It is roughly the one year anniversary of the protests in Tunisia that led to the demise of the Zine Ben-Ali government, the opening act of the Arab Spring. Yogi Berra was right, “it ain’t over until its over.” The dynamics unleashed over the past year have not yet played themselves out anywhere and it is far too soon to reach any definitive conclusions. But it is not totally foolish to take stock in the middle of historical movements and get some sense of direction.
Two observation are safe to make. First, neither the most naive hopes nor most paranoid fears have been realized. Old authoritarian regimes have not been replaced with perfect democracies, with economic justice and unicorns dancing in the streets. But neither have Islamist bogeymen or sinister Iranian agents seized power, forcing burka-clad women back into the kitchen, banning music and laughter, and making great strides toward a restored Caliphate that stretches from the Middle East to China.
Second, the “gee whiz, hip technology has changed everything” notion has been discredited. Flying fingers Twittering, posting to Facebook, and texting were not the cause of success in Egypt nor somehow to blame for the nightmare in Syria. Technology makes it easier to do some things but in the end it is old school politics that matters: real people, face to face in real time protesting, organizing and refusing to play by the old rules.
The cliche that all politics is local has a couple of grains of truth and the events of the past year have varied greatly from country to country, but three basic dimensions can be seen. The structure and cohesion of the old regime, the nature of opposition groups, and the role of outsiders.
I will split this topic into two. The first section, which you reading now, will focus on two countries, Tunisia and Egypt, who have significant success in moving toward democracy. The second installment will discuss three countries with far less promising outcomes: Syria, Libya and Bahrain.
Tunisia, where it all arguably started, has probably made more progress than anywhere else. Elections for a Constituent Assembly last Fall showed significant support for moderate Islamist parties and secular leftists. The parties have so far shown an ability to cooperate in an interim government and draft a new constitution.
The problems with the old regime in Tunisia were symbolized by Zine Ben-Ali, his immediate family and their cronies. Lack of jobs and opportunity, an unresponsive and repressive state apparatus and economic inequality were, and remain, major problems but there is much less resentment of a larger corrupt and illegitimate elite than elsewhere in the Middle East. Thus the challenge of building new institutions is not complicated by the need to simultaneously purge a large proportion of senior officials and business people. An important fact of life in Tunisia is the relatively small size of the miliary and the relatively small role it has played in politics throughout the country’s history. The military is a far less important interest group than in many other countries and less inclined (and able) to impose its preferences on civilian leadership.
The nature and dynamics of the opposition has been profoundly affected by the facts that Tunisia is small country (under 11 million), relatively urban, with comparatively low unemployment and very little abject poverty. That has made cooperation across ideological and social boundaries easier and fostered a climate of trust. Regime opponents and the parties that have emerged to contest elections show the familiar bipolar pattern: political Islam attracts a plurality of the voters but secular democratic liberals also have strong support. And the most prominent Islamist party has repeatedly stressed its commitment to democracy.
Outsiders played no significant role in Tunisia. Tunisia’s neighbors did not fear that anti-regime sentiment would spill over the border (Algeria was right; Libya wrong), neither the U.S. nor Europe felt they had a much interest in the outcome and the regime did not resort to large scale violence or brutal repression that provoked a humanitarian crisis.
Egypt presents a more complicated picture. The ruling elite was far more than Mubarak and his immediate cronies. The liberalization of the Egyptian economy in the 1980s created a relatively large group of newly wealthy people who owed their success to political connections and favoritism. The Egyptian military has been a significant political actor ever since 1952 and the upper ranks of the officer corps were (and are) closely tied to the upper stratum of Egyptian society and politics. Power passed from Mubarak to the senior army officers without disturbing the structures of power and privilege in Egyptian society. The continued demonstrations in Tahir Square and protracted struggle over rules for parliamentary and presidential elections reflect a deep unease among Egyptians that the new boss will, unfortunately, turn out to be same as the old boss. The struggle to change policies and priorities to address economic stagnation, unemployment, and lack of social mobility is just beginning.
Far more than in Tunisia, the old regime succeeded in portraying Islamists in general and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular as enemies of freedom and a threat to Egyptian life. This has made relations between the parties and groups with a liberal democratic secular orientation and the more traditionally Islamic parties difficult. There is a major cultural difference between the relatively well off, relatively well educated, relatively liberal on social issues prototypical twenty something Tahir Square protestor and the Nile villager or urban slum dweller who does not post English language Tweets or trust foreign media like Al Jazeera. These differences are reflected in the backgrounds and orientations of the leadership of secular and Islamist movements. This has made collaboration among Islamist parries and secular liberals more fraught.
The several self-identified Islamist parties have done very well in the convoluted three stage process of parliamentary elections. The Freedom and Justice Party, linked to the mainstream Muslim Brotherhood leadership, has been the most successful vote getter, achieving a plurality of seats. Optimists both within and outside Egypt take the party’s stated commitment to democratic values and tolerance seriously; skeptics worry that an alliance between Freedom and Justice and more extreme Islamists would control over two thirds of the parliamentary seats.
Outsiders played a small role in the downfall of Mubarak. The United States tried to publicly tiptoe between support for the democracy movement and preservation of the institutional and personal ties between U.S. and Egyptian intelligence and military players. It is pretty clear that behind the scenes the U.S. encouraged the Egyptian military to throw Mubarak under the bus to preserve the larger status quo. Relations with outsiders are a much larger issue in Egyptian than Tunisia and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict tops the agenda. Polling data is pretty clear that the majority of Egyptians have not ever been in favor of the 1979 peace treaty with Israel and strongly support greater Egyptian support for Hamas and the Gaza Strip. But the Egyptian military and political leadership (including Freedom and Justice party leaders) have repeatedly stressed their intention to abide by the treaty. The more serious threat to Egyptian-Israeli relations, I think, is the Gaza Strip. The primary locus of economic activity in Gaza is the series of smuggling routes that have been set up to evade the Israeli blockade. Under Mubarak the issue was defined as weakening Hamas and other Islamists and Cairo was happy to oblige with border closings and tacit approval of the destruction of smuggling tunnels. But since Mubarak’s departure the emphasis has been shifted from thwarting Islamists to aiding suffering citizens and Egyptian collaboration has dropped dramatically. Another Israeli military adventure in Gaza along the lines of the ill-fated Operation Cast Lead of December ‘08 and January ‘09 could trigger massive public protest that would make the current cold peace untenable with very negative consequences for the Egyptian economy and role in the world.
Tunisia and Egypt are well past the morning after the night before and well into the long, tedious and sometimes frustrating process of creating a new political order that works.
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