Promise of Democracy in the Arab/Muslim World?
By Dr Syed Amir
Bethesda, MD


After much controversy and wrangling, the third Arab Human Development Report (AHDR, 2004), sponsored by the United Nations Development Program and authored by 39 prominent Arab Scholars and intellectuals, was finally released in April 2005. The first report released in 2002 identified three major deficits that had held the Arab countries back: (1) the lack of political rights for common people, (2) lack of knowledge and the means of its acquisition, and finally (3) the suppression of women’s rights.
The second report (2003) explored in details the main areas where there was a major deficit in knowledge and emphasized the need to enlist the help and cooperation of the outside world, wherever appropriate, in establishing and sustaining institutions of higher learning and research. The current report addresses in detail questions such as the lack of political freedom and democratic structures in the Arab world as the authors believe that “of all impediments to an Arab renaissance, political restrictions on human development are the most stubborn.” The findings and conclusions of the AHDR are not limited to Arabs. Indeed, they can be extrapolated to most of the Muslim world.
At the outset, the report quotes the admonition of Caliph Omer bin al-Khatab delivered to the visiting son of his Governor of Egypt. Based on reports reaching Medina that the subject people were not being treated well, he demanded to know, “Since when have you compelled people to enslavement, when their mothers birthed them free.” The Arab scholars bemoan the fact that, some sporadic improvements notwithstanding, the status of freedom and democracy in their motherlands remains feeble. The freedom of expression and creativity, for example, is largely nonexistent in most Arab/Muslim countries. Some brave journalists have been physically assaulted, becoming targets of legal action, based solely on the opinions they hold and express. Since 2003, fear of terrorism has provided another excuse for suppression of freedom of thought, expression and human rights. In some cases, even literary and artistic creativity have come under assault from some regimes, spawning outlandish situations, such as the ban on classic masterpieces, The Arabian Nights and Khalil Gibran’s, The Prophet.
Even though scrupulous provisions stipulating freedom of thought and assembly are part of the constitutions of many Arab countries, these rights have been largely ignored or invalidated by various restrictions placed on their exercise under the guise of national security. Thus, 11 Arab countries, while permitting press freedom in theory thwart it by instituting various forms of censorship imposed on publications, as well as placing strict requirements for government licenses to publish newspapers.
The yearning for freedom is universal, and in western countries with established democratic institutions the need to hold the Government accountable has long been recognized. The third US president, Thomas Jefferson, who framed the declaration of independence, is reported to have commented that ‘”were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
The Arab authors reject the notion, sometimes put forward that lack of democratic traditions in the Arab/Muslim countries is inherent and rooted in their cultural or religious traditions -- the specter of the so-called Arab/Muslim mind. Results of respected opinion polls have consistently indicated that the Arab people have a strong desire to “rid themselves of the tyrants and enjoy the democratic governance.” The report ascribes the lack of freedom to a number of reasons, all readily identifiable. Most grassroots organizations in Arab/Muslim countries are routinely denied permission to organize and evolve into effective political parties. Elections are mostly a sham; when allowed, most Arab countries do not permit more than one candidate to contest them. Only Palestine, Yemen, Algeria and Sudan allow direct elections, and place a limit on the presidential term of office. (Since the report was released, Egypt has also allowed more than one candidate to enter the presidential race, but this new constitutional amendment is yet to be fully tested.)
The AHDR underscores the fact that merely going through an election routine and having a parliament does not ensure democratic participation. It cites the case of many Arab countries where partially or fully elected parliaments now exist; nevertheless, this has not led to any tangible involvement of the people in the governance. The report denounces the discrimination suffered especially by migrant workers, both Arab and non-Arabs, in oil-producing countries, particularly the treatment endured by domestic servants, among whom poor women predominate. Female domestic servants are not the only women placed at a disadvantage. Women, in general, have little participation in services, political processes and often, unlike men, are not permitted to transfer their citizenship rights to their children if they marry foreign men. In greater part of the Arab/Muslim world, women need their husband’s permission to travel or work and can be divorced for no reason.
The panel singles out two external factors, the continued occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel and of Iraq by US forces, as major impediments in the progress of human development. They estimate that at present some 58 percent of the Palestinian population lives below the poverty level. Between May 2003 and June 2004, approximately 800 Palestinians were killed, of which about 23% were children, and over 4,000 injured as a result of Israeli incursions, bombings and house demolitions. The report also severely criticizes the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Freed from the despotic and tyrannical grip of Saddam Husain’s regime, the Iraqi people have now come under unremitting foreign occupation. They estimate that as a result of the invasion and the associated violence, nearly 100,000 Iraqis have perished. In addition, thousands have been arrested and tortured for unproven crimes. Until the end of 2004, the occupation forces had not been able to restore basic facilities, such as water, electricity or telephone services even to the prewar levels and had spent less than 7 percent of what the US Congress had allocated for the these purposes.
The situation is not entirely bleak, however. The Arab intellectuals discern some welcome indications of progress in certain Arab countries, generating the optimism that they may be slowly moving towards the goal of building a free, democratic society. For example, in Morocco, the Government was recently forced by public pressure to acknowledge past injustices, especially the disappearance of political opponents. There have been other hopeful developments as well.
Since the report was completed, free and open elections have taken place in the Palestinian territories and Iraq, while unprecedented municipal elections in Saudi Arabia may pave the way for a greater liberalization of the political process. The parliament in Kuwait has recently amended rules, granting women the right to vote and to contest elections. The powerful effect of the people’s power was also demonstrable, following the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rafiqu Hariri in the Lebanon. It forced an unpopular government to resign. These developments are considered only tentative, embryonic steps toward democracy that may ultimately usher in a new era of progress and advancement in the region.

 

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