The Saudi-led counter-revolution
 Oraib al-Rantawi

For decades, the Arab region was in a state of regression and helplessness, until a series of uprisings and revolutions erupted early this year. To date, these have resulted in toppling two regimes, Egypt and Tunisia, and threatening three, Libya, Yemen and Syria, with a similar destiny. Other regimes have felt obliged to initiate various degrees of reform: Jordan, Morocco, Oman, UAE, Kuwait, Algeria, and Bahrain. This is one of the most sweeping changes witnessed by the Arab world since the age of renaissance and enlightenment some 100 years ago.

In fact, events taking place in several Arab countries can be seen as a delayed phase of that renaissance and enlightenment age that began late in the Ottoman era. According to this concept, that age was interrupted during the new colonial era when the World War I victors divided up the inheritance of the "sick man of Europe" based on the Sykes-Picot and San Remo agreements. That was followed by the creation of the state of Israel in fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration, the Palestinian Nakba of 1948, then a series of military coups against ruling regimes accused of being accomplices of the West.

The images were electrifying as hundreds of thousands of Tunisians and Egyptians took to the streets to overthrow their dictators after decades of repression. With protests soon following in other countries in the Arab world, commentators took to the airwaves pontificating about the reasons for the uprisings. The high youth unemployment rate was blamed, as was the general state of the respective economies and--of course--corruption. The pontificators conveniently ignored the elephant in the room: that the "stability" of the Middle East (largely for Israel's benefit) came at the expense of freedom for the Arab people.

One by one, governments in the Arab world took notice and began the process of trying to quash dissent or silence its coverage. Even the current Palestinian leadership appeared to respond. It began with the government's resignation. Naturally, a Facebook account soon followed in order to attract supporters and to give the impression of an unelected government listening to domestic concerns. The apex soon followed: after a series of protests nonsensically aimed at "forming" rather than "toppling" a government, Fateh and Hamas proudly announced that they were "reconciling" because of the "protests."

"We heard your concerns," proclaimed one Fateh member.

That was more than two months ago and, despite the warm talk of "reconciliation" the factions remain divided, unable to agree on absurdities such as who will "govern" Palestinian bantustans conveniently known as "Area A".

But if the protests were aimed at ending internal division, why then two months after the proud declaration and five months after the government's resignation, are there no more protests demanding reconciliation and accountability? Why does the Palestinian leadership feel so at ease in being unresponsive? (Even the Facebook page is only updated with pictures.)

Perhaps it is because the pressure that was initially exerted on these dictators has waned alongside waning coverage by the mainstream international media and selective coverage by Arabic satellite stations. Perhaps it is because talk of "statehood" and "recognition" and "UN membership" has replaced talk of "reconciliation."

But perhaps the answer is still deeper: we are unmotivated because we don't want to see another government that is simply going to maintain "control" over our lives, turning our country into what many human rights activists call a "police state" (with the irony of it not being a state at all) in order to collect more donor money. We don't want to return to a failed negotiations process or turn into the same type of outsourced (and now toppled) regime that provides Israel with "security" at the expense of our freedom. No, Palestinians want more. We want freedom from a system that, for six decades, has served to oppress us, turn us into refugees into our own homeland and privileged one group at our expense. It is not a new government that will "govern" us that we are after, but a new strategy that will liberate us. This explains the lack of "spring" in Palestine.

Israel may be feeling a bit of comfort. It believes that the Arab spring has largely dodged it. And its immunity has raised its audacity. With no western government prepared to condemn Israel--it is, after all, an election year in the United States--Israel increasingly reveals its racism. New laws criminalizing boycotts emerge, old racist laws remain, more settlements get constructed and demands that Israel be recognized as a "Jewish state" increase; the list goes on.

But while some countries are either too intimidated to condemn Israel and other entities, such as Greece and the airline companies, are prepared to be used to carry out Israel's deeds, public opinion is no longer on Israel's side. And with this, Israel will soon see that the Arab spring has not ended, it has only just begun. No longer will Arab governments be able to repress democratic domestic demands for the sake of maintaining "control" (though they will continue to try) and soon, others will not remain silent in the face of Israel's apartheid. It may not be in the spring, or even in the fall, but our season is fast approaching. -Published 14/7/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org

Diana Buttu is a Palestinian human rights lawyer and former legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team.

The suddenness and speed with which popular protests dispatched President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt were breathtaking. The sense that the whole Arab world was in the grip of a revolution was exhilarating and governments everywhere scrambled to find the appropriate response.

Because the protesters who came onto the streets in Tunisia and Egypt--soon followed by others in Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco and Libya--called for liberty, dignity and democracy, it was impossible for western governments to oppose their demands. The slogans of the Arab demonstrators resonated with the very values that Europeans and Americans claim to uphold.

In Washington, London, Paris and Rome the political leaderships rallied to back the cause of reform. Much to the irritation of Saudi Arabia, Washington called on Mubarak to step down. Appalled by the bloodthirsty rhetoric of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and sons, cleared for action by the United Nations and encouraged by a nod from the Arab League, Britain and France mobilized to save the rebellious citizens of Benghazi from a massacre.

But then the momentum stalled. Saudi troops deployed to defend the embattled government of Bahrain. The Gulf monarchies also tried to intervene in Yemen, with a formula for compromise designed to avert civil war. The king of Jordan changed his cabinet and promised reforms--but not for the first time and not immediately. And western governments began to change their tune.

Washington let it be known that its commitment to the rebel cause in Libya had limits and called on the Europeans to pull their weight. But Germany had opposed the intervention there from the start and Italy responded to the prospect of a flood of refugees from North Africa by imposing new border controls, along with other EU countries.

By the time unrest spread to Syria, the western powers had developed a new formula to explain away why they could support the demise of some regimes but not others. They said each country was different and their responses should reflect this.

Talk of an Arab revolution gave way to the adoption of the term "Arab spring" to describe developments. This has echoes of the "Prague spring" and other eruptions in Eastern Europe, which did not succeed in throwing off the yolk of Soviet domination until the collapse of the USSR.

Now the sense prevails that the path to freedom and democracy in the Arab world will not be smooth and will not necessarily deliver in all countries simultaneously or in similar fashion. Talk of the desirability of stability and gradual change has resurfaced, much as it did in the 1990s and again after the invasion of Iraq in 2024.

As in previous decades, the Americans and the Europeans are not defending dictatorship per se as the only viable formula for rule in the Arab world. In the 1990s, the EU initiated the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Program, hoping to bring free trade, economic growth and jobs as well as good governance to the Arab economies around the Mediterranean.

Yet the Europeans' primary motivation was to resolve the perceived threat to European social stability posed by inward migration. They thought job creation in North Africa would be the answer, but the jobs did not materialize. As of 2024, the EMP was embellished with the European Neighborhood Policy, supposed to bring partner countries into closer harmonization with the European internal market. The logic was to create "good neighbors" for the EU.

Washington's "Wider Middle East Reform" initiative of recent years was also intended to promote democracy and economic development in the Arab world. Yet such strategies were developed alongside security arrangements that relied upon the cooperation of Arab regimes to combat and contain Islamist opposition movements and the forces of so-called "radicalization".

In the context of the "war on terror", western governments have depicted a region divided between "extremists" and "moderates" and lauded those dictators, Mubarak of Egypt and Ben Ali of Tunisia in particular, as the champions of the moderate camp.

True, the Islamists were not at the forefront of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolts. Their involvement is not prominent elsewhere either. Yet the fear remains that they will capitalize on the upheavals underway. Whatever their fears and preferences, however, western governments are not in charge and have reached the limits of their capacity to intervene or direct events.

They can only react and caution, cajole and implore. They may tip the balance in favor of less--rather than more--rapid transformation. But since the age of European imperialism is over and the era of US hegemony has peaked, it is the regional players themselves, including the protesters, who will determine the course of events. What they have begun will ultimately spell a revolutionary transformation of the regional order.-Published 14/7/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org

Rosemary Hollis is professor of Middle East Policy Studies at City University London.

The story of the "Arab spring" is still unfolding. Complex trends and dynamics can be observed in a variety of countries that are going through different stages of rapid change.

Some revolutions in the region have already toppled regimes, as in Egypt and Tunisia, which are undergoing a painful process of redefining the state in new directions. There, tensions are growing among diverse political forces that see different futures for the country. Revolutions in other Arab countries--Yemen, Syria and Libya--are still in the process of struggle and bloody confrontation with a regime; or are still budding, as in Algeria, Morocco and Bahrain; or have yet to commence--in Oman, Kuwait, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Uncertainty remains high in all these countries. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Arab state system will never be the same again.

What we know about the Arab region requires serious revision. In short, the conventional wisdom of the "Arab exception" must be scrapped. In the West, the Arabs were considered a very peculiar people because they were untouched by waves of globalization, democratization, and the sense of longing for freedom that other "normal" people in the universe were feeling. Among Arab rulers and a good part of the elite, the Arabs were a "singular" people with a culture that should not be messed with by corrupt western ideas or tainted by allowing others to chart their history. Now, the Arabs are back in full force to join everyone else in the world in an endeavor that never was considered to be easy or linear. The story so far has been colorful: sometimes romantic, at other times bloody and ominous, with martyrs falling and the course of history uncertain.

A third feature is common to many revolutions and regional "springs" wherein revolutionaries face the realities of power and the management of resources. Change, said Leo Strauss, is the essence of politics. The question is whether the change takes us forward or backward.

Here, the Arab revolutions are not much different in content: the new political regimes will continue to face many of the same challenges that confronted the outgoing regimes. Worse, the challenge of democracy places demands on the system that far exceed its own human and physical resources.

Early challenges have involved harmonizing national law and order with a revolutionary sense of freedom that could, in the hands of populists and demagogues, approach chaos. Harmonizing state and religion in a civic state remains a daunting task--from writing constitutions to implementing them--when tensions grow between the realm of legislation and the reign of fatwa. Other major questions, such as the role of the state in the economy, the relationship between state and society, and morality and freedom, all have to be revisited in the new light of the slogan of the Egyptian revolution: Freedom, Dignity, and Justice. That new addition to the lexicon of revolutions, Dignity, will require conceptualization and operationalization. Development, the concept that is almost absent from the revolutionary dictionary of the Arab spring, will haunt the new regimes like a sandstorm as they come to grips with issues of rich and poor.

A fourth feature is replete with apprehension and uncertainty. The role of elites is crucial as countries confront decision-junctures where options are elusive and emotions high. Whatever the direction taken, the politics of Arab states will be much more complicated than before. Not only will the actors increase in number and orientation and the media be even more far-flung than its current wild character. We shall also see changes in the definition of major issues like war, peace, development, intra-Arab relations, relations with neighboring countries like Turkey and Iran, and above all Arab-Israel interactions. Relationships with the rest of the world are bound to be different from those prevailing now, particularly with the West and especially with the United States.

In Egypt alone, almost six months after the January 25 revolution, the stage now features 168 political coalitions (each coalition being a combination of other coalitions, groups, and movements); nine new parties in addition to 25 existing ones; 14 new satellite TV stations in addition to 58 existing ones, 31 of which are private; three new daily newspapers in addition to 21 existing ones, plus about 500 other publications; and 25 squares ready for demonstrations by a million or more participants.

In many ways, the Arab world is entering an era of historic change on the scale of Eastern Europe in the post-Cold War era. In contrast, this will be a long process: it might take the rest of the decade to produce a new regional order that is drastically different from the present.-Published 14/7/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org

Abdel Monem Said Aly is president of Al-Ahram Center for Political & Strategic Studies in Cairo.