What might bring democracy to the Middle East?
Posted on Tuesday 11 December, 2007
Filed Under Theory
After it became absolutely clear that the WMDs just weren’t there, the US and Britain hastily erected ‘democratising the Middle East’ as a flimsy ex post facto justification for the invasion of Iraq.
All of a sudden, the war was no longer about punishing Saddam for the al Qa’eda links it later turned out he simply didn’t have. No, the public was reassured, this was a project to crush the Republic of Fear.
Yet I’d stake money that neither Bush nor Blair had even heard of Kanaan Makiya before his book became a useful rationale for their war, unless a hapless Downing Street researcher accidentally stumbled upon the name while undertaking the internet trawl that resulted in the dodgy dossier.
It’s an inconvenient fact for the pro-war left, but at least George Galloway did have some sort of track record of once campaigning against the Iraqi dictatorship he was later to brown-nose. There’s no evidence whatsoever of Blair ever having displayed solidarity with Saddam’s Iraqi victims throughout the years the west was arming the Ba’athist repressive state apparatus.
But the failure of Washington’s foreign policy – even by its own lights – poses the question of why the state of democracy in the Middle East is quite so parlous, even when compared to other countries at a similar stage of economic development.
There are partial exceptions to the rule, I suppose. Both Israel and Turkey lay claims to being democratic polities. But many non-European Jews and Arab citizens in Israel, not to mention the entire Kurdish population of Turkey, would surely beg to differ.
There are quasi-democratic institutions in Iran. But control rests with a layer of conservative clerics, which control the right to stand for election and much else.
But none of the above are Arab countries. In the Arab world, democracy is essentially a write-off.
It is true that many Islamist are intrinsically hostile to democracy per se, arguing that the Qu’ran is their constitution. But that cannot be the whole explanation; opinion polls indicate that there is support for notions of political democracy, especially among the younger and more educated layers.
The chief roadblock seems to be the prevelance of what international relations theorists refer to as ‘rentier states’, supporting themselves through oil rents extracted from the rest of the planet. Because they do not need to extract taxation, they become independent of society, and thus have little need for legitimation.
Their extensive economic resources essentially enable them to co-opt the indigenous bourgeoisie, rewarding it economically through projects conceived and funded by the state. These bourgeoisies, then, have no interest in carrying through bourgeois revolutions.
In short, there are certainly analytical parallels with what certain a Russian Marxist – a writer some leading neoconservatives are reputedly familiar with, of course – said about his own country over 100 years ago.
But it is doubtful that the current class and ideological dynamics in the Middle East facilitate the sort of social transformation Leon Trotsky predicted.
Yet as the Iraq debacle fully underlines, in the twenty-first century at any rate, bourgeois revolutions do not come courtesy of the US and British armed forces, either. There is no M1 Abrams road to liberal democracy.
Nobody wants to imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever. But right now, it is difficult to see just what could topple the Arab dictatorships.
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Heres a piece on precisely the same subject published at the same time as your which is surprisongly rather more hopeful.
And not from one of the usual suspects either.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simon_tisdall/2007/12/the_resumption_of_history_1.html
I’d love to see some evidence of Galloways opposition to Saddam.
All I can find is fake claims to have been a founding member of CARDRI and one word in Hansard.
Is the state of democracy in the West any healthier ?
Democracy may currently be a write off as you state in probably all or most Arab countries (except Lebanon? the West Bank maybe – strangely? Kuwait – limited?). But you wrongly write off the residents of those countries if you don’t think that democracy is at least on the agenda in these places.
As we have discussed before, the non-white expat population of some Gulf States is key. So, for example, in the UAE, the majority of the population don’t have the cultural link of being Arabs – instead they have the cultural links of being from India, Pakistan, Nepal and other South Asian countries as well as the responsibility of doing nearly all the work and creating nearly all the wealth.
I’m trying to think of a good parallel from the history of the British Empire and the role of indentured Indian labourers. I can’t think of a perfect one but I need to get back to work so I haven’t run through all the possibilities.
The Indians on Fiji or in Malaysia didn’t meekly accept their status once the Brits withdrew as stateless ‘visitors’ – they strived for full equality with (and often against) the indigenous population in both places. Indians in South Africa played a part in the anti-Apartheid struggle despite, I think, being awarded a formal role slightly above blacks.
The desperate fightbacks by some building workers recently in Dubai show how things could develop. If only they could get the mainly South Asian workforce at the airports to organise to strike to prevent the instant deportation of their militant compatriots – or stopped work in the oil fields – the situation could quickly take a very good turn indeed. When these expats (including Filipinos etc) just realise their strength in Qatar etc they will be half way there.
People in KSA tell me that the situation is pretty grim for non-connected Saudis subsisting on state sponsored make work schemes in the non oil regions. The youth of Bahrain have shown ongoing resistance against oppression. In the 60s those, such as Yemeni lefts, drove the colonialists out of Aden.
I’d no more write of the general Arab population, even outside the Levant, anymore than I would have taken the accepted view at the start of the 20th century that the Russian peasantry was incorrigibly conservative.
And in Iran, having lived through (and now having seen through) an Islamic regime, which like all others takes from the poor and gives to the rich, would any future upsurge be just in favour of a western style democracy or could ‘communism’ come back into play in a place where some of its different strands once had mass support?
Yet I’d stake money that neither Bush nor Blair had even heard of Kanaan Makiya before his book became a useful rationale for their war
Perhaps – but I think you’ll find that Paul Wolfowitz had. I understand perfectly why people opposed the ouster of Saddam Hussein but it is simply wrong to argue that democratisation was a hastily-erected ex post facto justification for the invasion. I would have thought that it was obvious to anyone that had been paying attention that the WMD justification came to the forefront only when the Americans attempted to internationalise their plans for regime change. If this were not the case, the US would have resorted to the normal CIA pattern of the nicer Sunni tyrant option.
Dave, Shuggy
Whether the idea of democratising arabia came before or after the idea of regime change it is still an imperialist adventure.
Surely it’s not up to us to impose our ideas on anyone else.
If socialists, or communists, or syndicalists, or liberals or even Tories in the middle east ask for solidarity than we should support them.
Otherwise we should enagage in discussion and debate. And protest about human rights abuses.
But not try to impose anything.
When Marx and Engels wrote their stuff in Manchester 150 years ago even they wouldn’t have expected it to be followed to the letter in Damascus today.
Yesterday’s bombings in Algeria bring this into sharp focus. You could argu that Islamists are fighting for democracy as they won an election but weren’t allowedto take office.
In the 1990s I used to visit immigration detainees in Winson Green prison.
Quite a few of them were Algerian Islamists who had fled after the coup against their election victory.
I had huge disagreements with them – but they had won the election, were in a terible position, and needed our solidarity.
It’s a complicated business.
Yesterday’s bombings in Algeria bring this into sharp focus. You could argu that Islamists are fighting for democracy as they won an election but weren’t allowed to take office.
Yes, how imperialist of people not to notice how bombing the UN fits in with Al Qaeda’s long established commitment to democracy.
Perhaps it is not helpful to use the word Arab to cover so many countries, states, and histories.
Referring to the Maghreb as Arab is unfortunate since many in that vast area (the West in Arabic) do not consider themselves so, since they are Kabylles (in notably, Morocco and Algeria notably). In any case these lands have strong civil societies, leftists, secular, parties, as wella s Islamicists, and some degree of electoral demcoracy (guided and controlled it’s true). Algeria even has one of the strongest ‘Trotskyist’ parties in the world, if you can call Lambertism Trotskyist.
For this, and other, reasons, most would take exception to a description of the Algerian Islamicists as ‘demcoats’: their history is one of murderous violence which began against the left – in universities, formented by the Algerian state (as in Egypt). Algeria was a one-party ‘socialist-Islamic’ state (that is its constitution said it was all of these) run by the FLN who became essentially a military dictatorship run for the benefit of a large clique, le Pouvoir as it was, and is, called. Certain elements from that state supported Islamicism, Arabisation to start with (which provoked the le printemps Kabyle in resistance to this), and then religious indoctrination and subsidy of Qu’ranic education which fostered the Front islamic de Salut (FIS). The FIS seemed likely to win the elections referred to above but since it was cancelled after the first round no-one can be absolutely sure.
There were reasons for this: some very bad (it would have shaken up the position of the non-religious elements of Le Pouvoir, remove them and substitue other parasites in control); it would have led to violence, since none of the large secular section of Algerian society would accept being second-class citizens and having women’s rights removed; and, it was very unclear what was being done since the Military had iself become the prey of clashing factions.
the Dirty war that ensued was marked by extreme bruality on all sides, thugh the Islamicists were probably the worst in sheer barbarism the state tortured and killed at will, not stopping at byzantine manipulations. For this reason no-one would easily take sides unless forced to.
Anyone who admires the Algerian Islamicists as their strategy evolved is frankly a fool. Democrcayw as never their aim: it is not winning a vote that makes a society demcoratic but free elections with human rights that does so, and no Islamicist will ever accept mere ‘human;’ rights, or indeed equality for a range of people, non-believers to begin with. By the time the GIA emerged they had degenerated to jihadist mass murder, divided into different bands under their own ‘emirs’. The slaughtered the impure and kaffirs – all Algethen rians who disagreed with them – at will. The GSPC evolved from the GIA and continued its murders.
Solidarity with them is just the kind of thing a purblind Anglo-Saxon liberal leftist would come out with. It is of such a criminal ignorance that it leaves me with a knot in my stomach.
Now we have al-Qaeda in Maghreb, from the GIA via the GSPC.
I hope the blood of the free and independent Algerian people who died in their bombs stains the hands of those who are removed far enough from the conflict to imagine these jihadists are democrats.
Anthony, Andrew
I don’t think I actually said I supported the Islamicists or the bombing of the UN.
I don’t.
I was making the point that Dave’s piece on “democracy” opened up complicated questions because who decides what democracy is? The wrong people can win? And then what do you do?
If you argue for democracy and the majority vote for Islamists is a coup jusatified?
These questions have to be considered.
If I didn’t make it clear the solidarity I was refering to in my penultimate paragraph was to jailed and friendless refugees in a Birmingham prison.
Is that wrong? Not a rhetorical question. Am interested in what you think.
Perhaps the question to ask is: in how many countries has liberal democracy ever existed in a meaningful manner?
I would say that before 1900 there were very few places, if any, in which all adults had a free and equal vote, and in which there was freedom of publication, combination and assembly. In the twentieth century, the countries which had untrammelled liberal democracy were very few. Even then, some of those which formally did, such as Britain and the USA, had deep blemishes: the Six Counties, the South. And of course, there was little democracy in Empire countries even if there was at home.
Although more countries than ever today are liberal democracies, at least in formal terms, is this not a reflection of the relative lack of social tensions — particularly of class struggle — rather than some social law that sees liberal democracy as some higher norm to which all nations should aspire? Everyone here will recognise that democratic rights for the mass of the population had to be fought for, and were never given to us freely by our rulers.
If China is the future rising nation, challenging the West and everyone else economically, diplomatically and (ultimately) militarily; then will the challenge of an undemocratic state encourage our rulers to start attacking our rights as part of meeting that challenge? Can liberal democracy, which relies upon a stable and therefore economically secure society, meet the economic challenge of China?
Perhaps Putin’s ‘managed’ elections will become more common amongst the democracies in the years to come.
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ftssoldier.blogspot.com
http://www.edwardsaid.org
ust reading the post
“What might bring democracy to the Middle East?”
has promted me made write this post. So here goes
Speaking about middle east worth knowing that the middle east does NOT HAVE TWO THIRDS OF THE WORLDS OIL RESERVES It really only has only third of oil of total world reserves.
Part of the reason being is that is that oil companies do not Consider Unconventional
oil reserves profitable until now
So they did not list them as part of the official oil surveys leading To a Misleading analyses that the middle east has two thirds world reserves. All though occupying iraq
would create a massive oil glut, driving oil down to $10 barrel.
Unconventional oil reserves:
http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik/oil/3unconventional.html
oil fron coal:
http://www.rexresearch.com/karrick/karric~1.htm
Why oil is so expensive:
http://energyoutlook.blogspot.com/2007/10/regulating-speculation.html
Check these energy blogs below because they know what Their are talking about
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/
http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik/oil/2worldoil.mideast.html
http://energyoutlook.blogspot.com/
http://www.heavyoilinfo.com/
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/