Should Arabs Copy The Tunisian Revolution?
By Salim Nazzal
02 February, 2011
Countercurrents.org
I wrote lately an article that sought to draw the attention towards understanding the differences among each Arab country in order to find the right method of change. Naturally I fully support the current uprising in Egypt and think it is legitimate and has become urgent due to the worsening of the political and social conditions, which is now threatening the social security of many Arab countries.
And I believe that if there were Arab governments in the modern sense of the word in terms of respect for the rights of the citizens, it would have fallen as soon as the young people in the prime of age began to burn themselves. Because I do not think that there is a stronger message that can describe the state of despair that has reached the Arab youth who have come to prefer suicide to life in the absence of prospects for the future before them.
I try to say that though there are some similarities among Arab countries such as the fact that two thirds of Arabs are under 30 of age, and that most educated young men have problems to find jobs due to corruption and lack of democracy and social justice. It is necessary to pay attention to the social and political differences because it cannot be ignored as a crucial element in the issue of change. Nor can also ignore the size and impact of the change in each country, both in terms of the domestic and international perspective. The last example from Tunis confirmed the fears of Arabs that the western countries and the USA in particular pay lip service to the question of democracy in the Arab region, but the real concern is focused on protecting oil and “Israel”. And that they use the despotic Arab regimes for these reasons and they would abandon their Arab dictator allies when they fall.
However my primarily concern in this article is to cast some light on the question of political and social change considering the differences among the Arab countries. And consequently is the question of revolution fit all Arab countries?
This does not mean, of course, to minimize the importance of the revolutions led these days by the young generation as much as I want to say that giving one recipe for each issue of disease does not lead necessarily to treatment. Because we know from medicine that the appropriate treatment given after a correct diagnosis and the failure diagnosis means giving the wrong medication, which will not benefit if not hurt.
What drew my interest in the past weeks is the huge number of calls that have emerged in the Arab region calling for popular revolutions on the Tunisian way.
This naturally poses the question about the possibility and the rightness to copy the Tunisian experience in the question of political change?
Let us first agree that the main demand among young generation is freedom and social justice which has been as we saw in Tunis and Egypt and other Arab countries the main demands from the demonstrators.
And if these demands sum up the aspirations of the Arab masses already, then the crucial thing is to achieve the goal regardless the method of achieving.
If we move from generalization to specification we would see for instance that the gulf Arab states have different problems than the Maghreb states or Egypt or the Sham region (Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan).
These countries have better economical conditions due to oil but they lack the culture of political life: there is no trade unions, there is no political parties and the states there have adopted the material part of modernization but not when it comes to questions like freedom, human rights etc which form the essence of modernism.
While the countries of the levent (Iraq,Syria,Jordan,Palestine ,Lebanon) have a problem in terms of a strong religious and ethnic sub identities which has been used either by the enemies of democracy or the Usa to block the possibility to struggle for freedom and social justice for all.
The Sunni Shia strife in Iraq provides us with the evidence that it is possible for the enemies of political change to play off on the sectarian conflict to divert the conflict from the conflict between The Have not s vis avis The Have much to a conflict between the different communities.
Also history might give us addition examples: in 1840 a Lebanese Maronite called Tanious Shaheen influenced by the French revolution called for a republic, a term which was not known in that period. But the result was a civil war between the Druze and the Maronite which composed the population of Mount Lebanon that time.
Moreover these countries face the problem of “Israel” which poses a threat which caused to the militarization of these countries which in my view has obstructed the development of a civil society despite the fact that these countries have serious problems in the question of the wealth distribution and in the question of human rights. This is the reason that I always argued that the Zionist state is the major hindrance for spreading the democracy in the Middle East.And this is evident today in the israeli concern about the uprising of Egypt.
Mentioning the “Israeli” factor should not justify the lack of freedom but rather to state the challenges because the continuous threat from a foreign enemy might hinder the society to pay more attention to the domestic problems.
I definitely think the free teacher teaches better and the free farmer produces more corn and the free society fight better the foreign occupation.
The important thing in my view is the question of change towards democracy and social justice regardless of the method of change. And I think that the consolidation of the civil society accompanied with peaceful struggle towards democracy and social justice will accumulate a change perhaps quicker than expected.
For that reason I am not quite sure if the copying the Tunisian method of change could apply to other Arab countries, but iam sure that the Tunis example has become a major inspiration for the young Arab generation that it is possible to change even without the leaderships of political parties.
The French Revolution ended the french despotic monarchy and set up a Republic, while in other European countries the change toward democracy was to preserve the monarchy, but after converting it into a constitutional monarchy. In other words, all countries have created its own way for the achievement of democracy and social justice. This does not mean that each European country has made a revolution like the French but rather that the French revolution became the inspiration for the people to change.
Dr. Salim Nazzal, a Palestinian-Norwegian historian on the Middle East, He has written extensively on social and political issues in the region.
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