Two years ago, to the surprise of many, I took a position of “cautious optimism” when the Arab masses surged into the streets, Tunis to Cairo, and Benghazi to Damascus and Sanaa. The dominant “political” analysis of these events, which explained them primarily by domestic factors, has proven to be a major error and every passing day confirms—unfortunately—the accuracy of my first assessment. Now, seen in the harsh light of pervasive internal tensions, the “Arab revolutions” have stalled; the regional “spring” is little more than an illusion. More time will have to pass, of course; the outcome cannot be predicted. But one thing is clear: the entire MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region has never been so weak, so vulnerable and so destabilized in the last thirty years. Political instability is reflected in the crisis of national economies ravaged by corruption, debt, unemployment and pauperization. What does the future hold for the Mid-East? What will become of its peoples; what will be the fate of the Palestinians?
Egypt is in the throes of a profound crisis; the situation is critical. To neutralize the power of the armed forces and the judiciary, which prevented him applying his policies, and even thrown his own status into doubt by calling for new elections, President Mohamed Morsi preemptively assumed “temporary” powers that curiously recall former President Mubarak’s singular prerogatives. True enough; the opposition parties, combined with institutional interference at every level, had made governing all but impossible. We will soon see whether the president’s measures are indeed “temporary,” and designed to speed up the democratic transition, or a return to dictatorship. Whatever the outcome, Egypt appears fragile, with little room to maneuver. In medical terms, the country is in intensive care, its survival at stake, its economy asphyxiated, unable to produce a vision for the future.
Tunisia is little different. Hopes for freedom, and for an intelligent alliance of open-minded secularists and reformist Islamists, had been high. But the blows dealt by hard-line, and even extremist factions, have hit hard. Racing against the clock, the government gambled and lost; all indicators point to its defeat in the event of early elections. Popular impatience is understandable, but it may well open the door to populists on both sides. Secular fundamentalists, like the literalist Salafis and the Jihadists, are doing everything they can to destabilize the government, destabilizing the entire country as they do. The government twists and turns with every shift in the ideological wind. No single force is capable of devising an economic and social policy that would ease the crisis.
While Tunisia depends on handouts, Libya is torn by clan and tribal strife; only its oil industry has been secured for the greater benefit of American, French and British interests. A brutal conflict wracks Syria; mass demonstrations in Jordan shake the power of the monarchy. Yemen is at a dead-end, while Lebanon is dangerously divided and Iran has been weakened by international sanctions.
International political alliances are now analyzed through the prism of the Sunnite-Shiite rift. What was once the “Arab spring” is now a season of endemic weakness compounded by political instability, an absence of economic vision, the inability of regional actors to work together, sectarian divisions. The road to democracy is strewn with obstacles, pitfalls and new dependence. And at the heart of the Mid-East, Israel continues to act with impunity, solves its internal political crises by attacking Gaza, and reaps the benefits by accepting a truce concluded under Egyptian auspices. On the ground, its opponents’ weakness allows it to play for time and to continue the slow colonization of Jerusalem and parts of the Occupied Territories. The cynical recognition of a new, curious status for Palestine at the United Nations (a “non-member” and an “observer” (of its own disappearance?) adds a note of hypocrisy and humiliation to a modern-day tragedy. The Arab false spring is a Palestinian winter, as Israel clearly reaps the short-term benefit.
Today’s period of transition is a time of heightened risks, and of sharp contradictions. Time is needed, but time is lacking. A dynamic joint regional architecture must replace national—and nationalist—policies. The multiple crises that envelop the MENA countries generate internal division. Only a policy of reconciliation and greater unity among political parties, political actors and economic agents can lift the regional countries out of their current chaos and instability.
The peoples must be alert, analytically and democratically. Populist movements are gaining strength, forcing emotional, hasty, binary and often blind reactions. Political and religious leaders, intellectuals and students, women (in the heart of their legitimate struggles) as well as ordinary citizens bear a heavy responsibility. They must become the masters of their fate. If democratization is to mean anything at all, it must be in terms of freedom and responsibility. Time has come to stop blaming the West, the neighboring countries, and the “powers” for the crises they continue to suffer.
The Great Powers undoubtedly played a role bin the uprisings; they continue to wield great influence, and have not stopped promoting their interests, dictatorships or not, democracy or not. Engaged as they are in a painful transition, the MENA countries must now face their destiny. But beyond the strategic planning of the Great Powers—both the Western countries and the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China)—these countries have a historic opportunity to take their destinies in hand; to a new regional balance of power, new ways of handling the religious reference. They can profit the emerging multi-polar economic order to celebrate cultural and artistic creativity, and take seriously the welfare and the superior interests of their peoples.
Where to ? With a true process of liberation, an intellectual and psychological revolution that must first overcome the obsession with Western approval, as if, once liberated, these countries must still seek legitimacy and tolerance. In today’s world order, the MENA countries must put forward cogent policy alternatives, must blaze new trails. If the democratization of the MENA countries were only a matter of imitation, a simple reproduction of the crises of the Western democracies, then the future would be dark indeed. There will be hope if the Africans and the Arabs reconcile themselves with the genius of their history, their memories, their religious and cultural references, their language, and their singularity. The point is not to be loved, or accepted at whatever cost; the point is, finally, to exist—on their terms.
