A Dissident Asks: Can Bush Turn Words Into Action?

Washington Post
Sunday, November 23, 2003

I must confess that President Bush's speech on democracy in the Middle East earlier this month came as a pleasant surprise. Like most Arabs, I have strong misgivings about his unilateral intervention in Iraq and failure to maintain consistent standards toward Palestinians and Israelis.

But as a lifelong advocate of democracy in the Arab world, I could not have written a better speech. The president hit the right notes when he admitted past foreign policy mistakes and vowed not to condone dictatorial regimes, even among close traditional allies. He dismissed as false the cultural arguments that Islam is inherently incompatible with freedom and democracy. And yet, for the speech to be truly meaningful, Bush must now translate some of that fine rhetoric into policy.
For many years, those of us who struggle for democratic transformation in the Arab world felt alone in confronting despotism. As Bush himself admitted, Cold War and geopolitical considerations made the United States dance all too often with Arab dictators. Now that this era may be over, dissidents are beginning to speak a little more loudly.

Our numbers are small, not so much for lack of fellow citizens yearning for liberal governance, but out of fear of publicly expressing those yearnings. When the Egyptian regime imprisoned me and 27 young associates three years ago, charging me with taking foreign grant funds without permission and tarnishing Egypt's image abroad with my work, most Egyptian intellectuals and civil society activists in our country did not act for many months. They were paralyzed. Meanwhile, international civil society and the media in democratic countries that kept up the pressure until our full acquittal by Egypt's highest court in March.
One tactic of the region's dictatorial regimes is to deflect attention from domestic injustices by whipping up anger over external issues. Thus, Arab dictators, through their state-controlled media, dismissed the Bush speech as hypocritical and arrogant. For them it merely revealed a U.S. double standard. The U.S. president, they would say, should not speak out on Arab governance until there is a final resolution of the Palestinian question and/or immediate withdrawal from Iraq. This plays to popular and legitimate demands of the Arab people, but with ulterior motives.

These anti-democratic regimes have opted not to declare such hostility outright. Instead, they allege that any Arab voice that calls for regime change is supporting a nefarious American agenda in the Middle East. Then the allegation extends to those who call for greater freedoms in any sphere of life, labeling them "cultural agents" of a hegemonic America. Since the war in Iraq and the quest for its democratization, Arab democrats like me have become favorite targets for that broad anti-reform coalition.

I have just returned from a lecture tour of the United States, which was arranged months ago and initially did not include Washington or meetings with any administration officials. Yet the coincidence of Bush's speech with my presence in the United States caused the yellow press in Egypt to go wild. Al-Osbou Weekly, a reputed mouthpiece of the state security agency, went so far as to credit me as the unseen author of the speech. It alleged that Congress subsequently rewarded me by appropriating several million dollars for my development studies center. The front page headline read: "Saad in Washington to incite the US against Egypt and the Arab World." This baseless story also appeared in several other Arab newspapers. My true mission? To lobby, along with other members of the international human rights movement, for the worldwide repeal of emergency laws such as the Patriot Act.

Demagoguery aside, there is valid apprehension among Arab democrats about whether Washington is serious about supporting their efforts toward overdue democratic transformation. And if so, how will the United States go about it -- with helpful encouragement or heavy-handed interference?
Arab democrats recognize that U.S. success in Iraq would strengthen their own democratic efforts elsewhere in the region. They wish the United States had planned more wisely for a postwar Iraq. It should have consulted more closely with Arab and Iraqi democratic forces in the region. It should not have so quickly dissolved the Iraqi army, which was as alienated from Saddam Hussein as the rest of the Iraqi people.

But it is never too late to admit mistakes and move forward. As I see it, Washington could call upon the United Nations and Arab legal, economic and political advisers from around the region to work with local counterparts toward reconstructing Iraq. Security could be improved by reconstituting units and brigades of the old Iraqi army. With brief retraining, they could expedite the transition to a stable and democratic Iraq.

Those who wish for American failure in Iraq are an unholy alliance of anti-democratic groups: Arab tyrants, old leftists, Baathists and Nasserites. These spent forces recognize on some level that history has finally moved beyond them. The graphic fall of Saddam's statue was a moment of truth for them. But an American failure in Iraq would give them a new lease on life.

Unfortunately, a regional democratic coalition has yet to emerge. Although its constituent elements are all there, both in the business community and in civil society, they are widely scattered. Arab regimes have long put activists in prison or under permanent siege. Older democracies around the world should help lift that siege by demanding a greater margin of freedom. They can do so in several ways. One is by providing interaction with democracy advocates in Eastern Europe and elsewhere who successfully defied their own despots. Funds without strings attached, travel opportunities and training also would be welcome. Similar post-Helsinki support in the 1970s and '80s hastened peaceful transformations of governance across the former Soviet sphere.

What else should the United States do to promote democracy in the Middle East?

• Work multilaterally. Actively welcoming other democracies, particularly those with no colonial history in the region, to join in the Iraq project would ward off much of the suspicion that still lingers of a sinister design to rob Iraq of its oil, or to consolidate imperial hegemony.
Along the same lines, it would help both the Americans and the indigenous Arab democrats if the United States declared a timetable for transferring power to Iraqis -- and adhered to it faithfully. The recent statements from Washington to this effect must be widely publicized in Iraq and the region at large. And then they must be honored.
• Resume an active role in peacemaking between Palestinians and Israelis. This is a noble goal in itself. It is also a sine qua non for establishing sustainable democratization in the Middle East. Arab regimes have used the highly emotional Palestine question as an excuse to engage in authoritarian practices. The world has come close to an equitable resolution of the conflict several times, always aborted by extremists on both sides. The silent majorities in Palestine and Israel have yet to enjoy the opportunity to vote on a historical compromise of the kind entailed in the road map, or Camp David I and II.
• Support making aid, trade and investment conditional upon Middle East governments' (including Israel's) taking concrete steps toward full democracy. This strategy is neither new nor draconian. It was effective in bringing about and sustaining an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. We also saw the success of this strategy in Europe. South and East European countries eager to join the European Union were given a twin mandate: Create democracy and a market economy. The European Union has subsequently grown from seven to 15 and, soon, to 25 member countries. Europe is now more democratic, united, peaceful and prosperous than at any time in the past 10 centuries. Democracy should not be imposed by external armed forces -- and does not take root this way.
• Build on regional liberal traditions. President Bush has correctly noted on several occasions, including in his recent speech, that there is no contradiction between Islam and democracy. Two of the largest Muslim countries, Indonesia and Bangladesh, have elected democratic governments and female heads of state. And while many in the West may not know it, in several parts of the Middle East there were liberal traditions from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries, including pluralistic multiparty systems, a free press and vibrant civil societies. The West should acknowledge and build its support for the region on this liberal tradition. It is still part of the Arab collective memory.
• Invigorate partnerships with civil society organizations. At a time when ruling elites are too fossilized to change or allow others to bring about badly needed changes, Arab civil society organizations are working actively for political and cultural reforms. They have not waited for official approval. Our Ibn Khaldun Center reopened this past June 30, exactly three years after it was shut down by the authorities. Saudi intellectuals are loudly and forcefully demanding sweeping reforms. Palestinian and Israeli moderates have been searching for common ground for years. Bravely, they found enough of it to sign a "virtual" peace accord in Geneva last month. Similar initiatives are under way in Syria and Tunisia despite ongoing repression.

It is this budding Arab civil society that provides the future infrastructure for democracy. Its counterparts in the United States and other Western democracies must now stretch helping hands across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. And the United States should pressure reluctant Arab regimes to lift legal and other restrictions that strangle local civic participation.

Arabs have long lamented past betrayals by the West. Bush's democracy speech is a promise to correct the historical record. But it's up to Arab democrats to make Arab democracy a reality.