Bernard Lewis argued Arabs are unready for Western-style elections

Evidence

Despite the wave of movements against dictatorship, the doddering old Orientalist Bernard Lewis continued to maintain that democracy will not work for Arabs; a consultative system that comes out of traditional Islamic culture would be better. As he put it, “We, in the Western world particularly, tend to think of democracy in our own terms—that’s natural and normal—to mean periodic elections in our style. But I think it’s a great mistake to try and think of the Middle East in those terms and that can only lead to disastrous results, as you’ve already seen in various places.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 211

Categorization

• XREF: Lewis as the intellectual anchor whose myth Kumar dismantles — parallels the scholar-driven analysis in Grosfoguel. — connects to: Bernard Lewis supplied the clash of civilizations thesis to American foreign policy — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 213; Bernard Lewis reduced fourteen centuries of East-West to unchanging conflict. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 27; Bernard Lewis maintained Arabs were unsuited to Western-style democracy even after the Arab Spring.