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Facing the 'real' enemy in the Arab
Middle East
By Ehsan Ahrari
The September terrorist attacks on the United
States triggered a debate over "why they hate us,"
involving the Arab Middle East as well as the entire
Muslim world. On the Arab side, the same question was
asked at the popular level. However, since free debates
are not allowed in authoritarian systems, the
international community did not get the real flavor of
that debate.
The United Nation's Human
Development Program (UNDP) has done the world a great
service by commissioning a report on the state of Arab
societies prepared by a group of Arab intellectuals. It
does not answer the "why they hate us" question for the
region. However, it does underscore what is wrong with
their polities, and who the real enemy is. It is not the
West. It is the authoritarian rule and its perpetrators.
Here are some of the highlights of that report, which
can be viewed in full in PDF format at:
http://www.undp.org/rbas/ahdr/:
The 22-nation Arab League (280 million people)
produced a combined gross domestic product of US$531.2
billion in 1999, less than the single Western nation
Spain.
The real income of the average Arab citizen was just
13.9 percent that of the average citizen of Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
countries.
Only 0.6 percent of the population uses the
internet, and the personal computer penetration rate is
only 1.2 percent.
Arab governments' overall investment in research and
development does not exceed 0.5 percent of the GNP.
The unemployment rate across Arab countries is about
15 percent, which is "among the highest rate in the
developing world."
Manufacturing exports have remained stagnant and
private capital flows have lagged those of other
regions.
Even in oil and oil-related products, which accounts
for over 70 percent of export from the region, the rate
of growth was only 1.5 percent per year.
No generation of young Arabs has been as large as
today's.
Despite recent progress made on the status of women,
more than half of Arab women are still illiterate. They
also suffer from inequality of opportunity in
employment-status, wages, and gender-based occupational
segregation.
The authoritarian rulers know only
too well that their very survival depends on the
continued backwardness and acute economic
underdevelopment of their societies. Thus, as the rest
of the world becomes enlightened with the spread of the
information revolution and reaps the benefits stemming
from enhanced globalization and industrialization, Arab
countries remain at the very bottom of those phenomena.
Policies of authoritarian regimes are directly
responsible for their plight.
Authoritarian
rule, more often than not, is also notoriously inept,
corrupt and unresponsive to popular needs. The UNDP's
report makes these points in sedate bureaucratic
language. Consider its following observations: "There is
a substantial lag between Arab countries and other
regions in terms of participatory governance." And
"freedoms of expression and association are frequently
curtailed. Obsolete norms of legitimacy prevail."
Finally, government spending and policy changes "are
evident in lack of accountability, transparency and
integrity, along with ineffectiveness, inefficiency and
unresponsiveness to the demands of peoples and of
development." The temperate language of this report
notwithstanding, it is still a scathing criticism of the
state of affairs in the Arab countries, and was released
at a time when the search for "what went wrong?" and
"who did it to us?" is on.
Once such a biting
criticism of the state of affairs of Arab polities is
circulated worldwide, it is reasonable to expect that
sweeping reforms will be introduced and "qualitative
changes", to quote Karl Marx, will be brought about.
Marx was not right about the feasibility of a classless
society; however, he was definitely right about the fact
that qualitative change may only be brought about as a
result of a cataclysmic change and through an implosion
from within, especially when the "enemy" is the regime
(or, in this instance, regimes) in power. Needless to
say, Marx was referring to nondemocratic societies,
since democratic societies are procedurally equipped to
bring about such changes through periodic elections.
However, the trouble with all societal
implosions is that no one can predict the outcome.
Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and
perestroika were examples of the fact that
although he only meant to reform the archaic political
system, he ended up with an entirely unintended outcome
- the implosion of the Soviet Union. Implosion in a
country may not mean the emergence of a representative
system of government. Even if some semblance of
democracy emerges, still no one can be certain whether a
less democratic system will become more or even less
democratic, and when. Iran is a good example of this
particular point. In the absence of such a certainty, an
alternative would be "managed" democratic change. But
which regime would be willing to bring about managed
change? More to the point, who is going to persuade any
government in the Arab world to bring about managed
democratic change?
The continuation of the
status quo in the Arab world is not acceptable, for it
only postpones cataclysmic changes in most, if not all,
Arab polities. It is not possible for people to suffer
endlessly, especially when they see on their televisions
the uplifting outcomes of globalization and
industrialization in the standards of living of their
European and Asian counterparts. Managed democratic
change from within emerges as the only realistic option.
The United States, the only declared global proselytizer
for democracy, may be able to play a limited and a
low-key role in this direction.
In the past, the
United States has been pussyfooting around this issue in
that region. President George W Bush's insistence in his
June 24 speech on the interim Palestinian state was an
important development in the sense that it called for
the establishment of a democratic government in the
Palestinian-administered territories. However, given the
highly controversial nature of that speech, there is a
fear that other Arab states, wittingly or otherwise,
missed that point entirely.
But if introduction
of democracy in the Palestinian-administered territories
becomes a successful reality, Jordan might be the next
candidate. Lebanon also stands a high probability of
becoming a democracy, since it does not have a strongman
like Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Syria under Bishara Assad
is not yet the repressive dictatorship that it was under
his father, Hafiz Assad. However, given the fact that
the old guard and the security apparatus created by
senior Assad is still very much intact, Syria is not
likely to become less authoritarian, or more democratic,
any time soon. Iraq is a hopeless case of a continued
tyranny. Even if Saddam is toppled, there is no
certainty that Iraq will start its march toward
democracy soon thereafter.
In North Africa,
Morocco may be a leading candidate for managed
democratic change. But the remaining states of that
region are likely to remain under authoritarian
repression for the foreseeable future. In fact, both
Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi are grooming their
sons to be their heirs apparent. Sadly, hereditary
dictatorship is also a long-standing phenomenon of the
Arab Middle East.
That leaves the Gulf
monarchies as the next region of challenge. However, the
Persian Gulf monarchies are not uniform in their
practice of authoritarian rule. Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and
Kuwait are already experimenting with limited democracy,
and a discreet American encouragement for enhancing the
scope of that experimentation might not be a bad idea.
Saudi Arabia, the largest state of the Arabian
Peninsula, remains an archetype of authoritarian rule.
It is also a country where Islamic orthodoxy is
extremely well entrenched. So opening up the Saudi
polity will be a great challenge, and only the ruling
elite of that country may be able to bring that about.
The current generation of Saudi rulers, sons of King
Abdel Aziz, may not be the ones to play a crucial role
in that direction. A general expectation is that the
grandsons of Abdel Aziz might become the harbingers of
political change. However, those who support this view
provide no hard evidence to prove this point.
As
the stoutest obstacle to change, authoritarian rule is
the real enemy, but also has great potential for
becoming an equally powerful force for change. Given the
magnitude of development-related changes for the Arab
countries, the extant regimes had better become its
initiators and managers, especially if they do not wish
to be swept aside. Political change in the Arab world is
coming. There is nothing uncertain about that
proposition. What is questionable is whether the real
enemy of change will become its promoter and manager.
Ehsan Ahrari is a Norfolk, Virginia,
US-based strategic analyst.
(©2002 Asia Times
Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
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ROVING EYE
Iran Diary
A 9-part
series by Pepe Escobar. (May-June, '02)
Iraq Diary
Escobar documents his travels in Iraq.
(Mar-Apr,
'02)
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