In Focus: Convictions can change The Arab nation faces a choice: embrace a forward-looking perspective on change, or regress to outmoded rhetoric that will save no one, writes Galal Nassar The dramatic upheavals that have rocked the Arab world and the effects of which that are still ricocheting through Arab societies have shaken many long-standing convictions. The past year has swept away Arab regimes and brought others to the brink. While the future remains murky, what is certain is that sharp vertical and horizontal rifts have cleaved Arab societies. In Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, new governments are taking shape. But the process is still in its early phases and political alliances coalesce only to collapse shortly afterwards. Of the three, Tunisia is the furthest ahead in the transition and the most steadily on course. Since the recent parliamentary elections there, the three leading parties have reached a power-sharing agreement in accordance with which Hamadi Al-Jebali, the secretary-general of Al-Nahda Party, will assume the premiership, the rights activist Moncef Marzouki of the secularist Congress for the Republic Party will be president, and Mustafa bin Jaafar of the centre-right Ettakatol will serve as speaker of the constitutional assembly. It is impossible to say how these three politicians of widely divergent outlooks will work together. However, they clearly have urgent issues to address, not least of which are economic and social development, unemployment and narrowing the gap between rich and poor. These are crucial concerns for the Tunisian people. After all, they did not throw off an oppressive regime that had been grinding them down for decades since their country's independence only to replace it with one that fails to fulfil their aspirations. They want to see "freedom", "justice", "equality" and other such banners of their revolution put into effect on the ground. The same, of course, applies to the Egyptian people. But in Egypt, the political sea is more tumultuous and the future blurrier. Relations between the youth who created and launched the 25 January Revolution and the conventional opposition forces are hardly cosy, but even the conventional opposition forces lack sufficient common ground. In addition, the chummy harmony that the Muslim Brotherhood had struck up with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) threatens to run aground on the shoals of "supra-constitutional principles". The Brotherhood and their Salafi brethren oppose the notion of a pre-established set of constitutional principles because, if they dominate the forthcoming parliament, it would restrain their freedom to forge a constitution that would lay the foundations for an Islamic theocracy. The situation in Libya is even more difficult. The conflicts that are tearing that fellow Arab country apart and threatening its future are painful to watch. On the one hand, there is the conflict between the interim council and the radical Islamist forces that led the armed conquest of the Gaddafi regime. Not surprising are the familiar clashes between the Muslim Brotherhood and liberal forces, which rage across the satellite television networks and the pages of the Arab press. However, the situation is exacerbated by mounting inter-tribal tensions and violence. It has been less than two weeks since an armed confrontation between tribes that still declare their allegiance to the late Colonel Gaddafi and those loyal to the interim council. Then, to further complicate matters, another -- albeit less open -- struggle has arisen over the Libyan legacy between the US and European powers and other NATO members that took part in the campaign to topple the Gaddafi regime on the grounds of safeguarding civilian lives. Meanwhile, Yemen and Syria, where the uprisings continue, are staring at further deterioration and humanitarian disaster, unless the political forces in each can reach some kind of reconciliation that will bring their countries back from the brink of fragmentation and chaos, restore stability and rehabilitate their historic status in the Arab region. The foregoing observations might strike some as overly pessimistic and pat analyses that do not sufficiently appreciate the dynamics of the historical transformations. Optimists would find it more worthwhile to focus on the positive, to encourage constructive thinking and to appeal for a new era of cooperation between the peoples of the societies in the midst of radical change. Other critics may be more damning and charge that I speak in the tongue of Western intellectuals who look at this part of the world and see only tribes squabbling over water wells and pasture land. Any serious scholar would have done his very best to shed such blinkers as they can only hamper what I believe is the intellectual's higher mission, which is to serve as a voice for his country's conscience. To meet the demands of this function, he must hone a clear-sighted and trustworthy eye in order to obtain as accurate a reading of realities as possible, which he should then strive to analyse as precisely as possible, in accordance with rigid scientific criteria and methods. It is a mission that requires a combination of intellectual integrity, moral fortitude and dedication to the welfare his nation and its people. At times of momentous change, such as we are experiencing today, even if the fruits of his observations and analyses appear unpromising, they nevertheless can contribute to opening new horizons, point the way to possible solutions and stimulate efforts towards surmounting the obstacles that obstruct the course and the realisation of the lofty aims of a national resurrection project. It is this spirit of commitment that marks what we might call metaphorically the "new realism". While some observers may be overly pessimistic others are certainly overly optimistic. Finally, the stagnant political waters of the Arab world have begun to stir, they say, as though this were inherently good, in and of itself. Apparently, they have forgotten that the Arab renaissance project began in the mid-19th century and that that stirring of the waters brought the Sykes-Picot agreement, the Balfour Declaration, the fall of the Levant beneath the treads of British and French colonial tanks, the creation of the Zionist entity, the manufacture of mandates and proxy monarchs, and the subsequent collapse of the 1919 Revolution in Egypt, the Iraqi Revolution of 1920, the Palestinian Intifada of 1936 and other such uprisings that carried the torch of the Arab awakening. The celebrations that followed these early 20th century Arab revolutions were no less jubilant that those that followed 25 January. However, an inaccurate and misleading reading of realities brought the decline of a nascent middle class and the influence of the Arab intelligentsia, leading to a reversal of the Arab enlightenment project in the interwar period. It was thus that the field was left open to bands of youth from the military establishment to seize the revolutionary banner, stage coups and lay the foundations for an array of Arab dictatorships. (While there may be exceptions to the foregoing rule, it nevertheless stands as an easily supportable generalisation). In justification of their outlook, the optimists contend that the political, social and economic turmoil that followed the collapse of the pyramids of power in Arab countries is perfectly normal. They point to the tumultuous rise of democratic government in Europe, a 500 year process that pitched and heaved through a train of wars between nations and within nations until finally Europe was able to stand on its feet as an emerging power and to defeat the kingdoms and empires that stood in its path. Proponents of this argument overlook a number of major factors, prime among which is the fact that the major transformations in Europe were the product of a process of social evolution involving the emergence of new social forces, shifting balances of power and the collapse of social structures that hampered the forward thrust of democratic enlightenment as expressed in everything from philosophical treatises and political projects to literature and the arts. Moreover, this social transformation was endogenous. It was not affected by the political climate outside Europe or dominated by great world powers that, in all events, were nearing their demise. The European drive towards democracy was, in every sense, a forward-looking struggle. It fused petty kingdoms into vibrant nations. It swept away cruel feudal orders and forced the Church to bow to the philosophy of enlightenment that declared in no uncertain terms that men are born free, that they are inherently endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that they are equal under the law. This is the philosophy that gave birth to the citizen state, the separation of religion from the state, the separation of the powers of government and a system of checks and balances between them. It is the philosophy that transformed the underlying basis of government from a patriarchal order to a contractual order. In the Arab world, by contrast, the political dynamics of the second half of the 19th century were more exogenously driven and remained so for decades to come. The colonial powers had a dominant impact on Arab independence drive. It is sufficient here to note that the national liberation movement based its World War I alliances on the good intentions of the British high commissioner in Cairo, McMahon. As a result, Arab forces signed up behind Lawrence of Arabia to fight alongside the British forces in the campaign to drive the German and Ottoman forces out of the Levant. The hope was to pave the way for independence in the post-war period. The military campaign, itself, was victorious, but the clouds of war subsided to reveal a political disaster for the Arab independence movement. Surely, we do not want to repeat such a catastrophe, in albeit different contexts. The hard evidence of over a century ago testifies to the fact that reactionary Arab forces are not equipped to lead a political project that looks towards the future, especially given that their means and methods remain the same as those that brought our defeat and humiliation in the past. Secondly, the strong link between Arab countries and the European/Western economy has distorted social development. Arab societies may have begun to emerge from patriarchal and feudal modes of relationship, but they have yet to restructure in a manner conducive to the formation of the modern civil state. This subject requires much more intensive focus and hopefully intellectuals will put their heads together towards the formulation of a vision that will point the way out the current confusion and revive hope and confidence in the future. The Islamist forces that, whether we like it or not, have risen to the fore in every country of the Arab Spring need to make a choice. Either they can keep their sights trained on the early eras of Islam and ignore the subsequent 14 centuries of human development and the legacy of human rights and international conventions that has accumulated during this interval and that has changed the way human beings, societies and nations interact with each other, or they can chose Islam of the present day, an Islam that is consistent with this 14-century old humanitarian legacy to which Islamic civilisation has contributed. Choosing the latter option entails abandoning the rhetoric and nit-picking on details that ultimately void the Arab Spring of the lofty humanitarian values that inspired it -- namely, freedom, equality, citizenship, social justice and prosperity.
