It's Arab and It's Personal

The Arab revolution puts regional and international
powers on notice as it pushes for the removal of
autocrats.

Marwan Bishara 
Last Modified: 12 Apr 2011 15:52
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/04/2011412113321225761.html

The Arab revolution is on the march, and there is no
turning back.

Sweeping transformation is coming - sooner rather than
later - but, just as Arabs realise change is a must and
are making it happen with much fanfare, their regimes
and many world leaders don't seem to get the message.

Americans, Europeans and Israelis - like Turks and
Iranians, as well as Russians and Chinese, or even
Brazilian leaders - are yet to internalise the dramatic
transformations in the Arab region and change their
policies accordingly.

They're either playing catch up, hedging their bets or
are terribly indifferent to the spirit and magnitude of
change at play among the Arabs.

Some of the world's powerful capitals might find it
easier, safer even, to continue to deal with those Arab
autocrats they've dealt with over the last several
decades. And yes, it's easier to manipulate dictators,
bribe their technocrats, or for example, sell them
useless expensive weapons.

But must long term European, African and Chinese
'national interest' come at the expense of Arab rights
and progress?

Whatever they do - or don't do - is bound to affect
their interests in the region for long time to come.

Dictators and friends

Clearly foreign leaders are approaching the Arab
revolution from the perspective of their national
interest, however they define their mission, or
whichever way that might translate into reality.

So that after much hesitation and double dealing, the
Obama administration seems to have adopted an ad hoc,
country-by-country approach that weighs the merits,
benefits and liabilities of change in any given
country.

And hence Washington remains uncertain about radical
democratic changes in Egypt, pushes for regime change
in Libya, procrastinates in Syria, takes a late and
weak stand on Yemen's wobbly 33-year regime, and
embraces the autocratic regime in Bahrain.

The same could be said of Europe's leading powers,
albeit with few nuances here and there, as in the case
of Germany that has avoided military involvement in
Libya and is indifferent to the uprising in Bahrain.

Western sceptics and hyper-realists reckon that change
isn't necessarily better than the status quo; that
Islamists might be gaining momentum; and argue for a
'better the devil you know than the one you don't'
approach.

Considering it's been easy for Western powers to make
clients out of autocrats and do good business with
dictators, they are probably worried that the newly
elected, accountable and transparent governments might
be more resistant to their pressures and dictates. As
they should.

Either way, the overzealous French president Sarkozy
and the hyper British prime minister Cameron, are quite
eager to force their way back to the Arab region from
the Libyan gate with a hope of re-dividing it into
areas of influence in light of the relative US
strategic downsizing under president Obama.

What Arabs?

For their part, the three non-Arab regional powers -
Turkey, Iran and Israel - who've long competed over
influence in a divided and torn Arab landscape, have
been caught off-guard by the breathtaking upheavals in
the neighbourhood.

This is especially the case considering that over the
last few years, all three have exploited the deep
divisions in the Arab world that followed the Gulf war
in order to advance their national interests and even
assert their hegemony in the Arab world.

Since the revolution started, Israel, for example, has
lobbied Washington to keep Mubarak in power and asked
for billions to shield itself from 'the Arab spring'.
Tehran has made out of Bahrain's Shia majority its
cause célèbre, and Turkey has hedged its bets on Libya
and supported the Syrian regime's stability as part of
its new strategic sphere of influence.

That's not to equate Ankara's attempt to improve its
diplomatic interests whilst advancing its economic and
strategic interests, with Israel's belligerent attempts
at intimidation through two wars against the
Palestinians and the Lebanese, or with Tehran's
attempts to champion pan-Arab causes internationally
while at times pushing for sectarian agendas
regionally.

Because of their proximity to the Arab world, these
three regional powers are bound to be affected by the
new Arab strategic configuration in a greater way than
the distant West. And that's why they're expected to
change their strategic calculus accordingly.

So far however, they've pursued an ad hoc and case-by-
case narrow approach, similar to that of the Western
powers that doesn't, or wouldn't like to, see the Arab
world emerging as a bullish new force on the regional
or world stage.

Why democracy?

Needless to say, the Russian and Chinese silence has
been deafening. Since they abstained at the UN Security
Council on Libya's resolution 1973, Moscow and Beijing
have buried their heads in the sand.

The Chinese leadership would prefer it if the whole
Arab revolution 'challenge' went away or resolved
itself sooner rather than later. In fact, Beijing has
censored news of the Arab revolution in Egypt and
elsewhere, probably for fear that its population might
get the wrong, or rather the right, idea.

It's perhaps no coincidence that the Arab revolution
has come against the backdrop of the international
economic crisis, and therefore seems to reject both
models at hand: the neo-Liberal 'Washington Consensus'
or the predictable autocratic 'Beijing Consensus' that
seemed to gain currency since.

And then there's the African Union leaders and envoys
who've sadly tried this week to revive the dying Libyan
regime by advancing an initiative that foresees keeping
Gaddafi and family in power or in the political
landscape of a future Libya!

Like the rest of the Arab world, Libya is in dire need
not for stability but for change. Not for mending
fences with its 40 year old dictatorship, but for
removing the dictator and its dictatorship.

Alas, some of these African leaders probably feel like
they owe Gaddafi for the support Libya lent them in
previous years or would rather limit Western military
intervention in their continent, but that should in no
way blind them for doing the right thing by the Libyan
people.

Missing the point

It's basically business as usual for many of these
foreign leaders, and establishments, who've grown used
to treating the Arabs piecemeal.

Lacking a strategic outlook, not to say the imagination
to envisage a transformed Arab region, they insist on
more of the same narrow geopolitical approach to a new
Arab awakening that holds the promise to bring about a
more peaceful, more prosperous, and more constructive
player in regional and global affairs.

Alas, complications, setbacks and contrasts among
various uprisings in the Arab region are providing Arab
leaders with the alibi to insist that they're
"different" and that what applies to their Arab
neighbours doesn't apply to them. It also gives
justification for foreign powers to pursue more-of-the-
same cynical zero-sum policies towards the Arab region.

That's why eventually, it's up to the Arab revolution
to put regional and international powers on notice as
it pushes for the removal of Arab autocrats.

Fortunately, Western and international public opinion
is very supportive of the Arab revolution, certainly
more than their leaders.

The strength of the Arab revolutionaries lies not only
in their defiance of dictatorship - impressive as that
is - but in their cross-regional unity that pushes for
change.

Their power lies in the fact and reality that their
revolution is Arab in its scope, Arab in its identity
and pan-Arab in its geography.

Whatever happens in one Arab country ends up effecting
what happens in another, such as the Arab domino
effect. As the Yemeni and Libyan regimes fall, as they
must, the Arab revolution will once again gain momentum
and global recognition as it did after changes in Egypt
and Tunisia.

Meanwhile, it's going to be indispensable for Arab
revolutionaries to unify their slogans and goals across
the region. Their pursuit for justice, human rights,
freedom of expression, and freedom from want is one and
the same, and must be underlined in every street and
every public square and chat room.

Eventually, the transformations blowing through the
region will touch every child and adult, effect every
family and neighbourhood, rewrite school books and
reinvent the human landscape in the entire region.

And above all, it will end peoples' fear, and decades
of oppression.

Remember, the revolution is Arab. And it's personal.

---

Marwan Bishara is Al Jazeera's senior political analyst.

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