By Salama A Salama Tunisia's complaints about the absence of provisions for democracy and human rights in the recent Alexandria Declaration on Reform rings hollow in the light of President Zein Al- Abidine Ben Ali's unilateral decision to cancel or postpone the immanent Arab summit; a decision made in defiance of collective basis of the right to convene or postpone such a conference. It can only be seen as an unwarranted blow to Arab foreign ministers who were conferring to discuss viable compromises when the decision was made. With so many obvious differences among the participants, no one could have reasonably expected the Tunisian summit to be a certain success. Yet the lack of political will and the tendency to say one thing and do another have contributed to exploding the summit before it took place. (Such hypocrisies, it would seem, have been the defining principles of Arab governments for decades.) Tunisia's claim is that the decision was made in answer to "variance in the participant states' positions on political reform" -- even despite the fact that such variance is not only natural but embodies the pluralistic spirit of democracy for which Tunisia had called. Given the diversity of political regimes present, and the absence of a legislative or constitutional infrastructure allowing for institution building, unanimity could never have been expected. Expectations were, in fact, limited -- and not only with respect to structural reform of the League or the Alexandria Declaration. Differences concerning the Beirut peace initiative remained: whether to openly renew it or to respond to Sharon's position on peace by taking no further action while reaffirming belief in the initiative as a unified Arab position. It would have been possible for Arab leaders to formulate some face-saving compromises, but it seems that one faction of those "new Arabs" who neither undertake nor endorse working towards improvement decided to topple over the already unbalanced summit, whether to woo American favour or irresponsibly ignore the brutalities of the Israeli regime (which has not even tried to conceal its disdain for Arabs and their inability to stand up to oppression), something for which many Arab regimes will pay. Nor should a consequent undermining of stability in the region surprise Washington. The sudden statement in which the Tunisian foreign minister declared that the summit would not be taking place sounded as if it was conceived outside the Arab world. Some Gulf states who had set out for Tunis reluctantly breathed a sigh of relief -- somebody else was responsible for the failure. The unilateral decision, for which President Ali alone is responsible, came as a surprise to some and an affront to others. The fact that the decision to postpone the summit took place at a time when Arab foreign ministers had accomplished some 80 per cent of the work required to resolve their disputes is a clear indication that the Tunisian leadership either reluctantly accepted the idea of hosting the summit or had been planning on cancelling it all along. It would have been rather more dignified for Tunisia to refuse to host the summit from the beginning, the way Bahrain had done. Egypt's hurried announcement of its willingness to host the summit is an attempt to sidestep the destructive effects of its abandonment. There is no doubt that the peoples' disappointment in their governments' failure to deal with reform issues will leave behind a certain, intense bitterness in their minds. Regional failure becomes a domestic problem. But it is the regional debacle that is most worrying; that there are regional parties other than Israel working to turn an already haggard League into an inanimate corpse.
