We are experiencing the collapse of significant portions of the Arab order
and its power structures that defined most countries and governments since
the 1950s, as this order crumbles under the weight of its own deficiencies,
failures, and illegitimacy, suggests Rami G. Khouri.
First Published: 2012-07-02
BOSTON - Egypt and Syria rightly get the lion's share of attention in the
Arab world these days, but three other important developments in Kuwait,
Sudan and Tunisia during the past week highlight other important trends that
help us see the full state of the region and its likely transformations. The
deep political volatility across the whole Arab world and the very different
forms of protest, contestation and change underway indicate clearly that we
are witnessing something more historic than merely the desire of hundreds of
millions of people to live in more accountable democracies. We are
experiencing the collapse of significant portions of the Arab order and its
power structures that defined most countries and governments since the
1950s, as this order crumbles under the weight of its own deficiencies,
failures, and illegitimacy.
The three developments I have in mind are the anti-government protests that
have erupted across Sudan; the turmoil in Kuwait as the emir, the courts and
agitated citizens contest which parliament should be in power; and, the
decision by the Tunisian government to return a former Libyan prime minister
to Libya to stand trial.
The Sudanese protests are the least surprising, because Sudan has long
suffered the heavy-handed rule by a regime that has carried out violent
attacks against citizens in different parts of the country over several
decades, to the point where the president has been indicted by the
International Criminal Court and the southern region of the country seceded
peacefully last year. It was only a matter of time before Sudanese citizens
started openly protesting against their government's policies, and in due
course they will also demand the removal of the regime, in line with
developments in many other Arab countries in the past 18 months.
Sudan's protests are not surprising because the Sudanese since the 1950s had
already elected democratic and legitimate governments three times, only to
have them overthrown by military dictators; and the Sudanese people were the
first to overthrow an autocratic regime through street protests, when they
forced the resignation and exile of Jaafar Numeiry in April 1985. Not only
did a popular revolt remove that corrupt and dictatorial regime, but the
armed forces commander in chief General Abdel Rahman Suwar el-Dahab also
made history when he kept his pledge to turn over power to a democratically
elected legitimate government a year later.
The Tunisian government's decision to extradite to Libya Moammar Gathafi's
former prime minister, Baghdadi Mahmudi, is a historic marker of changing
political relations among Arab countries, peoples and governments. Arab
governments had long shown each other the professional courtesies of fellow
autocrats, ignoring each other's internal repressions and crimes and
claiming that they could not interfere in another Arab state's domestic
affairs (Jaafar Numeiry, by the way, was deposed during a stop in Cairo to
see Egyptian President Husni Mubarak, who gave him asylum). Mahmudi had fled
Libya to Tunisia last September, as rebels took control of the capital
Tripoli, and is wanted in Libya to stand trial for his role in the Gathafi
government.
Even though the Tunisian president and prime minister disagree on how the
extradition was handled, nevertheless we now have the important precedent of
a democratic Arab country extraditing for trial by his own people a former
Arab state official from the former tyrannical regimes. If this trend
continues, it will be more difficult for those who participated in the
atrocious governance records of previous authoritarian regimes to escape
accountability for their complicity in a range of crimes, including
corruption, criminal mismanagement, human rights abuses, security services
excesses, and others.
The third and most interesting development last week continued a political
dynamic that has been going on for some months in Kuwait, a wealthy country
whose citizens are cared for from cradle to grave, but also a country where
many Kuwaitis are saying that they do not live by bread and material
wellbeing alone. This week several thousand Kuwaitis rallied in a public
square to protest the constitutional court's declaration that last
February's National Assembly elections were "illegal," because the emir had
called the elections in the absence of a sitting cabinet. The court had
dissolved the opposition-dominated parliament, and reinstated the previous
pro-government parliament. The emir had dissolved parliament amidst
allegations of corruption among its members, and had followed the cabinet's
resignation so that the former prime minister could not be questioned by MPs
about alleged bribes paid to pro-government MPs.
This extraordinary battle of wits among the emir, the courts and the
parliament brings to a close the short-lived last elected parliament that
had 34 of its 50 seats held by opposition MPs, including 23 Islamists. This
is the fourth time the emir has dissolved parliament since 2006, indicating
the chronic nature of political tensions between Arab rulers and ruled, even
in wealthy Gulf emirates where poverty and disparity among Gulf nationals
are not a major issue.
Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the
Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the
American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.
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Received on Mon Jul 02 2012 - 17:19:22 EDT
