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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 June 2000 Issue No. 486 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 June 2000 Issue No. 486
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Hereditary succession in a republic
By Diaa Rashwan *
The appointment of Hafez Al-Assad's son to succeed his father as president of the Syrian Arab Republic raises many questions, not least those relating to the establishment of a precedent whereby a president's eldest son succeeds his father, something that is happening for the first time in the Arab region.
At first glance, the succession manifests itself as a source of contradictions on two levels, if not more. First of all, any republican system is built on a complex of principles and rules which by necessity are opposed to the idea of the inheritance of power. Historically speaking, republicanism has uprooted the practice of inherited succession. The second contradiction has to do with the conceptual and political nature of the Syrian system. This system is based on an ideology of Arab nationalism and socialism, the quintessential doctrines of the Baath. The party has continuously raised its famous banner of unity, freedom and socialism. It has always identified itself as a modern revolutionary party, has always opposed the systems of hereditary monarchies.
Such contradictions are compounded when one examines the qualifications of Dr Bashar and his background. An ophthalmologist by training, he lacks both the political experience and the background that might have diluted the contradictions mentioned above.
Conceding that the criticisms levelled at Bashar's succession are justified, and that the succession threatens to become a dangerous precedent for Syria and other Arab countries, it becomes necessary to take a deeper look at the situation.
Why, one might ask, has the situation arisen whereby a son succeeds his father to the presidency of a republic? The answer to the question must be sought at various levels, within Syria and, more generally, within the Arab region as a whole. On the more general level the Syrian succession relates to the crisis of institutions in the region, and a crisis of legitimacy. The Arab world has consistently failed to forge sufficiently credible institutions on which to base its governments and regimes, the result being a lack of stability in terms of legislation and actual practice.
Institution building in Arab countries over the last 50 years has been a dismal failure, and Syria is no exception. Institutional responsibility for the training of younger generations, equipping them to assume public office at the lowest or highest levels, has been abandoned, if indeed it was ever embraced. Rather than encouraging the systematic formation of an educated young generation, and then providing it with access to the ranks of the ruling elite, institutions have acted to prevent such mobility. Strategic positions are monopolised by an old guard, an ageing and out of touch generation whose interests have never encompassed anyone beyond their inner circle of kin.
Institutions came themselves to acquire legitimacy by a total submission and allegiance to the elite while Arab regimes have depended to an excessive degree on security organs to sustain their political systems and protect themselves against their political enemies, consolidating their various interests in the name of "stability." And with the adoption of free market policies and appendant corruption, personal interests, social disintegration and disruption in class structures, Arab countries have become ever more dependent on security organs to ensure stability -- ie perpetuate their rule.
The state, and its security apparatus, rapidly developed its relations with the emerging new class of businessmen in the Arab world, an alliance which is currently steering the affairs in Arab countries. The sad reality is that in the new map of the region, there is no marked difference between Arab countries in this respect, although they may differ in the nature of their political systems and ideological claims. It can even be argued that the deterioration was faster and more acute in countries which describe themselves as democratic or liberal. Institutional failure also manifested itself in the failure to build new sources of legitimacy, let alone maintain old ones. With few exceptions political systems have been characterised by the erosion or total loss of the legitimacy, a fact that has placed new burdens on the state, its security apparatus and its new allies, the business class, in maintaining "stability."
Three factors have combined to aggravate the crisis of legitimacy. Most Arab economies have faltered in their adoption of free trade, a process completed by globalisim and its concomitant agreements and organisations, by the fall in the prices of raw materials on which many Arab countries depend, and by endemic corruption. Some Arab regimes, which had persisted in drawing their legitimacy from one source, their position on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian question, found their position undermined by the peace process, while the death of several leaders who had ruled their countries for many years and who practically embodied the only source of "stability" further aggravated problems of legitimacy.
This crisis of legitimacy has been sharpened by inadequate political performance on the domestic level. The space for freedom of thought and expression has been consistently restricted and basic political rights have been regularly denied to an extent it is difficult to believe could be feasible at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries.
The legitimacy of Arab regimes has been further challenged by the forces of the Islamist movement which emerged at the end of the 1970s and rapidly flourished over the past two decades. Postulating Islam -- in various forms -- as the only source for the legitimacy of societies and regimes has had a far-reaching destabilising effect on an already shaky legitimacy. The violent confrontations between the regimes and the Islamist movement has had a strong impact not only on the stability of the regimes but on perceptions of their legitimacy.
The question of the succession in Syria must be viewed within this overall Arab context of institutional and legitimacy crises. What is happening in Syria today in terms of succession might be flagrantly in contradiction with the model of a republic and the ideology of the Baath but remains in perfect conformity with the overall conditions in the Arab world.
Yet the succession of Bashar to the presidency in Syria takes place in the only Arab country that still remains occupied following the 1967 war. The Palestinian question, at the root of the Arab-Israeli conflict, in which Syria is deeply involved, has not been settled yet.
Bashar, then, will have to address the same crises that have plagued the Arab world for the last fifty years: institution building and legitimacy. The new president will probably build his legitimacy on a relentless stand on the return of Syrian territory, continuing the approach of his father. Yet he will still have to engineer internal policy in a manner that will build legitimacy, which means building coherent institutions of state. Only then will stability, in any real sense, be achieved.
* The writer is an expert at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
