Gihan Shahine sifts through the just-released UN Arab Human Development Report -- which is highly critical of the region's oppressive regimes -- and asks its lead author some tough questions The timing of the third UN Arab Human Development Report's release has coincidentally made its title and central message -- The Time has Come: A Call for Freedom and Good Governance in the Arab World -- doubly significant. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) first released the report on 5 April in Amman; on the same day, thousands of Egyptian university students demonstrated angrily against the government, calling for an end to Egypt's 24-year state of emergency. Last Sunday the report was launched again in Cairo, which -- like many Arab capitals -- has recently been rife with reform talk and action. The UN's assessment of freedom and governance in Arab societies practically mirrors some of the discussions and debates currently taking place in the region. "Why, among all the regions of the world, do Arabs enjoy the least freedom?" the report's authors poignantly ask. The answer, according to the report, can be traced back to decades of "emergency" laws, systematic suppression of independent courts and parliaments, and foreign powers' "double standards". The report argues that despite claims of promoting democracy in the region, the US has also "hampered progress", via its bias towards Israel, its war on Iraq, and an array of security measures that primarily affect Arabs. For Arab reformers, these findings are not new. The fact that they have been published under the auspices of the UN, however, lends them additional weight. The report identified serious deficits in the region's freedom of opinion, expression and creativity, warning that such a "suppressive" situation -- if allowed to remain as is -- would lead to "chaotic upheavals that might force a transfer of power in Arab countries". Furthermore, these upheavals "could well involve armed violence and human losses that, however small, would be unacceptable. Nor would a transfer of power through violence guarantee that successor governance regimes would be any more desirable," the authors said. The report is the third and latest in a series of UN-funded documents written by independent Arab scholars. The first edition identified three fundamental deficits -- in the realms of knowledge, women's rights, and freedom and governance. While the second focussed on the knowledge gap, this year's report, which surveys political reform efforts that have taken place over the past three years, is aimed at stimulating "a dialogue in Arab societies on how to expand freedom and establish good governance". The report was written before several important events took place: elections in Iraq and Palestine; massive street protests in Lebanon; and the constitutional change that allows for multi- candidate presidential elections in Egypt. It would be difficult, however, to gauge whether these events would have changed the report's conclusion that while some political and social change has taken place in the Arab world, the reforms that have been adopted remain "embryonic and fragmentary", and "do not add up to a serious effort to dispel the prevailing environment of repression". Authority, the report points out, remains concentrated in the hands of the executive power -- be it a monarchy, military dictatorship, or a civilian president elected without contest. That one- sided dynamic creates a "black hole", which "converts its surrounding social environment into a setting in which nothing moves and from which nothing escapes." The unfortunate results of such a state include a non-independent judiciary, political and economic corruption, and a "mindset [among the general public] of passivity and obedience to authority". That atmosphere is also bad for business. According to the report, the financial community has a problem with "people in power [monopolising] the main areas of the economy, either directly or as partners of successful business ... [with] persons in power and their close circle [receiving] huge commissions for contracts concluded between the state and international or local companies, including armament contracts." These blunt critiques help explain why the report was not well received by Arab regimes. Both the Egyptian and US governments, for instance, were so critical of parts of an early draft of the report, that its release was delayed for six months. The lead author, Nader Fergany, said the US objected so strenuously to the sections of the document that dealt with Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that it threatened to cut UNDP funds if the document appeared under the global body's imprint. Subsequent plans to release the report independently were later scrapped; in the end, the UNDP decided its logo could be used, but made clear in its foreword that "some of the views expressed by the authors are not shared by the UNDP or the UN." Fergany told Al-Ahram Weekly that Egypt "was unhappy with the report's call for the freedom of all societal forces to organise and form political parties... which would imply that the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, which enjoys strong popularity, has the right to form a political party in Egypt." Egypt did not object to the report, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa told a press conference on Sunday, "but only had reservations on some of its parts". According to Moussa, most Arab states do not categorically reject the report, which would "be the subject of further research and study". One of the key bones of contention involved who would drive the region's reform process. "We disagree with many of the report's findings, especially that on reform 'forced' from the outside," Moussa said. "Forcing foreign reform would only wreak instability in the region. We only accept dialogue with foreign powers on reform issues." Rima Khalaf, assistant UN secretary- general and UNDP director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States, also rebutted some of the rumours about why Egypt objected to the report. Khalaf denied that Egypt was upset about the report's criticism of any attempt by President Hosni Mubarak to transfer power to his son. "Nothing of the sort was mentioned in the report in the first place," said Khalaf, who is also the report's chief supervisor. "The report only mentioned the transfer of some Arab governments into royal states, and made no reference to a specific country in that respect." Cairo University political science professor Mustafa Kamel El-Sayid, who contributed to initial drafts of the report, told the Weekly that "the issue of family succession was originally included in one of the background papers." El-Sayid, however, said he could not tell whether that part was "compromised, or just lost in the background papers". The report's assessment of occupation in Palestine and Iraq as an obstacle to development also inspired questions. The report criticised the US administration for failing to provide security for Iraqis; it also dealt with the fact that even though the old state had been dismantled, very little progress had been made in rebuilding a new Iraq. The fact that prisoners, mostly civilians, had been subjected to inhumane and immoral treatment at Abu Ghraib and other occupation prisons, with women subject to rape and sexual abuse, was also covered. Occupation, the authors argued, also provided Arab regimes with an excuse to postpone the reform process -- under the pretext of external threats -- and distracted Arab reformers from pursuing their domestic reform agendas, while simultaneously strengthening groups that advocate violence. Despite these details, the US is not mentioned by name. Instead, El-Sayid said, "the report criticised the 'foreign' occupation of Iraq -- a stylistic compromise which is considered minor since the main message is there." That message also covers the US "war on terror", which the report said poses threats to civil liberties and reform in the Arab region, making Arabs "increasingly the victims of stereotyping, disproportionately harassed or detained without cause under new restrictions." Meanwhile, many Arab governments have taken the war on terror as justification for an "unprecedented numbers of arrests". The report ends with a recommendation of "a half-way house" scenario for Arab reform, suggesting, "a programme endorsed by external forces that would induce a series of internal reforms in Arab countries." That scenario is admittedly not ideal, the report concludes, but at least it is "realistic", halfway between a disastrous choice of "maintaining... the status quo", and a more idealistic option involving a peaceful redistribution of power from within Arab societies. "Cooperating with external non- governmental and governmental actors," the report said, "can be rewarding if all parties respect key principles." Some commentators, like Marina Ottaway of the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the admission "that pressure from the outside, particularly from Washington, may help the cause of political change in the Middle East" would be "music to the [US's] ears," since it will "be seized on by the Bush administration as proof that Arabs are embracing democracy and that the US policy in the region is helping further the will of the people, not imposing an alien system on the Arab world." El-Sayid said that although "the report accepts cooperation with 'governmental' actors, without excluding the US... it would have been better had it limited the reference to cooperation with external 'non-government' actors, just like the global anti-war movement which has staged demonstrations worldwide."
