European View (2011) 10:6772 DOI 10.

1007/s12290-011-0172-4 ARTICLE

The Arab Spring: whats in it for us?

Roland Freudenstein

Published online: 3 June 2011 Centre for European Studies 2011

Abstract The wave of protest movements and revolts spreading in the Middle East and North Africa presents the EU and the US with a unique opportunity: to help create a freer and more stable environment in the South and Southeast. A joint strategic approach with the US, a reformed and enhanced ENP with serious conditionality and a renewed emphasis on trade and migration policy, and a greatly enhanced effort to help build civil societies and democratic party structures are the decisive ingredients of a response to the Arab Spring that is based on our core values. Keywords Arab Spring Middle East North Africa Democracy promotion European Neighbourhood Policy Transformation Civil society Migration Muslim Brotherhood

The only certainty about the political tsunami sweeping the Middle East and North Africa is that virtually nothing will be as it was before 2011. Everything else is a developing situation that shows an increasingly diversified picture. So far, the new protest movements and revolts have resulted in successful regime change in Tunisia and Egypt. In other regimes, they have led to some reforms whose effects remain to be seen. They have led to civil war in Libya and potentially Syria, and have destabilised a number of autocratic regimes in Yemen, Bahrain and potentially a host of other countries such as Jordan, Morocco, even Saudi Arabia. They have created new strategic situations for Iran,
R. Freudenstein (&) Centre for European Studies, 20 Rue du Commerce, 1000 Brussels, Belgium e-mail: rfreudenstein@thinkingeurope.eu

123

68

Turkey and Israel, and may have a decisive influence on the ArabIsraeli peace process. But above all, the protest movements and revolts that are now collectively known as the Arab Spring present Europe and the US with a unique opportunity: to help spread freedom and democracy, and in a context in which hundreds of millions of Arabs can reach their full potential at last. If successful, this Arab Spring will greatly stabilise the southern and southeastern neighbourhood of the EU. For the moment, however, that is only one potential development. The region may just as well go through a period of protracted instability, violence and war, and the refugee crisis may well be exacerbated. The issue for the European Union and its Member States is therefore twofold: first, we have to understand exactly what is happening in the Middle East and North Africa; and, second, we have to debate what our reaction should beboth on the level of the EU and state governments, and on the level of political parties and NGOs.

Understanding the Arab Spring Europeand the entire West, for that mattercertainly bet on the wrong horse by propping up (or, at least, not fighting) dictators and autocrats in most countries of the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. We essentially accepted the rhetoric of the regions strongmen, according to which the alternative to authoritarian rule was either chaos or Islamism and jihadismand that a continuation of the status quo was the only guarantee to seeing the Wests interests at least partially served. This notion was sometimes based on a culturalist assumption, implying that culture and tradition in the MENA region were not suited to building democratic societies and states based on the rule of law. It is also true that there were many voices arguing the contrary, and even criticising Western governments for not reaching out to opposition movements in the Middle Eastern autocracieswhether Islamist or secular liberal. But for most of the past half century, realpolitik prevailed. The protests and revolts of recent months have proven the culturalist assumption wrong. And the realpolitik approach had to be quickly discarded, literally in a matter of days, during the dramatic demise of the Mubarak regime in Egypt in January and early February 2011. The new reality of Egypt and Tunisia was that popular protest in these countries was about to achieve regime change. The roots of the protest are a combination of demographic, socio-economic and political factors: an unprecedented number of young people faced with stagnant, corrupt and repressive regimes, but also confronted with dismal prospects for their own economic future, decided to risk everything for the chance of a better life. Their knowledge of the rest of the world, the presence of media like Al-Jazeera and Internet-based social platforms like Facebook and YouTube, but also the initial clumsiness and aggression of the incumbent regimesall these turned out to be accelerating factors. What is important to notice is that the role of Islamist movements in these revolts was and is very

European View

69

limited. The Arab Spring does not belong to them, but its results may yet come to strengthen their role. Understandably, in the West there was and still is a strong temptation to fit an unfamiliar and unexpected situation into a familiar frame of reference, and draw parallels to seminal moments of upheaval and transformation in history: 1989 (in Central and Eastern Europe), 1968 (in Western Europe), even reaching back to 1848 (the Spring of Nations), or, on a more sinister note, 1979 (the Iranian revolution that began as a broad coalition and ended up in brutal theocracy) or 1917 (the Bolsheviks grabbing power in a situation of general chaos). All of these parallels only give us part of the picture. One decisive factor that does not appear in most of these parallel situations but that may turn out to be very relevant in the MENA context is the question of the role of religion in state and society. It is very well possible that a central paradigm of the transformations following the Arab Spring is the religious secular divide, in other words, the conflict between Islamism, which (with all due respect to local complexities) demands a role for one particular religion in state structures and legislation, and the secular liberals (for want of a better term), who want to see a clear separation of state structures from Islamic frameworks. Another important factor will be socio-economic development. If prospects of poverty and unemployment were a main driver of the revolts, then for the transformation to succeed, the MENA economies will have to generate economic growth of completely unprecedented dimensions in the upcoming years. The revolts immediate implications for international security are obvious in Libya, where an initially reluctant West decided to intervene on behalf of the rebels, in view of the possibility of a civilian massacre and a decisive blow to the aspirations of the Arab Spring as a whole. An end to the intervention without the departure of Muammar Qaddafi could still have this effect. On the other hand, bringing about Qaddafis demise by forcing him from power, one way or the other, would be a boost to the bright side of the new Middle East, in the hopes that whatever rebel or unity government follows would have to be an improvement on the Qaddafi regime. But in the long run, the effects on the IsraeliPalestinian situation may be even more dramatic. The Palestinian unity government between Fatah and Hamas, triggered by both sides loss of crucial support (that of Mubarak for Fatah, and Bashar al-Assad for Hamas) and brokered by the new Egyptian government, complicates Israels strategic position, particularly in face of the imminent Palestinian declaration of statehood planned for September 2011. Equally dangerous for Israel is the possibility of Egypt and maybe even Jordan abrogating their peace treaties with Israel: not an imminent prospect, but clearly possible in the medium future. The same is true concerning the (for the moment) enhanced position of Iran, which itself seems to be calm after some initial opposition activity in February that was brutally suppressed. A stronger Iran means more support for terrorist movements across the region. Turkey seemed to have gained much from the Arab Spring initially and was even considered a potential model for the region, as a secular democracy in a Muslim society and with moderate Islamists in power. But the open-ended Syrian

123

70

situation, with the prospect of waves of refugees having a highly destabilising effect on Turkeys southern border, has forced the Turkish government to modify its one-sided stance (condemnation of pro-Western autocrats, silence on Syria and Iran).

Towards a Western answer The West undoubtedly has an important role to play in all this. The fact that Western governments committed grave mistakes in the past, befriended autocrats and neglected civil society cannot mean that we now disengage or provide help without making choices based on our core values of human rights, pluralist democracy and the rule of law. It is the triumph of these values in the Arab Spring that should give us confidence, next to the undeniable necessity to critically examine our past strategies. First and foremost, any European policy towards the MENA region should be closely coordinated with the United States. Both Europe and the US are in this together, and have much to gain from a concerted approach on the government level and on the level of NGOs and civil society. The EU now has two decades of experience in supporting transitions from authoritarian regimes to market democracies. One important factor will be the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). There is a consensus that the ENP is the decisive instrument with which to address the changes brought by the Arab Spring. There is also a consensus that the ENP will have to be fundamentally reformed, with clearer commitments to conditionality, a more strategic approach to trade relations and an enhanced civil society dimension. Regarding conditionality, the EUs experience in the Mediterranean suggests that from now on, the nexus between cooperation and palpable improvements on human rights and the rule of law will have to be taken seriously. This is easier said than done, especially because there will inevitably be situations in which the now more democratically legitimate governments in the MENA region are faced with what they perceive as tougher conditions on them than on their undemocratic predecessors. But if we want to restore credibility, there is no alternative to more stringent conditionality. Another point of internal debate in the EU is the already visible jostling between the southern and the eastern Member States about priorities within the ENP: while the Mediterranean countries of the EU, especially in view of the unfolding refugee crisis, want to prioritise the southern dimension of the ENP, the new Member States of Central and Eastern Europe want to hold on to its eastern dimension in the guise of the Eastern Partnership. To be fair, the two dimensions have never been comparable in their respective financial size, with the southern one always comprising a multiple of the eastern one. But there is more to preserving a sound balance between the two priorities. Ultimately, they concern the same strategic issue: promoting human rights, the rule of law, multiparty democracy and good governance in the countries close to usin the knowledge that the lack of these factors automatically leads to dangers for the

European View

71

EU itselfin terms of refugees, organised crime, loss of trade, extending to terrorism and the risk of military conflict. In this sense, the support of democrats and democratic structures must be the goal across the entire ENP. Moreover, the EU Member States in Central and Eastern Europe can play a decisive role in reforming and strengthening the EUs initial assistance to the transformation processes in the MENA region: these countries now have two decades of experience in managing successful transitions from dictatorship to democracy, and from central planning to market economies (with all due respect to different ideological and economic circumstances). Their political parties and NGOs should be active supporters of the transitions in the new Middle East. This concerns central issues such as drafting constitutions, reforming the judiciary, forming political parties and fighting corruption, up to the thorny issue of how to come to terms with the crimes committed by the old regimes and with their perpetrators, including the police and the secret services. Trade will be another field in which there is ample room for improvement in the ENP. It is admittedly easy to say that the EU must now open its markets in agriculture and services, only in order to provide part of the prospective growth for the MENA countries that may make the Arab Spring economically viable. These openings are arguably indispensable, and on top of that they offer considerable prospects of growth within the EU itself. Nevertheless, as soon as concrete removals of trade barriers are discussed, particular interest groups from producers to trade unions are bound to see their interests threatened, and they will react. It will not be easy to argue strategy, faced with such protest. But it will be unavoidable. Finally, a new and better visa and immigration policy has to be part and parcel of a new strategic approach towards our southern neighbours. This issue transcends the ENP and reaches far into the Justice and Home Affairs field of EU policy. But it has to be solved, by efforts to encourage circular migration and by a greatly liberalised approach to visas for students, researchers and business people. Above all, this presupposes a common visa and immigration policy for the EUotherwise, the Schengen achievements are in jeopardy, as we see now.

Rising to the challenge while sticking to our values As much as there is a need for serious conditionality on the government level, there will also be a need to prioritiseand to make hard choiceson the level of civil society, NGOs, political parties and their foundations. Of course, and especially in view of the mistakes of Western policy in the MENA region in past decades, this is the time to listen. Western politicians visiting the region should not rule out contact with any organisation except those of terrorists. And this is not the time to distinguish between good and evil among the emerging democratic forces. But just like in any other region of the world, it is as legitimate as it is necessary for Europes political party families to distinguish between our friends and their respective competitors in the developing political landscapes.

123

72

Here, it does matter whether a given party or political organisation shares central values with us or not. It is unlikely that any European party family will count the Muslim Brotherhood and its spinoffs among its friends in this sense, no matter how emphatically they may forswear violence (while still counting Hamas among their ranks and condemning the killing of Osama bin Laden) or embrace the democratic process (while still insisting upon the sharia as the source of secular legislation, and demanding a veto by the clergy over any laws passed by parliament). That is unequivocally true for the EPP family. Instead, it looks more reasonable to seek friends and partners among the more secularly oriented movements and parties, and, at least in the case of Egypt, also to cooperate with the political party affiliated with the strong minority of Coptic Christians. For these organisations, an intense programme of exchange, internships, training courses, campaign consulting and assistance in building sustainable structures should be developed. A joint strategic approach with the US, a reformed and enhanced ENP with serious conditionality and a renewed emphasis on trade and migration policy, and a greatly enhanced effort to help build civil societies and democratic party structures: these are the decisive ingredients of a response to the Arab Spring that is based on our central values: human rights, the rule of law, pluralist democracy and good governancevalues that are not Western but universal, even if they were first formulated in the West.

Roland Freudenstein is Deputy Director and Head of Research in the Centre for European Studies.