Arabian Knights Where Are They Headed?

February 17, 2011 by Team SAI Filed under Analysis 1 Comment

The Arab World In our post The Egyptian Intrigue we had presented the historical perspective of the winds of change sweeping the Arab World. The Egyptian fire is spreading across this world amidst speculation that Egypt was a coup by the military Regime and not a revolution. This could be a western perception management gimmick but what holds true is the fact that unlike Tunisia, Egypt has fallen into the lap of the military. Six months is a very short time for democratic institutions to take shape in Egypt and our prophecy that in all probabilities it may take more than a decade to transform Egypt to a true democracy seems to be coming true. The unrest that now sweeps across the Arab World was articulated last month in our post, The Arab Future, with ramifications of Tahrir square replicating themselves across the Arab countries tired of autocratic rule of Petro rich Sheikhs and dictators. Our assumption that this fire will engulf the region was borne out of the fact that the rich poor divide in these otherwise rich countries was too wide for comfort. The truth that now unravels as Bahrain, Algeria, Yemen and Libya show strong signs of upheaval the Egyptian way. However at the time of writing this report 5 people had been killed in Bahrain and 14 across various cities in Libya. They somehow have not received the kind of military support that was forthcoming in Egypt. Primarily because in Egypt the military was the regime in more ways than one. Removing Mubarak was least of their problems they did not want Gamar Mubarak to head an otherwise military dominated regime. Its not just that the protests are now fanning out across north Africa and the Middle East: to Yemen, Algeria, Jordan, Iran, Libya and now Bahrain home of the US navys fifth fleet. In Egypt itself, as in Tunisia, where the uprisings began, pressure for more far-reaching change is if anything growing, as setpiece street demonstrations have morphed into a wave of strikes. Middle East expert Dr Sreeram Chaulia says a new wave of democracy is coming in the Arab world.

It looks to be a new wave in the making because democracy often happens in successive waves over a small period of time. You find a number of countries falling like dominoes towards a particular regime type. Samuel Huntington called this The Three Waves, he said. I believe we are on the precipice of another wave that might remake geopolitical and internal arrangements of politics within states across the Arab world. As for the forms of government that the Arab countries may end up with, Dr Sreeram Chaulia says Turkeys model is probably the best. I think the Turkish model is quite interesting because Turkey has managed to marry radical Islam with forms of western democracy, and I think it is a genuine model to aspire to for Egypt, Tunisia, perhaps even Jordan, Yemen, and others like Libya, he said. The Turkish example is a modernizing one, but at the same time does not give up traditional social values and keeps the social base and the political structure in some kind of harmony. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with has an ancient cultural heritage. Turkey is an independent Turkic state which has become increasingly integrated with the West through membership in organizations such as the Council of Europe, NATO,OECD, OSCE and the G-20 major economies. Its Eurasian location made it possible for Atatrk to model it as a blend of European and Islamic cultures. This does not hold true of the Arab world in Africa and Asia. This may relegate the Turkish options for the now revolting Arab countries to follow, including Egypt. Their neighbourhood is largely monarchies based on an Islamist edifice with tough neighbourhoods. Turkey is what it is today because Atatrk and his followers chose to balance religion and politics based on a European model. To argue that this can happen in other Arab countries would be putting it too simplistically. In Egypt, where the military has temporarily replaced the government, strikes are gaining force.
Its going to be the army that decides which way the country goes. It was the same with Sadat, same with Mubarak,says Middle East analyst Neil Lazarus. Then there is this interesting take on the ongoing revolutions in Arab countries George Bush did not invade.

Sabah al-Mukhtar, the president of the Arab Lawyers Association in the UK, explains that all these protests throughout the region do not have to have a common coordination center because people of the region have a uniting factor that sent them to the streets: The unifying factor is that all of them have had enough of tyranny, enough of dictatorship, enough of subservience to the West. The governments there have all been so subservient to the West that this goes against the will of the people of that region, not because there is any particular alienation, except that, generally speaking, the national interests of the West are contradictory to the national interests of the peoples of the region,

The Arabs have a problem with Israel, they have a problem with the Americans, they have a problem with capitalism. And this is a unifying factor,. The assertion that Egypt will provide the beacon for the Arab world may not be entirely right. Egyptian Armys confirmation that it would not field a candidate for elections to the President is well taken as apparently they would love to follow the Pakistan model as argued in our earlier post, Will the Military Save Egypt?. However if it chooses the Turkish model, US economic and military aid would have a lot to do with it and American Think Tanks are already rooting for massive investments in Egypt in the education sector hoping this would placate the Egyptians and benifit the West more than any other sop now.