ILLUSIONARY DEMOCRACY, UNATTAINABLE CHANGE

I was asked by fellow bloggers commenting on my post on the plight of Fouad Mourtada the following hauntingly simple question: why don’t Moroccans, instead of fleeing toward more favorable horizons, change their situation from within Morocco?  

I advocate the idea that Moroccan citizens should be empowered at all levels to implement constructive change consented upon by a majority of the citizenry through legislative and political venues. The process should be outlined and guaranteed by the Moroccan constitution. The concept is not a novelty. Its proponents are not all Western intellectuals and politicians. Moroccan and Arab intellectuals have been promoting the notion that reform should be spawned from within since Gamal Abdelnasser led the Egyptian revolution in 1952. Two of Abdelnasser’s disciples, permeated by his fervent Arab nationalism, also succeeded in drastically changing the political landscape of their countries from within: Saddam, who took over in Iraq in 1979 (the nationalistic Ba’ath party to which he belonged governed since 1968) and Qaddafi, who has been the de facto president of Libya since his coup d’état in 1969. There are other examples of change happening from within in the Arab world; in Sudan for instance, civil disobedience led to the toppling of despotic governments twice: October 21,1964 and April 6, 1985.  Those changes were violent and revolutionary, but never yielded a long lasting democracy; the new leaders’ oppression of their constituents was ruthless and unrelenting. Another politician who was inspired by Abdelnasser’s Pan-Arabism, but aspired to apply those ideas at the African level, and who believed in the idea of “change from within,” was Mehdi Ben Barka.   

In our pursuit of democratic reform in our Arab states, how much change are the governments willing to tolerate before recoiling to their erstwhile despotic selves?  

A “change from within” in Saddam’s Baathist regime was a laughable concept. Syria’s government, thanks to its horrendous secret service, is fairly impervious to internal dissent. Libya’s Popular Committees are an autocratic tool used for political repression. Political opposition is non-existent in the Gulf States. In Egypt, where the government is cracking down on political opposition – religious and secular, Mubarak seems intent on bequeathing power to his son. Jordan and Morocco’s democracies are masqueraded before Western nations while backstage tremendous pressure is exerted on political parties and the opposition is constantly discredited. There is not, nor has there ever been, a single democratic Arab government, ever. The Arab governments do allow, albeit reluctantly, a measure of change, but when that change challenges the very existence of the governing power, the deal is off.  

One of the principle tenets of democracy is the provision of a broader and more open debate to expose myths to scrutiny and extreme ideas to rebuttal. Within Arab countries, such a debate is weighed down by caveats. In Morocco, for instance, the Monarchy and the constitutional principles pertaining to it are not debatable even within the parliament; neither are trade policies, national security, and foreign affairs. Any representative of the people or government official is at risk of being removed, any political party dissolved and banned, any journalist imprisoned and fined. Autocratic Arab governments are challenged by democracy as it manifests itself through different forms. The internet and satellite TV, as vehicles of information, are considered a threat. In a flagrant violation of article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and article 32 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to information and freedom of expression, the Arab Ministers of Information convened in Cairo, Egypt, on February 12, 2008, and adopted a charter entitled “Principles for Organizing Satellite TV in the Arab World.” The charter, which was endorsed by all members of the Arab League except for Qatar and Lebanon, calls on the satellite TV broadcasting organizations to, among other things, desist criticizing “the leaders and national and religious symbols in the Arab World.” It urges the signatories to employ all measures in their national legislations to fully enforce its principles. This, in my opinion, should revive within the Arab nations the hoariest of political and intellectual debates.  

The autocratic Arab leaders, who expect the citizen to serve the ruler, justify such brazen encroachments of basic human rights and absolve themselves of responsibility by intensifying the national perception of internal and external threats that may not be, if at all real, as imminent. It is true that successive drought years, wars, and sanctions are serious social, political, and economic setbacks, but the inability to recover is solely the result of deleterious decisions and ostensible policies implemented by the leadership: pure and simple mismanagement and misallocation by corrupt politicians engaging in the conflation of business and politics at the detriment of the people.   

I believe that one of the greatest impediments to progress and democracy in the Arab world is the lack of accountability by the regimes. In fact, a 2002 Arab Development Report by the UN found that the lowest value for “voice and accountability” in the world is in the Arab countries. Throughout contemporary history, the Arab’s misfortunes were never the fault of the leadership, but rather consequences of divine ordinance, internal disloyalty, or foreign plots. Faced with their impotence to hold a failing incumbent to account and a stagnant and corrupt governments whose actions prove that their commitment to liberty and respect for the dignity of human beings is tapering Arabs  have turned toward Islamic radicals. In recent years, candidates associated with Islamic parties have achieved considerable success in parliamentary elections. It is a bad change, but a change nonetheless. The Islamic parties are no better; people understand that once an Islamic party is elected democratically, it will abuse the system to remain in power.      

The rise of Islamic militancy is an undeniable national security concern, but it is not a reason to curtail civil liberties, human rights, and stymie the democratic process. The Arab regimes are doing just that. They peddle to the U.S. and the European Union, which would rather scurry off for the illusory stability only an oppressive regime could provide, the jaundiced notion that the Islamist terrorist threat is a prime reason why the pursuit of political change should be indefinitely put on hold. The Western nations, by backing governments that never benefited from the blessing of their own people, are silent co-conspirators in the aggravation of the Arabs’ quandary.        

If the Moroccan government values its standing with the Moroccan people, its support for democratic reform ought to be unwavering, its openness to debate unrestricted. A functioning democracy requires more than just a free election; it is a framework within which an elected government can operate to serve its constituency while being protected from pressures by internal interests, be them ethnic, religious, or political, and external ones. We should be mindful that in a democracy, Islamist parties will be an integral part in the political dynamics, the extreme right will have its adherents, and that the liberal secularists will have their say. Cultural and social reformations have to be a priority. In a country where citizens are still struggling with the complex vicissitudes of their turbulent times, where inflation is persistent, unemployment rampant, illiteracy high, access to adequate housing and other productive resources restricted, human rights and civil liberties violated, and history whitewashed, a change from within unanswered from without will remain unattainable.

Ahmed T. B. Copyright © 2008