Azmi Bishara on Democracy in the Arab World

Writing in Al-Ahram, Azmi Bishara, meditates on the reasons democratization has been so long delayed in the Middle East. He writes:

Arab countries have not undergone democratic transformation or substantial political reform.... [T0he fact is that the Arabs are the largest group of people yet to receive their right to self-determination. Citizenship has been deferred, as has the problem of the institutionalised state, the role of the army in modernisation and in the development of a state-based -- as opposed to a pan-Arab -- national identity.... I would argue that the particularity of the Arab situation can be attributed to three fundamental factors.

The first of these is the rentier state, with its ability to use oil revenues, remittances from abroad and other such revenues to purchase loyalty and create release vents for economic and political pressures while keeping the fundamental relationship between society and the state and the economic and political orders intact.

.....
A second factor is the crisis of legitimacy which is associated with the espousal of pan-Arab national causes and/or the Palestinian cause. The latter issue has functioned as both a stabilising and destabilising factor. Regimes have used it to draw attention away from domestic conflicts, to export internal contradictions and to otherwise postpone having to address deeply rooted domestic problems. The regimes' opponents, on the other hand, have used it as a means to crticise those in power.... The legitimacy crisis has worked to obstruct the construction of an Arab nation by its people....

The third factor, Islam, works at various levels. Arab regimes have used Islamic rhetoric as an alternative means for establishing their legitimacy, while simultaneously exploiting the rise of non- democratic radical Islamist movements as a way of intimidating their societies. Meanwhile, state repression of the non- democratic Islamist alternative works to make that agenda the only apparent alternative. Political movements without a martyrdom cult tend to withdraw quickly from the fray when faced with repression. And Islamist rhetoric and terms of reference reverberate deeply among the masses as well as among the ruling milieu, even if the Islamist movement is a modern and unfamiliar phenomenon.

To the foregoing we can add a fourth factor: the existence of oil in this region, which has made the US adopt stability as a priority and, therefore, oppose any change, especially during the Cold War period.

Somehow I just knew that eventually he would get around to blaming the US [and notably not the Soviet Union]. However, he does give the Bush administration credit for destabilizing this long-term stasis and forcing autocratic regimes to adopt at least cosmetic changes. This, he holds, is a historic moment of opportunity for democratic forces. Because the US no longer values stability at all costs, he writes:

Arab regimes might find themselves restrained as never before in their ability to repress opposition forces. This, however, does not obviate the need for democratic forces to formulate a strategy for change. The dilemmas facing the process of democratisation remain the same. The US will not solve them, and may even exacerbate them as the tragic Iraq escapade demonstrates. It is up to Arab democratic forces to produce the alternatives.

Interesting. He also has some things to say on Lebanon and the potential economic problems the newly independent state will face.

Check it out here.