The Other School of Economics

Listen to how we are responding to the Arab street’s scream for democracy

So the Egyptians did it. Hosni Mubarak became the second Arab dictator to be ousted in as many months. As the army takes over it is still too soon to know if a general in a suit has simply been replaced by a general in a uniform.

Europa and America in the commentary box

What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is the funny trick the Arab street has been playing on western brains. We have been lamenting for decades that Arab countries were not able to run proper democracies. And now that their people have decided to take matters in their own hands, our own governments and a large contingent of our opinion makers behave like Statler and Waldorf trashing and heckling the cast and script from their balcony seats.

One of the most bizarre wisecracks of the past months probably came from the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Michèle Alliot-Marie for sending teargas and offering riot police support to Tunisia’s Ben Ali a few weeks before he fled his country. Not to mention her great insight for spending holidays as a guest of the regime at the beginning of the civil unrest. However despite the outrageous nature of her gaffes that have annihilated her political credibility, anecdotes like hers are just distractions. Western contempt for the Arabs and their democratic aspirations has been revealed in much more subtle ways through the ambivalence of the semantics relayed by our media.

When the revolution spread to Egypt, it became difficult for European and US officials not to join in the popular chorus. They did it reluctantly, issuing ambiguous statements balancing ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’: “YES” we officially support the democratic popular aspiration of the Egyptian street, “BUT” it has to be an “orderly transition” happening “coherently”, “smoothly”, “peacefully” with “calm and restrain”. No to mention Israel which is plainly suggesting that this might not be the time for democracy in Egypt (thus allowing it to keep the title of “the only democracy in the Middle East”?) (1)

Closer to home columnists such as Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher are telling us that “uprisings have commonly led to disaster”. We are invited to take a critical view at “the French Revolution” and remember that it “took a long detour through the Terror before it led to liberal democracy”. Even worse, he also subtlety infers that this type of uprising is doomed to end up like in Iran where “one repressive regime replaced another”.

A significant back flip from our official narrative celebrating historical icons who stood-up against oppression. The message is pretty clear: being Spartacus or George Washington is not for everyone, especially not for the Arabs; and we will revisit facts and twist our own principles to deliver this message.

Indeed Peter Hartcher, “Long detour” is historically incorrect: the French Terror lasted from September 1793 to July 1794. 11 months in a revolution that went on throughout the entire 19th century.

A similar casuistry has been exhibited by Barack Obama who is breaking the promises made in his Cairo speech delivered in 2009 in which he explicitly said that

“the will of the people” is a principle brought to life by “each nation (..) in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election.” He also added that “No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power”

So why this sudden panic toward a regime change that should be a no-brainer?

The first way to look at it is political. Officially it is because of the fear that Islamic extremists will take over. The threat even has a name, the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been designated as the scarecrow meant to crystallize our deepest fears towards obscurantism and terrorism. This, despite counter-analyses such as the views expressed by former Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Amr Moussa to Le Monde this week. He acknowledges the agitation of western intellectuals and politicians who know little about the region and who “would be ready to sacrifice democracy in the name of the fear of religion”. He categorically believes that “the risk of an extremist take over in Egypt is unsubstantiated”, that the prevalent western analysis is wrong, and would lead to a political mistake.

The trouble is that our collective obsession with a perceived Arab obscurantism doesn’t go away. No wanting to pick on the US again, just have a look at the covers of two French magazines in the past weeks:

On the left, a Muslim woman with a veil and the title “the Islamist phantom”. On The right, a young Israeli female soldier adjusting her helmet next to the title “Israel facing the Arab awakening”. You get the not so subliminal message. Backward religious obscurantism vs modernity: pick your side.

The second reading of the events is historical and goes back to our colonial past. The West and Europe in particular, has never really swallowed that those former dominions obtained their independence. In a way, the authoritarian and sclerotic regimes than came out of the decolonisation process have been quietly perceived as the price they had to pay for their arrogant push towards freedom. The improbable dictators who landed in power offered convenient proxies to maintain a sort of post colonial status-quo. Those countries might have gained official political sovereignty but remained the backyards of their former masters who got a pretty good deal in a combination of political and economical outsourcing. Their assets such as the Suez Canal or Telecom call centers in Tunisia were being looked after, whilst they did not have to worry about policing the place.

What is now happening might be the final phase of the Arab decolonization process started in the 1960s. The final transfer of power from the old autocratic regime to the people on the street after an interim despotic phase. Just like during the French revolution when it took from Bonaparte’s 1799 coup d’état to the stabilization of the 3rd republic in 1879 for proper democracy to become the norm.

The third reading is a philosophical reflection on our “hatred of democracy” to paraphrase philosopher Jacques Rancière. An attitude by which “those who praise democracy, praise it only as a system of government attuned to the power of the free market. But they reject it as the power of anybody. Their democracy is an oligarchy that must be ruled by experts and protected against democracy viewed as either the rule of the mob or the empire of individualism.”(2).

Which leads to the current double discourse on democracy: democracy as a shield against all forms of tyranny and barbarism on the one hand. And, on the other hand, the kind of democracy that is simply annoying to political leaders, because of the very nature of the ‘democratic principle’ that infers that power could be exerted by those who have no specific predisposition to rule. The ‘nobodies’.

The Arab world is clearly having a 1989 moment but we don’t know if it will end up like 1989 Tiananmen Square, crushed by the army, or like 1989 Berlin, leading to regime change. Even more uncertain is the socio-economic model that will emerge: will we see a copycat of our free-market based western democracies, or will the unique Arab cultural environment invent a way we have not seen yet?

Wherever things go, one thing is pretty certain “orderly transition, stability, smooth, calm and restrain” was not the language used by George Washington in 1779 and to patronise the Arabs with it can only further damage our credibility in this part of the world.

{ leLaissezFaire & NKN }

He’s looking at you, kid