In 1991, right after the collapse of the Communist bloc, Samuel Huntington, the late professor of Harvard University, wrote a book titled “The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century”. This oft-cited study analyzed the transition of some 35 countries, mainly in Asia and Latin America, from non-democratic to democratic political systems during the 1970s and 1980s. The other “waves” occurred from 1828-1926 and 1943-1964. They have all failed to “rock” the Arab Middle East.

Following the 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York, former U.S. president George W. Bush promised what many commentators dubbed at the time as the “fourth wave” which implied spreading democracy in the “last stronghold of world tyranny” — the Middle East.
The toppling of Saddam Hussain's statue in Baghdad on April 9, 2003, Bush said, “would rank with the fall of the Berlin Wall as one of the great moments in the history of liberty”. He went on saying: “The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a crushing defeat to the forces of tyranny and terror, and a watershed event in the global democratic revolution”.
The U.S. military intervention was a complete disaster in every single aspect. It was a disaster to the cause of democracy in the Arab world, it destroyed the credibility of the U.S. as champion of human rights, and it harmed its interests and fed the cause of extremism in the Islamic world. Soon thereafter Bush found himself in a position where he had not only to leave governments heed the call for democracy at their own pace; but had also to support the very tyranny he claimed to be fighting.
As usual, parts of the U.S. academic community tried to justify the return to “pragmatism” in U.S. foreign policy. Washington's ability to live with democratic governments in the Middle East was therefore questioned. There have even been attempts to justify the alliance with autocrats throughout the world. The thesis that America must support dictators or else accept to live with the very people it regards as dangerous for its interests and core values gained grounds under both Bush and President Barack Obama.
“Pressure for democracy will present the U.S. with a number of immediate dangers and few clear advantages. The likelihood of the Arab world producing fully democratic regimes in the next 10 to 15 years is remote; it enjoys none of the recognized prerequisites for sustaining democracy”.
Moreover, the transition to democracy would almost certainly lead to the disintegration of state institutions in most Arab countries. Bearing in mind the Iraqi experience, this would result in chaos and inter-confessional violence in parts of the region. “Replacement for the incumbent Arab governments will not be the small class of liberals or old bourgeois families that once reigned. Rather, the alternative is an Islamic state run by Muslim extremists,” a U.S. scholar wrote.
At the time, most of these claims have been taken at face value wherein very few have tried to challenge them. For example, if Arab elites were not committed to democracy, one should truly wonder how much commitment was there among the Portuguese or the Spanish elites during the transition to democracy in these two countries in the mid 1970s. In addition, neither homogeneity nor GDP could explain why poor and heterogeneous India has become the world biggest democracy.
Last but not least, the success of some Muslim countries, such as Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia, to establish democratic institutions has undermined the argument that Islam is a hindrance to democracy.
The collapse of president Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali's regime in Tunisia under popular pressure thwarted what has remained of this spurious argument. Harsh living standards, tribalism, Arabism, Islamism and all the other “isms” that have been for long employed to justify the lack of democracy in the Arab world have proved to be useless.
Besides, unlike Iraq, Tunisia's democracy is home-grown. However, there seems to be attempts by some western powers to abort and cancel what has resulted from this unique popular uprising, fearing that it may have a domino effect throughout the region. Our hope is that the men and women of Tunisia who made this historic victory possible will not allow that.
Dr. Marwan Al Kabalan is the Director, The Damascus Centre for Economic and Political Studies.
Photo: (Illustration: Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News)
(Source: Gulf News)