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Viewpoint
Free at last through an Arab-Western joint venture
Afghanistan: A dangerous trend
04/2005 |
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Free at last through an Arab-Western joint venture
The brisk pace of domestic political change towards more freedom and democracy in several parts of the Arab world recently has triggered a passionate argument about whether this is the result of the American-led invasion of Iraq or is more of a home-grown, indigenous Arab phenomenon. This debate is a wasteful diversion of energy. It would be better instead to work together more diligently to keep the process moving forward.
[ By Rami G. Khouri ]
The signs of change in the Arab world are blossoming all around, and reflect varying degrees of democratic change due to a variety of local and global reasons. The most dramatic events are those in Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt – all of which reflect indigenous forces that were evident well before the U.S. led the troops into Iraq. A powerful, spontaneous Lebanese movement of ordinary citizens and establishment opposition politicians has forced the resignation of Prime Minister Omar Karami and elicited Syria’s pledge to pull back its troops from central Lebanon. In Palestine, the elected Parliament quashed an attempt by old-style politician Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei to name a new Cabinet of familiar cronies, and forced him to come up with one comprised mainly of qualified technocrats and younger new faces. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak made the surprise announcement that he will ask the Parliament to pass a law allowing for a real presidential election among several competing candidates, instead of the current practice of a lone candidate (himself for the past 24 years) being offered by the single dominant party for a sham national referendum.
These are important signs of established power structures being compelled to change by the force of will of their own people – people in the streets who risk imprisonment, retributive punishment, or even death by challenging and resisting their prevailing power elite. A threshold of fear has been crossed in all three cases. At the same time, however, it is fair to acknowledge that the presence of the U.S. and other foreign forces in Iraq also certainly has played a role in focusing the minds of various Arab leaders on their need to change and modernise quickly. The balance sheet of Arab political transformation due to indigenous demands or foreign pressures is rather even.
The unprecedented political reality now is that ordinary Arabs, the U.S. government, and like-minded European allies may share mutually advantageous common goals and a good reason to work together to achieve them. The imperative would seem to be for Arabs, Americans and Europeans to grab that opportunity and find a way to overcome past rancor and resentment, and instead join forces for a great transformation in the three principal issues at play here: the nature of Arab governance, the relationship of Israel with the Arabs, and the manner of American interaction with the Arab world.
The goals to work for are about promoting more open, democratic, responsive, accountable governance systems in the Arab world, which would go a long way to reducing a major cause of terrorism; pushing for comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace that treats Israelis and Palestinians according to the same standards of law, rights and morality, reducing another prime issue that stokes the deviant passions of terrorists; and inducing the United States to use law and diplomacy rather than its armed forces and preemptive war and regime change, as core instruments of its foreign policy in the wider Middle East.
Events will move quickly in the coming months and years, as the Arab people and foreign powers push to improve existing Arab governing norms and policies. This can be a historic moment for mutually welcome change, if Arabs across the region and their partners abroad work together to define the goals of change and how to achieve them. This has never happened in recent memory, which is why it is important now to focus on what needs to be done by all concerned parties, rather than argue about who started the ball rolling. We both did. Let’s keep it rolling, so that all Arabs, like their counterparts in other lands, can be free at last.
Rami G. Khouri
is editor-at-large at the Beirut-based newspaper Daily Star.
Rami.Khouri@dailystar.com.lb
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