Across the region, Western powers are finding their narrow-minded alliances with autocratic regimes challenged, writes Ayman El-Amir* The sounds of the Tahrir Square revolution and its Bouazizi twin in Tunisia are ringing loud in an Arab region that has long been yearning for freedom. Thousands of protesters in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Morocco are defying ruling regimes by demanding fundamental reforms that exceed what reigning oligarchies are prepared to yield. The US and West European countries are trying to steer the uprisings to a safe haven where their interests would not be compromised. However, the rebellious protesters seem to be set on a collision course with their regimes and half- hearted Western powers will have to take sides. The uprisings in several Arab countries are following a pattern that started in Tunisia, was finessed in Egypt and reignited in Libya and other hotbeds of rebellion. With the exception of Bahrain, demonstrators had one common demand: to bring down the regime. To them this is key to democratic change, respect for human rights, including the freedom of expression, transparent and free elections, representative government, the end of corruption, and improved living conditions. To the semi-feudal Arab regimes in power, ensconced in virtual reality cocoons, their subjects are endowed with freedom, justice, benevolent and caring rulers who are cheered wherever they appear, albeit by paid fans, and enjoy the blessings of stability. The virtual world that separates long- reigning Arab dictators from the people is made up of a heavy dose of self-righteousness, assured absolute power, "great" decisions and achievements fabricated by assembled courtiers, propaganda media that create a cult of personality and are instructed to disparage the few opponents that dare to be critical. With this false halo, they do not need constitutional democracy to prove their good deeds. Nor do their people. In the Arab region, monarchs and presidents alike rule with a sense of divine right wrapped in a veil of democratic slogans. The rule of Arab autocracies has been prolonged by a tribal culture that dictates absolute reverence for the chief. This has been enhanced by a common history, heritage and religion. It has come down to the Arab people from Ottoman rule that was viewed as the guardian of Islam. Arab people hardly had a free choice. They transited from the absolute rule of the Ottoman state to colonial governance that divided the region and eventually created few monarchies and fewer semi-independent states. These semi-independent republics fell in the hands of new autocrats, usually through military coups. The 21st century dawned on an Arab world ruled either by tribal monarchies or paramilitary dictatorships masquerading as democratic republican regimes. Libya's brutal dictatorship under Muammar Qaddafi is a case in point. Now in his 42nd year in power, he has ruled with an iron fist and pseudo-revolutionary sloganeering. With no constitution, political pluralism, free and fair elections or representative government, Qaddafi has ruled by spreading a culture of fear cultivated by the secret police, torture chambers and a reputation for medieval brutality. His Revolutionary Committees rule is the closest to Joseph Stalin's reign of terror in the 1920s and 1930s. The formation of political parties is criminalised by a Qaddafi decree that is part of a battery of laws restricting fundamental human rights and freedoms. On the international scene, Gaddafi is renowned for masterminding acts of terrorism, including the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 270 people. The decision to carry out such acts of terror is usually made at the highest level of state. He has also been summoned by a Lebanese court to answer charges of involvement in the disappearance of Imam Mousa Al-Sadr, leader of the Shia community in Lebanon, who was visiting Libya in 1979. Among the documented scores of forced disappearances, Libya's former permanent representative to the United Nations, Mansour Al-Kekhia, an opposition figure and human rights activist, disappeared from Cairo in 1993 while attending a conference of the Arab Organisation for Human Rights. This legacy of Qaddafi's and like-minded regimes makes the confrontation between the rulers and the people who are struggling to unseat them a matter of life and death. For the rulers, defeat means disgrace and accountability for heinous abuses. For thousands of angry protesters, it would mean arrest, torture, secret trials and summary execution. The stakes are too high, not only for both sides but also for neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia that set the trend for the protest movement in Libya and other rebellious countries. A setback for the uprising in Libya would mean a backlash for both and would be a boost to counter-revolutionary elements. With the present tragic developments in which the Libyan air force and artillery were reportedly shelling protesters in Benghazi, Tripoli and Musrata, megalomaniac Qaddafi seems like a modern day Nero who is willing to torch the country before he goes down. Protest demonstrations and clashes in Bahrain have been equally bloody although the demands for reform, better representation and respect for human rights did not amount to calling for the removal of the reigning monarch, King Hamad ben Eissa Al-Khalifa. The island state with an estimated 750,000 mostly Shia population is a red line for the status quo stability of the Gulf Arab states, particularly for ultraconservative Saudi Arabia. Both countries are linked by a 28-kilometre-long causeway that makes turbulent Bahrain too close for comfort. The unrest and bloody confrontation with security forces in Bahrain have made Gulf Arab states so nervous that Saudi Arabia had to send armoured carriers and tanks to the rescue of the regime. Because of its sectarian composition, Bahrain is the soft underbelly of the coalition of Gulf Arab states. As in other Arab countries, the Shia is the underprivileged sect of the population with deep grievances. They are culturally linked to the Shia minority in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia, the hub of Saudi oil wealth. The mutuality of interest, the resonance of revolt, and the potential domino effect cannot be underestimated. In Yemen, the 30-year-old regime of President Ali Abdallah Saleh is coming under increasing pressure to relinquish power, not to pass the presidency off to his son, Ahmad, and to remove his family members and tribal allies from positions of power and wealth in the impoverished country. Calls for secession are gaining momentum in South Yemen while the Huthis in the north are engaged in a civil war with Saleh's army that has been aided by the US and Saudi Arabia. The Arab region is transforming in ways and at a pace that would have been considered farfetched six months ago. Decades-old dictatorships spawned by military coups in the 1950s and 1960s are crumbling down, having failed their people's aspirations for democracy and better standards of life in larger freedom. Their downfall marks the end of an era that lasted for more than half a century of rule-by- repression, human rights violations and failed economic policies. They were only matched by the dictatorships of South America that extended from the 1950s through the 1980s. Western countries led by the US have played a key role in prolonging autocratic rule in the Arab region for short-sighted self-interest. With other candidate regimes on the list for democratic change, the situation may get worse before it gets better. When the dust finally settles Western countries will find a different Arab landscape. They have to advise their close allies to undertake fundamental democratic changes before they face similar bloody uprisings. Western countries will have to earn new credentials by developing different policies towards the new Arab region based on respect for national interests, human rights and peaceful development. * The writer is former Al-Ahram correspondent in Washington DC. He also served as director of United Nations Radio and Television in New York.
