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<text>
<title>
Breaking through the Wall of Fear in the Arab World
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Current History, January 1992
Breaking through the Wall of Fear in the Arab World
</hdr>
<body>
<p>By Augustus Richard Norton--professor of political science at
the United States Military Academy.
</p>
<p> Democracy's appeal is growing in nearly every corner of the
world. Yet there is a tendency to presume that Arab societies
are insulated from the global trend toward democratization. The
very idea of democracy in Arab countries strikes some as
laughable; certainly there is no widespread tradition of
democracy in the Arab world. But putting aside the prejudice
that underpins some of the commentary, part of the
unwillingness to believe in the possibility of democracy in the
Arab world is simple ignorance of recent political developments
in the Arab states.
</p>
<p> In 1984 one of America's leading political scientists wrote
that "with a few exceptions, the limits of democratic
development in the world may well have been reached." (Samuel P.
Huntington, "Will More Countries Become Democratic?" Political
Science Quarterly, vol. 99, no. 2 (Summer 1984), p. 218.) Since
then democracy has blossomed in Europe, Latin America, and
Africa. The democratic changes in these regions should chasten
any rush to pronounce on prospects in Arab lands, especially
when one considers the historical novelty of the democratic
ideal in Eastern Europe, not to mention the Soviet Union, where
democracy's roots are neither thick nor deep.
</p>
<p> This is not to argue that all the Arab states will
metamorphose into democracies overnight, or even that some will.
As in Europe, a few autocratic regimes will cling to power while
others will experiment with opening up government, permitting
free or semi-free elections and sharing or pretending to share
power.
</p>
<p> As elsewhere, the global revolution in communications has had
a striking impact in the Middle East. Governments can no longer
hide behind a cloak of secrecy. Through reliable alternative
news sources such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC),
Radio Monte Carlo, and sometimes the Cable News Network (CNN),
the man and the woman in the street have access to information
about their government and the rest of the world. Coupled with
education--literacy rates among Arab adults have steadily
risen--the communications revolution gives people an
unprecedented ability to judge their governments.
</p>
<p> Opinions are now being publicly expressed in the Arab world.
People are complaining about widespread corruption in
government, insisting that leaders address their needs, and
demanding a voice in decision making. But the opinions of Arab
populations are not monolithic. They embrace diverse
ideological perspectives, especially among Islamist groups in
countries where a freer political life has encouraged
competition rather than solidarity.
</p>
<p> No conversion to Jeffersonian democracy is under way in the
Arab world, but the pressure to open up political systems is
increasingly obvious. For their part, many Arab politicians are
pragmatic. In advocating increased political participation they
are acknowledging the need to vent some of the public's
dissatisfaction and relieve the pressure in their countries.
</p>
<p> Faced with restive and increasingly assertive populations,
some governments continue to choose repression over concession,
but others experiment with democratization. Egypt is the most
advanced fledgling democracy in the Arab world. President Hosni
Mubarak has pursued a mixed strategy of co-optation, sharing
the blame as well as the benefits, and reasonably free elections
engineered to ensure victory for the ruling National Democratic
party (NDP). Both the secular Wafd party and the fundamentalist
Muslim Brotherhood boycotted the November 1990 parliamentary
elections to protest anticipated vote-rigging and electorial
procedures skewed to favor the ruling party. The NDP won an
overwhelming but empty victory; not even the appearance of an
effective parliamentary opposition was preserved
(notwithstanding the six seats won by the left-wing Tagama
party). Still, compared to the autocracy of former President
Anwar el-Sadat and the intolerance of Gamal Abdel Nasser's
presidency, Egypt is freer than it has ever been.
</p>
<p> Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, and Yemen are also moving in fits
and starts down the path of democratization. The badly battered
Lebanese democracy may be regaining its vitality, and incipient
political liberalization has even been noted in Libya. Kuwait is
an open question. The opposition there has demanded the
reconvening of the freely elected parliament and the
reestablishment of the 1962 constitution, both of which were
suspended in 1986 by Kuwait's emir, Sheik Jaber al-Ahmad al
Sabah. Before Iraq's August 1990 invasion, the Kuwaiti regime
has responded to opposition demands by holding out the
possibility of citizen participation in a pliant political
structure of its own making; thus in June 1990, the regime
created an Advisory National Council rather than reconvene
parliament.
</p>
<p> As with earlier ventures into pseudo-participation by Nasser
and Iran's Mohammed Riza Shah Pahlavi, the effect was simply to
call attention to the absence of free political structures.
After his return to liberated Kuwait, the emir attempted to
dampen enthusiasm for the opposition and increase support for
his family's rule by bribing virtually all Kuwaitis: he simply
forgave all outstanding commercial loans and mortgages. The
emir's many critics were quick to note the ease with which he
dipped into the treasury to pay for the scheme. Whether he did
more than provide them with ammunition against the regime will
only become clear in October 1992, when the long-demanded
parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held.
</p>
<p>Dwindling Legitimacy
</p>
<p> Arab governments are widely viewed with disdain by their own
citizens. While Americans routinely refer to "our government,"
and Arab rarely thinks in these terms. Instead, it is a matter
of "us" and "them."
</p>
<p> Insecure and marginally legitimate rulers regard any attempt
to organize citizens outside the government's authority as a
dangerous challenge. They view with utmost suspicion any labor
unions, professional organizations, civic clubs, interest
groups, and other non-governmental organizations making up
civil society that are outside the direct control of the
government.
</p>
<p> In some settings, among the Palestinians, in Lebanon and
Egypt, and in parts of Arab North Africa, civil society is
vibrant and varied. In Algeria liberalization has promoted a
flourishing civil society with more than 12,000 professional and
cultural groups. But in most of the Arab world civil society is
weak and fragmented, signifying the absence of freedom. In Iraq
the government has aggressively destroyed any vestige of civil
society that it cannot dominate, making it hard to imagine any
peaceful transfer of power to a group outside the Baathist
regime.
</p>
<p> The Arab-Israeli conflict has often been exploited to justify
the creation of garrison states in which freedom and prosperity
are sacrificed in the interest of national security. Can a
regime that lacks electoral approval and that roots its
legitimacy in the confrontation with Israel, the "unity" of the
Arab nation, and a commitment to justice for the Palestinians
survive a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict?
</p>
<p> This is a particularly relevant question for Syrian President
Hafez al-Assad, whose dilemma became transparent in October 1991
at the Madrid Middle East peace conference, which was
cosponsored by the United States and the Soviet Union. The
Syrian regime bases its legitimacy on its role as the militant
standard-bearer of Arabism and self-appointed protector of
Palestine. (Symptomatically, when the Syrians received $2
billion from Saudi Arabia for their participation in the anti-
Iraq alliance during the Persian Gulf