Modernising the Arabs
Ayman El-Amir* searches long and hard for a silver lining to the Middle East Partnership Initiative
As the world's supreme political power, the United States has to be listened to when it speaks. It has recently spoken with authority about reconfiguring, modernising and democratising the Middle East. The "US- Middle East Partnership Initiative" is a reform package that was recently unveiled by Secretary of State Colin Powell in a speech at the Heritage Foundation. It can be safely assumed that the Middle East here is a reference to the Arab world, and probably Iran, since Israel is already an acknowledged democracy, albeit with an exclusionary, racist ideology. The new initiative lays out an action plan for addressing the political, social, economic and educational woes that have long stymied the progress of the Arab world. By presenting the package, Secretary Powell has stirred many fervent Arab yearnings and abiding misgivings.
There is little argument with the dismal picture that Secretary Powell has painted of the prevailing conditions in the Arab world, as a prelude to his reform recipe. Everything he identified, from political repression to the exclusion of women, is documented by the highly credible Arab Human Development Report, which was compiled by respected Arab scholars and published by the United Nations in July. The findings of the report came as no surprise to the average individual in the Arab world, who has no problem with the diagnosis. The difficulty rests with the US prescription, the treatment and, in the perception of Mainstreet Arabia, the credibility of the attending physician. What is new about Secretary Powell's initiative is that it is articulated in the name of US national interest. It "places the US firmly on the side of change, of reform and of a modern future in the Middle East", he said. One can only view this with mixed feelings.
The lessons of 9/11 have dictated a US re- assessment of policy and practice. A sobering analysis of the tragic events of that day have traced back its root-causes to a strand of terrorism that has been spawned by a combination of repressive political culture, economic exclusion, denial of basic human rights and an extremist religious doctrine, which promotes jihad and martyrdom. The analysis has also gingerly acknowledged that the brutality of Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands was a consideration that warranted US intervention. The Bush administration, it will be recalled, had originally kept the Palestinian-Israeli conflict at arm's length, leaving the Palestinian resistance at the mercy of the Israeli occupation forces.
The three main pillars of the initiative targeting the Arab world are designed to bridge the freedom gap, to give private and public sector the lead in implementing economic reform and to advance the education process by working with parents and educators. The partnership initiative is further sweetened by $29 million in funding that will come in addition to the $1 billion in total US annual assistance to the Arab region.
Powell's partnership initiative sounds at first like a dream come true. With the political, economic and cultural overhaul of the Arab world long overdue, it could help pave the way towards genuine reform that decades of national struggle against despotic and corrupt governments have failed to achieve. But it is also an uphill struggle, with inherent drawbacks.
For one thing, the US has a poor track record of spreading democracy beyond its shores. The US's time-honoured nurturing and support of brutal dictators across the world, from Latin America to Asia, Africa and the Middle East, has belied its advocacy of democratic ideals. In pursuing economic and strategic interests in the Middle East, the US has historically shown enduring tolerance for repressive regimes and massive violation of human rights -- including women's rights. The US has consistently bred autocracy -- not democracy.
US intentions have always been suspect in the Arab world, primarily because of its unbridled support of continued Israeli occupation, hostility and defiance of the very international law that it purports to hold Iraq to. Israeli right-wing fundamentalism is the Achilles heel of US policy in the Middle East. A most recent example is the fact that the drafting and adoption of the much-touted US roadmap for the settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is held hostage by the stall tactics and general intransigence of Ariel Sharon. The Israeli prime minister is believed to exercise inordinate influence over the steering of the Bush administration's Middle East policy. Secondly, the US is using some Gulf Arab countries as front-line bases in preparation for war against Iraq. This does not go down well with mainstream Arab public opinion, even though Secretary Powell has praised Bahrain and Qatar, which host huge US military bases, as "rays of hope in the Middle East". Unlike 1991, there is no consensus among Arabs, nor is there an international coalition for a war against Iraq, despite relentless US pressure to put one together.
The major challenge to Powell's partnership initiative will probably come from familiar sources. The endeavour is likely to encounter deft and subtle resistance from seemingly co-operative allies who are well-versed in autocratic governing practices, or from closed societies that have long defied change in the name of safeguarding traditional values. His emphasis is placed on working with civil society and free media institutions. "Too many governments", he said, "curb the institutions of civil society as a threat, rather than welcome them as a basis for free, dynamic and hopeful society." He knows that there are limitations as to how far he can jump over the heads of entrenched governments that control their populations with an iron fist. Will the carrot and stick approach then be adopted?
The most that can be hoped for from Secretary Powell's partnership initiative is that it might act as a stimulus for a home-grown, open national dialogue that would take stock of the lessons of the past and chart a course for a better future. The last time this was attempted was in 1962 when the late Gamal Abdel- Nasser convened the National Congress of Popular Forces that adopted the National Charter. Unfortunately, this massive gathering produced little more than a mandate for cult-of-personality autocratic rule. The Powell initiative has the difficult choice between acting as a catalyst for modernising the Arabs, or ending up much like the 18th century missionary- colonialist conquest under the cover of civilising the pagans.
* The writer is a former correspondent for Al-Ahram in Washington, DC. He also served as director of United Nations Radio and Television in New York .
