3-18-05, 8:28 am
From Institute for Policy Studies
In a recent broadcast of 'Democracy Now,' the well-known Egyptian feminist, novelist and activist Nawal al-Sadawi put it exactly right. Responding to President Bush's bragging that his policies, specifically his invasion and occupation of Iraq, were somehow responsible for the new moves towards 'democracy' across the Middle East, she said, 'this is a new kind of imperialism. Now they don't only steal our land and our resources, but they steal our struggles as well.'
There is indeed a moment of opportunity underway in a number of countries across the Middle East. It may turn out to be a truly historical moment. But if it does, it will be because people across the region have been fighting for their rights, for their freedom, for their own democracy, for many years. The claim that George Bush and the invasion of Iraq have brought about a sudden explosion of democracy, an 'unexpected whiff of freedom' as the New York Times put it, is simply specious. It is insulting to the decades-long struggle of Palestinian, Iraqi, Egyptian, Lebanese, Syrian and other activists. It attempts to equate military occupation by the U.S. and its allies with democracy, and the struggle against those occupations with terrorism. And it stands in defiance of history.
In November 2003, speaking at the Cold War-era and ideologically grounded National Endowment for Democracy, Bush said that 'accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe.' It was a classic Bushism - both because he had no intention of changing the reality of that accommodationism beyond new rhetoric, and because his understanding of and valuation of Middle Eastern democracy started and stopped with its impact on the United States.
It is no secret that U.S. support for absolute monarchies and dictatorial regimes disguised as 'democracies' across the Middle East has been and remains the linchpin of those regimes' ability to remain in power. In the past that support was justified on the basis of maintaining U.S. control of crucial oil production, and maintaining U.S. strategic/military domination of the vital region. Now Bush implies that those days may be over. But without any effort to diminish global reliance on Middle Eastern oil and thus U.S. determination to control the world's access to that oil, the claim falls flat.
Urging Egypt's Hosni Mubarak to release from jail the leader of a small pro-U.S. party is easy. But until we see the $2 billion annual U.S. aid to Egypt held back conditional on the massive opening of Egypt's political and economic system, there is no basis to take seriously the claim that the White House is supporting Egyptian democracy. Applauding Palestinian elections is easy. But until the U.S. is prepared to bring about the real empowerment of Palestinian democracy by ending the military occupation of their land through withholding economic, military, political, and diplomatic aid to Israel until it ends the occupation of all of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, there is no basis to take seriously Bush's claim to support democracy in a viable Palestinian state.
LEBANON
Bush and his minions pointed over and over again at the media-friendly images of thousands of western-style Lebanese demonstrators filling Beirut's Martyrs' Square complete with midriff-baring t-shirts and ubiquitous cell phones. They were calling for an end to Syrian occupation of Lebanon, for the 14,000 Syrian troops and 5,000 or so Syrian intelligence operatives to go home. But when far more demonstrators, somewhere between half a million and a million Lebanese took over downtown Beirut in a different demonstration, spilling out of Martyrs' Square to fill the surrounding streets of the capital, calling for an end to ALL foreign interference and for Syria to go home as determined by Beirut and Damascus and not by Washington, the White House had nothing to say. These Lebanese demonstrators were not the ones to whom the Bush promised that 'when you stand for freedom we will stand with you.' There were few cell phones and far fewer tight t-shirts among them; these Lebanese were traditional, and more crucially, largely poor. Unlike at least some of the anti-Syria protesters, this group did not and does not look to the U.S. as their strategic partner.
The anti-Syrian mobilization of protesters in Beirut reflected an overwhelmingly middle- and upper-class strata of mostly young urban Lebanese. As noted by Lebanese University sociologist Ahmed Beydoun, they 'want their institutions to work normally, which is prevented by Syrian influence. It is not a problem with the political system itself.' That means they want the existing political system to work better - not to transform that system. They want elections free of Syrian domination, but still based on the existing confessional system that has controlled Lebanon's politics since the French departed in 1932. It was based on an understanding that the parliament would have a six-to-five Christian majority, and continues to dole out political positions based on the 1932 census. The president is a Maronite Christian, prime minister a Sunni, speaker of the parliament a Shi'a, etc. The population has changed dramatically but no census has been held since - and the anti-Syrian protesters are not calling for one, nor are they demanding elections based on a one-person-one-vote system instead of one controlled by sectarian power.
Lebanon's increase in anti-Syrian protests followed the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, which the U.S., despite the lack of evidence, blamed on Syria. It was notable that the anti-Syrian protesters themselves wore orange and claimed that their model was the recent 'Orange Revolution' movement that helped topple the government of Ukraine - not the recent U.S.-controlled elections in Iraq. Those parallels are telling - in Ukraine, too, the mass mobilizations supported Viktor Yushchenko, a leader known, as was Hariri, for his pro-Western, pro-globalization, explicitly pro-U.S. views. New information confirming that U.S. doctors had to work in secret to help diagnose and treat Yuschenko's dioxin poisoning, provides some indication of how damaging those U.S. links might have proved for his campaign if they had been made public.
It was not surprising that Bush paid little attention to the much larger group of [pro-Syrian] Lebanese demonstrators who did not play the role of extras in a White House-orchestrated extravaganza. After all, how often has the Bush administration paid attention to huge demonstrations within the U.S. itself, calling protesters in the streets of Washington or New York 'heroes of democracy?' His approach continues the selective use of images trotted out or carefully ignored by the Bush administration to bolster its claim of 'bringing democracy to the Middle East.'
SYRIA
There was a moment of sublime irony when the UN secretary general announced he was sending a special envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, to demand that the occupation end immediately. He was to tell the leader of the occupying power that if he did not begin withdrawing his troops immediately and set a timetable for a rapid end to the occupation, that his country would face international hostility and economic and political isolation. But oops! Rood-Larsen's itinerary sent him to Damascus, not Tel Aviv, and his meeting was with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, not Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Syria's presence in Lebanon had suddenly become a fit subject for stern enforcement of international law and UN resolutions. Israel's much longer and far more damaging occupation remained outside of the UN's operational jurisdiction, and in unchallenged violation of international law.
Interestingly, Bush's escalated attack rhetoric aimed at Syria focused narrowly on three issues: Syrian troops in Lebanon, Syrian support for Hezbollah, and alleged Syrian complicity in the Iraqi resistance. Missing from all the Bush democracy-talk was any mention of democracy inside Syria. No mention of the long-suffering, often imprisoned human rights and democracy advocates in Syria. Why? Because real democratization of Syria, whether in the form of elections or in the empowerment of civil society, would likely take a far more Islamist form than anyone in Bush's White House is comfortable with. Syria's democrats are largely Islamists, and that, in the lexicon of the White House, simply doesn't count as 'real' democrats.
It should have surprised no one that with all the discussion about Syria and occupation, the words Golan Heights was never heard. The continuing Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan, now in its 37th year, remains unchallenged.
PALESTINE
The U.S. appropriation of Arab democratic yearnings spread far beyond Lebanon. Palestinians held relatively free and fair elections in January of this year! They elected a moderate leader eager to engage with the U.S.! Of course it was possible only because 150,000 U.S. troops were occupying Iraq and planning to give the Iraqis elections! Ignored, of course, was that these elections, held under conditions of a 37-year-old military occupation, provided a framework of democracy for a people still denied the power to use it. Ignored, as well, was the long and often bitter struggle of Palestinians for both democracy and freedom. Ignored, too, was the election of 1996, in which Yasir Arafat was elected not with the 99% vote so typical of Egypt and other U.S. allies, but by a strong but not overwhelming majority of 68% or so.
Much of the U.S. jubilation over the Palestinian elections was not with the 'free and fair' nature of the vote, a difficult assessment under military occupation, but rather with the results. The choice of Mahmoud Abbas, or Abu Mazen, reflected a political situation parallel in certain ways to the 1990 Nicaraguan election that ousted the Sandinista government in favor of the U.S.-backed Violeta Chamorro. After more than a decade of the U.S.-backed contra war against the Sandinista government, the Nicaraguan population was told explicitly that if they voted the Sandinistas back in the U.S. would continue to impose war, famine, and economic collapse. Only a vote for Chamorro, Nicaraguans were told, offered a chance to rebuild ties with the U.S. and reconstruct the country. What a surprise Chamorro won overwhelmingly. Similarly, while Abu Mazen maintained the legitimate credential of having been the close confidant of the revered late Yasir Arafat, he did not have an independent political base and instead gained a great deal from public awareness that he was the only candidate with whom Israel and the U.S. were prepared to negotiate.
Palestinian democracy overall is more advanced than in much of the region, reflecting the advances in Palestinian civil society built on mobilization against the occupation. As a result Abu Mazen's election was by a margin of something close to 60%, with 20% for the human rights campaign Mustafa Barghouti and another 20% divided among other candidates. Much of the history of Palestinian democracy remains unknown even within the Arab world. The New York Times quoted a Lebanese anti-Syrian demonstrator applauding her demonstration as 'something unknown for the Arab world - it is pacifist, it is democratic and it is spontaneous,' she said. Her statement betrayed a lack of familiarity not only with the Palestinian elections, but far more important, the legacy of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, from 1987 to 1993. That mobilization was unarmed; it was symbolized internationally by children with stones, but without any actual weapons or suicide bombings. The intifada spontaneously generated popular movements to empower women and young people, to guard villages from Israeli soldiers' incursions, to grow and distribute food during long curfews, to provide medical assistance to villages and refugee camp residents unable to travel to hospitals, to organize workers to defend their rights, to build tax resistance and other non-violent protest activities, and to mobilize the entire society against the occupation. The uprising created, during those six years, a new Palestinian culture far more democratic than anything that had existed before. The success of Palestinian election efforts in the current, post-Oslo period is rooted in that earlier intifada democracy.
EGYPT
Then there's Egypt. Hosni Mubarak has 'won' four six-year terms as president since he took over from the assassinated Anwar Sadat, with polls running in the high 90% brackets every time. A close ally of the U.S., every administration since that of Jimmy Carter has maintained massive economic aid to Egypt, and welcomed it as a strategic and 'democratic' ally. In recent weeks, following gentle verbal prodding by Bush, Rice and others but no change in actual U.S. support, Mubarak announced that for the first time other candidates would be allowed to run for president. The shift has been trumpeted as part of Bush's 'new freedom' spreading across the Middle East.
Certainly there is a shifting moment of history underway in the region, including in Egypt. But that moment has been created largely by the political motion of sometimes outlawed or semi-legal parties, human rights organizations, trade unions, students' and lawyers' associations, women's mobilizations, and many other parts of civil society continuing to work despite repression over years and decades and generations.
A more sober and cautious view of what has and has not changed in Egypt would provide a different assessment than the Egypt-is-becoming-democratic-because-we-invaded-Iraq claims of the Bush administration. Mubarak continues to rule under the terms of an emergency law in place since 1981 that gives the president virtually unchallengeable power. He has made clear that only parties accepted as legitimate by the current Mubarak-dominated parliament will be allowed to run for office. The Muslim Brotherhood, the largest, one of the oldest and most influential Islamist parties, remains outlawed. The Kifaya movement ('Enough') has held demonstrations calling on Mubarak to step down from the presidency and to refrain from handing over his presidency to his son Gamal, widely viewed as his chosen heir apparent. The movement is functioning, but it is unclear whether it will be allowed to field a candidate for president.
The Ghad ('Tomorrow') party is the favored party of the Bush administration and the U.S. press. Egyptian authorities arrested Ghad leader Ayman Nour earlier this year, and the U.S. responded harshly, demanding that he be released. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice even postponed a planned Egyptian trip to protest Nour's arrest. He was released on March 12th. But Washington's support for Ghad is rooted less in real opposition to Mubarak's repressive government, than in recognition of the party's overall pro-globalization, pro-privatization and pro-U.S. stance. Although Nour made a name for himself providing social services to poor Cairenes, his party's human rights focus is largely limited to political rights, not economic and social rights, and it does not have a long-time or wide-spread level of support among the Egyptian population.
The political climate in Egypt has also been transformed in recent years, despite continuing repression and the government's refusal to open the political system, by the work of human rights organizations. Many have criticized the arbitrary round-ups, particularly of Islamist organizations, and most especially in the period since the October 2004 bombings in the Egyptian resort town of Taba.
Trade union and other workers' organizations have initiated strikes protesting the pro-business, pro-globalization, anti-worker policies of Mubarak, and particularly of his son Gamal. In February 2005 there was a large strike against the campaign to privatize a large nationalized company.
IS DEMOCRACY REALLY ON THE RISE?
As the Christian Science Monitor noted on February 28, 'most of the recent shifts toward democracy have been top-down initiatives by regimes eager to appease Washington.' There is a long history in the Middle East of repressive regimes making minor concession designed to appease equally symbolic demands of Washington, only to withdraw the new privilege when American eyes have turned away. The Kuwaiti royals' post-Desert Storm promises of democratization never materialized. The Saudi municipal council 'elections' recently held were designed to pacify U.S. concerns; but with only men allowed to vote at all, and half the council members still chosen by the royal family, little power changed hands.
At the end of the day, what we see across the Middle East is an expansion not of democracy but of occupation. Israel 'allowed' the Palestinians to hold elections (despite consistent harassment, arrests, detentions of all candidates other than Israel's favorite) but the occupation remains unchecked, and settlement-expansion and the Wall continue to seize and hold increasing tracts of West Bank and East Jerusalem land. The U.S., under pressure from Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, finally agreed to hold elections in occupied Iraq, but the military occupation and its deadly consequences, including dozens of Iraqis killed on a daily basis, continues.
If the reality of occupation is to be equated with the false claim of democracy, is the false prize worth the all-too-real price?
