Civil Society

ICDS launches its second Civil Society and Democratization in the Arab World Annual Report 2004
January 20th, 2005

This survey is principally concerned with political systems in the Arab World insofar as they relate to freedom and human rights. The concept of freedom we address here is to be understood in its narrow political sense which is value and goal of genuine democratic regimes. A survey of democratic freedom is often assumed to entail a survey of human rights. But these two concepts are distinct despite the considerable overlap between them. A free majority in a democratic system may very well deny basic human rights to a particular minority or some specific individuals or groups within society. Indeed it is this potential danger within a free democracy which led de Tocqueville to warn against the "tyranny of the majority." For example, if politically active Muslim fundamentalists are arrested for their ideas and mistreated in prisons this would constitute a clear violation of their human rights, yet this, in a free democratic society, may be passively approved of by the majority of the population; nor does this violation necessarily impair freedom of expression or political democracy for the vast majority.