Tharwalizations

The Difference between Kuwait & Syria

In the year 2000, it took the Syrian parliament, the so-called People’s Assembly, less than 30 minutes to amend the country’s long-standing constitution in order to make way for Bashar al-Assad to succeed his recently deceased father, Hafiz al-Assad, as the country’s new president. Not a single voice of dissention was heard. But one MP did have the bravery to suggest that the debate should last longer and that the process of amending the constitution needs to be elaborate somehow in order to safeguard the country’s image, not to mention that to the upcoming president. The brave MP was severely rebuked for even thinking that. MPs in Baathist Syria were not meant to think, period.

In late December 2005, the Syrian Parliament had another occasion to show us its relevance in the country’s decision-making process, when it was called upon to respond to the statements and accusations of the country’s former VP, Abdulhaleem Khaddam, against the ruling junta in the country. Mr. Khaddam, who had defected to Paris in August, well-nigh implicated the Syrian President in the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafic al-Hariri in an interview to the al-Arabiya TV in late December.

But, if anything, the parliamentary session and the wild accusations that the MPs made against Mr. Khaddam, which represented well-established facts to the average Syrian, served to further underscore the irrelevance of the Syrian parliament in the minds of the Syrian people. For the timing of the revelations made against Khaddam made it very clear to all that such freedom to speak against corruption was granted from above and only when it served the interests of the ruling clique.

After their vote to depose the recently appointed emir, that the ruling family tried to impose on the Kuwaiti people as a compromise solution, the Kuwaiti parliamentarians showed that they have learned the Syrian lesson well. They have learned that so long as the ruling elite requires parliamentary approval regarding certain key issues, this need gives enough power to the parliamentarians to make their decisions on the basis of the constitution and the national interest, regardless of the particular expectations and desires of the ruling elite.

Just imagine what could have transpired back in 2000, had the Syrian parliament refused to be a rubber stamp body, and insisted on adhering to the constitution as is for a lack of a good reason to change it. This could have forced Bashar’s camp either into negotiating with the parliament, thus further empowering it, or into mounting a coup that would not have been recognized by any country in the world, thus setting the stage for international mediation and for the adoption of a compromise that would empower the country’s parliament and ushered in a more open political process.

A similar development could have taken place at the end of 2005 had the Syrian parliament was asked to denounce Khaddam. Indeed, the Parliamentarians could have easily turned the table on the ruling junta and demanded that a real investigation into Khaddam’s allegations be made and that a real process for fighting corruption in the country be adopted.

But this could not have happened, of course, because the parliament in Syria has always been a rubber stamp body, and the parliamentarians have always belonged to the same corrupt and inept elite that rule the country. Such is the misfortune of the Syrian people. Such is the natural outcome of the many decades of manipulation of the political process, of emptying the existing state institutions of all qualified cadres, of appointing people on the basis of loyalties rather than abilities, of manipulating election results, and of making a mockery out of the judicial processes, the lack of the freedom of the press, and the continuous disintegration of the country’s middle classes. A cadre of inept leaders on all levels becomes in charge of the fate of the country. In cases like these, civil disobedience becomes the only way out.

Meanwhile, in Kuwait , the greater exposure of the population to the ever-changing regional and global realities, the freer press, and the existence of more enlightened elements in the country’s civil society and business community, and among the ranks of the ruling elite means that reform in the country could take place using existing institutions as springboard for reform. Civil action does not have to be as radical as it is required in Syria.

This, I believe is the main difference between Syria and Kuwait. What Kuwaitis have can be reformed, developed and modernized. What Syrians have needs to be thoroughly reinvented, refashioned and remodeled. The Syrians need to start over again.

Breaking the Stalemate!

The various “color” and “flower” revolutions that have been taken place around the globe recently, in places like Georgia, the Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, seems to be intricately connected to the workings of various American international NGOs. Moreover, the activities of these NGOs seem to reflect in many ways certain shifts in the US foreign policy and interests, and, in turn, the success or failure of the various revolutions seems to reflect these shifts as well. This is why the political convulsions of Uzbekistan (May 2005) and Azerbaijan (November 2005), for instance, did not result in such revolutions.

This is the essence of the analysis presented by Sreeram Chaulia in the recent article “Democratisation, NGOs and "colour revolutions.” The points made in the article are neither new nor surprising; this also applies to the tone of indignation involved in the analysis. Still, the article does flesh out the current context of the “third wave” of democratization currently sweeping across the globe.  

But, and as usual in such analysis, the article fails to point out the lack of viable and realistic alternatives to the peoples in the countries under consideration. Caught between authoritarian regimes and imploding societies, with continuous dabbling by external powers in their internal affairs, the choices that civil society groups and opposition movements in these countries have tend to be pretty limited. In fact, the situation boils down to having to make a choice between breaking the political and socioeconomic stalemate in cooperation with external powers, or settling for more of the same under the existing inept regimes. 

A search for a third alternative seems to be the prerogative of large states such as China and India, or coalition of states, such as the ASEAN countries, not of dismembered entities ruled by corrupt authoritarian and inept regimes that seem to be completely cut off from the rapidly ever changing realities around them.

Indeed, some countries seem to be jumping too late on the bandwagon of modernization and development, and at a time when foreign dabbling continues to be a fact of everyday life. Whatever the reasons for this delay, the fact of it limits their choices. Unless they could together a la ASEAN and empower themselves through some kind of regional economic and political cooperation and joint security arrangements, a development that is quite unlikely under existing leaderships, the only realistic choices that opposition movements seem to have tend to involve some substantive degree of support and coordination with foreign powers, in particular, the United States.

Moreover, one of the major factors that seem to have facilitated acceptance of this alternative by the opposition movements in Central Asia and the Transcaucasus must be the lack of popular anti-American feelings in the countries involved, unlike the situation in the Middle East, where anti-Americanism runs deep in people’s souls, for a variety of reasons, including past support for dictatorial regimes and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. 

Showing indignation vis-à-vis American imperialist dabbling in other people’s affairs is the prerogative of peoples and countries that have at least achieved a certain degree of modernization and seems capable of being able to guide such a process forward for the foreseeable future. This is not the situation in the Middle East. Indignation has no role to play here. A heavy dose of pragmatism and Real Politick will do much better instead, not only in dealing with the US and the EU, but also in dealing with the internal ethnic, religious and ideological diversity that shapes the lives of most countries in the region.

People often preach real politick at the United States, but they fail to see that real politick considerations are the main driving force behind the choices that some opposition movements in the countries involved are making. The movements are aware of the intentions of the US, but they are also aware of the necessity of breaking through the stalemate. 

Myth of the Golden Age

One of the main myths that seems to hamper all efforts at modernizing religious faiths, especially with regard to Islam, is the insistence on the concept of the Golden Age. This myth keeps the Muslim Community focused in its basic outlook on the past. As such, any effort at changing and modernizing Islam is often billed as an attempt at retrieving its erstwhile purity.

The essence of this predilection is captured in the often-used term these days of Salafiyyah or Salafism. The whole purpose of the Salafi thought is to draw lessons from the Holy Past in order to help us navigate our way through the troubling waters of the unholy present, and head towards a future that should be nothing more than a recreation of the Golden Age ofthe times of yore. 

But how can one live up to ideals that are often tied to particular forms and ways of being? Because such an insistence on the past and the holiness of its guidance, leaves no room but to fall into the trap of formal, if not formulaic conformity.

To me, this tendency seems more and more to fly in the face of individual experiential wisdom, that is, the wisdom derived from one’s own experiences in life.

People usually strive continuously to live up to their ideals. Their lives are often nothing but a constant struggle to perfect themselves. But how could they do that, when they are constantly asked to filter the data derived from their own particular experiences through the prism of a sanctified past, and without being assigned the parallel legitimacy of filtering that very past through the prism of their own individual experiences (not to mention their collective experiences as well, as seen through their individual minds)?

If Islam is perfectible, or, at the very least, if our interpretation of it is perfectible, then such a lack of interactibility with the past, and with time ad being as a whole, is more commensurate with degradation than perfectibility.

In short, if Islam is perfectible, then the Past cannot be viewed as perfect, not to mention holy. As such, a Golden Age might perhaps await us in the future, but it has definitely never existed in the past.

Copts, Women & Beer

In a conference on civil dialogue that took place a few years ago, participants discussed the possibility of conducting a serious dialogue between Islamists and secularists. I remember that, at the time and in response to an Egyptian colleague who advocated dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood in his country, we coined the term “Copts, Women and Beer” to reefer to three main issues that one needs to deal with, which are: diversity issues, gender issues and privacy issue.  

But perhaps, the three issues boil down to one thing really: the issue of boundaries and intersections between the public and private spheres. For so long as Islamist tend to expand the boundaries of the former at the expense of the latter, secularists will have a major problem. The slogan “the Quran is our constitution” is not the problem in itself. The problem is in how the Islamists tend to define the pronoun “our.”

Their tendency to include in this “our” of theirs all the citizens of Egypt, not to mention what they would describe as the Muslims World takes away the element of free choice from the formula, as those who don’t believe in the slogan of the Brotherhood find themselves included in this “our,” whether they like it or not. This does not create much room for establishing common grounds.

For this reason, all dialogue that has so far taken place between Egyptian Islamists and secularists tended to be of a tactical nature. The real issues separating the two sides have never been seriously dealt with. Meanwhile, freedom of conscience, despite statements to the contrary, remains unacknowledged by all major Islamist groups. For when one moves beyond the general affirmation towards the discussion of specific issues related to “Copts, women and beer,” that is, to issues of diversity, gender and privacy, specific objections voiced by the Islamists tend to belie any commitment to the general principle of freedom.

Unless, ways are found to commit those Islamists that present themselves as moderate to certain clear public stands on such “details,” no dialogue between Islamists and secularists could be considered viable , and no agreement could be expected to prove lasting.