Arab Youth, Don't Lose Momentum Now

Our generation has finally rediscovered the lost revolutionary heritage of our forefathers - we must keep the dream alive.

By Abdel Razzaq Takriti
This commentary was published in The Guardian on 18/02/2011

Egyptians in Tahrir Square, Cairo, celebrate the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak on 11 February 2011. Photograph: Keystone USA-ZUMA/Rex Features

 

 

I was born the same week Hosni Mubarak came to power. Arabs of my generation grew up with a keen awareness of two realities: that we did not have any say in choosing our leaders, and that our countries were still living the colonial present, still not free from foreign control.

Something we couldn't get hold of was preventing us from representing ourselves or defending our rights. Some dark force seemed to be imprisoning us metaphorically, while if we protested this state of affairs or campaigned to change our fate we were imprisoned in the literal dungeons of the Abu Zabal prison, or countless others police stations across the Arab world. Many of us are stuck in the much larger jail that is Gaza. Since Camp David, a very special breed of security states were built, all geared towards the direct containment of our aspirations for freedom. Our generation knew nothing other than these regimes, which to us appeared eternal, omniscient, and omnipotent.

Older generations knew things were not always this way. Sometimes they would discuss, in lowered voices, the days of Gamal Abdel Nasser when Egypt was at the helm of Arab resistance. In other moments, they would tell stories of the Palestinian revolution of the 60s and 70s. Yet, they too were bitterly disappointed at our present, feeling disempowered, unable to tell us what happened, and how it was lost.

To be sure, the past gave us a tradition of which we were proud. Yet, that tradition seemed ever so distant, its legacy of hope and achievement way beyond our reach. How many of us watched films and documentaries about this era, reading old books, all the while dreaming of being young and Arab in that extraordinary hour when Egypt launched its epic confrontation with colonial rule in 1952; or when the Suez canal was nationalised and the British, French and Israeli aggression was defeated in 1956; or at that heady moment when Algeria celebrated independence in 1962; or when thousands joined the struggle for Palestinian liberation in the 60s and 70s?

The tradition to which those moments of hope belonged was so vivid in our imagination, but so far from our reality. For the past 30 years, those who fought for freedom were imprisoned, tortured, mocked or marginalised.

Those of us who campaigned for change were ignored and brutalised. Yet, by the grace of this Egyptian revolution and its Tunisian sister, the struggles of the last decades have been vindicated and the tradition has been reclaimed. Popular movements now will begin a new chapter of legitimacy and honour in a struggle for genuine representation. We are living a dream.

Against all the odds two tyrants have so far been overthrown; and Arab youth across the world are exchanging excited messages. "Mabrouk" (congratulations) is the word of the day and 11 February 2011 will be permanently marked as an anniversary of celebration and joy, a milestone in the international history of democracy.

This Arab quest for freedom and liberation has always had powerful opponents; our dreams are their nightmares. They know as well as we do that the Egyptian revolution represents not just the overthrow of the ancien regime, but the decolonisation of the country. The first condition of true representative democracy is independence. But this is not something that the American, Israeli and other foreign governments wish for Egypt or any other Arab country, in spite of the attempts at presenting the Egyptian military establishment as a free-standing independent actor.

Yet, it may still be possible to realise our dream if we can keep close to popular consensus, which in Egypt's case has growing influence within the lower ranks of the army, who are overwhelmingly patriotic. The challenge for this generation of Arab youth is not to lose the momentum: our generation has finally rediscovered the lost revolutionary heritage of our parents and grandparents. Today, hundreds of thousands are struggling for their freedom in Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Palestine. If the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions have taught us anything, it is that we organise without respite until the rest of the Arab world is also free: we carry the dream.

Iran: The U.S. Must Empower The Green Movement

By Ray Takeyh
This commentary was published in The Washington Post on 17/02/2011

As Iran's streets erupt with pro-democracy demonstrations, it is all too obvious that the only option the United States has in altering the Islamic Republic's behavior is to support the Green Movement.

The clerical oligarchs have tried hard to prevent the contagion of democracy from afflicting their nation. Despite their maladroit attempt to establish a moral continuity between Iran's 1979 revolution and the recent uprising in Egypt, and their threats of violence and retribution toward those who protest, the mullahs have failed to reclaim their citizens.

It is too facile to suggest that the wave of protests rocking the Middle East was born in Iran, but it is not too simplistic to stress that Iran will not be left behind in the march for freedom.

The Middle East is undergoing one of its most momentous transformations since achieving independence from imperial rule. Although the canard of Islamist takeover has unsettled many pundits and policymakers, the bottom line is that the region has left behind its infatuation with revisionist ideologies. In the streets of Arab capitals we are witnessing the passing of the age of ideology, as neither pan-Arabism, with its promises of modernity, nor Islamism, with its pledges of authenticity, can redeem the region's autocrats. The restive youth and the overburdened middle class can no longer be tempted by faded orthodoxies and false shibboleths that conceal the reality of repression and corruption. In retrospect, the Green Movement that arose after Iran's disputed presidential election in 2009 was not so much a catalyst but a harbinger of this new epoch.

As exhilarating as the early stages of the region's political transition may be, democratic upheaval is likely to narrow the conventional options of addressing the threat of Iran's nuclear program. Great powers such as Russia and China that place a premium on stability are unlikely to agree to more economic sanctions. The Arab states preoccupied with renegotiating their national compacts will be reluctant to participate in efforts to isolate the Islamic Republic. And the military option that was always unattractive has now become implausible; it would be rash to employ force against Iran's suspected nuclear installations and radicalize the Arab populace just as forces of moderation and democracy seem ascendant.

All is not lost, however. The only durable solution to Iran's nuclear conundrum was always empowerment of the Green Movement. Tehran's callous leadership, indifferent to the financial penalties of its nuclear truculence, was hardly prone to make cost-benefit assessments and constructively participate in negotiations. Although it has been customary since the disputed presidential election of 2009 for the Washington establishment to pronounce the demise of the Green Movement, the battered Iranian opposition has succeeded in de-legitimizing the theocratic regime and enticing a significant portion of the population to contemplate life beyond the parameters of clerical despotism. Citizens' disenchantment was mirrored by the steady stream of defecting regime loyalists, who have forsaken their revolutionary patrimony. The breakdown of ideological controls in Iran is bound to affect the cohesion and solidarity of its security services. Deprived of popular credibility or a convincing dogma, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may not even be able to enforce his rule through fear.

The key challenge for the United States is to find ways to connect with the Green Movement. As important as social media or rhetorical declarations may be, such measures are limited. The model of Eastern Europe is instructive, as the West managed to covertly use a range of institutions, such as the Catholic Church and labor unions, to funnel assistance to dissidents. Several parts of Iranian civil society - labor syndicates, savvy youth, clerical dissidents, liberal protesters and universities - exist in a state of perpetual rebellion; they deserve to be beneficiaries of American advice and assistance. Whether motivated by idealism or a desire to advance practical security concerns, the West must recognize that the only thing standing between the mullahs and the bomb is the Green Movement.

The demise of the Islamic Republic is inevitable. Should the Middle East move toward realizing the aspirations of its citizens, and embrace pluralism and accountability, it is hard to see how a retrogressive clerical tyranny can persist in the region. During the democratic transition, there is still the challenge of tempering Iran's pernicious ambitions, and the mullahs' penchant for terrorism must still be addressed. The chimera of a diplomatic solution should no longer blind the international community to Iran's political vulnerabilities. In the end, the most effective means of disarming the Islamic Republic and ending its reign of terror is to invest in the indomitable Green Movement.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Crackdown In Bahrain

Sectarian and hardline politics have brought protesters out into streets of this once quiet Gulf nation. And as the bodycount rises, the United States should be gravely concerned.

By Jean-Francois Seznec
This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 17/02/2011

The crackdown was brutal.

At 3 a.m. on Feb. 17, hundreds of Bahraini riot police surrounded the protesters sleeping in a makeshift tent camp in Manama's Pearl Square. The security forces then stormed the camp, launching an attack that killed at least five protesters, some of whom were reportedly shot in their sleep with shotgun rounds. Thousands of Bahraini citizens gathered in the square on Feb. 15, in conscious emulation of the protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square, to push their demands for a more representative political system and an end to official corruption.

The tanks and armored personnel carriers of Bahrain's military subsequently rolled into the square, and a military spokesman announced that the army had taken important areas of the Bahraini capital "under control."

Perhaps alarmed at the recent revolutions that toppled the regimes of Egypt and Tunisia, the Sunni ruling family in Bahrain has been taking no chances against its young and mostly Shiite protest movement. Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has been able to overcome past troubles by posing as an enlightened autocrat, willing to show leniency. But divisions within the monarch's family, which he relies on to maintain his authority, may be forcing the king into a harsher position. And that spells trouble for Bahrain's stability, as well as the country's halting reform efforts.

The United States has a considerable national security stake in what goes on in this tiny island kingdom. Bahrain is home of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, which protects the vital oil supply lines that pass through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz -- an important asset for the United States in the event of a conflict with Iran. Bahrain is also a key logistical hub and command center for U.S naval operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Indian Ocean.

For the past few years, quasi-Salafist and arch-conservative elements of the Khalifa family have been gaining power over more liberal members of the family, who advocate widening the economic and political involvement to all spheres of Bahraini society.

Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, the oldest and richest member of main ruling clan, has emerged as the leader of these conservatives, who seek to ensure the Khalifa family's continued stranglehold over the politics and economy of the country. His resignation has become one of the protesters' primary demands.

While the successful mass protests in Egypt and Tunisia clearly inspired the protesters in Manama, trouble has been brewing in Bahrain -- which is divided between a Sunni ruling family and a majority Shia population -- for years. Skirmishes broke out between young Shia Bahrainis and police forces last March, and political dissidents were arrested in the run-up to the Oct. 30 parliamentary elections.

The growing influence of the more extreme Khalifas was on full display during the Feb. 17 police crackdown. The police force that raided the camp is legally under the control of the prime minister. The brutality with which the raid was conducted may have been a bid to create a state of emergency on the island, forcing the more liberal members of the family to side with them against the protesters.

It is not only the Sunni ruling family that is divided -- the Shia opposition parties are also split. The al-Wefaq party is the largest opposition party in Parliament, but its support among Shia has declined due to its failure to win any concessions from the leadership on the issues of increased political power and representation or economic opportunities. As a result, the more confrontational al-Haq movement has been taking to the streets to wrest leadership away from al-Wefaq. 

In the past year, reports that al-Haq members were arrested and tortured by the security forces only bolstered its popularity among the Shia youth and unemployed. According to some Shia leaders, al-Haq now is seen by a majority of Shia as the leading group of the community. The efforts of the demonstrators to reject violence -- noble aspirations supported by the majority of Bahrainis -- may represent an attempt by al-Wefaq to take back leadership of the opposition from the more confrontational al-Haq.

The October 2010 elections to the Majlis al-Nawaf -- the lower house of Parliament -- were expected to bring some stability to the country. Al-Wefaq won 18 out of 40 total seats, and the election was relatively free and fair (though some constituencies were gerrymandered to ensure that al-Wefaq did not gain a majority). What's more, the influence of some of the more extremist Sunni groups was undermined by centrist Sunni-Shia alliances.

However, these hopes were dashed by Parliament's inability to affect real change in the country. All its decisions can be negated by the Majlis as-Shura, whose members are nominated by King Hamad. And the king can also veto any parliamentary decision. The sectarian divide that has emerged in parliament over the past three elections has also meant that most issues, such as the public availability of alcohol, the segregation of sexes in schools, are framed in purely religious terms. This has led the public to see parliamentary action as mostly irrelevant to their lives, increasing the pressure for citizens to take to the streets.

These particularities of Bahraini politics aside, it is clear that the present mass demonstrations are trying to follow the nonviolent example set by their counterparts in Egypt. The current wave of protests originated from 14,000 young people on Facebook. They represent a new generation,  fed up with the impasse between the al-Khalifa clan and the older Shia leadership. The chant today on the street is: "No Sunni, No Shia, just Bahraini!"

This is a message that the Khalifa family, and the U.S. government, would do well to take to heart. Anyone who has traveled to or lived in Bahrain knows that Bahrainis -- both Sunnis and Shia -- see themselves as Bahraini first, not stooges of Iran or Saudi Arabia. Some, of course, are influenced by Tehran or Riyadh -- but by and large citizens are influenced by what happens in Manama.

The Khalifa family has skillfully drawn on Western fears of the Shia as tools of Iran, which has so far obtained unquestioned U.S. support for their continued rule. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's mealy-mouthed statement today, in which she called for the government to show "restraint," is further evidence of this fact. Her remarks will not sway the prime minister and his cohorts, nor will they convince the demonstrators that the United States is a defender of their rights.

In the absence of real reform, the Iran threat could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the Khalifas are not able to open up the state to their own citizens, the more extreme Shiite leaders could start to see Iran as a protector, and a curb to U.S. and Saudi influence. And a turn towards Iran would likely bring Saudi intervention in support of the monarchy. The Khalifa leadership is faced with the choice of truly liberalizing or risking outside intervention -- which would mean a grave loss of their position, and a potential catastrophe for the United States as well.

Egypt: A Difficult Road With Enemies In Ambush

By Amir Taheri
This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 18/02/2011

Egyptians have always known that when a mummy encounters life it disintegrates. This is what happened the other day when President Hosni Mubarak’s regime fell apart in the face of an Egyptian people full of life and youth.
 
Although we do not yet know how things might turn out in Egypt, one thing is certain: the Mubarak system had reached the end of the road. It had nothing new to offer and was out of sync with a nation that it had helped change over the past 30 years.
 
The root cause of the regime’s troubles was that it could not turn change, inevitable under all circumstances, into a friend. Thus, change became an enemy of a regime whose policies had become mummified.
 
The first sign of mummification was Mubarak’s unwillingness or inability to change the top echelon of government, ending up as the head of a geriatric club.
 
Cabinet ministers could remain in their posts for 20 years. A who-is-who of courtiers, perhaps numbering around 100, rotated in top government positions in a nation of 82 million with great reservoirs of talent.
 
This led to the emergence of a medieval system in which ministers and heads of major public corporations acted as semi-independent chieftains in their fiefdoms.
 
Policies were also mummified.
 
Economic policy was still driven by the “Infitah” (opening) project launched by President Anwar Sadat in 1974.
 
This encouraged a Wild West-style economic system with few rules to protect public interest. Immense fortunes were made, breeding immense poverty in their wake. With high rates of economic growth, there was no reason why any Egyptian should live on less than $2 a day. But at least a third did.
 
One trick was to buy government-owned land at derisory prices and then sell it to people for real estate development at exorbitant ones. This drove prices through the roof.
 
Millions of young Egyptians cannot leave their parents’ homes and build families of their own because they cannot afford the cost of housing.
 
The irony in all this is that Egypt has experienced an unprecedented economic boom. This disproves the Marxist theory that economics is the foundation of politics. There was no uprising when Egypt was dirt poor. The uprising comes now that Egypt has joined the club of emergent economies.
 
The Egyptians rose because the nation’s political system no longer reflected their aspirations.
 
Education policy was also mummified.
 
Sadat had launched a crash programme to produce graduates in law and economics to serve in his expanding civil service. Mubarak turned that policy into another mummy.
 
As a result Egypt has produced a vast army of men and women with university degrees but no prospect of employment. They provided the backbone of the Tahrir Square crowd.
 
At the start of his presidency, Mubarak had declared a State of Emergency, for three months. Thirty years later, when he was leaving, the measure was still in force. The mummified gimmick, which banned meetings of even five people in public, was still law when public gatherings of half a million had become part of Cairo’s daily life.
 
In early 1990s, to counterbalance pro-democracy groups, Mubarak started wooing Islamists including The Muslim Brotherhood.
 
State-owned media gave much airtime to religious propaganda. Government money helped build thousands of new mosques and financed hundreds of Koranic schools and theological colleges. Though technically illegal, The Muslim Brotherhood was allowed to extend its tentacles throughout society, including the armed forces and police. In the previous general election, the “outlawed” Brotherhood was assigned 80 seats in the parliament.
 
Not surprisingly, as the pro-democracy movement started calling for change, The Brotherhood opened negotiations with Mubarak to save the mummified system of which suited hem both.
 
The uprising that drove Mubarak away was, at least in part, an attempt by Egyptians to get away from the suffocating religious mummy created by the regime.
 
In 2004, under pressure from President George W Bush, Mubarak allowed some space for dissent. That policy, too, became a mummy. Rather than seeing it as a first step, as Bush had advised, Mubarak saw it as the end. As a result, Egyptians were allowed to criticise the regime, even in some newspapers without seeing any change in policy. The message was: you may bark, but our caravan goes on!
 
Foreign policy too was mummified.
 
Alliance with the United States became a formal arrangement under which the Americans signed cheques, gave pep talks on human rights, and deluded themselves into believing that Egypt would help achieve their objectives in the Middle East.
 
Egypt? With some regional allies, tried to destabilise the new in Iraq and ended up helping Al Qaeda there. They tried to reconcile the Palestinian Al Fatah and Hamas factions, and ended up consolidating the latter’s hold on Gaza.
 
In Lebanon, they ended up retreating when Iran, moving its Hezbollah pawns, decided to seize power in Beirut.
 
When Mubarak took over, Egypt was in peace with Israel. Mubarak took that peace and turned it into a mummy. He vetoed attempts at promoting people-to-people contacts and building bridges at all levels of society. When he left, there was no peace between Egypt and Israel except on the papers signed at Camp David.
 
Contrary to claims by his Islamist enemies, Mubarak did nothing to advance peace with Israel.

The Tahrir Square uprising was mainly about domestic issues, especially poverty, corruption and lack of freedom. However, in the filigree was a deep sense of humiliation. Egypt, the largest Arab country and one of three nations to have played a leading role in the Muslim world, had ended up with virtually no foreign policy and, hence, no influence. Instead, statelets like Qatar were claiming to lead Arabs.
 
With Mubarak gone, the hope is that mummified Egypt will give its place to a new Egypt that is alive and vibrant.
 
That, however, is still some distance away. On the road, there are many dangers with enemies waiting in ambush.

Gulf Parliaments Are All About Potential

By Greg Power
This commentary was published in The Daily Star on 18/02/2011 

Prospects for democratic reform appear to have gone up a notch across the Gulf states as the aftermath of the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings continue to reverberate around the region. Meaningful change, however, will depend not just on shows of popular discontent but on the representative institutions in those countries taking on a much more significant role in challenging the government on the public’s behalf. Although generally regarded as feeble by international standards, the recent history of the parliaments in Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman highlights both the potential for and the challenges facing the development of participatory politics in the Gulf. 

At one end of the spectrum, Kuwait’s parliament has long been the loudest and liveliest in the region. Established in 1963, it has gradually expanded its formal powers and increasingly challenged the emir and the government. For many Gulf politicians, it was a model to be emulated; for heads of state, it was a physical warning that they should proceed with caution. 

The Kuwaiti parliament’s progress has been disrupted twice by lengthy dissolutions (in 1976 and 1986, each for half a decade), which revolved around the emir’s resistance to any further extension of the assembly’s influence. That cycle appeared to be repeating itself between 2006 and 2009, as the parliament pushed for the right to question the prime minister. After three elections in as many years, the matter was resolved when the prime minister appeared before parliament and duly won a vote of no confidence at the end of 2009.

The irony is that, although the parliament succeeded in expanding its powers to challenge the executive, it now looks like a weaker body as a result. The government agreed to the principle of prime ministerial questioning only when it was certain it had enough votes to win, and the parliament seems incapable of combating government manipulation of certain members. In a strange turn of events, the emir reportedly now believes that dissolving parliament would be seen as a victory for the opposition. Thus, these days Kuwait’s parliament might have more power but seems to have less influence.

In Bahrain the parliament has evolved against a more politically turbulent backdrop, with tensions between the Shiite population (some 70 percent of Bahrain’s citizens) and the Sunni regime represented by the Al-Khalifa ruling family spilling out into periods of civil unrest and subsequent state repression. Bahrain’s parliament had its first, brief lifespan from 1973 to 1975, followed by an unconstitutional dissolution until 2002, when it was reinstated by King Hamad as part of promised reform measures intended to defuse social tensions. That the parliament turned out to be a pale imitation of its predecessor, however, has been a source of continuing grievance around which much subsequent political turmoil has revolved.

Since 2002 the Bahraini parliament has struggled to extend its formal authority over a government that has relied on two tactics to retain its dominance. The first is a pattern of state harassment and victimization of opponents, which appears to be directly linked to the electoral cycle. The second is the gerrymandering of the voting system. Electoral districts vary greatly in size: the largest district contains over 12,000 people in a mainly Shiite area, while the smallest – largely Sunni – has only 500 voters. These steps guarantee that the Shiite population cannot win a majority within the institution. In the 2006 and 2010 elections, the main Shiite party Al-Wefaq won only 18 of 40 parliamentary seats. 

By contrast, the evolution of Oman’s Shura Council has been quiet, even by the standards of the Gulf. The country, which in 1996 became the last in the Gulf Cooperation Council to adopt a constitution, held its first popular elections in 2003 for a body that lacked legislative powers and whose influence was confined almost entirely to economic development. The turnout for elections has been relatively poor at around 30 percent, perhaps because, according to academic Uzi Rabi, the Shura resembles a “depoliticized local council.”

Yet even in Oman, politicians and civil society groups expressed concern in recent conversations that the cabinet is deliberately trying to undermine the standing of the Shura by emphasizing its ineffectiveness and the poor quality of its members via stories planted in media. One argument currently in circulation is that the Shura was more effective when it was an appointed body, because at least then its membership was drawn from the upper echelons of society.

The parliamentary institutions in Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman were established to provide some legitimacy for the regime and outlets for public voice. They continue to provide some semblance of democratic representation, and have had the occasional win, but all are struggling against dominant regimes. It remains highly unlikely that they will be abolished or dissolved – as this would provide a potent focus around which disparate opposition groups would coalesce. However, the overriding message is that their activity is tolerated only within certain bounds set by the ruling authorities.

All these parliaments face two fundamental problems. The first is a failure of political organization. Parliamentarians in the Gulf voice frustration about the underdeveloped nature of political society and particularly the limited presence of political groups. But the practical effect of the fact that none of these states permit political parties is that politicians frequently lack the discipline that comes with party membership and, as such, the parliaments rarely act cohesively or strategically. As a result, the ruling authorities have found it relatively easy to manipulate the system, pick off individual politicians, and divide any opposition at an early stage.

The second is that parliaments have failed to carve out a distinctive role which demonstrates why they are invaluable to government or to the people – and are caught awkwardly between them, not fully meeting either’s needs. At present both the ruling authorities and the people believe the parliaments should exist, but the institutions are not performing indispensable functions for either one.

The parliaments need to develop positions in the administration of the state which make it impossible for governments to ignore them, and convince the public that they offer the best and most effective route to political empowerment. The potential undoubtedly exists, but if they are to seize the opportunities, the politicians will need to organize themselves better around issues of principle instead of only offering occasional resistance to the executive, and parliamentarians will have to become much better at utilizing their existing influence to secure more formal powers for their assemblies.

Greg Power is director of Global Partners and Associates, a social purpose company. This commentary is reprinted with permission from the Arab Reform Bulletin. It can be accessed online at: www.carnegieendowment.org/arb, © 2011, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Biology Of The Second Arab Revolt

By Rami G. Khouri

This commentary was published in The Jordan Times on 18/02/2011

 

As the ripples from the Tunisian-Egyptian popular revolts work their way throughout the Arab world in the months and years ahead, we should keep in mind two pivotal words that capture every important dimension of the process under way: humiliation and legitimacy.

Like bookmarks at both ends of the process, they explain why the Arab region is erupting in revolts, and what needs to be done to satisfy people’s demands.

They explain what has long ailed hundreds of millions of Arabs who have been denied their birthright as human beings, their citizenship rights as nationals of sovereign countries, and their human rights as children of God and members of the human race.

They clarify the abuses, crimes, distortions and stresses of the recent past that have finally driven a few people to set themselves on fire in a desperate death cry so that their surviving family members might have a better life, and that have also driven many more people to rise up en masse against their prevailing political orders.

They also clarify the changes that must occur for the grievances to be redressed and normalcy to resume in these abnormal countries.

Humiliation is the consequence of combined material and intangible pressures on ordinary people, which include petty corruption, police brutality, abuse of power, favouritism, unemployment, poor wages, unequal opportunities, inefficient or non-existent public services, lack of freedom of expression and association, and state control of media, culture and education.

Ordinary men and women grow up in non-democratic societies feeling increasingly frustrated that they cannot achieve their human potential while, simultaneously, they witness a small group of men and women in the ruling elite grow fabulously rich simply because of their connections, rather than their abilities.

Young people in their 20s are especially prone to feeling humiliated because they obtain increasingly mediocre education and have more and more difficulty finding jobs that give them enough income to live decently, get married and start a family. They see in front of them an entire lifetime of stunted opportunities and stolen rights. When they try to speak out against the unfair and corrupt practices that define their societies, they are prevented from doing so by police and security agencies that tell them what they may and may not speak in public.

This trajectory of events pushes them onto a path of sentiments that starts with irritation and inconvenience, grows to anger and resentment, and finally reaches desperation and degradation. The end result is humiliation so severe that it causes young Arab men and women, and their elders alike, to enter into a condition of dehumanisation.

Being treated as something less than human by their society, along with the pain caused by decades of invading foreign armies and Israeli colonisers and siege masters, these Arabs become less than human. They react instinctively to protect themselves and to regain their humanity.

The revolt we are witnessing across the Arab world is not about ideology; it is about biology. It is mostly about men and women who, so brutalised by their own and foreign powers, demand above all to assert their fundamental humanity - their right to use all their human senses, and not to be denied any of them, to read real newspapers and magazines, to discuss issues in public, to express and hear a variety of views, to associate with whomever they wish, to make and enjoy music or poetry, to think freely, to debate, to agree or disagree, to propose ideas, and then many other attributes of their stunted humanity.

“Legitimacy” in the public realm is the antidote to the humiliation that the state and society, and foreign powers, have inflicted on ordinary Arab men and women who have been largely denied the substance of their humanity and their citizenship.

The changes that young and adult Arabs now demand in their societies are anchored in a powerful need for legitimate governance structures that can replace the fraudulent and corrupt ones that have reigned for many decades.

Legitimacy is a simple but overpowering concept that requires public governance institutions and decisions to reflect the will of the majority, while also protecting the rights of minorities.

The two most critical elements of legitimate governance systems in the Arab-Islamic lands are accountability and a sense of justice or equity. These can find expression in many textures and shades, including, most importantly in Arab lands, the historical concepts of Arabism, tribalism and Islamism, among others that are more modern.

Constitutions, parliaments, electoral laws and many other such concepts can be devised in many forms, but they must be legitimate in the eyes of their people above all else if our societies are finally to leave the dark tunnel of the modern Arab security state and its stultifying, corrupting, mediocratising legacy.

Legitimacy leaves little room for humiliation, and opens the door to normalcy in both statehood and the daily life of ordinary citizens. As this historic second Arab revolt works its way throughout the region and rattles one power system after another, keep in mind these two central concepts: the humiliation that drives people to reclaim their total humanity at any cost, and the elusive legitimacy that must be reestablished at the core of institutions and power relations in an Arab region that craves normalcy once again.

Protests Expose Fragility Of Arab State

Traditional support base — rural middle and lower middle classes — has been eroded by global capitalism

By Marwan Al Kabalan

This commentary was published in The Gulf Times on 18/02/2011

The popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia have shown, amongst many other things, how troubled the relationship is between the state and society in the Arab world. They have also revealed how detached the Arab ruling elite is from reality. Most analysts agree today that the modern Arab state is facing the greatest challenge ever to its power, legitimacy and perhaps very existence.

To understand the venerability of the state in the modern Arab world we may need first to admit that it has failed to adapt itself to a rapidly changing environment. For more than six decades the state in the Arab world has employed three strategies to keep control over society.

These are: 1. total control of the economic sphere; 2. restricting the flow of information and indoctrinate the masses through massive state propaganda machine and; 3. a full fledged deployment of its security apparatus. These strategies have all but weakened in recent years. Both exogenous and indigenous factors have played against the power of the Arab state.

Arab states with a socialist way of development and under pressing economic difficulties (resulted mainly from the employment of vast bureaucracy, widespread corruption and mismanagement) and increasingly globalised economy were forced to liberalise their economies; and by the same token eroding much of their economic power.

Although the state is still the biggest employer in some Arab countries, more people are employed now by the private sector, significant part of the inefficient public sector is sold, and the age of retirement has been reduced to allow younger generation work opportunities.

Not unexpectedly, the introduction of structural adjustment policies has aroused public anger in different parts of the Arab world and their heat particularly for the salaried classes are being felt increasingly.

The traditional base of support in Arab republics — the rural middle and lower middle classes who were thought for decades to rely on the state as a patron and protector — has been eroded.

For these particular strata, the new policies were synonymous to an act of betrayal, where a widespread conviction prevailed that the state has reversed course and left them easy prey to the symbols of global capitalism: the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It is not surprising, therefore, that it was those who rioted in Egypt and Tunisia against and brought about regime change.

Not only that the middle class felt being abandoned by the adoption of partial but disrupting economic liberalism, but its old adversary: the national bourgeoisie, replaced it as favourite in state circles. Policies of the 1950s and 1960s which were dedicated for the destruction of the national bourgeoisie have been reversed. In Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia, to name but a few, new laws are passed to win those who were once excluded and forced into exile. The state is pleading now for the old bourgeoisie to return home and bring its investment too. In brief, the economic power of the Arab state has been eroded and its financial leverage over the society has been weakened to a great extent.

The information technology has also played against the power of the Arab state. The role of the state as an educator, in the Gramscian sense, has been challenged, if not totally collapsed. Arab states are no longer in a position to select for their people the sort of news and information they need to know.

Signals of Arab and foreign, private and public satellite channels are crossing national borders without permission providing their audience the opportunity to select for themselves the sort of programmes they want to watch. And with no integrated ideology to indoctrinate the masses, the massive state-owned media machinery has become all but irrelevant.

The only sphere in which the power of the Arab state has not been challenged until recently is in the security area. The state in the Arab world still monopolises the right to the legitimate use of force. However, although Arab regimes have become increasingly dependent on their security forces which function as a shield against public anger, it is losing grip over the flow of information, and the lack of an integrated ideology to maintain its old base of support, the state could not solely rely on its security apparatus to maintain the status quo and delay badly needed change.

The total reliance on its security arm to maintain its legitimacy reflects the very weak nature of the Arab state and reveals the seriousness of the challenge that lies ahead.

This was the background against which a complete understanding of the current uprisings in the Arab world can not be obtained.

Dr Marwan Al Kabalan is director at the Damascus Centre for Economic and Political Studies.