2004

I must grudgingly confess that President George W. Bush’s speech on November 6th in the National Endowment for Democracy was a pleasant surprise. As a life-long advocate of democracy in the Arab World, I could not have written a better speech. The genuine Arab democrats, a small minority to start with, have for many years felt lonely in the despotic wilderness of the Middle East. This was not so much for lack of those yearning for liberal governance, but from fears of publicly expressing those yearnings.

When the Iraqi dissident Kana’an Mekiyya published his book, Republic of Fear (1991), he was not just describing the one thousand and one ways by which Saddam Hussein subdued the entire people of Iraq into submission. Mekiyya was in fact depicting the general features of a widespread modern-day oriental despotism in the Arab World. Peoples of Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Sudan may have not have been as physically brutalized as the Iraqis, but a deep-rooted fear was and still is prevalent among them. The difference is one of degree.

When I was incarcerated along with 27 young associates of the Ibn Khaldun Center three years ago by Egypt’s regime, most intellectuals and civil society activists in the country were paralyzed with fear and apprehension for many months. It was mainly international civil society and the media in democratic countries that kept up the pressure until our acquittal on all charges by Egypt’s highest court. The unusually lengthy 35-page court ruling went out of its way to condemn the Egyptian regime for having fabricated the case with trumped up charges, in order to silence the Center and end its irksome activities.

More importantly for the theme of this essay, the court had scathing criticism of the regime for steadily encroaching on the judiciary and the legislature, thus undermining the spirit of the rule of law. This is a bold statement, coming in the face of two seven- year prison sentences handed down in previous rulings by State Security Courts. (The latter were established under Emergency Law, passed in the aftermath of the assassination of President Sadat in 1981.) Emergency law gives the state sweeping powers of administrative detention and the suspension of due process; and enabled the creation of State Security Courts, which are not bound by the internationally recognized standards for fair trials.

Emergency Law may be justified in a moment of crisis – such as that in 1981 when the head of the State (President Sadat) had just been assasinated by an Islamic militant group. However, the Mubarak regime has kept the Emergency Law in effect for the ensuing 22 years. For the first twenty years it justified that lengthy extension claiming the need to combat Islamic extremists. After 9/11, the Egyptian government renewed the Law for three additional years, under the pretext of being part of the U.S. led coalition of the war on terrorism. The fact of the matter is that the Mubarak regime has used Emergency Law against peaceful political dissidents of all persuasions. Ours was a dramatic case in point.

In fairness, Egypt still has a modicum of civility. Its highest Court of Cassation is truly independent, with judges elected for life by their peers. It is one of the few surviving features of that Liberal Age in Egypt which flourished from 1922 to 1952. It is true that it took three years of successive trials and incarceration before our case was definitively reviewed by the Court of Cassation, but we were confident that once there, we would get a fair hearing. This is yet to be the case for an estimated 15,000 political prisoners in Egyptian jails – some of whom have been detained for 14 years or more without charges or trial. Egypt’s Court of Cassation is a saving grace for curbing the excesses of the state. Unfortunately, this is not the case in most other Arab countries. Political dissidents too often simply disappear within the draconian systems wielded by these authoritarian regimes.

For years Arab democrats have been dancing alone and without music. President Bush’s Nov. 6 speech at least provided some warm-up to the band. Dissidents are beginning to speak a little louder. They feel a long overdue recognition. As President Bush himself admitted, cold war and geopolitical considerations made the US dance all too often with Arab dictators, to the tune of the status quo.

Arab dictators, through their state-controlled media, dismissed the Bush speech as hypocritical and arrogant: it merely revealed the US double standards. They are quick to deflect attention from their own dismal records to conflicts elsewhere. Thus, the acid test of US sincerity is a fair resolution of the Palestinian question and/or immediate withdrawal from Iraq. This plays to popular and legitimate demands of the Arab people, but for ulterior motives.

A review of this dismissive commentary reveals that the authors are a curious mix of old Marxists, Nasserites, Baaathists, and Islamicists. Despite differences among them on a number of issues, their common discourse has not changed much since the 1950’s. Its themes are anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, anti-Zionism, anti-Western, and in particular, anti-American. Though clearly anti-democratic as well, they have opted not to declare such hostility outright explicitly or upfront. Instead, they begin by alleging that any Arab voice that calls for regime change now is playing into a nefarious American agenda in the Middle East. Then the allegation extends to any voice that calls for change 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 have become favorite targets for that broad anti-democratic coalition.

A sample of this tarring and feathering (blended with conspiracy theories) of the advocates of a genuine democracy is illuminating. This author was recently on a lecture tour in the US which included Seattle (University of Washington, my alma matter), Anchorage (Middle East Studies Association annual meeting), and Atlanta (a Carter Center conference on Human Rights defenders). The tour was set up months ago, and had not initially included Washington D.C. or meetings with any American official in or out of the White House. The coincidence of President Bush’s speech with my presence in the US, however, caused the yellow press in Egypt to go wild. The al-Osbou’ Weekly, a reputed mouthpiece of the State Security Agency, credited me as the unseen force behind the speech. It alleged that the US Congress subsequently rewarded me by appropriating several million dollars to my Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies (Al Osbou, Nov. 17th, 2003). The front page headline read: “Saad in Washington to incite the US against Egypt and the Arab World”. This baseless story was later reprinted in several Arab newspapers (al-Arabi, Nov. 15th; el-Midan, Nov. 16th).

Demagoguery aside, there is valid apprehension among genuine Arab democrats about whether the US is serious about supporting their efforts toward overdue democratic transformation of their countries. And if so, how is the US going to go about it—helpful encouragement or heavy-handed interference?

The image problem that the US has at present is due to a lingering war in Iraq and close association with Ariel Sharon. The US appears to give unconditional support to a prime minister in Israel who has been universally disliked across the Arab world, not least because of war-crimes committed in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacres in 1982. This negativity is compounded by the long history of US duplicity with Arab, Middle East, and Third World tyrants. Most genuine Arab democrats do not hold present-day Americans accountable for previous historical sins, but they find themselves constantly forced to expend meager resources explaining that those sins do not necessarily have to be repeated.

Arab democrats recognize that US success in Iraq would strengthen their own democratic quests elsewhere in the region. They wish the US had planned more wisely for post-war Iraq, as it meticulously planned to destroy Saddam. 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 Iraqis. The army's discontent was rooted in being treated as a third-class military service, after the Republican Guards and the Special Republican Guard Units. It is from the ranks of the last two that much of the current Iraqi resistance to the American-led coalition comes.

But it is never too late to admit mistakes and move forward. Arab legal, economic and political advisors from civil society around the region could be called upon to work with local counterparts toward reconstructing Iraq. Security could be improved by reconstituting units and brigades of the old Iraqi Army. With short re-training such elements can expedite the transition to a stable and democratic Iraq.

Those who wish for American failure in Iraq are much the same unholy alliance of anti-democratic groups: Arab tyrants, old leftists, Baathists, and Nasserites. These spent forces recognize on some level that history has finally turned against them. The graphic fall of Saddam’s statue was a moment of truth for them. An American failure in Iraq would give them a new lease, albeit a short one, on life.

Unfortunately a regional democratic coalition is yet to emerge, although its constituent elements are all there though widely scattered. Arab regimes have long put them in prison or under permanent siege. The community of older democracies can definitely lend a hand to lift that siege by demanding a greater margin of freedom. They can do so by providing interaction with democracy advocates in Eastern Europe and elsewhere who successfully defied their own despots. Funds, travel opportunities and training are all welcome. Similar post-Helsinki support in the 1970’s and 80’s hastened peaceful democratic transformations of governance across the former Soviet Union.

The US will be well advised to go multilateral in the Middle East. The active involvement of midium-size and smaller powers with no colonial record in the region, e.g. the Scandinavian and Canadians, can make the call for democratization less suspect. It was the dogged US unilateralism in Iraq that alienated many of its European allies and embittered Arabs. The US can and will still lead the effort for reconstruction, stabilization and democratization in Iraq –they have the military power and wealth to do so. But actively welcoming others from the community of democracies to join in the Iraq project would ward off much of the allegations of a sinister American design to rob Iraq of its oil, or to consolidate US imperial hegemony.

Along the same line, it will help both the US and the indigenous Arab democrats if a time-table for transferring power to Iraqis is declared and adhered to faithfully. The recent indications from Washington to this effect must be widely publicized in Iraq and the region at large.

In Europe, much of the doubt cast on America’s sincerity regarding its call for the democratization of the Middle East is due to personal animosity toward George W. Bush. Reviewing the European media in recent weeks substantiates this observation. Two days before his official State visit to the U.K. the British press published the results of the latest public opinion poll. Some 60% of the British considered that President Bush is “a primary threat to World peace”; only 7% thought he was “a good leader”; and as many as 37% considered him as “a quack”. Thus it seems that the American President has become part and parcel of America’s image problem.

What is to be done specifically to put spirit and muscles into the Bush Nov 6 speech? I suggest the following:

1. Resuming an active US peace-making role between Palestinians and Israelis. What more noble goal than to put an end to a century-long period of mutual hatred, suffering and bloodshed. It is also a sin quo non for establishing a sustainable democratization in the Middle East. Arab regimes have used the highly emotive Palestinian Question as an excuse for their authoritarian practices. Some few years ago the World had come very close to an equitable resolution of the conflict had it not been for extremists on both sides. The silent majorities have yet to have an opportunity to vote on a historical compromise of the kind entailed in the Road Map, and Camp David I and II. The October 12 Geneva Accord arrived at by Israeli and Palestinian Peace advocates is a giant step in the right direction.
2. Aid-Trade-Investment Conditionality. Democracy to take root and survive should not be imposed by external armed forces. This would be self-defeating let alone the stark contradiction in terms. More effective and lasting is conditioning favorable aide, trade, and investments terms for gradual but concrete steps toward full democracy in each Middle Eastern Country. This strategy has been effective in bringing about and sustaining an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. It has equally motivated others in the region and elsewhere in the Third World to engage in serious economic reform. We have seen the same strategy working in Europe. Those countries in Southern and Eastern Europe eager to join the European Union were told of the twin conditionality of democracy and market economy. The EU has subsequently grown from seven to fifteen to twenty-five countries. At present Europe is more democratic, united, peaceful and prosperous than ever in the last ten centuries.
3. Building on regional Liberal Traditions. President Bush has correctly noted on several occasions, the last of which was in his Nov. 6th speech, that there is no contradiction between Islam and democracy. After all, the two biggest Muslim countries, Indonesia and Bangladesh have elected democratic governments and women prime ministers. Many Westerners may not know that the Middle East had more recent liberal traditions, including pluralistic multiparty systems. The Arab Liberal Age extended from the mid-nineteen to mid-twentieth centuries, and electoral politics extending from the 1920’s to the 1950’s – i.e. before the advent of military dictatorships. The US and other Western democracies should build their quest for helping the region on this liberal tradition. It is still part of the Arab collective memory.
4. Invigorating Partnership with Civil Society Organizations. In a time when ruling elites are too fossilized to change themselves or to allow others to bring about badly needed changes, it is Civil Society Organizations (CSO’s) that are taking the initiative. At the risk of being shut down or its leaders being administratively detained, many Arab CSO’s have spoken out for political and cultural reforms. They have not waited for official approval. Our Ibn Khaldun Center reopened on June 30th, i.e. on the third anniversary of closing it down and incarcerating 27 of its associates (the night of June 30th 2000) by the Egyptian authorities. Saudi intellectuals have been loudly and forcefully demanding sweeping reforms. Palestinian and Israeli moderates have been searching for common grounds for years and recently they found enough of it to sign a “virtual” peace accord in Geneva last month. Similar initiatives have been under way in Syria and Tunisia despite growing repression. It is this budding Arab that provides the effective infrastructure for democracy. Its counterparts in the US and other Western democracies must stretch helping hands across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

Arabs have long lamented past betrayals by the West. President George Bush’s Nov. 6th speech is a promise to correct the historical record. Let us all make sure that the promise is fulfilled.