Mr. Sharansky, ease my doubts by Martin Kramer (Natan Sharansky's The Case for Democracy)

Martin Kramer has an interesting response to Natan Sharansky's The Case for Democracy. He differentiates between freedom of and freedom from. Freedom of being rights like freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

A much larger group is what I would call the 'freedom from' people. Their idea of freedom is somewhat different. It is freedom from oppressive government, not so much for the individual, as for the collective -- the kinship group, the tribe, the religious sect. The quest for this kind of freedom has existed in the Middle East from time immemorial. The late Elie Kedourie put it best. 'The Middle Easterner,' he said, 'is very far from thinking that he has a right to have a say in politics. All he wants is to be left alone and not to be oppressed.' Elsewhere he wrote of the Syrians, as archetypes of the Arabs, that 'they have never been much accustomed to being asked their opinion about their rulers. For them the happy man has always been he who has a beautiful wife, a comfortable house, a lucrative occupation, who does not know government, and whom government does not know; in short, the private man.'

No doubt this is a desire for freedom, but it is freedom from, not freedom of. What is the difference? You may desire freedom from oppressive government, and still deny your beautiful wife the freedom to drive, or get an education, or go about in public. You may fervently wish not to know government, but still expect blasphemers and adulteresses to be punished by law. You may fight for freedom from oppression for yourself, and not much care if your neighbor is oppressed, especially if he is from a different family, or tribe, or sect.

It brings into doubt how much transformation across the Middle East can be achieved in the short-term -- decades.