REFLECTIONS ON THE EVENTS OF THE MIDDLE EAST
John Croft Wednesday, 2 March 2011
The recent events in North Africa and the Middle East can only be compared with the coming down of the Berlin Wall and the end of Communism. Like those events defined the end of the 20th century, the events unfolding at the moment will be the defining moment in the history of the first half of the 21st century, and the implications of these events will continue to be considered by power holders everywhere. We need to recognise exactly what is going on, and not be confused in our vision, as it is all too easy to see only the superficial consequences and factors that have seen millions take to the streets in protest.
It is clear that technology has played a big role. For example Bernard Woodside, writing on the 28th February shows that “modern technology fuels the demand for democracy and equal rights throughout the Middle East, North Africa and beyond.
The Arab World upheaval has a unique modern technological backdrop that sends the message that no nation is immune regardless of its historical culture.
Countries that would be categorized as ‘third world nations’ are coming alive due to the increase in the access to the internet and awareness of what they have been deprived of for generations.”
But the “revolution in rising expectations” has been with us since the advent of television, when citizens in these countries could see something of the lifestyles we take for granted in the west. Such a view that it is the mobile phones, internet, Facebook and Twitter that have allowed these changes only captures a part of the story.
To a degree unrecognised, the political changes seen here are part of the Arab World’s “youth revolution” of the kind seen in Europe in May 68 and the Prague Spring. Just as the Baby Boomer generation fuelled the political challenges of ’68, so the demographic increase in Middle Eastern and north African populations are now at work, bringing profound changes to the political landscape of this part of the world. One other characteristic is that the increased standards of living demonstrated from 1946 to the mid 1960s were halted as a result of the inflation of the Vietnam War. It was downward social mobility that was the catalyst in ’68 just as it has been in the Middle East today. The generation in power at that time in Europe and North America seemed unprepared for the sudden blossoming of political consciousness amongst the young, just as the current political leadership, from Morocco to Iran seem unprepared for the rapidity of the spread of political awareness amongst the young and not so young protesters.
Not only are populations in the Middle East characterised by their youth, but also by their unemployment. The countries of this region have relied upon Oil and other revenues to create pseudo-welfare states that are, in this period of Global Financial Crisis, and Peak Oil, being squeezed. Rising food prices have added an economic drive to the protests, especially when documents provided by Wikileaks has demonstrated the degree of bribery and corruption, and massive accumulation of off-shore wealth amongst the leadership elite so long in power in this region.
But there is another dimension that must be mentioned here. The leaders of the region are largely a post-colonial feature of the region. Supporting the class of the political elite that had control of the army was one way in which European and American post-colonial powers could continue “business as usual”, exploiting the resources of the region, while relying upon authoritarian governments to manage the expenses of the politics. Samuel Huntingdon wrote of “The Man on Horseback” suggesting it was army led governments that were the true “modernisers”, able to adopt rational scientific management principles to a degree not possible with democratic civilian-led governments. That the coercive nature of these governments was European and American supported is clear from the nature of military spending in the region.
In this way, the roots of the problem in some ways go back to the 1885 Treaty of Berlin, whereby which European powers were allocated zones of exclusive control that bore little resemblance to political reality. France got the area from Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, Italy was allocated Libya, Eritrea and Somalia, Britain got Egypt and the Sudan. With the subsequent dismemberment of the Turkish Ottoman Empire after World War I, Britain got Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq, maintaining its control of the Gulf States, Bahrein, and Aden (now part of Yemen), France got Syria and Lebanon, and the USA, in order to get control of the oil, used the chaos to create Saudi Arabia. But the peoples of this region had no say in the boundaries that were drawn. They continued to consider themselves Arab first, Muslims second, and citizens of their particular region third. The speed with which troubles in Tunisia leapfrogged into Egypt, Bahrein, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere bears witness to this regional consciousness.
The authoritarian regimes of the past, Naser in Egypt, the Baathist regimes in Syria and Iraq, sought leadership in this arena of transnational Arab Nationalsim, but these were elitist trends that were easily defeated by western diplomacy, using the instrument of the Arab-Israeli Wars. The Arab League, created by T.E.Lawrence, became a gentlemen’s club, with periodic condemnations of Israel, but no real leadership in the region.
It was into this political vacuum of the lack of opposition to these authoritarian regimes, that Al Quaeda and the religious Wahhabite fundamentalists stepped, with dreams of reinstituted fundamentalist Khalifate uniting the Muslim world. These protests have put paid to these largely Western inspired nightmares. What has been amazing in these protests is how little that fundamentalism has been able to capture the movement – which has been led by the deep spirituality but the religious good sense and tolerance of the people. The scenes of Christian Copts and Muslims working together in Tahrir square in Cairo is a most hopeful sign.
What is unique in the trends we are seeing for democratisation in these nations goes beyond that seen in parliamentary systems in Western Europe and North America.
Bernard Woodside hints at this when he writes “The fact that it’s happening without clearly identifiable leadership purely sends the sign that this is an inevitable change that is on a path that will last for months and years into the future. There is nothing more liberating than awareness of one's right to live intellectually aware.
Nation after nation, right before our eyes, we are seeing its people cry for liberty that is not ... an "American way of life" but a God given way of life regardless of one’s nationality, religion or culture. This generation is seeing that freedom is contagious, is impatient, takes no prisoners, is self-defining and requires simply an imagination. Often, those who have a level of freedom tend to forget what it means to be free, as well as, what it takes to be free.”
What we are seeing here is a demand for a truly participatory democracy, not just the election of representatives who can make up our minds for us through well-placed political campaigns and television advertisements. There is an urgency and a demand the people “awaken” and take control of their political destinies of a kind that seems threatening to the conventional power-holders everywhere from the US foreign department calling forlornly for “moderation” and “transitional governments”, to the Politburo in China. If we have true liberty for the people, then the outcomes can no longer be predicted in advance, as if they could it would be no longer be true liberty, but yet another form of manipulation.
As theorists of nonviolent direct action and passive resistance like Gene Sharp have long known, even the worst forms of tyranny are maintained only with the acquiescence, if not the consent of the people. When this consent is removed, and people are prepared, as they have shown in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrein and now Libya, to put their bodies on the line, in conformity with their deepest held values, when done in sufficient numbers, as the People Power revolution in the Philippines demonstrated against the Marcos dictatorship, the old authoritarianism cannot survive. Etienne de la Boetie, in his 1542 article “The Discourse in Voluntary Servitude” showed that it is not the actuality of repression that prevents liberty, but the widespread fear of the repression that prevents it. When people overcome their fear and “act anyway” the government will inevitably fall.
What has characterised the “People Power Revolutions” now sweeping away the old tyrannies of the Arab world has been their peacefulness. Though marked by episodes of violence, these have up until now been chiefly on the side of the traditional authorities. The old cry of “A people, united, can never be defeated” is proving true again and again. Even in Iraq, where the American installed puppet government of the unstable “democracy” of the Maliki coalition, currently hangs on to its power by the skin off its teeth, needs to take heed of this lesson.
What comes next? After the celebrations, and tumultuous enthusiasm at success dies away, comes the long hard work of putting together new institutions for governing complex societies. The temptation of the old hierarchialism will be difficult to avoid, especially where the newer forms of self organisation seen in Benghazi recently are still so new and fragile. The involvement of women as full participants in the design of the new structures is imperative. They have joined their husbands, fathers and sons in unprecedented numbers, at often even greater personal costs to their own well-being.
And since I started this discussion with a quote from Bernard Woodside, it would be valuable to finish with one more. He says “I would submit that the more the people of the world demand for its intellectual rights the more new technologies and inventions will emerge. The more new technologies and inventions emerge the better the world wide economy will improve. Nations that were impoverished and in need will become new horizons of growth and expansion. The critical key is that we must let change breath, simmer and nurture in its own natural birth and evolution. True freedom with true liberty is a panacea.”
Yes this is true, to an extent. The new technologies, while powerful, still have shallow roots, as the successful Egyptian attempt that shut down the internet demonstrated. To those who are genuinely concerned by the hamfisted attempts by state powers to limit the freedoms to information emerging through the internet, where claims of limiting “pornography” are used by those with totalitarian impulses everywhere to limit the good sense of 99% of the population, more work needs to get done. The call to assassinate Julian Assange, or to get him tried for treason in the USA, demonstrate this tendency clearly. Greater transparency of dictatorial regimes is OK, but should the “old democracies” with their corporate financial skeletons hidden away in closets be challenged, then it is seen as a different matter.
Whatever the outcome, I wish the people of these countries well. They need the creativity and the sense of community that has emerged. I hope the outcome will be satisfactory, and that the people do not settle for a veiled but tightening repression again in the subsequent months. The willingness for the people to protest again in Tunisia is a good sign that once awakened the people may not be easily lulled back into sleep.
