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Columnists 14 February 2011, Monday 2 1 0 0
ÖMER TASPINAR
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The end of Arab exceptionalism
Since the end of the Cold War, political scientists who focus on
democratization spoke of the Arab exception when they referred to global
dynamics ending authoritarian regimes. After all, of all the 22 members of the
Arab League, only Lebanon qualified as a democracy, according to the standard
definition of the term -- based on multiple alterations of political power
through free and fair elections.
But Lebanon was always too fragile and chronically prone to chaos
to challenge the gloomy state of affairs dominating the Arab world. It was
hardly a success story that could lead the way for the rest of the 300 million
Arabs. Experts knew that there was only one country that had the strategic
resonance to become a regional pace setter for Arabs. If Egypt went democratic,
everything could change rapidly in the region.
It may still be too early to call Egypt a democracy. The military
is now in charge. But such sobriety should not diminish the historical
importance of what the world has just witnessed in the Middle East. The
Egyptian autocracy came to an end, not thanks to a military intervention. It
was nothing less than a genuine peoples' revolution that achieved this
monumental outcome. I'm tempted to call this grass roots people's revolution a
first in the Arab world, but a few weeks before Egypt, everything started in
tiny Tunisia. Tunisians should be proud for giving 80 million Egyptians the
hope that they could do the same. Today, the Arab world is finally converging
with the democratic dynamics that swept the world since the collapse of the
Berlin Wall almost 20 years ago. What we are witnessing in Cairo is not just
history in its most exciting form. What happened last Friday also put an end to
a century of Arab exceptionalism. We should cherish this moment and appreciate
its historical significance before asking the unavoidable question that now
permeates in the West: What's next?
Not surprisingly, the global punditry is sharply divided between
those who believe that there is a high risk of Islamization and those who see
the birth pangs of genuine democracy. Whatever happens next in Egypt, the West
should start by learning from its own mistakes. For too long Europe and the
United States naively believed that the only alternative to Mubarak was the
Muslim Brotherhood. They blindly supported the devil they knew because of their
fear of the alternative. To those Westerners who complained about human rights
abuses in Egypt, Mubarak could always say, "If you don't like me, just look
around Cairo and tell me if you are ready for the Islamists to take over."
This, of course, was exactly what Mubarak wanted them to believe.
In reality, there was always a democratic, liberal, relatively
secular and pro-Western alternative to radical Islam in Egypt, but Mubarak did
his best to crush this third alternative with his repressive regime and police
state. The autocratic leader of Egypt always complained about American or
European human rights groups trying to promote basic freedoms in his country,
mainly on the grounds that democracy cannot be exported from the outside. In
the meantime, he excelled in undermining democracy from the inside.
Now that the old regime is gone, it is time for a third alternative
to emerge. Those who still fear political Islam's ascendance should put their
concern in perspective. What gave the Muslim Brotherhood its broad appeal was
the authoritarian nature of the political regime in Egypt. From now on life
will be much more difficult for Islamists in Egypt. They will no longer be able
to rely on their narrative of victimhood and their facile slogan "Islam is the
solution." Now, they will have to compete with other political parties in a
democratic environment. The mosque will no longer be the only place in the
country where people are able to come together to discuss alternatives to the
repressive regime. Political Islam will be only one movement among many
contending to rule Egypt. With the end of Arab exceptionalism and the winds of
democratization blowing in the Arab world, we may very well be witnessing the
weakening of political Islam in the Middle East.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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