A long way to go

Apr 7th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

More than two months after its groundbreaking elections, Iraq has finally named a new prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari. But though Iraq's fledgling democracy may be back on course, spreading democracy to other Arabs will not be easy

THE Movement for Change is just the kind of group that warms liberal hearts. Uniting Egyptian reformists of all kinds, it has admirably simple goals and a catchy slogan to boot.

“Kifaya!” (Enough!), its protesters chant, a sentiment shared by millions of Egyptians who are fed up with decades of one-party, one-boss rule that many feel has barely bettered their lives.
Yet the movement, better known simply as Kifaya, has failed, so far, to snowball as its organisers had hoped. Some Cairo onlookers grumble that its protesters block traffic, and some dismiss them as crazies for risking the wrath of the state. Others speculate that the state itself must have created the group. Perhaps Kifaya is intended as a magnet for identifying dissidents, to make it easier to arrest them later. Or maybe it is designed to delude television cameras, and the West, into thinking that Egypt is not so authoritarian after all.

In recent months, the notion that democracy might be breaking out in the Arab world has buoyed spirits in the region and beyond. Prime exhibits have included peaceful presidential elections in the occupied Palestinian territories, “people-power” protests against Syria’s occupation of Lebanon, and—above all—the spectacle in January of some 8m Iraqis turning out to vote in defiance of threats by the jihadi “resistance” to kill them. This week, after a nail-biting delay, Iraq’s National Assembly broke a sectarian deadlock by naming a Kurdish leader, Jalal Talabani, the country’s new president. The former president, Ghazi al-Yawar, a Sunni Arab, and the former finance minister, Adel Abd al-Mahdi, a Shia Arab, are to be vice-presidents. More importantly, on Thursday April 7th another Shia, Ibrahim Jaafari, was named the new prime minister, in place of the outgoing Iyad Allawi.

Mr Jaafari, the mild-mannered leader of the Dawa party, favours making Islam the state religion. But of the two biggest Shia parties, Dawa is the more sceptical of clerics’ mingling in politics. Mr Jaafari has promised to uphold democratic reforms, and says he will bring disaffected Sunnis into his government.

So Iraq’s fledgling democracy is still alive. But the apathy, suspicion and legions of police that have greeted Kifaya’s gatherings in Egypt say much about the difficulty of reform taking wing in other parts of the Arab world. And these are not the only obstacles. The UN Arab Human Development Report published this week, the latest in a series in which Arab academics and intellectuals have highlighted the region’s failures, paints a bleak picture of democracy’s progress among the Arabs.

The lack of avenues for peaceful change is frequently cited as an underlying cause of extremism. However, this report blames the “freedom deficit” for a far wider range of regional ills, including lagging rates of growth and investment, poor performance in science and innovation and widespread human-rights abuses. Oppression is bad for governments too, because it deprives them of legitimacy and so, the authors argue, provides outside powers with a pretext, as in the case of the old Iraq, to intervene in Arab affairs.

Indeed, says the report, many Arab regimes practise what it terms a “legitimacy of blackmail”, sustaining their power by posing as the only bulwark against chaos or a takeover by Islamist extremists. Another common feature is what the authors call the “black hole” state. Arab republics and monarchies alike grant their rulers such unchallengeable power as to “convert the surrounding social environment into a setting in which nothing moves and from which nothing escapes.”

The authors describe a life-long system that whittles away personal freedoms, beginning with patriarchalism and clannishness in Arab family life, extending through school systems that favour the parroting of fixed ideas rather than open inquiry, and on through citizenship restricted by arbitrary laws and limits to free expression. Out of 21 Arab countries, 17 prohibit the publication of journals without hard-to-get licences, seven ban the formation of political parties altogether, and three (Egypt, Sudan and Syria) have declared permanent states of emergency that date back decades. All run multiple intelligence services. Because of income from oil, most Arab governments tax their citizens lightly, but this makes it harder for those citizens to demand accountability.

The report is careful to point to positive developments. Aside from piecemeal reforms in several Arab countries, perhaps the most significant trend noted is the growing acceptance, by governments as well as the public, of the urgency of change. In recent years, says the report, a broad consensus has emerged around the idea “that the heart of the failing lies in the political sphere, specifically in the architecture of the Arab state.”

Yet in no Arab country, except perhaps Iraq (whose violent exception proves the rule), has pressure for change yet resulted in a fundamental shift of power away from long-ensconced elites. Bahrain, for example, is often praised for moving towards democracy. Yet its parliament remains half appointed, and the 70% Shia majority complains it is woefully under-represented. Qatar is another small, rich Gulf state that has progressed quickly, but its rulers have just stripped some 5,000 Qataris of their citizenship, apparently because they belong to a clan deemed disloyal.

But the momentum for reform, amplified by new forms of communication such as satellite TV and the internet, is beginning to have an impact. Lebanon, for example, is heading towards legislative elections that many expect will produce significant change. Taking a cue from the Beirut marches, Bahraini Shias have launched their own mass, peaceful street demonstrations demanding a bigger share of power. In Egypt, the judges’ union is demanding the right to supervise elections. Even the regional laggard, Syria, is hinting at reforms, such as allowing political parties to form and operate more freely, and granting citizenship to tens of thousands of Kurds who live in the country, but have remained stateless since the 1960s. Sort of embarrassing, now that a Kurd is head of state next door in Iraq.

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