With Rami G. Khouri
Rami George Khouri is a Palestinian-Jordanian and US citizen whose family resides in Beirut, Amman, and Nazareth. He is the Director of the Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut as well as editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper. He is an internationally syndicated political columnist and author. Rami was a visiting scholar at Stanford University in October 2006, and in November 2006, he was the co-recipient of the Pax Christi International Peace Award for his efforts to bring peace and reconciliation to the Middle East.
Two discourses seem to predominate in discussions on democracy in the Middle East: One is that Arabs are incapable of enacting democracy. The second is that there is something innately incompatible between Islam and democratic values. Can you comment?
Those are two very extremist, ideological and slightly racist discourses that are common among very small groups of people in the Western world. These are not common discourses at all, they tend to be raised by people in Europe and North American mostly who are either ignorant of the region or are ideologically motivated by extreme anti-Arab or anti-Muslim sentiments for some reason. There are many different types of those groups who have ideological and nationalist and other motivations. So I would not say that these are common discourses, they are two extremist discourses.
The reality is that most people in the world and the Middle East let the region speak for itself and see the transitions taking place now, that witness people in the Arab countries for the first time really in modern history being able to devise their own government systems. Arabs in Tunisia and Egypt and Libya and other places are creating their own government systems with the accountability, transparency, pluralism, the rule of law and all of the good things that mark quality democracies so we really have to let the facts speak for themselves and see what kinds of systems these Arab countries produce.
My guess is that given time they will come with quite credible systems; they may be different to Japanese democracy or Italian democracy or Chilean or Brazilian democracy but they will be credible democracies. And they may have an Islamic colour or an Arab-nationalist colour or tribal colour or they may have a tint to them that might be different to other democracies but that is how the world works. That is a good thing because it means that democratic systems that they come up will be seen to be legitimate and credible in the eyes of people, which is really the key to success.
Six months on, the military still governs in Egypt. Should we be concerned that the democratic process in is danger here (think Pakistan) or is it still early days for Egypt?
We should not be concerned right now but we should certainly keep our eye on it. The military’s role in governing Egypt is, first of all, done largely with the acquiescence of the majority of Egyptians. The people see this as a transitional process. If it proves to be permanent then we have a problem thenwe should be concerned about it.
But again, it is too early to tell. The transitional mechanisms are being implemented slowly. There are arrangements being made for parliamentary elections, for presidential elections, for a new constitution, for trials of people in the old regime. This is a process that really just started a few months ago and we need to give it more time.
But all signs are that the military does not want to rule the country as it has for the last sixty years, it has realised that its job is to protect the country and not to rule it. They are working closely with all elements of Egyptian society to achieve a credible transition. If this continues to move as it is now the military will go back to playing a security role, they may continue to have a behind-the-scenes influence like the Turkish military did for many years. So we have to keep our eye on it for sure.
When people take to the streets of Homs, Benghazi or Sanaa, is it democracy they are calling for, or is it something else?
Effectively it is democracy that they are calling for but they are using different words to express their sentiments. What they are calling for is the end of subjugation and oppression and abuse of power by the ruling authorities in their countries. They want a stop to being treated like cattle. They want a stop to being treated like people who have no rights and no minds. They are fed up with that. So the articulation of their grievances, the articulation of their aspirations and their demands are denominated in their vocabulary mostly around civic rights, constitutional rights, equality, social justice, ending corruption and political pluralism. These are the main themes that emerged. Now if you put those together that is what democracy is all about, as well as other things of course.
Yes, the answer is they are calling for democracy but they are not necessarily using that word as such but, ultimately, that is what they want. They want a democratic system in which power is vested in the people, rule is according to the consent of the governed, majority interests are expressed and minority rights are protected and there is a rule of law system that makes the whole thing work. This is what people are definitely moving towards and it is very exciting to see it happening and towatch day-by-day as people put these systems into place.
You live in Lebanon. Being the most democratic Arab state in the region what do people there think of what is happening elsewhere in the region? Are there things the new Arab governments can learn from the Lebanese experience?
The situation in Lebanon is completely different than the rest of the Arab countries and the reason you are not seeing a popular uprising in Lebanon like you are in other countries is because of the very different nature of how power is exercised. In the rest of the Arab countries people are revolting because there is a strong central government that abuses power, abuses citizens, subjugates people, doesn’t give people their rights and, therefore, people are rebelling against this. In Lebanon there is a weak central government, power is diffused among the eighteen different confessional groups and there is not the same kind of sense that the ordinary citizens feel in the rest of the Arab world – that they are denied their human rights and their citizenship rights. There are other complaints in Lebanon, other problems of corruption and mismanagement and uneven distribution of development but the situation is not the same. Lebanon had an uprising in 2005 when many people spread out into the streets and drove the Syrian army and the Syrian government out of Lebanon, when Syria dominated Lebanon. So they have had their uprising but it was against foreign domination, it was not against an internal subjugation.
The lessons of Lebanon for the rest of the Arabworld are very clear. If you have a reasonably open system which is pluralistic by nature, as Lebanon’s is, and allow people liberties to express themselves, to study, to create, to debate, to write, to publish, to have the freedom to use all their human faculties, then you are bound to create a very impressive society. And it is no accident that, despite the wars it has had, despite the foreign interference, despite the many problems, Lebanon today is still the most impressive Arab country for universities, for research, for publishing, for theatre, for drama, for press, for almost any activity that requires human activity and human ingenuity. That is the main lesson: give people freedom, respect the rights of citizens to do what they want as long as they do not hurt other people and good things will happen.
Infighting among various elements of the Syrian ‘opposition’ appears to plague their progress. Have they missed their chance in terms of offering the people of Syria an alternative to the Assad regime?
Again, it is early to have any kind of definitive judgement. Clearly the fragmentation of the Syrian opposition is an issue that the opposition has to address quickly in order to capitalise on the rebellion that is taking place and not let it fade away or not let it be quashed by the Syrian government. And they have started to try to do this through various meetings outside the country. There is not a clear consensus yet among all the groups but they have started to create coordinating mechanisms so that the three or four main opposition groups have a minimum level of coordination.
This gives them greater credibility as an opposition and gives them greater capacity to actually bring about the kind of political, diplomatic and economic pressure on the Syrian government that will allow the country to make a transition to a more democratic system. That process is underway and has only been seriously underway for about two months now so we need to give it a bit more time and watch it. My guess is that it will happen because people are learning very quickly from the Libyan situation, that you need to have a unified opposition to be able to keep the pressure on the government in order to transition to democracy.
When a population has been restricted and controlled to the extreme extent as has been the case in many Arab states does this mean anarchy will follow as democratic freedoms are released on populations?
The main requirement is to find the right balance between political change and economic progress because while people are trying to transition to more democratic systems there are really serious economic pressures in terms of jobs, incomes, national accounts, exports and imports. The second issue is the danger that in the short run the democratic system that is installed instantly in a society, that has not practised democracy previously, will probably see it reverting to severe sectarian, ethnic and religious differentiation. This is what we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan to some extent. If you suddenly create an electoral system, the only institutions that people gravitate to naturally are their religion or their tribe or their sect or their ethnic group. Accounting for that reality is important.
People’s identities have to be expressed and mobilised in a certain way but the point of democracy is to allow a transition to happen whereby people become equal citizens with civic rights, citizenship rights and human rights rather than simply having an arena where different tribes can fight for a share of the pie.
Youth between the ages of 15-24 constitute the largest age group among Arab populations, representing more than one third of the total inhabitants of the Arab region (UNDP). Are Arab countries simply not old enough to sustain democracy?
We really have to look at the economic situation and the quality of the democratic systems. Those two factors will be the big determinants of what happens. Generally speaking, the youth populations are a huge plus for democratic transitions. These young people first led the revolt across the region. They are looking to have a say in how things are done. The mechanisms of government that have existed so far have been unsatisfying for them and they took the lead in bringing about this change. So they want to participate, they have a lot of energy, they want to be productive. They are a tremendous asset.
The system needs to be structured in a way that it actually allows people to feel that they have a say, that their vote counts, that the system is not rigged and you have false and superficial democracy as has been the case in the Arab world where people have elections and parliaments but they do not mean anything. So now the greatest challenge is to make sure that the democratic process is credible and seen to be legitimate by its own people so that they then get actively involved in public life.
Economic conditions will have an impact. If people are employed they tend to be more moderate and reasonable. If you get a large group of young unemployed people,they willtend to be fodder for ideological extremists who could take a democratic process and have it geared towards extremist movements. We have seen cases where democracies produce dictators and we do not want that to happen.
Will the withdrawal of US troops be a help or hindrance to democracy in Iraq?
The withdrawal of US troops can only be a help to democracy because the presence of US troops is probably the greatest hindrance to any kind of democratic transition. There is no possible way you can get a serious democratic process underway under the eyes of foreign troops occupying your country or running it. So definitely the Americans, and whoever else is still there with them, their leaving Iraq is a good thing. It would allow the Iraqis to finally take control of their country and run it. Hopefully, they will do that efficiently and effectively for everybody but it remains to be seen because there is a lot of pressure in the country, there is a lot of stress and tension and it is not a very happy place right now.
Is a democratic Middle East region inevitable?
Personally yes, I think it is inevitable. The question is how long will it take. Will it happen across the whole region or will it be a patchwork like you had after the fall of the Soviet Union where some countries became vibrant democracies and others have been stuck in autocratic mode with strong men and quasi-dictators. You have a system of governance in the Arab world that was top-heavy and autocratic and non-democratic and some countries will transition quickly. Others, especially the monarchies, will probably evolve in a different way. They probably won’t become democracies but hopefully they will become more constitutional monarchies where citizens have more say in running their countries. There would be more public participation and a sense of citizenship rather than just being subjects of the monarchy. So I would personally feel that democracy is inevitable across much of the Arab world but there will be some countries that do not democratise.
