http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1070/op5.htm
27 October - 2 November 2011
Issue No. 1070
Opinion
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
Arab Spring claims Gaddafi
Arab leaders should know that the Arab Spring is inexorable and the old status quo cannot be sustained, writes Abdel-Moneim Said
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Another chapter of the "Arab Spring" has just ended, very gruesomely. I had no affection whatsoever for Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, neither as person nor intellectually. But I did fear for the image of the Arab nation that failed, here, to rise to the level of historic responsibility, whether we gauge this in terms of Arab mores, Islamic law or Islamic values. There is nothing in the foregoing codes that would justify the murder of a captive or that would sanction the desecration of the corpse of a man who, however evil he may have been, was now in the hands of his Creator.
I was in the US when I heard the appalling news. That no one commented on the way the Libyan leader met his demise made me realise that this is what spectators there expected from the Arabs. I was deeply disturbed. This was not just a "scandal"; it was an ugly stain on the irreproachable revolution of the Libyan people who revolted against a tyrant whose unbound megalomania was fed by an extraordinary vanity.
It has been eight months since that famous speech in which Gaddafi described the Libyan people as "rats" who he would hunt down through every neighbourhood, street and alleyway. If he had won his battle of survival, the "glorious commander" would probably have staged a pageant of executions and massacres. But this was not to be his fate. The will the Libyan people prevailed, with the aid of NATO that entered the fray supported by the Arab League that forewent its customary reluctance to touch anything American because of its connection with anything Israeli.
Certainly, one thing the Arab world should have learned from that battle was that the world is far too complex to be abbreviated to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Not that this was the first experience of this sort. During the Bosnian war and, again, during the war in Kosovo, people were asking whether it was right, let alone a duty, for NATO to come to the rescue of a Muslim people. But why look so far away? Following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, people were asking whether it was right to ally with NATO countries in order to rescue an Arab country from the clutches of an Arab occupier. We no longer hear such questions. Maybe this was the real "Arab Spring" because the blinders have been removed and the Arabs can now weigh situations and positions more objectively.
But Gaddafi's death has opened another chapter for other Arab countries that are still engaged in the violent struggle towards what appears to be the inexorable destiny of the Arab world, in which the only difference between one Arab country and the next is when the revolution will erupt and how long it will take, the latter variable being contingent on the temperament of the ruler and his degree of ferocity. But perhaps the foremost determinant of timing and potential cost is that series of reactions that Arab regimes inevitably seem to have towards the current wave of popular uprisings. In one way or another, they are characterised by a state of denial. The ruling elites in one Arab country refuse to acknowledge that what is happening in another Arab country could possibly happen in theirs.
This is all the more surprising when you consider that all Arab countries share a number of common features as the consequence of major structural shifts. Above all, in all of them, demographic developments have brought "youth" to the fore, numerically with respect to the rest of the population and qualitatively in terms of such factors as breadth of knowledge, familiarity with the world and, hence, frustration and anger at the gap between us and the rest of the world. All Arab countries also have a growing middle class that, for various reasons, has rendered it impossible for the ruling elites to monopolise all the wealth. Yet, these very elites continue to monopolise all the power and, moreover, they have perpetuated this monopoly for so long that their regimes hail from eras that in other parts of the world are shrouded in the mists of time. More curiously yet, in addition to their state of denial and their blindness to the demographic, social and economic changes in their countries, these regimes continue depend almost exclusively on their military and security forces. Clearly, they are unaware that the nature of these, too, has changed. As we have seen time and again, when it comes to the crunch, these forces either split away in their entirety from the ruling elites and side with the tide of change, as occurred in Tunisia and Egypt, or they split apart, ushering in a brutal civil war, as occurred in Libya and Yemen and may well happen in Syria.
The "Arab Spring" is a train hurtling towards a hazy horizon, one that is unlikely to be paved entirely with roses. Already the transitional phase in Egypt has brought pains no less excruciating than the convulsion of the revolution itself. Yet, what we do know is that no Arab society is prepared to go on accepting the status quo, not only in terms of the faces at the top but also and more importantly in terms of the governing system. While the undeniable differences that do exist between one Arab country and the next mean that these countries will not follow exactly the same course of change, the fact remains that all these countries must change. Furthermore, this change must be radical. It must be felt by all the senses, significant enough to be appreciated by the mind and the soul. They say that the best way to manage the forces of change is to be at least one step ahead of them. The maxim challenges all notions of band-aid solutions and cosmetic repairs, but ultimately its advice is to summon the resolve to abandon the old and embark on the new.
In a recent interview, a well-known Arab official spoke of the current circumstances in his country. He offered a stereotypical example of the state of denial I mentioned above. He refused to acknowledge that his country was like other Arab countries. Even though he admitted that the demonstrations in his country have been going on for some time, he shrugged them off as minor, the demonstrators numbering no more than "a few hundred" or, at times, "several thousand". One of the reasons that circumstances in his country were unlike those in others was that reform was in progress and "profound" constitutional changes had been made. But when asked how profound these changes were and the extent to which they restricted the ruler's executive powers he was stymied for an answer. And little wonder, for the head of state in that country still possesses sweeping executive powers, regardless of the concessions he made here or there. To republican regimes that are unable to forego emergency laws and summon the will to institute the separation of powers and a system of checks and balances between the authorities, change does not mean much. For monarchies that cannot recognise that the time has come to make the transition to a constitutional monarchy, or even to prepare the awareness for such a transformation within a reasonable time, revolution or violent drive for change is merely a matter of time.
The change that is happening today the Arab world today is a far cry from the wave of coups d'état that swept the region in the 1950s and 1960s, when monarchical despots were overthrown and replaced by republican dictators who spoke of "the people" and "the masses". The Arab Spring is the culmination of a gamut of changes the effects of which have accumulated over the decades and that have worked to create a new critical mass in society. This new demographic reality can no longer be ignored or excluded. The only alternative is to cede way and give this emergent segment of society the opportunity to share in power and in the decision-making process, which is bound to happen anyway in all Arab countries, if not today, then tomorrow.
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