http://www.progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Landau&otherweek=1113541200
Bush's vision of Arab Democracy vs. 2 reports
By Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen
Two new reports on economics ("Arab World Competitiveness Report 2005") and
politics ("Towards Freedom in the Arab World," launched in Amman, Jordan on
April 5, 2005) in the Arab states dramatized what all astute observers already
knew: the Arab region is a mess and U.S. policies have exacerbated the
situation.
"The Arab world is facing a population time bomb and urgently needs to reform
governments, education systems and cultural rules that keep women out of the
workforce." wrote Al Jazeera (April 2), summing up the findings of the "Arab
World Competitiveness Report 2005," issued by the World Economic Forum at an
April 2, 2005 conference in Doha, Qatar.
The "Competitiveness Report" acknowledged the viability of oil-rich mini states
like Qatar, but over the next decade other Arab nations had "to create 80
million jobs" to address the growing pool of future jobseekers. Mustafa Nabil,
chief World Bank economist for the Middle East, cited Arab leaders' "resistance
to change" as one impediment to instituting wide-reaching reforms.
The 2004 Arab Human Development Report (AHDR), "Towards Freedom in the Arab
World," also echoed Nabil's sentiments on the "authoritarian nature" of Arab
leaders but drew Washington's ire by censuring the US role in both Iraq and
Israel-Palestine.
Washington's ensuing displeasure held up the report's original October 2004
release date and prompted UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown's subsequent
disclaimer that "In the case of this year's report.some of the views expressed
by the authors are not shared by the UNDP or the UN" (Foreword, "Towards
Freedom in the Arab World").
Lead author Nader Fergany claimed that the Bush administration responded to the
critical language by threatening to slash some of its $100 million contribution
to the UNDP (December 23, 2004 Courier-Mail). The UNDP denied any such threat.
But the story leaked to the media and Arab intellectuals understood
Washington's "free speech lesson."
Bush had already made clear his disdain for the UN by invading Iraq in 2003,
virtually destroying the legitimacy of the Security Council, which had refused
to authorize military action. He poked the UN in its eye again by nominating
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton as Washington's UN
representative.
"There's no such thing as the United Nations," Bolton had declared at the 1994
Global Structures Convocation in New York, adding, "The Secretariat building in
New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of
difference." Bush circles rely on the U.S. public to forget that in 1945 U.S.
money and staff created this world body.
The Bushies, however, don't hesitate to use UN documents that coincide with
their policies. They praised the 2002 and 2003 Arab Human Development Reports,
which emphasized the absence of freedom in Arab states, points White House
officials used to back their own "democratic" plans to remake the Middle East.
But the authors of the 2004 AHDR violated taboos by criticizing Israel, which
"has continued its violations of individual and collective freedoms of
Palestinians" (p. 6), and Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq, where
".the Iraqi people have emerged from the grip of a despotic regime.only to fall
under a foreign occupation that increased human suffering" (pg. 7). Both
policies have "adversely influenced Arab human development" (p. 6), the authors
concluded.
Such judgments by leading independent Arab scholars who drafted the latest
report reflect deep pessimism. Absence of freedom pervades the region,
particularly in the oil-rich Gulf States like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, they
noted.
The 2004 AHDR also focuses on Washington's hypocrisy in including its allies
like Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia, as "democratic." These governments
would not pass rudimentary democratic tests, argued the authors.
Bush backers, however, deny reality on several fronts. First, the tyrannical
regimes that they call allies will not redistribute power or wealth. Second,
and more damaging to Bush's freedom indicator, elections, is that the Arabs
interviewed by the AHDR team want "liberation from foreign occupation and the
freedoms of opinion, expression and movement" (pg. 97). Such facts don't bother
"democracy pushers."
"We are at the dawn of a glorious, delicate, revolutionary moment in the Middle
East," wrote columnist Charles Krauthammer. "It was triggered by the invasion
of Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and televised images of 8 million
Iraqis voting in a free election."(March 4, 2005, Washington Post).
Awada Dakil, an Iraqi Shia, offers a stark contrast to Krauthammer's frothy
enthusiasm. "Nothing has changed," he said. "The only difference is that we
were once ruled by a dictator and now we are ruled by clowns" (Telegraph, March
30, 2005).
Dakil more accurately measures the pulse on the Arab streets, where average
unemployment hovers around 15 percent (Al Jazeera, "Experts: Arab Economies Lag
Behind," April 3, 2005). "32 million people suffer from malnutrition," noted
the latest AHDR, after studying 15 Arab countries (pg. 10). Daily devastation
sweeps Iraq and Afghanistan, while Lebanon faces possible civil war, ignited by
the February assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Bush's religious dogma, however, negates reasonable discussion about facts in
the region. Shortly after U.S. troops invaded Iraq, then Commerce Secretary Don
Evans said that "Bush believes he was called by God to lead the nation at this
time" (Judy Keen, USA Today April 2, 2003).
On March 2, 2005, the President told an audience at Maryland's Anne Arundel
Community College: "I look forward to continuing to work with friends and
allies to advance freedom - not America's freedom, but universal freedom,
freedom granted by a Higher Being" (March 5, 2005, Arab News). "The Seed of
Chucky in the White House," as one Arab-American dubbed him, shows no interest
in the underlying issues of the region.
Since 9/11, reports Al Jazeera (April 2, 2005), wealthy Arab investors have
withdrawn their U.S. investments and have instead poured money into regional
real estate. This activity creates temporary construction jobs but hardly fuels
an export-based economy or attracts large scale foreign capital. Indeed, real
economic reformers would have to circumvent the current over-bloated
bureaucracies, which exist without accountability, transparency or the rule of
law and which make institutionalizing long-range reforms impossible.
Nonetheless, President Bush's simplistic reform formula calls for
"privatization" to solve the Middle East's economic woes, which sounds like a
joke in a region where vast oil profits have not trickled down to the pockets
of the average citizen. For much of the Arab world, privatization has really
meant theft of public property.
Additionally, Bush links addressing Middle Eastern poverty with free trade.
"Across the globe, free markets and trade have helped defeat poverty, and
taught men and women the habits of liberty," he declared. "So I propose the
establishment of a U.S.-Middle East free trade area within a decade, to bring
the Middle East into an expanding circle of opportunity, to provide hope for
the people who live in that region" (May 9, 2003).
More enlightened 21st Century imperialists might offer the Middle East a born
again version of the Marshall Plan combined with a revitalized Alliance for
Progress, a massive investment plan for industry and infrastructure along with
education reforms to bring literacy and socioeconomic development to the Arab
masses - the groundwork for democracy. The "Competitiveness Report" concludes
that the Arab world needs such a boost, not empty slogans like "democracy,"
which translates in Iraq and Afghanistan as an exclusive group of U.S. approved
candidates running in U.S. organized elections.
Conversely, the President, who maintains a supermodel's appetite for reading,
has no recognition of history that most Arabs possess. In the mosques and
streets, the past intersects the present as a dynamic anchor of daily life.
Ancient religious sites and long-standing traditions co-exist with the
ubiquitous cell phones and gas-guzzling vehicles. In Ma'aloula, near Damascus,
people still speak Aramaic, the language of Christ.
Ultimately, Arabs have solid reasons to suspect the West's renewed democracy
rap. France and England colonized and looted the region after World War I.
Indeed, Iraqis recall that when they rebelled against British occupation in the
early 1920s, London dropped poison gas on them. Syrian memory retains France's
ruthless suppression of their resistance to occupation in 1925-27 and again in
1945. Washington's fervent defense of the thirty-eight year old Israeli
occupation of Palestine also informs them of its one-sided interpretation of
"democracy."
When brilliant scholars write reports on critical regions, governments should
use them as primary intelligence documents from which to derive sound policies.
But Bush has drawn "vision" exclusively from sycophants and opportunists who
agree with his ethereal assumptions. Instead of relying on yes men and
dissemblers, CIA analysts would benefit from reading poets.
"Like mussels we sit in caf�s,
one hunts for a business venture
one for another billion
a fourth wife
breasts polished by civilization.
One stalks London for a lofty mansion
one traffics in arms
one seeks revenge in nightclubs
one plots for a throne, a private army,
a princedom.
Ah generation of betrayal,
of surrogate, indecent men,
generation of leftovers, we'll be swept away-
never mind the slow pace of history-
by children bearing rocks."
--Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998), "Children Bearing Rocks"
Saul Landau is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and directs digital
studies at Cal Poly Pomona University's College of Letters, Arts and Social
Sciences.
Farrah Hassen was the Associate Producer of the film, "SYRIA: BETWEEN IRAQ AND
A HARD PLACE," with Landau. She worked for the United Nations Development
Program office in Syria during the Fall 2004.
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