Daily Times

The Arab world seems to be imploding. The dynasties that once were permanently fixed to the ground are collapsing under their own weight. The marginalised common man in the street has suddenly found his voice and the political scene is resonating with deafening calls for change. From Bahrain to Tunisia the revolutionary marchers seem unstoppable. Can we say that the second decade of the 21st century will be remembered as the decade of democracy in the Arab world? After all, the democratic order in the western world was also not established in the distant past. Though democracy was the political system of ancient city states in Greece, the first wave of modern democracy was experienced by the majority of countries after the Second World War. A second wave of democracy in Europe took the totalitarian states by storm in the last decade of the 20th century. Has the third wave of democracy now engulfed the Arab world? An optimistic answer is not wholly unjustified, though the history of revolutions should advise some caution in this respect.

The current unrest has affected almost all Arab countries in Asia and Africa, but the countries on the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea and Bahrain in the Gulf region remain in the headlines most. There are many socio-economic reasons for the eruption of this political movement. The widespread unemployment of youth coupled with rising food prices had already prepared the ground for a revolution. Over the years, the rulers enjoyed opulent lifestyles while common people did not feel betterment in their lives from the growing national wealth. The immediate cause of the unrest is, however, traced to the incident of self-immolation of a street vendor Tarek Muhammad Bouazizi on December 17, 2010 after he was humiliated by a municipal officer, who also confiscated his wares. The incident became a symbol of injustice meted out by the Tunisian state to the common people and led to what is now called the Tunisian Revolution. The fire of discontent soon spread to the neighbouring Arab African countries. The key point, however, is that this kind of personal protest involving self-immolation had happened in the past as well. What was so different this time that a single incident shook the whole world? Two factors can be cited as the driving forces behind the current revolution. First, the presence of a populist channel Al Jazeera, and second, the use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Propaganda has always been the most important weapon of revolutionaries. The friends and family members of Tarek posted his video on Facebook, from where it was picked up by Al Jazeera. Soon the twin action of internet-based propaganda and Al Jazeera’s coverage turned a localised event into a mass movement for the establishment of democracy. No wonder after the Tunisian president fled to Saudi Arabia, many walls in Tunis were sprayed with the grafitti message: “Thank you Facebook.” Arguably, the social networking sites brought down powerful dictatorships in the Arab world; something that al Qaeda and the US failed to achieve in the past.

Let me get back to the question that I raised earlier. Will the Arabs be able to eventually usher in democracy in their lands? Caution is necessary in answering this question because revolutions often go astray. The parliamentary force led by Oliver Cromwell was able to defeat the King’s army in 1649 and King Charles I was put to trial and executed. What was the end result? The first and only martial law dictatorship of British history. Similarly, the French Revolution was inspired by the writings of humanist writers but after a bout of frenzied executions it culminated in the dictatorship of Napolean Bonaparte. The Russian Revolution aimed at establishing a working class utopia but it soon turned into a Stalinist cult. Hitler also preyed upon the grievances of the masses and a genuinely popular revolution soon was transformed into Nazi dictatorship. More recently, we saw the degeneration of the Iranian revolution of 1979 into a closed theocracy. In contrast, the time-tested success of the American Revolution of 1776 can be attributed to the resulting institutions built by the founders of that revolution. The fathers of the American Revolution soon turned their attention and energies to framing a constitution and establishing institutions. On the contrary, Arab revolutionaries like Gamal Nasser, Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi kept all power concentrated in their own persons and did not let institutions develop in their countries.

Demolishing an old order is a rather easier gain of a revolution. The more arduous and demanding stage is establishing a new order in place of the old one. The test of success of the Arab revolution will, therefore, depend on adequate institution building as democracy is not just about holding elections. If, as a result of the current unrest, the new political order is based on regular free and fair elections and also guarantees the rights of women and minorities in accordance with the UN charter of human rights, we shall all call 2011 as the year of democratic revolution in the Arab world. Till that happens, we have to remain sceptic as many masked robbers can be seen accompanying the caravan of Arab revolutionaries.

The writer teaches in the UK and is the founding member of Rationalist Society of Pakistan. He can be reached at hashah9@yahoo.com