Democracy and Bigotry

By David K. Shipler

It is autumn. The Arab Spring has lost some of its lush promise in Egypt, and a familiar pattern is emerging. We have seen it elsewhere. More freedom means more license for all expression, not just the admirable and uplifting. The hatreds of one group for another, long buried under the boot of autocracy, are suddenly released, widening the fissures along the boundaries of race, ethnicity, class, language, tribe, or religion. So it has been in nearly every country that has thrown off dictatorship, from the Soviet Union to Yugoslavia, and now to Egypt, where churches have been burned, and Coptic Christians massing in protest have been brutalized by security forces and Muslim toughs. Almost invariably, it seems, the path from authoritarianism to democracy passes through the swamp of bigotry.