Arab Democracy Rising: International Lessons
17 Feb 2011
By Vidar Helgesen for openDemocracy
A comment by Tony Blair epitomises the somewhat hesitant response of the international community to the democratic uprising in Egypt: "[You] cannot be sure what type of change will be produced there", external pagesaid Britain's former prime minister. True. If democracy is allowed to run its course, you cannot be sure. This is the beauty of democracy, of allowing citizens to freely elect their leaders.
Democracy is not the certain outcome of current events, even after the external pageresignation of Hosni Mubarak from Egypt’s presidency on 11 February 2011 and the military council’s subsequent pledge to chart a path towards elections within six months. But the external pagedesire for democracy is certainly the driving force for millions of people in Egypt, and beyond.
The triggers of the revolt external pageincluded social tensions - in particular, mass unemployment among young people. But the causes are deeper, and political. This always meant that the kinds of top-down measures offered by President Mubarak at the height of the protest - a cabinet reshuffle, concessions on food prices or public-sector salaries, the appointment of a vice-president - would not make the uprising go away. Mubarak’s counterpart in Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, somehow did grasp that external pagemessage quickly enough to flee.
The Egyptian regime’s belated and half-hearted response was further discredited by its forces’ violence against peaceful demonstrators. In the event, its reaction to citizens’ demands only intensified their protest, and ensured that the Egyptian external pageevents would continue to have varying spillover effects across the region - in Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Algeria, Bahrain, Iran, and elsewhere.
A new awakening
Both the world and the Arab region are changing and, in tandem with these changes, the demand for democracy appears to be returning with renewed vitality. Twenty-two years after the external pagefall of the Berlin wall, seventeen years after the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa, thirteen years after the democratic external pagereform in Indonesia, the democracy wave of 2011 is engulfing the Arab (and Iranian) world.
This time, moreover, democracy in the region doesn't come at the point of foreign guns or as a by-product of other agendas. The seeds are unequivocally and genuinely homegrown. Men and women are simply external pagedetermined to take their future in their own hands. They want to be represented and have a say in the way their country is governed.
Their agenda is domestic, yet at the same time they are external pageteaching the international community four lessons:
* The marginal role democracy has played in international relations in the last decade has not made democracy less central to citizens' aspirations around the world. The democratic uprisings in external pageTunisia and external pageEgypt took the world by surprise: again, democracy defies predictions
* In the new, multipolar world, democracy too is external pagebecoming truly global. It can no longer be dismissed as a European or western cultural export. There are twice as many people living under democracy in the global south as the populations of Europe and north America together
* The capacity of new media to spread information, raise awareness and mobilise politically has by far exceeded the capacity of authoritarian governments to insulate their citizens from regional and global trends. The multiple social networks are like water-streams in a field; they always find alternative paths and create new ones, often in real time
* In the turbulent Arab region, the alibi of authoritarian regimes as self-appointed guarantors of regional security and stability is no longer convincing and credible; hence, it should no longer be taken at face value by other influential international actors.
A long process
The external pagebuilding of democracy in the Arab region will take time. Democracy, as has been discovered in external pageearlier transitions, is not something found in the pot when the heavy lid of authoritarian government is lifted. While democracy is the best external pageguarantor of stability in the long run, the process of democratisation is often destabilising: after all, it is about changing power relations in society. Yet those who are (rightly) concerned about the danger of instability and conflict in the middle east should also realise that by now, it is delaying democratic change which holds the greater risk.
The citizens of Tunisia, Egypt and other countries of the region have a long way to go. Mass protest can overthrow a external pagedictatorship, but cannot build democracy. The changes required for this to happen are extensive and deep-rooted: in external pageconstitutions, electoral systems, laws and regulations related to political parties, the media, the justice system, and not least, in people's minds; a fundamental external pageshift is also needed in the place of women in the region’s political life.
The citizens of Arab countries are entitled to external pageexpect from the international community, empathy, encouragement and a willingness to share knowledge and experience. But this is not a time for any form or attitude of guidance, and the international approach of supporting particular leaders from the outside - so often tried, tested and failed - should be abandoned. Any request to external actors to external pagesupportdemocracy should be met with respect; but allowing democratic change to run its course will be more successful than replicating past efforts at engineering societal change from a distance.
A rich body of information and understanding does exist about many aspects of democracy-building. A rich fund of lessons learned, both positive and negative, is also broadly available. The new actors emerging on the political stage in the Arab region should have smooth and easy access to that knowledge.
external pageInternational IDEA for its part has a wealth of globally-ranging external pagecomparative knowledge on democracy-building, which may be useful as a starting-point in addressing such matters as constitutional change, electoral reform, political dialogue, women's political external pageempowerment, and external pagetools for citizens to assess and improve the state of their democracy.
Such resources underpin International IDEA’s readiness to be a partner in the long-term process of building sustainable democracy in the region. The way this process evolves, as the citizens of the region create their own democratic future, will surely offer more learnings and tests for the international community.