny, the kind we saw under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
To most Australians a Taliban-style regime is almost incomprehensible. Free speech is nonexistent, girls are not allowed to attend school, women cannot leave home without being fully covered and accompanied by a male, music and modern technology are banned and people are stoned to death for minor transgressions. Yet this is what the extremist terrorists want to impose on all Islamic countries, if not others, eventually.
Our freedom is at stake and to preserve it we need to promote moderation at the expense of extremism. We need to foster societies where there is tolerance for everyone except the intolerant. In this battle on behalf of moderation and tolerance, democracy plays a vital role.
The suppression of people and their will by governments leads to extremism. Whether the anti-democratic government is militaristic, authoritarian or theocratic, it will certainly be non-responsive. And, in the end, these governments become deeply unpopular with the people they govern.
In democracies, people can freely express their disagreements with governments. They can exercise their right to influence governments and hold them to standards of accountability through public comment, political activism and, ultimately, by voting. In non-democracies a government's unpopularity only festers into resentment. This resentment fosters the conditions in which extremism emerges. People who are disenchanted with the system can easily fall prey to the propaganda of the extremists.
We have seen this trend emerge in many countries, where undemocratic, non-responsive governments have led to a rise in extremism. The bloodshed, corruption and chaos in Afghanistan that preceded the rise of the Taliban is the clearest and most tragic example.
Unsurprisingly, the crucible of Islamic extremism, the Middle East, is home to many countries where some of these preconditions for extremism have long existed.
Many Middle Eastern governments are autocratic rather than democratic. There are often restrictions on media and public debate. Even economies are closed and managed, rather than open and competitive.
The great challenge of Iraq is to overcome this pattern; to replace the repressive and brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein with an open and accountable democracy. The Iraqi people have shown tremendous courage by turning out in increasing numbers to vote in three elections throughout this process.
They deserve a society in which they not only choose the government but interact with it in a free and open media. They deserve the economic benefits of a free-market economy. They deserve to have the religious beliefs of all their citizens accorded appropriate respect and they deserve to have the rule of law subsume the rule of extremist violence.
If we can assist the Iraqi people and the international community to realise this goal, we will have made a vital contribution to democracy, stability and security in the Middle East and the globe. To take the other approach and abandon Iraq would be to surrender to extremists and invite them to spread their evil tactics farther afield.....
...No matter how we express it, or the many ways we tackle it, support for freedom and democracy has to be an enduring aim of our foreign policy. And it will continue to be our guiding principle.
This is an edited extract from Alexander Downer's article in the Liberal Party journal Looking Forward, out today.
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