Democracy is the only way to defeat IS and restore peace to the Middle East, according to former Egyptian MP Abdul Mawgoud Dardery.

He said dictatorial regimes and terrorism both feed one another, with each justifying the other’s existence.

Dictatorships would inadvertently cause people to resort to violence in an attempt to depose it, he said, but this does not solve the problem.

Instead, it helps the regime justify its existence and its oppressive methods that sparked the violence in the first place, and some regimes including Egypt even encourage extremist groups.

“Democracy is the only alternative that will bring peace and tranquillity. It is the only alternative that can defeat Isis,” he said, referring to the IS militant group by its former name.

“Isis is a symptom of the problem, not the cause of the problem. The cause of the problem is oppression and oppressive regimes. If we work together, we will be able to defeat both Isis and oppression,” he said at a lecture in Kuala Lumpur last night.

He was calling for support for Muslim democrats, especially from social democrats. The lecture was themed ‘Democratisation of the Economy: A Muslim Democrat and Social Democrat Response’.

The lecture was organised by DAP and the DAP-linked think-tank Research for Social Advancement (Refsa), in conjunction with the party’s 50th anniversary and DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang’s 50th year in politics.

An an example, Abdul Mawgoud said that when a military coup deposed Egypt’s first elected president in over 50 years, Mohammed Morsi, the military regime was backed by dictatorships throughout the Arab world.

The IS seized upon the opportunity to call for new recruits.

“Isis has started presenting itself as an alternative. Isis, right after the military coup in Egypt, sent their message to young Muslims reminding them that democracy will not be accepted in the Muslim world, and the best alternative for young Muslims is violence against those dictatorial regimes.

“We (the Freedom and Justice Party) don’t believe that is the answer. That’s why right after the military coup, we are determined to remain peaceful, but we will not accept oppression. We will resist oppression peacefully, all the way,” he said.

‘Democracy alone cannot fill stomachs’

Meanwhile, Frankfurt University professor Thomas Meyer told the same lecture that democracy is not merely majority rule, but must be able to dispense the freedom necessary for its denizens to direct their own lives.

Reminding that democracy alone cannot fill stomachs, he said democracy by itself is never enough.

“This is possible only among societies if you embed the market economy, and if you build a comprehensive welfare state. You use democracy as an instrument to do this.

“Many people had the experience - and this has been a big discussion for a long time - that democracy alone, just as majority-rule or elections, for the majority of society, is never enough because you cannot eat democracy. Democracy doesn’t feed you.

“Democracy must deliver. If democracy for a long time just preserves the status quo of markets and economic power, instead of changing the lives of all, then it loses its support and runs into contradiction with its own prior promises,” he said.

Meyer stressed that such freedom should not only be understood in the ‘negative’ sense, such as freedom from state oppression.

With such freedoms, he said the minority who have resources to get educated and receive healthcare would enjoy freedom, while the rest toil away with little social security just to make ends meet.

Instead, he said the understanding of freedom should also include freedom to access the basic resources necessary for a self-directed life.

“This is not just a beautiful thing. This is not just an ethical idea, but we have observed this a long time ago, in Germany in the 1920s.

“If you do not deliver social security for everybody as is demanded in a welfare state, this produces mass exclusion - large masses of the population are excluded from the wealth and benefits of their own society.

“What else do you expect? They are alienated in their own society, and once they are alienated, many of them will radicalise themselves, follow extremists who promise them a better future,” he said, warning that this could lead to violence and revolts.

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