History in the making

Editorial

When Libya is in turmoil and even the Saudi elites are nervous, there is no longer a doubt that the future of the entire region is an open question.

In our dreams, we see democracies flourishing across North Africa and the Middle East. Of course, democracy, as we saw in the last Palestinian elections, can sometimes legitimize and entrench the worst option. This is especially true in places lacking the civil infrastructures upon which democracy is thought to rest. This does not mean that, if the people are insistent and the leaders (and the militaries) are responsive, that democracy will not come to other parts of the region, but it would be a long road to a stable democracy in any of the countries now in turmoil. Still, who among us decades ago believed that apartheid would transition to democracy in South Africa or that the Cold War would end as it did?

If there are any certainties, continued chaos must be one. The hysterical responses to peaceful protest in Bahrain and Libya will almost certainly have the opposite effect of what those governments intended.

The region, almost monolithic in its rejection of Israel, is nonetheless divided by schisms most Westerners only vaguely appreciate, not only between Sunni and Shiite, but between Arab, Persian and African, and countless ideological and historical grievances, piques and blood feuds. A springtime of blooming desert democracy is one possibility; more likely is a bouquet of far more disparate stems.

Western eyes were reassured that the Egyptian revolution was founded on demands for economic opportunity and more freedoms, which bodes very well for liberalization. But these immediate demands do not negate the reality of a new Pew Research study that found, while a clear majority of Egyptians favor democracy, four in 10 expressly oppose it. And 49 percent have a favorable view of the Islamist forces, making any election a challenge for genuine peace-seeking democrats. More chilling: 82 percent support the stoning of adulterers (women, most probably), 84 percent believe an individual who converts from Islam should be executed and 77 percent contend that slicing off a hand is fair justice for theft. A clear majority – 54 percent – would like to see women publicly segregated à la Saudi Arabia.

Perhaps the best chance of peaceful transition is the gradual transition to a freer society suggested by the president of Yemen, who is promising incremental reforms. Such a position puts the ball in the court of the protesters, who can choose to trust a promise of measured liberalization over time or push for an immediate and total revolution.

In the end, we will likely see a patchwork of change. Some totalitarian regimes will cling to power, others will liberalize incrementally and some will fall. Those that fall could go a few ways – to a new form of Islamist repression, a new hybrid of Arab democracy or, strangely, both consecutively or concurrently.

What does it mean for Israel? Well, instability has historically never been good for Jews. This is certainly why the Israeli government, even while priding itself on being the only democracy in the region, was unabashedly supportive of the Mubarak regime in Egypt. If Israel learned anything about foreign policy at the knee of its American ally, it was the possibly true attribution to Franklin Roosevelt, speaking of a Central American dictator: “He may be an SOB, but he’s our SOB.” Mubarak was hardly an enthusiastic friend to Israel, but he was certainly the devil they knew. More interestingly, while neither the Arab leaders nor their repressed people are fans of Israel, for once the Zionist scapegoat has been put away.

News junkies among us whose fingers are updating news from the region by the minute will almost certainly be disappointed in the coming weeks and months. While events are certainly happening at an unprecedented pace, what we are witnessing may be the beginning of an epochal change. The many transitions likely in the societies of the Arab and the broader Muslim world have already begun, but to take a full view of events and understand their implications will almost certainly be a task left to our grandchildren and their descendants, rather than the commentariat of today.

We may be witnessing the long-awaited Arab renaissance, which will finally see a focus on literacy and learning, the first steps in building the capacity of the people to enjoy freedom and economic opportunity. Or, there is the possibility that this is the start of a new dark age in the region, a lurch backward in time to an even more repressive and brutal fundamentalism that will usher in a new cold war. While we are used to news developing 24/7, the outcome of the current news cycle is likely decades or centuries away.

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