http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/OpinionNF.asp?ArticleID=144803
Published: 22/12/2004, 10:13 (UAE)
Amir Taheri: Seven excuses for resisting reform in the Arab world
Special to Gulf News
Is United States President George W. Bush's vision for the
democratisation of the Middle East being transformed into another talking
marathon at the end of which Washington signs a few cheques in exchange for
promises of reform from reform-resistant regimes? The question is not fanciful.
The State Department has already downgraded the vision into a "project"
to be pursued through classic bureaucratic channels.
For their part, Arab leaders, and their western apologists, advance seven
excuses for resisting even minimal reform of dysfunctional systems in most Arab
countries. These need to be examined if the region is not to miss an historic
opportunity for change.
The first excuse is that economic development must precede political
change. This version of Marxian dialectics is based on the premise that the
creation of a modern economic infrastructure would, in time, lead to the
emergence of a democratic political superstructure.
Experience, however, shows that political change inspires economic
development, not the other way round.
Breaking with the past
China opened the path to economic development after it abandoned rigid
Marxist-Leninist politics. India's break with five decades of socialist-style
policies made its current economic boom possible.
There are limits to economic development in totalitarian and
authoritarian societies that cannot be transcended without political change.
Almost all Arab societies have reached the limits of economic development
within the various forms of authoritarianism that marks their politics. Without
political reform none can go much further economically, regardless of the
volume of aid that anyone may wish to provide.
The second excuse is that democracy is a western system and hard to sell
to the Arabs. The fact, however, is that of the 130 nations now classified as
democratic more than half cannot be described as western by any standard.
Democracy is a form of government, not an ideology or, even less, a
religious faith. It works in Japan and South Korea as well as Norway and
Senegal.
The minimum that Arab regimes could do is to stop violating their own
constitutions, and accept free elections instead of plebiscites in which the
official candidate wins with 99.99 per cent of the votes.
The third excuse: most Arabs are poor and cannot understand democracy,
let alone practise it. But the fact is that the average income per head per
annum in most Arab countries today is higher than in India which is the world's
largest democracy.
The average Libyan earns 20 times more than his Senegalese counterpart,
and is certainly richer than the average Briton in the 19th century who,
nevertheless, lived in a democracy.
In some cases the state's control of a nation's chief source of revenue,
notably oil, or foreign aid, enables it to bribe some would-be critics and
terrorise the rest of the population into submission.
The fourth excuse: democracy would require the Arabs to abandon cherished
ancestral values and traditions. This may well be true. But the mere fact of
something being done by many people for a long time does not exempt it from
critical examination.
The fifth excuse is that, because most Arabs are afflicted by illiteracy,
reform should first focus on education. But this is a red herring. The high
percentage of illiterate people in India and Bangladesh has not prevented them
from taking the path of democracy.
In 19th century Britain more than half of the population couldn't read
and write but were not deprived of basic human rights.
Most Arab states spend lots of money on education. And yet the percentage
of the illiterate in their population has either remained constant or increased
in the past decade.
The claim that education is the key to democratisation is bogus. The
peoples of the USSR were among the best educated but had virtually no civic
rights.
The sixth excuse is that democracy cannot be imposed by force. This is a
diversion because no one wants to impose democracy by force on an unwilling
population. Some Arabs claim that this is the case in Afghanistan and, closer
to them, in Iraq which is scheduled to hold its first free elections next
month.
But what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq was not an imposition of
democracy by force. It was the removal by force of impediments to
democratisation.
Under the Taliban and the Saddamites neither Afghanistan nor Iraq could
choose democratisation. Forcible regime change was necessary to give the
Afghans and the Iraqis a choice.
They now have that choice, and may, although this is improbable, end up
by rejecting democracy and choosing despotism once again. The important point
is that they were given a choice.
The seventh excuse is, perhaps, the most disingenuous. It is based on the
claim that there can be no democratisation in Arab countries until the
Palestine-Israel problem is solved.
For half a century Arab regimes of all denomination have used the issue
to justify their despotic rule. They have had a direct interest in preventing a
peaceful solution of the problem which, in a sense, they helped create in 1947
when they rejected the United Nations' partition of Palestine.
Bush should have the courage of his statements, if not his convictions.
He should tell the despots that the world has changed and that they can no
longer rely on American support to stay in power against the wishes of their
people.
For decades they were able to take the Americans for a ride by claiming
that Arab despotism produced stability, a commodity that Washington
appreciated.
Now, however, we know that the stability they produced was akin to the
stillness of swamps where the insects of terrorism breed.
The Arab peoples have known for a long time that the stability of the
status quo was killing them. It is time the United States, too, recognised that
the same status quo also kills Americans.
Amir Taheri is an Iranian author and journalist based in Europe, and a
member of Benador Associates
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar.
Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/BRUplB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
***************************************************************************
Berdikusi dg Santun & Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg
Lebih Baik, in Commonality & Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc
***************************************************************************
__________________________________________________________________________
Mohon Perhatian:
1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik)
2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari.
3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru;
4. Posting: ppiindia@yahoogroups.com
5. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
6. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
7. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
