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Community/People
March 9, 2005
Democratic Reform in the Arab World (Part 2)
(Continued from: Democratic Reform in the Arab World, part 1)
Delegate from the floor
Thank you, Ms chairperson, I want, if it is possible, to speak in French.
Le monde arabe est confronté pour la construction de la démocratie à un certain nombre de défis. Le défi des régimes despotiques marqués par la corruption, le défi fondamentaliste religieux islamiste, le défi des obstacles à la construction d’un état de droit fondé sur l’universalisme et enfin le spectre du terrorisme. La première question qui est aussi liée au conflit Israélo-arabe a été abordée ce matin et ferait l’objet de longs débats. Je me contenterais de deux questions concernant les deux derniers défis.
Première question : jusqu’à quel point peut-on envisager, elle s’adresse à l’ensemble des participants, la construction progressive d’un système démocratique dans un monde arabe largement marqué par l’absence d’une chose essentielle qui est la liberté de conscience, question à mes yeux fondamentale.
Deuxième question concernant le terrorisme. Une grande confusion règne et je m’en excuse. La Ligue des Pays Arabes représentée par son Excellence le Secrétaire général y est pour beaucoup. Les états arabes ont adopté une convention internationale contre le terrorisme qui est un scandale à tout égard, qui est une manière de manipuler les opinions. C’est très grave et c’est directement lié au terrorisme, j’ai été expulsé il y a dix jours d’Algérie alors que tout le monde sait que je n’ai rien d’un terroriste, en application de cette convention arabe contre le terrorisme. Merci.
Moderator
...in case you didn’t get it, the gentleman was talking about the challenges facing the societies in The Middle East, the challenge [...], the challenges of the Islamic regime. He wanted two questions answered, how can we invigilate the establishment of democracy when there’s no freedom of consciousness and expression in the Arab world, he also had some criticism for an Arab League Convention against terrorism, which he said, is not working. He himself has just been expelled from Algeria most recently.
Delegate from the floor
Hi, I’m Hanna Eduard from Iraqi Women Network. I’d just like to underline that within the last election in Iraq on the 30th January that Iraqi women have won 31% of the seats in the National Assembly, they have also won 28% in the city councils all over the country. This was due to the civil society organisations and women groups that have worked together for a special quota in the National Assembly. This has really proved that when the civil society organisations move we can pressurize the government and we can also succeed in our goals. I think this is very important and a unique and historical achievement that has happened in the Arab World and developing countries. What the Iraqi women have achieved and what they are going to make for more representation in the process of decision making in the future.
Moderator
Next one, a brief comment please.
Delegate from the floor
Actually, my question will be addressed to the westerners ladies and gentlemen in the audience. I think all the talk here about reforms and democracy in the Arab world is beyond my comprehension because I want to see what defines The West’s Arab relations. I understand that, since the last siege of the [...] of the [...] forces that you have said “never again” when a Muslim or Arab put a foot in your [...] But you created the autocrats, you created the theocrats, you created the democrats. And what was Mushhabbak in 1950?, what was Yasser Arafat, 2000? Do you want the democrats to be financed 5000 (…) and the Jews financed by the western countries? There was fear to the democrats, against the autocrats and against the theocrats. What was Bin Laden and the Mujaheddin? Did I create him? Was it my creation? Weren’t the western countries warned? I’m afraid that these games we play with each other [...] I say again what I said this morning: -Anybody who says that Arabs are not ready for democracy is a racist and I believe western policies have been the instrumental element behind the undermining of Arab democracy in the 19th century. They have been undermining the Arabs in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. We were taught in school to mix between communists and democrats. So the question is to you; what did you find in the relations with us? When do you stop these games? And when will Saddam Hussein be a good dictator versus a bad dictator? I’m sure that in ten years time in BBC there will be something called “Good Democrat and Bad Democrat”. Thank you!
Moderator
We don’t use those phrases here, we just talking about democrats and hoping there’ll be many more of them. Carl Bildt is going to prepare an answer to your question and in the meantime I’ll take another question from the floor. This gentleman here.
Delegate from the floor
Thank you. My name is [...] and I’m with the Centre for the Islam and Democracy based in Washington. Just to follow up on that question, that’s actually the question I was interested in; the role of The West and the supporting of dictators. I think there’s been a huge problem for democrats and democracy in the Arab world. I know President Bush is not very popular in Europe or in the Arab world these days but they give him a lot of credit for recognizing that this was a wrong policy and he has admitted that for 50 years the United States has been supporting dictators and he’s trying to change it. When is Europe going to change its policy towards the Arab world?, because I haven’t seen any changes. Thank you.
Moderator
Okay, thank you. I think the pressure is mounting on you, Carl. You better answer now before the tide turns against the West here.
Carl Bildt
I think it is right to say that the seismic shift that we have seen, primarily in American policy, since the 9/11 in attitude towards the link between terrorism, through democracy as it applies to the Middle East has transformed Europe as well. I think Europe has a slightly less bad record prior to that than America. But it’s not very much to boast about. It’s now that we are really engaging in these questions. One of the reasons why we Europeans perhaps engage less, at least in the 1990’s, we Europeans were bloody busy building democracy, state building and peace and some failures and some successes for a couple of hundred million people in 10-15 states in Europe. We are now seeing that some of these instruments are perhaps applicable. We have seen the power of attraction of Europe transforming and continue to transform that big Muslim country that is Turkey. There’s a profound process of transformation going on inside that society. We can perhaps apply certain of these lessons to the Middle East in a somewhat different approach.
Let me say to Mr [...] that of course the West has a lot to answer for, but so have you. I was there, I spent a couple of days as you know, touring the West Bank and Palestine during the elections. I was very impressed by the determination of the people there! They wanted democracy in order to achieve two things; peace, on reasonable terms needless to say. But equally strong, end of corruption, an incompetent leadership, something that didn’t work. The failure of the Palestinian administration to have a decent leadership to the Palestinian people on the most basic things during the last few years is fairly profound. I know all of the difficulties and I’m prepared to blame it all on the Israelis and the West but I wouldn’t blame the corruption on the Israelis. Someone else would have to be blamed for that. And the actual corruption throughout their world is profound and it’s not primarily the West’s fault.
Moderator
I think now that we have dealt with this issue about the responsibility of the West in the past and what the West can do now. There are a lot of other questions we want to deal with here and of course… I don’t know whether I'm allowed to be a dictator here and say that it has to be a very brief question because we have to…
Delegate from the floor
What do you mean by “Now we are busy with transforming Turkey.” Into what? We won’t understand this. And again for the question of corruption; if it is all over the world? It is not only in the Middle East only, and you know that!
Moderator
Very brief, please.
Carl Bildt
Transformation in Turkey has been going on for quite some time, it’s a sequentially democracy and it has done phenomenal changes in terms, for example, minority cultural rights, in terms of the rule of law, in terms of abolishing the death penalty, in terms of different European standards. They aren’t there yet in every single respect but the transformational power of the attractiveness of Europe has been very impressive and 70 million people is a very significant country and it would not have been possible without the attractiveness of European values and European institutions. It will continue to be a Muslim society.
Moderator
A very quick comment from the floor. Let’s try to bring up some questions that haven’t been dealt with yet. I think there’ll be a lot of time to discuss in the corridors. There you can say a lot more things than you are willing to do in public.
Delegate from the floor
Actually I would like to ask what kind of democracy the West would like us to have? [...] Do you want us to have American style democracy which we see in Iraq, Afghanistan and even in Palestine? A democracy which is imposed by the B52’s, F16 or whatever, or do you want us to have our own democracy? That’s really the problem we are facing! You are “enjoycing” about the democracy in Iraq for example. How much did it cost us this democracy? A 100 000 people were massacred in Iraq in order for the Americans to say “We have succeeded in spreading democracy in the Middle East.” This is one thing. Second thing, have you noticed that three experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine the democracy and the occupation under American or Israeli influence. My other question is…
Moderator
I have to be one… one question is enough. You have made some really important points already. Thank you. He has made some really important points. Would the new democratic reforms you’ve been seeing in some countries have happened without the western influence and is it imposed?
Delegate from the floor
Just one point. Which is a legitimate demonstration in Lebanon? We noticed that the first one there was a rejoice in the West. Everybody is happy, the siege of the democracy in that part of the world. The second democracy, where a million and half were demonstrating, which one is more legitimate and more democratic? Why, for example, did people ignore the other one and rejoiced for the first one?
Moderator
I don’t want to look like a dictator so let’s stick to the rules. This gentleman here.
Delegate from the floor
All these discussions didn’t show what the essential features are to say that we are making a reform. Is it to promote myself or anybody else to presidency is this democracy? Are the elections where half of the country goes in and the other half goes out, is this democracy? The state of women, to teach women, is this democracy? I think this is a mixture of many things. At least we need to have an answer in that, what are the essential features in the democratic reform?
Moderator
Okay, the gentleman waiting in the back. Then we are bringing it back to the panel.
What kind of democracy do we want? One that is imposed by the barrel of a gun? Do you want to comment something just briefly?
Delegate from the floor
The people in the Middle East now very well what they want. First of all, if we are talking about rights, then let’s just don’t talk about individual rights. There are collective rights which are the oldest, most important and universally accepted in every culture and religion in the world- the right of people to self determination that includes the Palestinians. The protests and the anger of the people about this in the Middle East is absolutely justified. Not on the basis of Islam or Arab solidarity, but on the basis of acceptance of a universal principle. Also for the Israelis, I’m a two stater, and the fact that we haven’t got there is an absolutely international scandal and it is the fundamental reason, not the only reason, for the anger in the Middle East. Let’s forget all this essentialism about Islam, the Arab mind, the Arab rage, of course they are angry, anyone would be angry! I think that we must not forget this!
Second, the mentions about international context. Two points, the regional context; the dictorial regimes are reinforced by war. Iran is one example when forced into war with Iraq, more than the revolution. In Sudan the interference of outside powers has made much more difficult the settlement of Darfur or of the south. The Palestine question is not the only source of dictatorship in the Middle East but it has been a major contributing factor and we have to see that these regional wars are because of a occupation that has lasted 37 years and they base themselves on war!
Let me mention the international context –the one silence in this conference but I'm going to say it! It is the role of the West, and the United States in particular, in creating fundamentalism in the 1980’s and 90’s. And until and unless we address this question it’s a waste of time blaming terrorism on the absence of democracy in the Arab world. And my firmer point, what can we do to a very specific point as an academic and intellectual? We can document an opposed censorship in the Arab world. I have a personal interest because all my books are banned in the most Arab countries and I want my royalties! Leaving that aside, this is something very clear and it’s getting worse! Don’t talk to me of freedom of speech in Gatta because there is no freedom of speech in Gatta nor in Al-Jazeera television television. We know what you can say in Al-Jazeera television and what you can’t. All my books are banned and by any liberal Muslim as well. Any writers that write on these questions, they are all banned because the Muslim brothers are controlling the censorship committees in these countries.
Secondly, and here I'm speaking in my trade union capacity, there’s an almost total lack of western experts of the younger generation on this region that know the language, the people. Compare the amount of money spent on training people in Russian or Soviet history in the cold war. I’ll tell you something, I’ve been studying the Middle East for 40 years and I’ve been to every country in this region. In the whole world outside the Middle East, including China, Russia and Israel, I know less than 30 people whose judgment on the Middle East I trust. Less than 30 people! This is a real obligation and something we can do something about!
Moderator
Thank you very much. I’m into bringing Saad Eddin Ibrahim in now because Amre Moussa was saying there was a missing of minds now and a need for democratic reform some people saying they are not ready for a reform. You are now in the process of this reform of moving towards a more open society. Would you want a comment?
Saad Eddin Ibrahim
First I’d like to address Emma Bonino’s point. What do we want from people like her? Emma Bonino’s along with many good people around the world stood up for me when I was in prison. There’s a debate between me and my wife whether European or Americans are helping me or hurting me and we are still battling over this. [...] in prison was the same scenario that happened to me. I tell to Emma Bonino and to all of you: –Don’t interfere on behalf of any single person whether (…) in (…). Interfere on the side of principles, regardless of what the victim and his family say. Because in Egypt the family of [...] Why is she confused? She is confused because the family of [...], just like my family, will say “We don’t want outside interference!” Whereas the victim himself –in prison, rotting in prison– won’t hear a word crying on his behalf. So please know that the families of the victims may be under tremendous pressure to reject outside intervention. But the victim, the one in prison wants the whole world to interfere. So how do you solve this problem? You’re solving it by following the principles, I'm not interfering, I'm just appealing to the human rights. The universal human rights!
Two. What do we want with this? We want something like the Helsinki accord. Do not come to us with planes or tanks, come to our autocrats. Telling them: if you want our aid or trade you have to democratize.
Moderator
This is very much what Arabs are pushing for in their societies. Are you moving together in Egypt?
Saad Eddin Ibrahim
We are, we are! The democrats are small limited forces because they are under pressure both from autocrats and the theocrats. Yet there’s a growing number and growing tactics and they’re organising better under tremendous pressure. We are there and we will continue to be there and we want your attention and your support!
Moderator
Thank you. You had your hand up.
Delegate from the floor
I’m [...] from the Iraqi Prospect Association. I just felt it really necessary to comment on another comment that was made. I think it’s really disrespectful to the Iraqi people to as a whole to claim that the January elections were imposed by the F-whatever bombers. The only reason that those bombers were necessary was because we had a dictator over our heads for four decades and as a result millions of people died whilst certain people, most editors of certain newspapers, encouraged our dictator. Although it’s really important to mention that there have been people dying during the war, there were millions dying prior to the war and the entire world was turning a blind eye.
Moderator
Thank you. The lady in red.
Delegate from the floor
Mi nombre es Isabel Blas. Voy a hablar en español. Soy escritora y periodista. Llevo toda mi vida luchando por la defensa de las mujeres y dado que aquí se ha mencionado Turquía, quiero recordar las imágenes que Televisión Española sirvió hace dos días, el Día Internacional de la Mujer Trabajadora, en la que un grupo de mujeres fue apaleada de una forma brutal por la policía turca. Creo sinceramente, mi opinión es que en tanto los derechos de las mujeres no tengan solamente una relación en las constituciones o en las leyes, sino que lleguen también a los ciudadanos. Y mientras las violaciones sistemáticas de mujeres y niñas que se producen en las guerras como arma de guerra no sean contempladas como terrorismo, no habrá posibilidad de democracia en ningún país de este mundo.
Moderator
Thank you.
Delegate from the floor
Jose Luis Herrera from [...] in Madrid. My point was in fact to Mr. Moussa but he left, so I will redirect it to Mr. Bildt because you have something to say on this.
Why is it that no one demands from the Arab regimes that they plan a transition just as the case was with Spain, Chile and South Africa did, they planned a transition? Process, everyone says it’s a process, so then, give us a process with dates. The process can be long, everything up to 2, 6, 8 years, whatever.
Moderator
Do you want this process to be made up from outsiders or the societies themselves?
Delegate from the floor
No, by the regime itself, like it happened in Spain, a fully fledged democracy within a reasonably span of time like 6-8 years.
Moderator
We take a question from down here. We started a bit late so we have about six minutes left.
Delegate from the floor
I’m [...] from [...] University in Jerusalem. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, thank you for a hopeful note by saying that you see some spring coming in Palestine. I’d like to know more closely what you mean with that and on what grounds are you giving us this hope. And to Frederick Halliday, thank you very much for reminding us that the ABC in democracy is self determination, human rights, etc. For the sake of the argument today I'm going to consider that Israel is a part of the Arab World and ask the West, including the U.S., to perhaps start to focus on pushing Israel to start practising the ABC of democracy and stop occupying the Palestinian people. Thank you.
Moderator
Thank you. I’d like to take the privilege of the chair to ask a question which was one of the main themes of this conference, that is to say, all of the processes we are looking at today to bear fruit and do result in greater democracy, for example in Iraq, the political process started there, they do have a political process which is set out. Is that going to lead to less violence, is that going to lead to a decline in the insurgency? I’ll get Hamid Albayati to answer that question. But there was a question about the transition there.
Carl Bildt
I’m not quite certain it was that simple in Spain I have to say. Neither Portugal, nor Spain nor Greece were clear cut cases. What happened was that there was a time status of after the demise of the Franco regime. But it wasn’t a question of going to Franco and say “why don’t you go and die and before you die why don’t you plan for democracy!” It wasn’t like that. But then he did die and there was a readiness in the Spanish society. Then there was the fortunate combination of the king and Europe and perhaps even Portugal and a couple of factors. That being said, what’s the lesson? You have to look at the specifity of every single case. I’d say that Iraq is specific, they do have problems like the Kurdish issue that needs to be sorted out. Palestine, obviously occupation issue, Lebanon with their fractious nature of their society is a separate case. I’d say Egypt is the big thing that we are looking for. That was what I was saying earlier with Emma, why don’t we now from Europe go in? Perhaps with a structured dialogue with the Egyptians since we have this close agreement on what we can do to help facilitate a process of gradual change in that big country. But I wouldn’t say that that is a model that can be applied to every single country. It can’t, I mean Norwegians are different from Swedes as you know but they managed democracy anyhow, sort of.
Hamid Albayati, the deputy foreign minister of Iraq
I’m going to address this issue about democracy, whether it’s going to affect the violence in Iraq and the region. Actually, one of the major factors in extremism in the Middle East is dictatorship and it’s very obvious that the people in the Middle East and the Arab world is really willing to see democracy they love to have elections and I think Iraq was a good example of that. In spite of all the threats, millions of Iraqis, including elderly people and women, went to vote on January the 30th.
Now, one other issue, of course if we have democracy in Iraq and the Middle East I think violence will be less, definitely the extremist are motivated by feeling that they were suppressed by dictatorship, maybe supported by the West and the United States as some people mention.
But let me address the issue of Islamic fundamentalism. Some people raise the fears if we have democracy and if we get it from dictatorship, then Islamic fundamentalism will rise. I must tell the audience that actually we have to reward Islamic moderates, we have to encourage them who believes in Islam because it’s an Islamic region and we can’t force secularism. We have to distinguish between democracy and secularism. We can’t force women to take their hijabs or scarfs off, this is not democracy! So if there’s an illusion that democracy means a secularism we are going to face more extremism in the Middle East. We have to give the personal freedom to the people to choose. Therefore if we are talking about extremism we will fight those but on the other hand we will give the freedom to every country and every nation to choose their personal life. I think as a Muslim country they will choose to respect Islam they would like to see Islam respected in the same way we have Christian parties playing a political role in the West and Europe.
So we can have, I mean I have heard a lot of fears about jihads and Islamic [...] raised in Iraq after getting rid of the dictatorship. We shouldn’t be afraid of that if they are moderate enough to come to a democratic election. People will judge in a long term who’s the best one to elect so please don’t mix democracy and secularism because it will be counterproductive and will backfire to the West.
[?]
The question has been raised repeatedly what kind of democracy the West wants. I’m going to try to answer it just in the view of the United States. I live in Washington and I see it from that advantage point. The answer very frankly is: not very much! The United States has not gotten over its ambiguity about reforms in the Arab world. I think the Bush administration wants stability more than anything else. If I can use the expression of plausible deniability that Americans use all the time. I think what the Bush administration wants is regimes with a more plausible democratic face. I don’t think Mubbarak is going to be pushed very hard. I think the kind of steps that are being taken suit the needs of the Bush administration both to be able to show success since they have to clean the “My god, we went into Iraq and we have accomplished. Look at the transformation in the Arab world.” At the same time they have to avoid facing new situations in the Arab world they are not sure they can handle.
Moderator
I’m so sorry it’s so frustrating, so many of you wants to speak, but this is a three day conference so hopefully in the coffee rooms and at breakfast, lunch and dinner you’ll have more time to pursue these things. I hope you’ll join me in thanking our panel for their discussion and I think we want to thank all of you and if there’s one thing to take away from this, is that there’s undeniably a process of democratic reform which is underway in the Arab world but it involves responsibilities and obligations among Arabs, Arab leaders and societies and it also involves obligations on the behalf of the international community. So we should all go away and think about where we fit into that process and how to make it work. Thank you very much!
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