Issue No. 606
Opinion
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3 - 9 October 2002 Issue No. 606 Opinion |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
The intricacies of idealism
America has dug up a lot of idealist rhetoric and is sending it, with troops, to the Middle East. Will any good come of it, asks Hala Mustafa*
America, post-11 September, is not the same. For years, if not decades, to come, this date will stand out as a landmark in US foreign policy. The Cold War era with all its paraphernalia -- the containment of communism, encircling the Soviet bloc, are gone forever. America has found a new calling, that of fighting terror and extremism, of promoting democracy and human rights, we are told. This is the packaging within which US policies will be wrapped in the near future.
Since Al-Qa'eda was implicated in 11 September attacks the US administration has made it clear that its future battle is one against extremism, and what it terms "enemies of democracy". This is not an accidental term. A year after the war on Afghanistan a new US strategy is taking shape. Washington is opting for confrontation, for pre-emptive wars, having ditched the Cold War tactics of deterrence and containment. So much was clear in George W Bush's speech to the UN General Assembly on 12 September, as well as in articles he placed in major US papers on the anniversary of the 11 September attacks.
America's new political lingo is assuming ideological, indeed missionary, tones. America is now a superpower with a mission. It will, we are told, bring civilisation, freedom, and righteousness to the world, if necessary, at gunpoint. Little wonder that the abridged lexicon of US politicians is leaning heavily towards such dualities as good and evil, the civilised and the enemies of civilisation, tragedy and hope. This resurgent idealism is reminiscent of Woodrow Wilson's 14 principles following World War I, and indeed of US political vocabulary following World War II. This type of language, it seems, emerges at times when the US wants to rearrange the world around it. Right now the Middle East is the prime target of newfound US missionary zeal.
Since 11 September the Middle East has been in the spotlight as the region that provided Al-Qa'eda with militants and the home to prominent members of the so- called "axis of evil": Iran, Iraq, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hizbullah. What remains to be seen is whether America's new slogans involve any real understanding of the region.
The Middle East is a complicated land. It is home to three major religions and dozens of sacred sites. It is the site of one of the longest-running and bloodiest regional conflicts in the world. It is hard to see how the region could be rearranged, reformed, and democratised without this conflict being settled in a credible and lasting manner. There is also the added complication of local-versus-Western sensitivities, which draw upon a well of historic grievances. Progress in this region was often held back by people who confuse what is modern with what is Western (read, unwanted). And as icing on the cake there are a host of ethnic and tribal divisions in Middle East societies that decades of modernisation have failed to banish.
Afghanistan was not a lone case. There are several countries in the region that have trouble keeping law and order within their own borders due to their weak political and social fabric. The region is home to many countries, some bordering on modernity and some retaining much of their tribal structures. The resulting gap between modernity and tradition, and the attendant lack of homogeneity, is hardly conducive to stability. Militant violence, which emerged in one form or another over the past three decades, did not make things any easier.
Reform and modernisation is a local, not a foreign, quest. And it is not impossible. However, for the reasons mentioned above, questions such as democratic reform may require special handling. Democratic transition, one should recall, did not occur smoothly in what are now advanced Western societies. The process of democratic transition, furthermore, cannot be judged by a single criterion, nor does it always proceed at a steady pace or in one direction. Democratic transition has its successes and its failures. Besides, periodic elections are not the only, or best, way of judging democratic transition. A far more important criterion, I believe, is the quality of the local culture and its tolerance of the principles of individual and civic freedoms, the rights of women and of free expression included.
Since the mid-1970s there has been a drive towards democratisation worldwide, but what did it achieve? The so-called third democratic wave marked the end of dictatorship in many countries. It also gave birth to something less than democracy, a grey area, so to speak. The same thing happened with attempts to introduce fully-fledged market economies. Somewhere along the road the wagon slowed down, and difficult hurdles had to be recognised. The host of hurdles encountered, in the course of modernisation efforts, is varied, but the cultural ones deserve particular attention.
The democratic culture of the West did not evolve in a vacuum but against a backdrop of intellectual liberalism, legal supremacy, secularism and civic rights. Asian and African countries trying to follow in the footsteps of the West could trip over, and did, whenever one or more, of the above elements was absent. Civil societies come in various shapes and forms. Some are conventional, some more modern, but all will have to be taken seriously by reformers.
Cultural constraints, in a nutshell, will largely decide the course of modernisation. Attempts can be made at Western-style liberalisation but their success will depend on these constraints. For the time being Middle East societies need a wider range of infused modernity; cultural, social, and institutional. This is an involved task, and far more intricate than the mere introduction of ballot boxes.
* The writer is the chief editor of the monthly journal Al-Dimoqratiya (Democracy), issued by Al-Ahram.
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