A pattern of accidents

By Salama A Salama

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Accidents happen, though some are not quite as random as they appear. And for some reason such accidents occur with a great frequency in the Middle East.

During the funeral of the Pope the Israeli president shook hands with both Syrian President Bashar Al- Assad and Iranian President Mohamed Khatami. Khatami denied it ever happened, Al-Assad did not. And both insisted that if the unsolicited handshake did take place it was devoid of political substance.

Following the tragic bombing in the vicinity of Al- Azhar the authorities announced that investigations indicated the bomber had acted alone. There was nothing, they said, to indicate that he was from some terrorist organisation or that this marked the beginning of a new wave of terrorism in Egypt.

The only connection between the two events is that in both cases officials want to persuade public opinion, at home and abroad, that there are no conclusions to be drawn from the incidents and that we should just put them behind us as though they never happened.

That would be convenient to believe. Unfortunately most people do not view such incidents as occurring in a vacuum. They seek connections between events and the wider picture and as far as the wider picture is concerned, in this region, one could do worse than consult the third Arab Human Development Report (AHDR).

It could not have painted a bleaker picture of the current state of the Arab world. Its forecast on the progress of reform was grim, for the region "lacks the social environment conducive to modernisation and development and to the steady pursuit of the historic path that will enable us to assume our proper place in a new world". Nor, according to the report, is the problem limited to "the sluggishness of the reform process out of concern for safeguarding the current interests" of the Arab world. Ruling elites in Arab countries lack a sense of direction and frequently pursue conflicting policies. The report went on to caution that should present conditions -- characterised by the inability to foster development combined with domestic oppression and foreign intervention -- persist, especially in the absence of peaceful mechanisms for fighting injustices, some individuals will resort to violent protest.

It is no coincidence that on the day of the Al-Azhar bomb the news carried a report on protests by the families of those detained following the Taba bombings. Egypt has become a pressure cooker in which emergency laws, ostensibly only to be used to combat drugs and terrorism, have contributed to turning up the heat.

The AHDR called for the abolition of all states of emergency in the Arab world. It appealed for an end to ethnic and gender discrimination, institutionalised guarantees of judicial autonomy and comprehensive legislative reform to ensure Arab laws conform with international human rights instruments. That these appeals should appear in an international report comes as no surprise. The pressure spot syndrome applies to most Arab countries: flawed political systems render them vulnerable to outside pressures, weakening the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes that then compensate by presenting themselves as the final bulwark against fundamentalist despotism.

If that unmentionable shaking of hands between the Israeli president and the presidents of Syria and Iran broke with convention Syrian and Iranian reactions revealed just how fragile some Middle Eastern regimes are. The slightest ruse, even a handshake that was perhaps forced upon them like the furtive hand of a pickpocket in the midst of the commotion of a funeral in Rome, sets them on the defensive.

In the absence of reform the Arab world faces a nightmare. Some disasters will be accidental, others deliberate. Some will be brought on by the actions of ruling elites and others by outside forces keen to exploit the fragility of Arab regimes. The explosions we have heard and are likely to hear again from time to time are not freak, one-off incidents. Their roots are deep. It's just that no one wants to see them.