The Dawn of Democracy in the Middle East?

Shlomo Avineri Shlomo Avineri is a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and served as director-general of Israels Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the rst cabinet of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (197577). This article is adapted from his talk at the ICFR symposium dedicated to the memory of Dr. David Kimche on Perspectives on the Current Maelstrom in the Middle East, on March 22, 2011. David Kimche is one of the people with whom I would have liked to have consulted in these interesting times. It is quite sad to discuss developments in the Middle East when he is no longer with us but I am glad that his family is here this evening. Dave represented a whole generation of Israeli experts. For a long time he was the premier representative of the generation of the safrah veseifah [the scholar and gentleman], who was able to combine both a deep understanding of and empathy for the Arab world with a vast knowledge of international relations. Those elements are a rare combination. I am not an expert on the Middle East, and my eld is not really international relations, but political theory. That makes me doubly unqualied to speak about the subjectso that is exactly what I am going to do. Some of the experts on this region, not only in Israel, but all over the world, were not exactly prescient and did not foresee what was about to happen. I am fully cognizant of the fact that what I am suggesting here may not prove to be true in the future. Still, no matter how things turn out, it would behoove us to turn our attention to three major themes: First, I would like to examine the question of whether we can learn something from previous examples of democratization. Are they relevant to the question of democratization in the Arab world? Second, I would like to examine the relationship between Islam and democracy. Finally, I would like to offer some observations about regional distinctions that will affect possible future developments in the countries in this part of the world. Can we learn something from previous examples of democratization? One of the things that struck many of us about the 1990s was that that decade saw a universal wave of falling dictatorships of various kinds. It also witnessed the emergence

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of democracies, or the attempts to institutionalize and establish democracies all over the world, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe; the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Soviet Bloc; and the disappearance, at least in Europe, of Communist regimes. Then, of course, there were developments that were more complicated and from which it is more difcult to draw any sweeping conclusionsbut are no less signicant. Here I have in mind Latin America. Thirty years ago, most Latin American countries were military or personal dictatorships. This is no longer the case in practically all of Latin America. There was, of course, always one notable exceptionCosta Ricawhich was always very different; we know that. It was, is, and will continue to be a unique country in the region. But thirty years ago in other countries, the situation was rather less sanguine and one could hardly speak of any real democracy. Today we see a very different picture. And in subSaharan Africa, countries such as Nigeria went through revolutions that were complicated but led toward democratization. The same applied to countries in Southeast AsiaIndonesia and the Philippines. There was one area during the 1990s in which there was no movement toward democracyneither democratization from above through reforms, as was the case in the Soviet Union, nor from below, as was the case with popular movements. This was the Arab Middle East. At that time, many of us were asking why the Arab Middle East did not participate in what was an almost global transition toward democracy. There were no democratic reforms or pro-democracy demonstrations, no democratic revolutions or revolts. Now the situation is very different. For the rst time, there are developments toward democracy with democratic movements of varying hues in many Arab countries. And in countries such as Tunisia and Egypt (and we do not know whether it will happen elsewhere), for the rst time we are witnessing something that is a novelty in the Arab worldnot another putsch, or military coup, or another general becoming the head of a revolution, but genuine, democratic, popular demonstrations bringing down autocratic regimes. Tunisia and Egypt were autocratic regimes of a more benign sort, because there are others far more draconian. Still, no one denies that they were autocratic and not elected regimes. It is very important to make this point to those who say that in Arab countries there is no chance for democracy. In some Arab societies (Tunisia may be marginal but Egypt is very central), we have witnessed democratic demonstrations and movements that brought down autocratic regimes. The question is now whether bringing down an autocratic regime is sufcient for the development of democracy. The people who demonstrated, sometimes very courageously, in Tahrir Square

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in Cairo, and earlier in Tunisia, were sincere in their belief in, and desire for, democracy. The question is whether that is sufcient. Here I think one can learn something from developments in Central and Eastern Europe. In the 1990s, over a period of less than two years, all Communist regimes, in one way or another, disappeared or disintegrated. However, the Former Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact states started, more or less, with the same type of regime. There was a great difference, and everybody knew it, between the Soviet regimethe Communist regime in the Soviet Unionand those of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania, and Yugoslavia. They did have much in common: one-party state, state control of the economy, and state and party control over the means of communication and education. Looking at it today, more than twenty years later, it is clear that they developed along very different lines. Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and perhaps also Slovenia and Slovakia have successfully transformed themselves into multiparty, pluralistic, liberal democracies with a market economy. But Russia and Ukraine are different. In Russia we see a neo-absolutist regime. The democratic aspirations of the Yeltsin regime, which existed alongside rampant corruption and anarchy, still represented a genuine attempt at democratization. These have almost totally disappeared. Vladimir Putins regime is not a Soviet regime. It is not at all a totalitarian regime; it is an autocracy with a human face. It is a mild autocracy, but if you cross the government, you end up like jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky or other such people. That much is obvious. As for Ukraine, we still do not know whether it will end up as a Russian-style neoabsolutist state or as something more anarchic, the result of its inability to create a modern democratic nation state. And of course in the Central Asian republics, we see something that political scientists call sultanistic regimes. The rst secretaries of the Soviet-era Communist Party have taken control. That is the situation in Turkmenistan, for example, and in Uzbekistan. The former party leaders act as the sultans of those countries, which are basically one-party states. Why did these countries develop differently? All of them began with the same opening gambit, so to speak. All of them believed that once you do away with Communism there would be an open road to democracy and liberalism. The difference lies in the histories and institutions of each of these countries. In Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, there is historically some tradition of representative government. Czechoslovakia, in the inter-war period, had a relatively successful experience with representative government. Hungary and Poland, rather less so. Still, whatever their failings, Hungary and Poland did

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have representative institutions for centuries. They were aristocratic and not democratic but they were still representative. The chance of achieving a transition to democracy is greater in countries where you have a traditioneven if it is in need of revitalizationof civil society, individualism, and relative autonomy of the universities and of the economic sphere, etc. In a country such as Russia, there is little history of representation and no history of civil society. The churches were always subservient to the state, and universities were never autonomous. When those traditions do not exist, you end up with a neo-absolutist, neo-authoritarian regime. It is no accident that in Putins study there is only one picture of a historical gure on the wall, and that is of Peter the Great. If the Russians want to go back to historical traditions, they do not look to 1848, to representative assemblies, to civil societies. There is a history in Russia that is connected with modernization, but it is an autocratic modernization and it is the story of Peter the Great. Fast-forward to the Middle East. The question is whether in countries like Tunisia and Egypt, and perhaps other countries if they follow this route, there are sufcient elements of civil society in order to attain democracy. Do they have a multiparty tradition (that might have been subjugated by autocracy but still exists), and if there is a tradition of relative liberalism, individualism, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and respect for minorities, is it one that provides a foundation for democracy? Egypt, of course, is one of the examples where the answer would be yes. If there is any Arab country with that tradition, it is Egypt, which has a stronger civil society than do other Arab lands. Egypt has a secular tradition and a liberal constitutional history dating back to the 1920s and 30s, Though it did not exactly work like the Netherlands, it still has a tradition of some sort of representative government. Are those elements strong enough? I do not know. But the question is not whether everybody who talks to CNN at Tahrir Square says, Yes, I am for democracy. That is not enough. Are there enough political parties, beyond the network of the Muslim Brotherhood, the army, and the National Democratic Party, that can present real democratic liberal alternatives? I do not know. In Moscow, too, there are plenty of people who applauded when Boris Yeltsin stood up on a tank and called for democracy. The question is whether the institutions that do exist, be they political, intellectual, or economic, are strong enough to sustain democracy. Democracy does not start with a book. Democracy does not start with a constitution. Democracy is an outcome of many, many decades of civil society and

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liberal development. For example, during the French Revolution, when the people went up the hill and were able to liberate the Bastille, the immediate outcome was not democracy in France. The outcome was Jacobin terror, reaction, and the rise of Napoleon. In fact, France became a democratic republic only a hundred years later. It may not take a century in the Arab world, but there, too, the issue is that the fall of autocratic regimes does not mean that the immediate outcome is democracy. And therefore the jury, for me at least, is still out. We have all heard the assertion that Islam and democracy do not go together. There is some truth to that statement, but it is irrelevant. Do Catholicism and democracy go together? Until the 1870s, the Catholic Church viewed democracy as a product of the devil. The Rerum Novarum Encyclical and other documents state as much quite unambiguously. Therefore, to quote from the Quran, as people often do, or to quote church scriptures, means very little. I could also cite quotes in the same vein from the Hebrew Bible. Are these quotes the only thing that determines history? Catholicism has changed. In the nineteenth century, Catholicism was the worst enemy (except for absolutism) of democracy. Today, Christian democratic parties, mainly Catholic democratic parties, are the mainstay of Western European democracy, together with liberal and social democratic parties. This has happened because Catholicism has undergone some fundamental changes; those changes have not yet occurred in the Arab Islamic world. But will they occur? It is not impossible. Look at Indonesia. Look at Turkey, which, at the moment, is not exactly a very popular country in Israel. Nevertheless, I think we know one thing about Turkey: If the AKP loses in the next elections, it will return to the opposition benches. It plays by democratic rules despite the fact that some of us may not like some of the internal and foreign policies that it pursues. Now, is Islam, or are Islamic countries in the Arab world, capable of doing this? That is an interesting question that has not yet been answered. I think Islam in Arab countries is more complicated than Islam in Turkey or in Indonesia, because Islam in Arab countries is connected with Arab nationalism or with a secular interpretation of Islam. If you talk to Christian Arabs, they will say that for them, Mohammad, in whom they do not believe as a prophet, is still a harbinger of Arab nationalism. So in the consciousness of many modern Arab Muslims and Christians, there is a link between Islam and Arab nationalism, and this does not make democratization easier. Does it make it impossible? No. But to say that Islam and democracy do not go together is like saying that Catholicism and democracy do not go together. Therefore, I would suggest to those of us who have doubts about the possibility of Islam evolving into democracy that those doubts are legitimate. But to say that Islam and democracy are incompatible because we

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can quote some very unpleasant lines from the Quran is irrelevant. I would not quite call it racist, but it is not very nice, because truth to tell, the same can be said about Christianity, Judaism, and about practically every religion. If you believe in the sovereignty of Ribono Shel Olam, of the Almighty, you do not believe in the sovereignty of the human soul. But the great thing about religions is that they are able to overcome their less progressive ideas and they do change. Believers, be they Christians, Jews, or Muslims, hardly ever recognize that religion does have the ability to adapt to change. As some people in the Catholic Church say, we have survived the Roman Empire, we have survived feudalism, we have survived Communism, and we can also survive democracy and live with it. This is true, and one has to face it, irrespective of how one feels about this or that religion. Next we must discuss, even if only briey, what is likely to happen in specic Arab countries. One thing is clear: The developments in various Arab lands (if one includes Palestine, there are no less than twenty-two member states in the Arab League) will be different from each other. There may be similar developments and demonstrations. There are demonstrations in Syria. There were demonstrations in Libya. There are demonstrations in Yemen and Bahrain. But in each country the outcome of that activity, even if it brings down the existing regime, will be very different. If a major change takes place in Bahrain, it will not just be democratization; it will signal the ascendency of the Shiite majority after some 200 years of Sunni dynastic rule. That, of course, is very different than what is happening in Egypt. If things change in Yemenand events there are moving quicklyit is very likely that we are going to witness another military putsch and another general seizing power (he may even have the same name as the present dictator). But a military coup that draws its legitimacy or political power from a popular movement is not just a traditional military coup or a traditional military putsch. It has to take into account the support of the people. All of this is interesting to observe. None of us has any idea what will happen in Saudi Arabia but one thing is certain: It will be different from what occurred in Egypt. Of course there is a common threadthe Arabic language that is common to all of them. Beyond that there is Al Jazeera, the importance of which cannot be underestimated. It is the only pan-Arab reality, the only pan-Arab force because politically pan-Arabism has failed. Al Jazeera is creating a common discourse all across the Arabic-speaking world, all across the Arab world. Still, despite the commonalities, there will be great differences. And one should study the history and the specic relations within each country to understand them. To give one nal example, again, I do not know and I do not think anybody can predict what the nal outcome will be in Libya. But one scenario that could play out, one that is already rooted in the present situation, derives from the

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difference between the western and eastern parts of that country, or what is called Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. Those were very different regions under the Turks. They were very different even under the monarchy of King Idris. Those territories were united under Qadha and his ideology. But there may be a de facto split or perhaps something even more than that. Therefore, one has to look very carefully at the different situations. Last but not least, because it is our most important neighbor and in some sense the most important Arab country, I refer here to Egypt. The fact that there is a large Coptic Christian minority in that countrywhether it constitutes 10, 15, or even 20 percent, I do not know, probably nobody knowscannot be ignored. Irrespective of the precise gure, it is a signicant minority, and its presence will certainly have an impact on the fortunes of the Muslim Brotherhood and the opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, and the nature of any democratic liberal constitution in Egypt. To all of us who follow the events unfolding in the Arab world, I suggest that we rst endeavor to learn about the different outcomesthe successes and failures of the post-Communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe. I think we can apply the criteria of the existence of a civil society and traditions of representation to the Arab world as well. Second, Islam is not a priori a hindrance to democratic development, just as Christianity was not, despite the events of the nineteenth century, when Catholicism was intellectually the worst enemy of democracy. Third, whatever does happen in this part of the world, it is not going to be uniform. We are going to have to look very carefully at the developments in each and every Arab country, and this of course is something that our political leaders should also take into account.

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