“A more likely scenario of the Arab countries is something that superficially looks like democracy but with the military still in power behind the scenes. And to some extent there are always oligarchies in the form of patron-client networks, lobbying, etc. that undermine real democracy (although in today's developed countries, it still, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, better than any of the other bad kinds of government). Also, however real democratization might be, there is a huge danger of disillusion with the results (especially in countries where the economy keeps falling apart.”---------------Glen Perry


If the Glasnost Mikhail Gorbachev’s process was a beginning to the fall of Berlin’s wall and the collapse of the former Soviet Union; and after the Arab spring started by the self-immolation of Bouazizi on January, 18th winter of 2010. That’s why; if the reason behind the changes in the Middle and the Eastern Europe were due to corruption and imposing governance of dictatorial parties belonging to the former Socialism bloc, so the same reason resulted in initiating the changes in Arab countries of the Middle East. And also, if release of violence is one of the results of Arab Spring, we see that genocides and massacres happened in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Chechnya, and Kosovo resulted from the changes that followed the fall of Berlin’s wall and the collapse of the former Soviet Union. The main difference between Middle and Eastern European countries with Middle East is that; although some new countries were introduced because of ethnic problems and violence in Eastern Europe, but there was no other ideology similar to the former one to stand against democracy. That’s why in those countries, unlike the Middle East, after the collapse of the Soviet Union all the doors are opened towards democracy. This is with considering that in some countries democracy didn’t move forward that much as well, but in the Middle European countries such as Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, Slovenia…etc. in which they passed the transitional phase considerably in a very short period of time that deserved membership in European Club next to the ancient European democracies. This doesn’t seem to happen in the Middle East including Tunisia, in which it is much developed in terms with cultural infrastructures more than the rest of the Arab countries, which is why it is actually difficult to make predictions for the Arab countries just like what was predicted for Middle and Eastern European countries after the fall of Berlin’s wall. Maybe throughout these changes and through ballot boxes free voting will start but it is unlikely to produce democracy. The obstacles of democracy in the Middle East according to many observers and experts can be classified in some points:

• The changes in the Middle East has so far only covered the republican countries, and hasn’t reached the Kingdoms and monarchies except for Bahrain in which it was the Shiite sectarian revolution and then it was controlled. That means that the changed leaders were representing the political systems which came about after surviving from colonialism, including Mubarak who reached to power After Nasir and Sadat, but the Egyptian system was the extension of the same system which was established by Jamal Abdul-Nasir in the 1950s of the last century.

• Within the last 60 years, since Israel-Palestine problem had been considered as an Arabic issue and generally Western countries, in particular the United states, have supported Israel, and the Arabic countries have encouraged their people against the West and the United States, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, and gulf kingdom, in particular Jamal Abdul-Nasir after winning the Suez Canal War from 1956 till the defeat in 1967 and until the day he died, he had always found himself supporting the Soviet Union, in which afterwards the president Sadat signed an agreement with Israel. The Arab public opinion has always been against the United States and the West, and they have always considered democracy as a western product. This has two positive sides: firstly; it has let the regimes to stay in power. Secondly: since the oppositions are Islamic parties, they have also encouraged people to stay away from democracy. So; if we focus on the world map after the fall of Berlin’s wall, we see that after the fall of Berlin’s wall democracy has covered the whole world, except the Arab countries lying by the border from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf.

• Another dangerous point which makes it much difficult for the Arab Spring to keep on is that the regimes are not prepared to peacefully step down by the public pressure. “They would have the same destiny if they step down from power peacefully or forcibly by violent means” -Richard Has- said. If we take Mubarak and Gadhafi as an example in this respect, we see that; so far Gadhafi’s fate is much better from Mubarak’s. That is why the hatred for revenge and lack of tolerance has resulted in action and reactions, the reactions of the regimes are becoming more and more violent as the violence of the streets increase. The current situation of Syria regarding treating the demonstrators unveils this fact much clearer.


Democracy Development Requires the Culture of Tolerance:


What we witness in the Arabic countries is the matter of action and reaction. Neither the people peacefully throughout dialogues try to resolve their problems and make reforms, nor are the regimes ready to listen to the demands of the people so as to perform an overall reform. The main reason behind this is due to the lack of the culture of tolerance so as to be able to forget the past and start a new life. Regarding this issue, we interviewed the Professor Glenn Perry, political scientist in Indiana University and expert on the Middle Eastern Studies, and responded to our questions as: “Arab and Islamic countries have no monopoly on this problem. Taking a long view, I don't think they have had more bloodshed and violence than have other societies. It is true; however, that recent peaceful transitions to democracy were slower in coming in the Arab world than in most other parts of the world. That is not true of the Islamic world in general, however, in comparison with other countries in the same level of economic development. And at least one scholar, Barrington Moore, Jr., made a very extensive and serious case for his argument that democracy always has been preceded by violence. But I hope he is wrong, and there have been signs--as you know--that a peaceful transition is succeeding in some parts of the Arab world (although I am not so sure that that is happening in, say, Egypt). There are some special factors in the Arab world that make democracy difficult. One is the mix of ethnic, sectarian, religious, secular, country-level, and pan-ethnic sentiments that come to the fore to different degrees in various times and places, although it would be hard to say that this problem is worse than in other parts of the world. Recognizing that there are so many other factors inhibiting democracy (hardly any of which is unique to the region), I maintain that outside intervention is a decisive factor in most of the Middle East (one scholar concluded that there is more outside penetration of Middle East politics than occurs anywhere else in the world. It is partly because of oil, partly because of the area's unique geography that makes it so crucial for world communication, and partly because of Israel (itself representing European penetration, aside from the power of the Israel Lobby in the United States). World powers (including the US today) have relied on local clients as allies, and as long as the Arabs and Muslims are angry over its unfair support for Israel, the US (not to mention Israel) is afraid of democracy in the Arab world, although it engages in constant rhetoric to the contrary and although many leaders probably are convinced by their own rhetoric. There are many dangers. One party--in the current situation, that might be a religious one--might win total control through elections, although I suspect that shifting electoral coalitions would emerge in some countries (and undermine democracy by not being willing to govern effectively). But a more likely scenario is something that superficially looks like democracy but with the military still in power behind the scenes. And to some extent there are always oligarchies in the form of patron-client networks, lobbying, etc. that undermine real democracy (although in today's developed countries, it still, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, better than any of the other bad kinds of government). Also, however real democratization might be, there is a huge danger of disillusion with the results (especially in countries where the economy keeps falling apart), You are talking about different things--"living together" and "tolerance" on the one hand and "separating religion from state" on the other. I like both of them. However, you don't always have to have the latter for the former to exist. Although generally the latter may be conducive to the former, that may not be the case in the Islamic world, where forcing total separation of religion and state (or, even worse, the Kemalist pattern of the state controlling religion) would generally be detrimental to democracy. Notice that even in most Arab countries the state has tried to control religion. It seems that Turkey has finally become an authentic democracy for the first time by moving away from extreme Kemalism.”

Although the professor Perry mentioned sort of comparison regarding violence with some other countries, but meanwhile he emphasized that democracy development in the Middle East in a way or another is not in favor of the United States as well, it has been almost half a century that America plays an effective role in the area, and if its interests doesn’t get along with the new process which has covered the Middle East as a whole, so we can’t be optimistic about the democracy development there. Regarding to this point, we interviewed his Excellency the Ambassador Edward Gnehm, Director of Middle Eastern Studies Institute in Illiot University, and he has also served as an US Ambassador to Jordon till 2004, in his responses exclusively to GULAN magazine he said: “I think it is not always as bad as you suggest. In fact, there have been places were changes have come about without violence, and it think that even though what we see the ongoing demonstrations in Egypt, the truth is the matter it’s been a peaceful movement demonstrations in all to bring about change. There have been other countries, there have been played by difficulties usually unfortunately, it’s been repression of government, the single dictator and single party trying to maintain power and that is pushed people in the direction of violence, but even in Syria today you find a lot of demonstrators arguing against resort use of force and weapons but they try to continue to keep their own opposition peaceful. Even though the government reacted with violence, so again I think it is a country’s different and specific. But I do think there have been some changes in the region without violence, and in spite of all of these, I think that we see in the region one sort of understanding that underpins democracy or underpins an open society. If got to be an acceptance on the part of all that is the majority and the minority that everyone has individual rights that they are certain, as we say in America; “inalienable rights” means the rights everyone has and the system itself will protect all elements of the population, that is the only way one can succeed and having a country unified. And that is the only way you can say minority but that also mean individual, because even within the majority population you have people with different views, and that is something that has been solely lacking in Middle East and that can actually be implemented without dealing with the question of religion, because those who are religious should want to have the state protecting them just as well.”

The Arab Countries are neither Turkey nor Indonesia.

1- The main problem of the Arab countries is that they refer to their failure in the democracy development process of being Islamic countries. That doesn’t mean that every Islamic country, such as the Arab countries, considers democracy as a western product, or to have a vision that the entire world is enemy to the Islamic countries. Many researchers of democracy, especially after the third wave of democracy; are surprised that democracy wave covered non-Arabic Islamic countries while the Arab countries stayed behind? Even today, as these changes are about to take place, it is quite difficult to predict the development of liberal democracy and to replace the authoritarian regimes. Regarding to this topic, we interviewed the Professor Thomas Ambrosio, political science Lecturer in North Dakota University and specialist on Iraq and the Middle East, in his responds exclusively to Gulan magazine, he said: “Well, it is very difficult, as we’ve seen now in variety of cases; we really have five cases of Arab Spring, and the only one that was relatively peace was Tunisia. Egypt was peaceful but not a real revolution, because the military government is still largely in charge. So in the other we have had violence in Yemen, Syria and Libya, it is extremely difficult. Ultimately with people have to decide that they want to throw him from their own societies rather than looking for scapegoat outside of your countries. In particular looking toward Israel in the west as scapegoat. So that is going to be the key, the problem is even if you get the over throw of your government, do you have a liberal democracy that comes out of it, and I think what we’re seeing in Egypt is that may not be the case. Mubarak is thrown out of his office but hasn’t really been changed. Another difficult situation for the Arabic countries is to separate religion from state. And in particular if we look at Islamic traditions, we don’t see that separation as much. There are some cases in which we do see it, like for example; Indonesia and we used to see in places like Turkey. But I think that now the role models are not in Middle East. So, Indonesia is very far obviously from Middle East, you see it is actually impossible. In which you see the separation of church and state. But we really don’t have hard examples in the Middle East, a plan which to build a truly liberal society. And that makes it extremely difficult to move forward as society toward those goals when you don’t have a foundation. This obviously sources back to as you’ve now decades of authoritarian leaders in order to keep themselves in power have used these identity issues, have used anti-western sentiments in order to keep themselves in power and to destruct their population away from their own problems. I was just reading a story about how the Egyptian government had presented this idea as they have somehow won the 1973 war with Israel. And you have misinformation by these governments for decades, the schools are riddons with these information. And it is extremely difficult to change those mind senses. And one might hope that increase exposure through the internet and television could help change those perceptions, but as we know perception change very slowly. I wouldn’t expect that to happen in the near future. Right now, there is more emphasis internally on problems, we have the oppositions protest against the governments. And less of emphasis looking outwards for scapegoats. I think that in fact we begin shifting that is people become disenchanted with the change, as we see in Egypt right now, where you had the Israel embassy attack. So I’m not convinced that this process is going to happen quickly in most countries. I think in places like Kurdistan, yes it is a very different mind effect, in which there isn’t this anti-western effect, but throughout most of Middle East this is the case, even in Turkey you see that. On the other hand, now the west is in a real bind, the bind is we want to support democracy and election. But what if those elections result in governments that are not friendly to the west? That are not liberal democratic? That are actually more anti-Israel than the governments that preceded it, that is the real potential problem. For example; the west wanted democracy in Palestine and they got Hamas. So, it is a very difficult situation that the west finds itself in, the west wants democracy, but the western perception of democracy may not be an easy to implement in the Middle East as we initially hope.”

Exporting Problems to Abroad:
It has been for a long time since the Arabic countries used to export their problems whenever they have any internal problems. In particular, as what we see in Egypt when the Israeli Embassy was attacked and the United States threatened to close the Palestine Authority Institute in Washington if Palestine asks for permanent membership in the United Nations. The deteriorated situation rather serves the remaining of Assad in power. Regarding to this question, we interviewed the Professor Shaul Gabbay, International Relations Lecturer in Denver University and Analyzer of Middle Eastern Policy, and he exclusively responded to Gulan magazine as the following: “If today for example there will be election in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood will take power, then you’re absolutely correct. Then through democracy instead of having democracy we will have another dictatorship. Like it happened in Germany, the Nazi regime came to power through election, but then established a totalitarian regime, this is definitely a very important and eminent danger in Middle East even the societal structure as exist today is a different country, it is hard to say how long this is going to take place. And if in deed we have mechanisms in place, political and judiciary, to prevent from party which will change the regime, but prevent it from another dictatorship. So it is very hard to say, but it is definitely a very important point and eminent risk in these changes which are taking place today in Middle East. On the other hand we see that the sentiment against the west and our liberal values particularly as they are fighting United States are very prominent at the grass root level in the Arab world today and Muslim world today. And I’m not sure that it is possible that this grass root anti-west, anti-US and anti-democratic values are going to be able to counter them by creating the democracy. And we just have to see, in the future, given these sentiments to establish democracy. I’m very skeptical about the possibility of establishing democracy in the Arab countries. Your situation in Kurdistan was a beginning which is very much not the standard at all in the Arab and Muslim countries. But you’ve created the security, democratic values, putting values on investment and education is unprecedented in your part of the world. You’re the example, but not the example of the majority. It is not common at all, it is a miracle how exactly it happened and I believe it has to do a lot with the culture that is present for so many years of your people, but it is not common.”

What the professor Gabbay is mentioning is the difficulty of changing the anti-west and anti-democracy sentiments. We also interviewed the Professor Malik Mufti, Professor of Political Science at Tufts University, and the author of (Daring and Caution in Turkish Strategic Culture: Republic at Sea), and also Specialist on the Middle East policy, exclusively to Gulan magazine responded to our questions as: “I don't agree that violence in political transitions is particularly characteristic of Arab or Islamic countries. In Turkey, the transition to democracy was almost entirely peaceful. In Tunisia and Egypt, so far at any rate, regime change has taken place with relatively little bloodshed. In Libya and Syria, the picture is very different. I think the reason has to do with the nature of the pre-existing regimes, and their ability to accommodate change – and that is a factor that varies greatly from case to case. Regarding US policy in the area, it is certainly true that the United States – like all countries – pursues its own national interests, and sometimes these have led it to align with unpopular dictatorships. At the same time, I think there is a growing realization in Washington that political change is inevitable in most of the Middle East, and American policy-makers are therefore thinking about ways to reconcile that change with US national interests. And regarding not supporting creating the Palestine state, the American failure in this regard greatly erodes the popularity of the United States in the region, and prevents it from pursuing its national interests effectively. Much of the explanation for this failure lies in domestic American political dynamics. It is possible, however, that as the current upheaval in the Middle East raises the stakes for the United States, the negative geopolitical consequences will weigh more heavily and increase the pressure on Washington to pursue a peace settlement.”


Translated by: Sheban Ferhad