Tharwalizations

Of Freedom and Stability

We should give as much thought to the issue of quality with regard to the peace and stability that many of us are advocating and holding on to, as we do to the consequences of change and instability. After all, the search for freedom, progress prosperity and justice is no longer reconcilable, if it has ever been, with the status quo in our part of the world, and does indeed pose a serious challenge to it. Our search to improve the quality of lives requires and necessitates radical change.

We are indeed facing an existential crisis par excellence here, and have been for quite a while now, yet we continue to turn our backs on it. This is undermining our ability to survive it, both as viable states and as a viable culture. Should we persist in our rejectionist attitude vis-à-vis change, there might indeed be nothing left for us to reject soon. Our choices, our fate and our resources might just be taken away from us just as easily as they were handed down to us. History does not wait for people to make their up minds at their leisure, regardless of the legitimacy of their hesitation, their concerns and their fears with regard to change, and the all-too-human nature of them all. For history, though made by people, is as dispassionate about their feelings as time itself. History is Time. The only thing it can ever do is pass, regardless of whether we are onboard or deep under.

The all too real need

Nationalism, Baathism, Islamism, whateverism, etc. Indeed, the various isms that have swept across the region in the late 90^th and early 20^th Centuries onward have been nothing but a betrayal of its amazing ethnic diversity and all the intermixing that has been taking place for centuries.

What we need is something new, a new idea of who we are, a new conception, no matter how vague, that can allow us to celebrate our differences and turn them into a source of strength rather than trouble and internecine warfare and mayhem. WE need to knit ourselves again into new fabric that can be reinserted back into the civilized world, for all our sakes.

 

Shutting Down Guantanamo

Guantanamo is a disgrace. No one can deny that, and the recent ruling to the effect that the Bush administration had violated both American military law and the Geneva Convention in ordering the military tribunals comes as an official endorsement of point of view. Indeed, and due to the fact that such a glaring abuse of human rights is being perpetrated by the very administration that is supposed to champion the cause of democracy and human rights around the world should naturally be noted and condemned by people from around the world.

However, people from the Middle East in particular should think twice before dwelling too much on this point, the prison systems operated by their own government are far worse and date way back in time. Moreover, their silence in this regard, while understandable, is one of the main reasons why their dictatorial regimes continue to rule even after so many decades of misrule, oppression and corruption, and why American and international troops are now back in their midst.

Oppression breeds ignorance, and the admixture of the two attracts more overt foreign dabbling and intervention. The battle against abuse, even one perpetrated by far away countries, begins within. Fighting against the internal enemy should be the first priority for the reformers of the region. For once we shut down our own prisons, there will be no more Guantanamos.

Getting it Right!

Getting the right to vote is not a guarantor of anything, except a peace transfer of power. Women will not necessarily vote for women, and the best candidate in character and message do not necessarily win. Elections are above all, about organization.

Kuwaiti elections have been a mixed bag, reformist candidates won, but so did Islamists candidates, while not a single female candidate got elected, despite the fact that women were voting for the very first time in Kuwait history. All in all though, another important step on the path of democratization was just taken in Kuwait, but there is still much to learn.

Democratize but Stabilize

No one can any longer deny that there is a real and serious need for a concerted well-coordinated multilateral approach to the processes of development, modernization and democratization in the Broader Middle Eat and North Africa Region. Quick fixes are indeed impossible, but a need to shake the status quo is, nonetheless, quite urgent. If the UNDP reports of 2002-4 have served to elucidate anything, it is the necessity of drastic changes in policies in the region, but few of the existing leaders seem willing and/or capable of this. National interest considerations are not at stake here for them, it is their parochial interests, and, in typical cynical human fashion, they tend to override all other considerations.

And there is the rub: if some regimes in the region are not pushed into change, they will not willingly adopt it, and if there were pushed, they will more likely try to bunker down and challenge the world, no matter how foolish the challenge might seem. What the right course of action is in this case is anyone’s guess really. But one thing is clear, the UNDP reports paint a very dark picture of the present and foretells a future with many failed states in the region as a result of lack of the serious lack of development. And the region is just too central and too vital to be left to rot.