January 14, 2015
Two things happened in Paris and Khartoum this
week that portend bad times ahead for the Arab region and for relations between
Arab and Muslim-majority countries, on the one hand, and American- and
European-led countries, on the other hand. The more dramatic development was
the massive solidarity march in Paris to uphold values like freedom of press
and expression and condemn the two terror attacks in Paris by four radicalized,
socially alienated French citizens who had joined militant Islamist networks
like Al-Qaeda and ISIS. The second, and in the longer term the more significant
development, was the announcement that Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir
has submitted his candidacy to be re-elected for another five-year term in
elections set for April 13.
These two developments capture two of the three
main reasons that have seen many parts of the Arab region become sinkholes of
political violence, extremism, sectarianism and state fragmentation or collapse
— most frightfully captured in the ISIS phenomenon and the threats it poses in
the region and abroad. These two phenomena are the control of Arab state power
structures by military establishments at the service of individuals or
families, and the militarized interventions in the Middle East by predominantly
Western powers (alongside parallel military or diplomatic interventions by
powers like Russia, China, Iran and Turkey). The third cause of chronic stress,
waste, militarism and national incoherence is the long-running Arab-Israeli
conflict, which only had faint echoes in Paris.
If we were to identify a single foundational
reason for the problems and instabilities of the Arab world, it must be the
continuing legacy of mostly incompetent military officers who seize control of
governments and remain as presidents for life. This process hollows out the
indigenous governance systems of competent personnel and replaces them with
mediocre friends and cousins of the great leader; redirects security systems to
domestic control rather than protecting the nation; promotes corruption that
ultimately translates into socio-economic stagnation and massive disparities;
and creates conditions of conflict and dependence on foreign powers that
ultimately create the opportunities for those powers to intervene at will in
the region, including attacking and removing regimes that are identified as
undesirable.
This is why the single most important priority
across our region is to figure out how to make the transition from this kind of
top-heavy autocratic power structure to more democratic and participatory
governance systems that tap the creativity, commitment and energy of all
citizens. Indirectly, the terrorism in Paris by radicalized young French
Muslims includes causal factors that touch on Western armies’ actions in the
Middle East (especially Iraq) and the growth of cult-like criminal groups like
ISIS whose birth and growth were incubated in the repression and jails of Arab
dictatorships.
So this week’s focus in Paris on fighting
“Islamic terror and extremism” or other enemies with similar names with a
combination of police actions and appeals to “moderate Muslims” to take more
vigorous cultural-religious measures to reduce youth radicalism is likely only
to intensity existing stresses and further alienate youth who are potential
recruits to radical groups. This is because Western governments continue to
work closely with Arab and other foreign states whose autocratic policies
contributed to the birth of the radicalism now being targeted by the West,
meaning the grassroots drivers of terrorism in the Middle East will remain
unchanged.
Also, the excessive Western focus on religion in
this equation, rather than addressing the more significant socio-economic and
political forces that transform slightly directionless young men and women into
hardened killers, is likely to aggravate the existing divide that plagues all
concerned. This divide is also deepened by developments such as Omar Hassan
Bashir’s announcement that he will perpetuate his presidency that started when
he seized power in a military coup in 1989 — a quarter of a century ago.
This is only the second presidential “election”
in Sudan since then, and perpetuates the farce and illusion of popular
participation in choosing the government in societies across our region. The
most farcical case was the recent recurring re-election of Algerian President
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who is so ill that he never appears in public and
essentially fronts for the military’s control of power in that country since
the 1960s.
So this has been a bad week in the continuing
saga of an Arab world in search for decency, democracy and development, which
remain elusive despite the proven thirst for these things across the region.
The Arab autocracies in part cement themselves by serving the Western tendency
to use militarism as the main way to fight terror, which we have witnessed
again this week, alongside other dictators like Bashir who ignore the West and
single-handedly perpetuate their own incumbency at home by fighting and
destroying any credible opposition.
Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly in
the Daily Star. He was
founding director and now senior policy fellow of the Issam Fares Institute for
Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.
On Twitter: @ramikhouri.
Copyright ©2015 Rami G. Khouri -- distributed by
Agence Global