Democracy and capitalist globalisation are a contradiction in terms, says Sherif Hetata* These days we are witnessing what might be described as a "carnival of democracy". Every day I open the newspapers to find a chorus of statements, declarations, articles, columns, debates, essays and commentaries expressing the dire need to engage in democratic change. Public radio and television have echoed this wonderful national consensus in which both governmental and semi-governmental circles, intellectuals and a few figures from the so-called opposition have joined hands. This chorus extends even beyond our national boundaries to include the European Union and those who since the Barcelona declaration of 1994 speak of Euro-Arab partnerships, as well as the neoliberal group ruling the United States which is trying to launch what it calls the "Project for a Greater Middle East". Yet somehow deep inside I have growing doubts, perhaps shared by many men and women in Egypt, about this democratic campaign. Maybe it is the orchestration that makes me wary of the hoolabaloo. Maybe it is because when I open the newspapers I see the same photographs of "governmental" or "oppositional" figures, those who have cooperated or fought minor battles in the party and parliamentary game now passing itself off as "democracy", though the photographs now often appear in lurid colour instead of black and white. Maybe the faces in these photographs are once again just jockeying for position in a "pseudo- national" government in the coming year or years. Perhaps in the face of the global market, the global multinational milieu brought to bear under the "Project for a New American Century", a new empire, our vision of what constitutes democracy has to be revised, more especially after the signal failure of parliamentary and party politics in solving the terrible problems faced these days by Arab, African, Asian and other peoples of the world. No one can be averse to reform or deny the struggle of many people in Egypt for democracy, but we need to follow carefully what is being proposed as democratic reform and decide whether it will really change the autocratic systems under which we have been living for so many years. Around the middle of March about 150 men and women belonging to the political, cultural and professional "elite" met together for a period of three days. The meeting was held significantly in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and discussed "Issues of Arab Reform". At the end of the meeting the participants issued a statement, later named the Alexandria Declaration. After the statement appeared a number of notables commented favourably upon it. Among them were US Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and President George W Bush, who mentioned it during the recent visit of President Hosni Mubarak to the United States. All three expressed their satisfaction with this document, describing it as an important initiative that had arisen "from within Egyptian society" and was aimed at activating the democratic reforms so badly needed in Arab countries, including Egypt. These were reforms that they themselves had referred to on different occasions before and after the war on Iraq, which according to them itself aimed at "replacing the tyrannical system of Saddam Hussein by a democratic regime". Meanwhile, they attempted to refute any possible relationship between the suggestions for democratic reform put forward by the participants in the Alexandria meeting, who are well known for their close ties with government circles, and the previous proposals made by Powell several months earlier, or with the Project for a Greater Middle East to be discussed in the next meeting of the G8 industrialised countries scheduled for 6-9 June in Sea Islands, Florida, a project that envisages a "security system" for the Middle East under the control of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in which Israel will play a pivotal role. Things went even further. Prominent left wing intellectuals expressed their delight with the suggestions for democratic reform in the Alexandria Declaration, although one or two of them mentioned, albeit in timid terms, reservations concerning the privatisation and free trade suggestions included in its economic section. For some time now, especially since the publication of the now world-famous UNDP report on human development in the region, the issue of democratic reform has occupied centre stage. But the question which we should keep asking is: Will these democratic reforms be tailor-made to suit the interests of the "global market", of the United States and European Union, of the multinationals, of the Arab rulers under pressure by people to make changes, and of the "elite", whether governmental or oppositional, who together are the prime beneficiaries and players on the political scene, or are we moving towards something genuinely different? When people like George W Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell welcome the Alexandria Declaration it is natural for many of us to wonder why it came so suddenly -- out of the blue even -- from an officially sponsored group -- what aims does it seek to fulfil and what interests it will serve? The first thought which may come to one's mind is how far can our society move towards democracy if we submit to the demands of an accelerated privatisation, of the global market and of the policies imposed on us by US hegemony and its partners in the European Union, despite the contradictions which arise between them over markets and areas of influence at different times? Ever since Sadat declared his "open door policy", beginning the process of assimilation into the global free market, we have witnessed a growing gap between rich and poor, increasing poverty and unemployment, difficulties facing the middle class and economic harassment encountered by people in their daily lives. Political activity, the media, newspapers, elections and parliamentary representation are now the sole privilege of those who have money, of an elitist minority and of those entrenched in the bureaucratic apparatus. Is it possible any longer to separate between the exercise of democratic freedoms and the distribution of wealth, between democracy and social justice, if our democracy is to withstand being offered up for sale to those who have money or subject to the power exercised by a huge repressive bureaucratic state apparatus? Are we not at risk of seeing our democracy held captive to market impunity and state control? Is there not a fundamental contradiction between the de-industrialised, economically privatised system into which we have been drawn and the exercise of any democracy to speak of? The Alexandria Declaration speaks glowingly of democratic reform and at the same time pulls the carpet from under its already unsteady feet by what it describes as privatised, free market reform in a country already prey to huge corporations penetrating more and more into every corner of our lives, removing what remains of any social stability and protection we enjoy. If in addition all this talk of democracy is being aired in the context of Bush's project for a "Greater Middle East", an ongoing war against terrorism waged by state terrorism -- two terrorisms which are synergistically linked because the existence of each depends on the continuation of the other -- of American citizens locked behind the bars of the Patriot Act, of a security to be imposed on us by NATO, extending its jurisdiction over us in cooperation with a nuclear armed, technologically war machined Israeli State, of a military occupation of Iraq and a network of military bases, of rulers whose antidemocratic history is common knowledge to every man and woman struggling to live life, then what democracy is this document talking about? Could it not be just another cover up for the impotence of Arab regimes that have lost all credibility but yet continue to rule? Since the end of WWII successive Arab rulers have assiduously weeded out, suppressed or imprisoned viable democratic forces in their countries. They know very well that any tailor-made freedoms they may allow will mainly provide more space of manoeuvre for themselves, for those who have money, or for fundamentalist forces to engage us indefinitely in new electoral processes far removed from any real change in our lives, so that these same Arab rulers can remain in the saddle of a mount which threatens to unseat them at any moment. The unfortunate thing is that many of our "thinkers" have wittingly or unwittingly fallen into this democratic trap at a time when many things have changed, when new forces have arisen that are seeking to break a democratic mould which is outmoded and to establish a different democracy, built on the initiative and creativeness of the dispossessed and of "the wretched of the earth". A democracy of new forces rising from below, not a democracy dictated by a global few and the elite who look up to them for the manna which rains from heaven from time to time. * The writer is a novelist and political analyst.
