If 2011 was the sunrise of the Arab Spring, 2012 might very well be the third time the snooze button has been violently slammed in an attempt to not leave a very comfortable dream. Before the Arab Spring's day will be over, many years will have passed, but those that we have seen so far have created more questions than anyone could ever have anticipated. Recent events in Egypt and the ongoing civil war in Syria have not just asked questions about what democracy would look like in an Islamic setting, but also what democracy means for sectarian struggles in each specific country. Regardless of what you make of these bits of news, one thing is certain; democracy does not come naturally to the Middle East.
There is a special distinction to be made here. Democracy does not come naturally to the Middle East, not the people of the Middle East. It seems odd to think that genetics have anything to do with understanding the concept of Democracy. What instead might have something to say about how well Democracy sticks is the culture that gives way to it. Democracy cannot be considered just a form of government or a heavy ideal. It is, for better or worse, a culture in its own right, always at odds with the state of the current level of Conservatism that roots itself in mainly socio-religious camps. Historically Democracy has always followed this path. The very start of Democracy in ancient Athens was a fight between the conveniently named Democrats who wanted to maintain a democracy and Conservatives who wanted to maintain an oligarchy that supported the status quo. It should not come as a surprise that this is still the way in which Democracy is practiced in parts of the world that have adopted it and for the most part strive to perfect the idea.
But to get from Athens to Venice to Cromwellian England to the United States and supposedly to the United Nations, you need several hundreds of years to, putting it lightly, work out some kinks. Concerns regarding who could vote, who could work, who could learn, who could own property, and even who could be considered to be a human being were all questions that society at one point answered at the very slow pace of generational turnover. Needless to say the secular portion of Democracy was not built overnight. The important thing to remember is that it was indeed built, and today's Democracy is not only more flexible in its approach to modern issues of inclusiveness, but it is without a doubt the moving force rather than the reactionary force it once was. Conservatism is still its foil, but it is no longer its oppressive parent.
That being said, this is a very narrow and concise view of Democracy as it transgressed in the Western World. It is enough though to draw sharp comparisons between the history of the Western World and that of the Islamic World in order to explain why Democracy is having such a troubled and violent period of integration in the latter.
For one, there has never been an expansion of popular rights in traditionally Islamic countries. This has for a long time been wrongly attributed to the "Islamic" portion of that particular phrase when instead the emphasis should have been on the "countries" portion. The greatest changes in the way people saw rights and entitlement to social benefits (to be completely cautious, social benefits here does not connote modern social benefits such as retirement security, healthcare, etc., but instead to benefit from a functioning society through complete access to services and goods as citizens) came about between the Renaissance and the First World War. In this time Western cultures established the precedent and procedures for extending rights of citizenship and humanity to demographics that lacked them.
At the same time, the Muslim world was really one world; the Ottoman Empire. Because of its relative power, its internal stability, and half-baked tolerance, there was very little reason for anyone to think of expanding political rights and inclusion. Because the situation for many was just "good enough" for so long, there was no emphasis that mirrored the truly terrible conditions of feudalism and its social remnants that lingered into the age of mercantilism in Europe. The Ottoman millet system allowed for major religions to have their own space within the Ottoman empire, something European states struggled for a long time to achieve. Although Jews and Christians were considered lesser than their Muslim counterparts, they were still subject to their own religious laws and could carry out their cultures without significant if any interference (so long as they remained loyal subjects of course). The major point to begotten out of this is the following; the Ottoman tolerance was enough to stifle any calls for more tolerance, but its lack of updating caused it to slowly become more draconian in nature when put up against European suffrage movements.
The greater part of the 20th century continues the same motif of the state not being conducive to changing of social tendencies if you look at what happened after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. While civil rights were being sorted in the United States, European powers were slowly but surely returning their Middle Eastern play-things to the global toy-box. The only problem was who do you put in charge of colonies that you are abandoning? De facto dictators seemed to be their best bet in most places. These dictators however were not state-builders, they were status-quo maintainers (if there is such a thing). Because of this, sectarian issues that European powers neglected when drawing the lines were never planned to be resolved. Instead, the ruling class normally made it a point to establish itself as the indisputable leader not out of religious fervor but instead to simply remain in power often not for the sake of being in power but instead for the sake of being alive.
Fast forward to just before the Arab Spring, you found yourself with countries formerly under Ottoman rule, currently under dictatorships, and with stagnation at the middle to lower class level. Essentially, you found yourself with countries that had an outdated understanding of tolerance, ruled by those hellbent on maintaining the status quo supporting a cultural struggle that had it not been for an error in judgement would have never happened. Of course rage had to have been the most appropriate answer given the lack of a system of governmental turnover. But the changes in the Middle East were not made to secularize the countries involved, they were made to expand the number of people who could benefit under the current socio-political system.
The Arab Spring was never about instituting Democracy over-night, instead it was made to retake resources, both tangible and not, from the few political elite who had them and disperse them to traditional family leaders of the more powerful cultural castes. There were more banners calling for respect of the "people" than banners calling for an expansion of who can be considered "people". The reason is not that Muslim majorities cannot possibly be tolerant; there are almost infinite cases of this in countries outside the Middle East. Instead it is because there is no cultural history shared among any of the people living in these states that points to an expansion of tolerance, only the maintaining of whatever tolerance is already in play. Without this history, the whole idea of secularization simply escapes most of the people in the Middle East, citizens and leaders included, making the prospect of true democratization much further away than it was anticipated.
There is a special distinction to be made here. Democracy does not come naturally to the Middle East, not the people of the Middle East. It seems odd to think that genetics have anything to do with understanding the concept of Democracy. What instead might have something to say about how well Democracy sticks is the culture that gives way to it. Democracy cannot be considered just a form of government or a heavy ideal. It is, for better or worse, a culture in its own right, always at odds with the state of the current level of Conservatism that roots itself in mainly socio-religious camps. Historically Democracy has always followed this path. The very start of Democracy in ancient Athens was a fight between the conveniently named Democrats who wanted to maintain a democracy and Conservatives who wanted to maintain an oligarchy that supported the status quo. It should not come as a surprise that this is still the way in which Democracy is practiced in parts of the world that have adopted it and for the most part strive to perfect the idea.
But to get from Athens to Venice to Cromwellian England to the United States and supposedly to the United Nations, you need several hundreds of years to, putting it lightly, work out some kinks. Concerns regarding who could vote, who could work, who could learn, who could own property, and even who could be considered to be a human being were all questions that society at one point answered at the very slow pace of generational turnover. Needless to say the secular portion of Democracy was not built overnight. The important thing to remember is that it was indeed built, and today's Democracy is not only more flexible in its approach to modern issues of inclusiveness, but it is without a doubt the moving force rather than the reactionary force it once was. Conservatism is still its foil, but it is no longer its oppressive parent.
That being said, this is a very narrow and concise view of Democracy as it transgressed in the Western World. It is enough though to draw sharp comparisons between the history of the Western World and that of the Islamic World in order to explain why Democracy is having such a troubled and violent period of integration in the latter.
For one, there has never been an expansion of popular rights in traditionally Islamic countries. This has for a long time been wrongly attributed to the "Islamic" portion of that particular phrase when instead the emphasis should have been on the "countries" portion. The greatest changes in the way people saw rights and entitlement to social benefits (to be completely cautious, social benefits here does not connote modern social benefits such as retirement security, healthcare, etc., but instead to benefit from a functioning society through complete access to services and goods as citizens) came about between the Renaissance and the First World War. In this time Western cultures established the precedent and procedures for extending rights of citizenship and humanity to demographics that lacked them.
At the same time, the Muslim world was really one world; the Ottoman Empire. Because of its relative power, its internal stability, and half-baked tolerance, there was very little reason for anyone to think of expanding political rights and inclusion. Because the situation for many was just "good enough" for so long, there was no emphasis that mirrored the truly terrible conditions of feudalism and its social remnants that lingered into the age of mercantilism in Europe. The Ottoman millet system allowed for major religions to have their own space within the Ottoman empire, something European states struggled for a long time to achieve. Although Jews and Christians were considered lesser than their Muslim counterparts, they were still subject to their own religious laws and could carry out their cultures without significant if any interference (so long as they remained loyal subjects of course). The major point to begotten out of this is the following; the Ottoman tolerance was enough to stifle any calls for more tolerance, but its lack of updating caused it to slowly become more draconian in nature when put up against European suffrage movements.
The greater part of the 20th century continues the same motif of the state not being conducive to changing of social tendencies if you look at what happened after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. While civil rights were being sorted in the United States, European powers were slowly but surely returning their Middle Eastern play-things to the global toy-box. The only problem was who do you put in charge of colonies that you are abandoning? De facto dictators seemed to be their best bet in most places. These dictators however were not state-builders, they were status-quo maintainers (if there is such a thing). Because of this, sectarian issues that European powers neglected when drawing the lines were never planned to be resolved. Instead, the ruling class normally made it a point to establish itself as the indisputable leader not out of religious fervor but instead to simply remain in power often not for the sake of being in power but instead for the sake of being alive.
Fast forward to just before the Arab Spring, you found yourself with countries formerly under Ottoman rule, currently under dictatorships, and with stagnation at the middle to lower class level. Essentially, you found yourself with countries that had an outdated understanding of tolerance, ruled by those hellbent on maintaining the status quo supporting a cultural struggle that had it not been for an error in judgement would have never happened. Of course rage had to have been the most appropriate answer given the lack of a system of governmental turnover. But the changes in the Middle East were not made to secularize the countries involved, they were made to expand the number of people who could benefit under the current socio-political system.
The Arab Spring was never about instituting Democracy over-night, instead it was made to retake resources, both tangible and not, from the few political elite who had them and disperse them to traditional family leaders of the more powerful cultural castes. There were more banners calling for respect of the "people" than banners calling for an expansion of who can be considered "people". The reason is not that Muslim majorities cannot possibly be tolerant; there are almost infinite cases of this in countries outside the Middle East. Instead it is because there is no cultural history shared among any of the people living in these states that points to an expansion of tolerance, only the maintaining of whatever tolerance is already in play. Without this history, the whole idea of secularization simply escapes most of the people in the Middle East, citizens and leaders included, making the prospect of true democratization much further away than it was anticipated.
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2 comments:
While you argue that the "Arab Spring" was never about instituting democracy "over night", I would argue that it was never about instituting democracy in any robust sense whatsoever in those countries that experienced, or are experiencing, it. Recognition of the majority? Certainly, but without the centerpiece of Western democratic institutions that is the protection of minority rights. This is why the Muslim Brotherhood's constitutional referendum in Egypt, which is likely to pass even against significant protest by minority religious groups and secularists, does not include provisions for protections of minority rights, neither protections of non-Muslim (and in particular Sunni) religious expression or enumerating the legal equality of women.
I'm a committed believer that in most cases countries should be able to decide for themselves what type of government they have, which is the government, one could argue, that the people deserve (with some obvious exceptions). However, the US came out early in support of the Arab Spring in many countries, and provided arms, material support, and personnel and technical support, in some cases. The problem with doing so is the US's own history of meddling in the internal affairs of other countries to negative effect. We should allow those countries to endure their own convulsions concomitant to their growing process. What comes out of it will be what the people of that country, or at least a majority, for better or worse, want. We should be less willing to intervene, even to lend moral support, to a process whose outcomes we're likely to find very immoral.
Jake, when we talk about this being something "overnight" we have to look at what the hope was for the region rather than what it actually was. There was a hope that finally the Middle East was going to jump on the democratic bandwagon and then that didn't seem to happen. All I'm trying to say here is that whatever democratic institution (minority rights, popularism, civil rights etc.) was not part of the history of the Middle East because of the weight the Ottoman empire had on the people themselves. As far as outcomes, you never know if the outcome will be immoral even if the odds look in that favor. If you think about it, the US should have remained a slavery-enforced nation by the looks of the way the constitution was written but it didn't end up that way (albeit after some time). Intervention simply needs to be done with proper intelligence. For instance today the US recognized al Nusra as a terrorist organization because of its ties to Iraqi al qaeda which is really helpful if you want to know who to avoid giving weapons to. Regardless, I really want to point out that there needs to be more internal struggles in the Middle East (struggles meaning coming to terms with these moral issues of democracy) before democracy can really be considered in the conversation.
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