It's not a debatable proposition

IT'S unbelievable but true. Some people still believe Bangladesh needs "development" first, before its transition to democracy! Mozammael Khan in a recent posting, "Development and Democracy: Time to look to the East" (DS, Feb 2, 2016), has argued that Bangladesh needs a Lee Kuan Yew or Mahathir Mohamad to become as developed as Singapore or Malaysia. Although an academic and a human rights activist in Canada, Mozammel Khan's arguments are very similar to what Ayub Khan and Sukarno put forward in defence of "guided democracy" or dictatorship in the1950s and 1960s.

Setting aside my differences of opinion with Mozammel Khan's (who's an old family friend) rosy picture about the state of economy in Bangladesh, I concentrate here on the main premise of his article, which argues: "… it is probably the time that the country looks to the East for guidance, where development has taken priority over liberal democracy as practiced in the West. A case in this could be either Malaysia or Singapore - both of these countries have achieved exemplary growth over the last 50 years".  

I believe no country anywhere in the world should trade human rights, human dignity, democracy, and above all, freedom, for so-called development. I'm not going into the polemics of development and underdevelopment, which Andre Gunder Frank, Hamza Alavi, and Immanuel Wallerstein – among many other social scientists – have already resolved in the 1970s.

Their shattering the myth of development under colonialism and post-colonial surrogate states of global capitalism is enlightening. I think those still enamoured by some so-called success stories of development, in countries like Singapore and Malaysia, should re-appraise Gunder Frank's "development of underdevelopment"; Wallerstein's "anti-systemic movements" theses; and Alavi's "The State in Post-Colonial Societies: Pakistan and Bangladesh".

For ten years, I taught modern Asian and Middle Eastern history at the National University of Singapore. The immaculately clean, organised, and disciplined city state with almost corruption-free governance; excellent law and order situation; affordable food, public housing, healthcare, education, and metro rail; and home to the "best airline" and "best airport" in the world failed to delude me into thinking that I was living in a "developed" country. Singapore isn't another Japan, Australia, New Zealand, or any country in West Europe or North America with regard to development.

Thanks to the draconian Internal Security Act, anybody in Singapore and Malaysia can be put behind bars without trial for an indefinite period. The exploitation of cheap foreign and domestic workers, not-so-hidden poverty, and the lack of respect for democracy, human rights and human dignity make it easy to draw a parallel between Singapore/Malaysia and the oil rich Arab autocracies in the Persian Gulf. They aren't developed countries, let alone role models for Bangladesh.

Mahathir's rule was as dictatorial as that of Lee Kuan Yew's. As one writer elaborates: "… his [Mahathir's] accumulation of power came at the expense of the independence of the judiciary and the traditional powers and privileges of Malaysia's royalty. He deployed the controversial Internal Security Act to detain activists, non-mainstream religious figures, and political opponents including the Deputy Prime Minister he fired in 1998, Anwar Ibrahim".

As quoted by Dr Khan, nothing could be more unsubstantial than Lee Kuan Yew's perception of democracy and development. Lee thought, "democracy leads to undisciplined and disorderly conditions which are inimical to development", and asserted in the manner of another Sukarno or Ayub Khan:

The ultimate test of the value of a political system is whether it helps that society to establish conditions, which improve the standard of living for the majority of its people. Democracy is one way of getting the job done, but if controlled electoral procedures are more conducive to the attainment of valued ends, then I'm against liberal democracy. Nothing is morally at stake in the choice of procedures…. Democratic procedures have no intrinsic value. What matters is good government [italics mine].

Both Lee and Mahathir believed "Asian values" were different from (and superior to) "Western values", in every sphere of life, including governance. The premise of "development-before-democracy" is an alibi for dictatorship, a fig leaf of autocrats' unquenchable thirst for glory and power.

We can't, however, define "development" by the number of tall buildings and flyovers, the length of paved roads, mass rapid transit networks, and the number of flashy cars in a given country. Development is all about the development of our mind and culture. In developed countries, people are free to think and express their opinion without any fear of intimidation; governments respect human rights, and guarantee equal opportunities to all, irrespective of race, religion, gender and age. And only true democracy protects human rights by ensuring the rule of law and equal opportunity.

Today – more than a quarter century after the end of the Cold War – those who still think there's nothing so special about democracy, and civil/military autocrats are as legitimate as elected governments, simply don't know that the wind of change – for democracy and freedom – is getting stronger, even in parts of the Arab World. One domino will fall after another, everywhere, including Singapore and Malaysia. It's too late to revive the "good old days" of Lee and Mahathir anywhere, including Bangladesh. Nobody can sustain Marx's proverbial "Oriental Despotism" that existed in the past – and that still exists in countries like Myanmar and North Korea.

However, the theory that justified "controlled democracy" or absolute dictatorship – both in pro-Western and anti-Western dictatorships during the Cold War years – is fast losing altitude. A couple of them have already crash landed in Indonesia, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen, and many more are struggling to remain afloat. While Moscow and Beijing are still backing their rogue client states, Washington and its allies are fast withdrawing support from their erstwhile client states.

Liberal democracy is not an impediment to development, but democracy is development; it's the epitome of human achievement and development, it's the "End of History". Liberal democracy is the most powerful weapon against terrorism. Leading counterterrorism experts believe that denial of democracy, the rule of law, human rights and human dignity are the main factors behind the rise of terrorism, Islamofascism, and anarchy in the Muslim World. Turbulent Bangladesh no longer can afford to wait for the elusive "development" before it becomes a fully-fledged liberal democracy.

Last but not least, the Pakistani military regime's refusal to respect the overwhelming majority Bangalis' democratic rights to choose their leader triggered the Liberation War in 1971. Since democracy was the raison d'être for Bangladesh, one wonders why the country should follow Lee, Mahathir, or other proponents of "controlled democracy" or dictatorship instead of its own founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who fought for the democratic rights of his people, and refused to compromise with the Pakistani military junta. Had Mujib compromised with Yahya and Bhutto by dishonouring his people's democratic aspirations, possibly our history would have been very different -- nothing to be proud of or celebrate.

The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University. He is the author of several books, including Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan (Sage, 2014).