Right to Change

I have been talking with many friends in the last days. Some of them Syrians and others just people who, like me, have lived there. I really find strange the large difference in the opinions I heard about what is happening, and especially about the future of Syria. Actually I was expecting much more people sharing with me the satisfaction for the real possibility of Assad's fall.. It was not like that. Many people, included some Syrians, don't like this prospective at all. Some because they do like their president. Others simply fear the possible chaos after Assad's fall. 

Most of them don't believe there is any possibility for a democratic change, not only in Syria, but in every Middle Eastern country. And who said that is not absolutely a western. When I replied "don't you think that to say that is a form of racism?" I was told that as European I simply can not get the Eastern logic. And if I could I would easily figure out that democracy in the East (what  East is exactly was not revealed to me) is simply not possible. 

Than yesterday night, reading some articles on the internet, I found a long insight by a very smart guy, Micheal Hudson, that tried to make a sum of what happened until now. In particular, he wrote down five points about what is clear until now and that I publish here. They are more questions than affirmations, but in this phase I think that it is right and normal. (link to the Article on jadaliyya.com : http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1601/awakening-cataclysm-or-just-a-series-of-events-ref)

"·         First, is it like a “disease” or a “cure?”  Obviously it depends on where you stand. But names do matter. To label a phenomenon in a subjective, let alone pejorative, way invites faulty analysis: one need look no farther than “the war on terror” for a good example. If you are analyzing a “contagion” you are tempted not just to study what it is but to find ways to eradicate it. At the same time it serves little purpose to romanticize the “awakening.” But we are social scientists, not epidemiologists. For better or for worse, the wave suggests to me that political legitimacy has emerged as the fundamental issue—more important than economic grievances, foreign interference, religious agendas or even Israel. This is not to say that these matters do not play an important contributory role in the current upheaval. But the main issue seems to me to be a questioning of the right of ruling establishments to govern. “Why should we obey you?” people are asking. “Because you always have” doesn’t seem any longer to be a satisfactory answer.

·         Second, is it a coherent, monolithic “thing”? Is it singular or plural? Is it an organic region-wide movement or just a series of incidents that happened to occur roughly at the same time? Here we have to be careful.   Only a careful study of the message and the composition of the protesters can tell us. But we do see common threads in the message. It seems to be all about governance: a demand for meaningful popular participation, the condemnation of authoritarianism and corruption, the call for better governance, and a demand for social and economic development. There is also a “negative” similarity: we do not hear demands for an Islamic polity, nor, for that matter, for Arab unity. So while protesters focus on particular rulers regimes and local situations, there are these broad similar themes being expressed across the board.

·         Third, on the reasonable assumption that these protests are causally linked, how do we account for it?. I would argue that the role of satellite television and social media as a “force multiplier” is crucial. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that protesters are communicating and collaborating across borders. Al-Jazeera Arabic, with an estimated 40 million-plus viewers, has provided an unprecedented platform for viewing the protest drama. Even if it is beginning to pull its punches on coverage of arenas considered sensitive by the Gulf rulers its effect should not be underestimated. On Facebook and Twitter protesters in Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, Syria, and no doubt in the salons of Saudi Arabia, are saying, “We celebrate and support the protesters of Tunis and Egypt; they have broken “the wall of fear” and we would like to see something similar (but not necessarily identical) happen in our countries.”

·         Fourth, are the various Arab countries equally “susceptible” to “infection” by the “virus”? Here the answer is “probably not.” As Gretchen Head has pointed out in the case of Morocco, protesters there are not targeting the king and don’t necessarily want a complete change of political system. Ziad Abu-Rish has made a similar point about Jordan, where the monarch (so far) seems insulated from the anger of the “street.” And, incidentally, we should be careful in assuming that “the Arab street” is a homogenous entity, similar across the Arab world. Again, with due apology for the pejorative metaphor, we might observe that so far the two most effective “vaccines” for the “democratic contagion” are (1) riches (the rentier effect) and (2) legitimacy of the political system as a whole. But with respect to the rentier effect one must note that it has not completely immunized the ruling establishments of the GCC (viz., Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia) . In terms of the legitimacy factor, leaders who enjoy some moral or political authority, based on their perceived heritage or their policies (viz., Morocco, Jordan) may ride out the current epidemic of protest. But for the others, they may not be sleeping so well. They may be reminded of the autobiography of one of the more successful Arab rulers, King Hussein of Jordan: “Uneasy Lies the Head.”

·         Fifth, what happens to the “wave” when the protesters meet the tanks? It will soon be a half-year since the first protests broke out. The speedy and decisive outcomes in Tunisia and Egypt have not been replicated elsewhere. Now we have to consider that protests may follow different trajectories and different places. Waves washing up on beaches may quickly erode sand castles, but what of waves crashing against rocks? In Bahrain a swift and relentless crackdown broke the protests, although the story is far from over. In Libya, Yemen and Syria the outcome may ultimately depend on which side has the greater endurance. Mass protests probably cannot be sustained indefinitely without developing mobilization structures and resources. To what extent is this happening in these countries? On the regime side, how long can the ruling elites afford to maintain thousands of security forces and equipment in combat mode? And how long can they maintain their moral cohesion as innocent citizens die?  In some cases the outcome is win or lose. In others, where the momentum of protest is less intense and the regime response more flexible perhaps one can expect a “no victor-no vanquished” trajectory. But rulers who are paranoid about mass political action and followers who are utterly unconvinced that “reform from above” is anything more than a charade will make negotiations very difficult. In such cases, perhaps we should expect the enormous popular energy first manifested in mass peaceful protest to be transformed into armed attacks and low-level guerrilla warfare. Simultaneously the initial democracy discourse might be transformed into more radical ideological formulas. The besieged rulers of Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain unconvincingly claim that they are a bulwark against religious or sectarian extremists, but as time goes on and conflict smolders it would be alarming if these claims turned into a self-confirming prophecy.

I especially want to focus on the first point. It is impossible deny, whatever will happen, that the bases of political legitimacy in the Arab World changed. These are the first revolution attempts in the Arab World coming really from the people and not from some military or political coup that I can remember. This means a real change in mentality, not only in the rulers. As western, like the guy who wrote this article, I may be not qualified to say that the change was toward “western style” democracy, but sure there was a change. And at least this is a first step to debunk one of the strongest myth about East: in the East nothing ever changes. 

Whatever will be the develops, people now know that if they really want they can really change. This is not rhetoric, it is simply a new narrative.