ThirdWorld Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp 149± 163, 1997

Changeand democratisation in the Arabworld: the role of political parties

AS’ADABUKHALIL

Introduction Therecent elections in Kuwait and indicate that Arab political events canno longer be reduced to violent overthrow of governments, coups d’ Âetat, assassinationsand royal family feuds. Democratic elections, often marred with irregularitiesand/ orpartial under-representativeness, re¯ ect popular choices, evenif they do notconform with the interests and wishes of rulingelites. Those elections,however, tend to express anexpanded role of thepublic sphere, which has beenlimitedÐ if not eliminatedÐ ever since autocratic rule came intobeing inthe Middle East. Thereis awideinterest in the universal trends of democratisation and in the variousschools of democratic theory. 1 Governmentsand peoples have been takingnotice of the radical political changes that have swept much of Central andEastern Europe in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the coverageof democratisation in Europe is stillin¯ uenced by the legacy of the ColdWar; itis almostautomatically assumed thatall the governments that succeededcommunism are good,and all the sins ofpost-communist regimes are easilyforgiven by Western governments. It is ironicthat the Bush and Clinton administrationshave hailed Yeltsin as ademocrateven when scenes ofRussian oppression,either of elected parliamentarians or of Chechnya, are watchedby viewersthroughout the world. Yet, while democratisation is beingcheered in formercommunist countries, democratisation in the Arab World and Africa proceedsunnoticed in the USA. 2 Itcould be that traditional images and stereotypesof Arabsand Muslims are so deeplyengraved in theminds of people intheWest that the notion of democracyamong and Muslims is stillÐfor manyÐunthinkable. Theonly references madeby government of® cials in the USA aboutthe MiddleEast have to do with the Middle East peace process (expressedalmost alwaysin terms ofthe security of Israel) andthe spectre of Islamic terrorism, whichhas causedthe President of the USA totake legal action against fund-raisingactivities by groups and organisations that are looselysuspected ofaiding terrorists. All Palestinian organisations (including, oddly, Marxist± Leninistorganisations that are lumpedtogether with Islamic fundamentalist As’ad AbuKhalilis AssistantProfessor at theDepartment of Politics,California State University, Stanislaus,801 WestMonte Vista Avenue, Turlock, CA 95382,USA, He is alsoResearch Fellowat theCenter forMiddle Eastern Studiesat theUniversity ofCalifornia, Berkeley, USA.

0143-6597/97/010149-15$7.00 Ó 1997Third World Quarterly 149 AS’ ADABUKHALIL organisations),with the exception of Yasir ¨Arafat’s Fatahmovement, are now prohibitedby lawfrom engaging in any fund-raising activities on USterritories. Ofcourse, this concern with the issue offund raising stems fromthe belief that violenceand opposition in the Middle East are allorchestrated by a worldwide conspiracyhatchedÐ depending on the decadeÐ either by the (former) USSR or Iran.The realities of the Middle East are stillobscured behind layers of ignoranceabout it, by people in the media and by people in government. Thetide has beenturning in favour of democratisation for sometime in the Arab world.3 Infact, it could be argued that post-independence regimes were awareof popular desires forfreedom back in the 1950s when new regimes and politicalparties were promoting their own ideological visions. Not that those regimesand parties satis® edinanyway the desires andaspirations of the people. Far fromthat, Jamal ¨Abd-un-Nasir,for example, knowing the centrality of the notionof freedom among his audience, equated legal independence with free- dom.` Freedom’of the nation superseded individual freedoms which were seen asbourgeoisvalues meant to perpetuate the rule of thecapitalist elite. The ability ofregimesto distort the meanings of freedom,democracy, and equality was not aresultof the naivete Âofthe public but of brute force utilised by the various governmentsto impose their will, and their de® nitions. Tonotethe presence of aprocess ofdemocratisationin the Arab world is not toclaim that the political apparatuses of power in the region have transformed overnightinto representative bodies. Furthermore, strong Arab/ Islamic,apologist temptationscan lead one to dismiss thedifferences between Middle Eastern politicalsystems andtheir counterparts in the West as theproduct of different historicaland cultural factors. According to this formula, traditional, informal bodiesare equatedwith democratic-style parliaments: ` Theexistence of an informalassembly (the majlis)inthe traditional Arab world enabled individuals fromall walks of life to approach their leaders directly and personally for assistance andaid.’ 4 Thisimage of Middle Eastern people with unrestricted access totheirleaders was fashionedby theliterary in¯ uence of ArabianNights . Itis nottrue that leaders allowed people access withoutregard to a person’s wealthand social status, and it is alsountrue that a ®xationwith security was notuppermost in leaders’ minds since at least the eighth century, when the architectureof the newly founded city of Baghdadwas designedwith the aim of providingmaximum security for the residence of the caliph. Moreover, the access thatpeople had to theirleaders did not deal with political aspirations and mattersof power sharing. The equation of majlis withparliaments, which may pleasethose Middle Eastern leaders who are eagerto prove their democratic credentialsto the West, only distorts the real legitimising function of thevarious instrumentsof power. Itcould also be argued that democratisation of the Arab world is apotentially dangerousproject from the standpoint of USforeignpolicy. The interests of the USAwouldbe harmedby a situationof politicalreform in acountrylike ,where the royal family has beeninstrumental in providing the West with thenecessary predictabilityin oil production and pricing. Radical political and economicchange in theArab would alter not only relations between regimes and peoplesin theregion but also between ruling groups and the world at large.This 150 CHANGE AND DEMOCRATISATIONS INTHE ARAB WORLD has meantthat the USA canonly afford to call for democratisation in countries thatare harshlycritical of its foreign policy and economic interests. Blanket supportfor democracy and human rights could undermine the powers of pro-US regimes.

General characteristics ofparty politics in the present-dayArab world Thestudy of political parties in the Arab world has beenneglected for a long time.It was assumed thatno modern, Western-style political parties existed in theMiddle East with the exception of Israel, whichÐ through the prism of WesternscholarshipÐ was seen asaglori®ed extensionof theWest. But even if partiesin the Middle East do not manifest the same featuresas partiesin the West,and even if mostof themoperate under political and military stresses, they stillwarrant study as examplesof political behaviour, either by the regimes or bythe public. 5 Democratisationin the Middle East, as limitedas itremains in placeslike Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon and , re¯ ects anincreasing role for politicalparties, which have represented political interests independentÐ and in manycases divergentÐfrom that of the central governments. Theorigins of political parties in the Middle East go back to the seventh century,when schisms withinIslam beganto emerge. 6 Eventhough those parties lackedsome attributesof modern political parties in Western Europe and the USA,theyclearly contained some importantelements that characterise modern politicalparties. If oneuses thecharacteristics of political parties used by LaPalombaraand Weiner, 7 itbecomes clear that some ofthe political move- mentsof earlyIslam werenot the religious movements that they wereÐ and still areÐconsidered to be. Early sects withinIslam, including that of Shi ¨ite Islam, startedas amovementseeking not only a changeof policyby the ruling group, butthe seizure of power itself. And although the movement was centredon the leadershipof ¨Ali,it continued long after his death. The later theological characteristicsof Shi ¨iteIslam wereintended to distinguish the movement sharplyfrom its rival, Sunni, version of Islam. Similarly, the Kharijites enjoyed allthe characteristics of political parties, if a partyis understoodto mean ` an associationthat activates and mobilizes the people, represents interests, provides forcompromise among competing points of view, and becomes the proving groundfor political leadership’ . 8 Theroles of political parties and movements in the Middle East did not diminishbecause of aninhibiting cultural environment, but because of repressive politicalconditions. The Ottoman empire, for example, sti¯ ed political activities andendorsed only one version of truth, and one authorised political line, not differentfrom the certainty of truthcontained in Plato’s theoryof theForms. The millet system,which recognised juridicially the cultural, social and religious autonomyof the various sects livingwithin the empire in matters of personal statuslaws, encouragedÐ and in factinsisted onÐ the assumption of representa- tiveresponsibilities by the clerical establishments within the various sects. This laterblurred the lines between nationhood and sectarian consciousness, which explainswhy the word milli inPersian and Turkish means `national’. Thenotion of ¨ummah,as anall-encompassing community of believers,could 151 AS’ ADABUKHALIL beseen as onethat is incompatiblewith the requirements for pluralistic political institutions.But despite Qur ©anicreferences tothe ©ummah,anddespite the desires andwishes of ordinary Muslims, the Muslims were never uni® ed, not evenduring the reign of Muhammad. Civil war, known in as al-® tnah al-kubrah (theGreat Sedition), broke out among Muslims in the wake of Muhammad’s death.Islamic history bears witnessto the inabilityÐ and unwill- ingnessÐof Muslims to agree on matters relating to faith and government. Orientalists,and Muslim wishful thinkers, have been presenting an image of Muslimsunited against everybody else, 9 whileMuslims have been at war against oneanother perhaps more than they have been against non-Muslims. Tracingoriginal roots of partypolitics in Islamic/Arabhistory remains outside thescope of thispaper. It was thiscentury that introduced Western-style political partiesinto the region. The colonialÐ and semi-colonialÐ period witnessed the rise ofpolitical parties as newvoices of political expression. They were intended,by some colonialauthorities, not as asupplementto traditional leadershipsof families, tribes and clerics, but perhaps as apossiblyuseful alternative. 10 Far fromthat, modern party politics did not replace old, traditional forms ofleadershipand organisations. In the language of James Billand Robert Springborg, 11 theinformal groups in Arab society penetrated and dominated the formalgroups, including modern political parties. Manyforms ofinformal groups, like the family, tribe, sect andthe clique, haveshaped, and in manycases helpedproduce, political parties. When political partiesemerged among the Palestinians in the 1930s, it was notthe result of dramaticchange in the forms ofpolitical representation and organisation. Instead,traditional Palestinian families, especially the rival families of Al- Husayniand An-Nashashibi, formed their own political parties to ` modernise’ theirtools of political organisations. 12 Similarly,notable families in also came toin¯ uence party politics in that country in the ® rst halfof thiscentury. 13 Andin Lebanon, each individual za©im feltthe need as earlyas the1950s to foundhis own political party, and this has notchanged in thepost-civil war era, assumingof coursethat the civil war is over. 14 Thatthe traditional leadership felt compelledto form political parties to respond to the needs of theconstituencies indicatesthat public expectations could no longer be ful® lled through the old, purelyinformal vehicles. Butthe picture of Arab political parties can not be drawnwith sharp strokes. Manypolitical parties wereÐ and still areÐ a combinationof informal and formalgrouping. The Phalange Party in Lebanon, for example, was created originallyas aquasi-fascistparty dedicated to an ultra-nationalideology. It later developedunder the leadership of its founder Pierre Gemayyel as atoolfor politicalcontrol by the Gemayyel family. After the death of its founder, Amin Gemayyel(son of Pierre) could not control the party any longer, but the loss of 15 thefamily hegemony weakened the party. InIraq, the Ba ©th party was transformedby Saddam Hussein from a partywith rival factions and wings into aniron-disciplined political party controlled by him personally. Debates and disagreementswithin the party were strictly forbidden. 16 Anotherfeature of party politics in the Arab world deals with personalism in politics.Despite the advances in articulating their interests and the propagation 152 CHANGE AND DEMOCRATISATIONS INTHE ARAB WORLD ofmessages bypolitical parties, people in many countries still respond more immediatelyto personalities than to issues andabstract ideas. This is notunique totheMiddle East region. In election times in theUSA, abstractideas are often reducedto electronic sound bites and images of personalities. The recent presidentialcampaign in the USA has beenlargely fought over the airwaves, throughthe use ofsymbols, images and codes. Each candidate tried to project charismawhile issues includedschool uniforms, the V-chip in TV sets and curfewsfor teenagers. In the Arab world, the absence of democracy has not instilledthe idea of the effectiveness of popularsovereignty. Not that people in theMiddle East enjoy being ruled by dictators, as is oftenmaintained by some non-Arabsabout Arabs, 17 butthe absolutist political systems marginalisethe individualand convince her/ himthat one is helpless vis-aÁ -vis politicalchange. It is notunreasonable for the people of to feel powerless and impotent given thepowers of one, unelected man who rules over millions of people. The monopolisationof power by one individual over a longperiod of time can sometimesinstill in the public the wisdom of the dictum of ` theone man, the soleundisputed leader (to use theOrwellian language of modern Iraqi political terminology)who alone will deliver salvation’ . Thisidea, of course, is not inconsistentwith the messianic beliefs of Shi ¨ites,who still eagerly anticipate the `returnof the awaited rightly-guided one’ . Theanticipation of the return of the `messiah’ canbe found in the religiously minded segment of every population, Westand East. Thisrelates at least partly to what Nietzsche calls ` slavemorality’ , 18 which remainspowerful in the political cultures of different communities. Suffering andtoleration of misery are championedto rationalise the rule of the elite and tojustify one’ s inferiorstatus in society and polity. Belief in one’ s abilityto bringabout necessary changeweakens as anticipationof the miraculous grows. Aspeoplebelieve that individuals as acollectiveare weakand helpless, belief inthe ` oneman’ grows. And too much faith is oftenput in this ` oneman’ to rescue thepeople from their misery. What else couldexplain the ® rm belief expressedby millionsof Arabsin this century that Jamal ¨Abd-un-Nasirwas the onewho was notonly going to liberate Palestine but also was goingto achieve socialjustice for all. The spell of charismatic leadership is universalbut too manyuncharismatic leaders dominate governments and political parties in the MiddleEast. The communist party of Syriahas beendominated since its creation bythelate leader Khalid Bakdash, 19 whobelatedly delegated some ofhispowers tohiswife Wisal Farhah. And the history of theSyrian Social National Party can notbe divorced from the dictatorial leadership of its founder, Antun Sa ¨adah, whofashioned himself and his party after classic fascist leadersand move- ments.20 Hisparty continued the ` worship’of his person long after his death. Thebest evidence for the phenomenon of hero worship in Arab political partiesÐof the left, right and centreÐ is revealedin the peculiar titles that leadersof thoseparties carry, whether ar-rayyis for Nasir, az-za¨im for Sa¨adah, al-¨ustadh for Michel ¨A¯aq. And whether known as ¨amirs or murshids in the variousIslamic fundamentalist groups, hakim inthe Popular Front for the Liberationof Palestine, khityar inthe Fatah Movement, not to mention ` sec- retary-general’in numerous communist and Nasserist partiesthroughout the 153 AS’ ADABUKHALIL region,in each case oneman dominates the party. While those parties differ in terms ofideology and goals, they seem tohavestriking similarities in theirrigid organisationalstructures as wellas intheir undemocratic party regulations and procedures.Collective leadership is rarelypractised, even in thesmall organisa- tionsof the left and of the fundamentalists. The overwhelming domination of oneman over the affairs ofthe party has increasinglydiscouraged people from takingparty membership seriously. To be sure, there are stillpopular organisa- tionsin theArab world but they are nowlargely con® ned to theworld of Islamic fundamentalism.In this world, the leader is followedon the basis ofa beliefin hiswise and righteous interpretations of Islamic laws. The Fatah movement remainspopular, although resentment against the monopolisation of decision- makingpowers by Yasir ¨Arafatis widethroughout the movement, which has preventedthe Central Committee of the movement from holding a meetingfor severalmonths. 21 Butsplinter movements and corrective tendencies (widely used names foroffshoots and schismatic splits within organisations) within parties oftendevelop under the leadership of one man. Thus, when the DFLP was formedit was theproduct of Nayif Hawatimah’ s differenceswith George Habashof the PFLP,andJibril was theman behind the PFLP-GeneralCommand. Arabdiscourse on the Arab± Israeli con¯ ict, which was anart form under Nasir,facilitated the resistance to democratisation within countries and within politicalparties. It rationalised the so-called need for a stateof vigilanceagainst theenemies of the Arabs. This led to a stateof emergency being imposed in mostArab countries, particularly in those countries bordering Israel. Their physicalproximity to Israel, even in a countrylike Lebanon which has histori- callytried to insulate itself as muchas possiblefrom the responsibilities and consequencesof theArab± Israeli con¯ ict, allowed them to exploitthe protracted con¯ict in order to impose severe politicaland economic measures, allin the nameof `liberatingPalestine’ . Forexample, a stateof emergencyis stillimposed inEgypt, which was the® rst Arabcountry to sign a peacetreaty with Israel. Moresurprisingly, the Arab Organization for Human Rights indicated in its charterthat it understandsthe need for ` states ofemergency’given the nature of thecon¯ ict between the Arabs and the Israelis. ¨Abd-un-Nasirexpressed the sentiments of Arabregimes best when he coined theslogan ` Novoice shall rise abovethe voice of the battle’ . Ironically,this sloganwas formulatedin the wake of the humiliating defeat of Egypt in 1967. Hewanted to extend the era ofauthoritarian rule despite the embarrassing performanceof his army in thewar. Similarly, since contemporary Arab political partiesuse thePalestinian question for legitimisation purposes, democratic life withinthese parties is preventedbecause only the leadership has thenecessary informationabout ` theconspiracies being hatched against the Arab nation’ , to quoteone of the most oft-used excuses inArab political terminology. Not only didthe longevity of the Arab± Israeli con¯ ict allow Arab regimes to justify the impositionof emergency lawsÐ ie oppressive laws, regulations and practicesÐ butit also justi® ed the exorbitant expenditure on the military in all Arab countries,including in those that have not participated in the series ofArab± Israeliwars. Table 1 indicatesthat Middle Eastern countries are some ofthe mostgenerous spenders on military affairs. 22 154 CHANGE AND DEMOCRATISATIONS INTHE ARAB WORLD

TABLE 1 Costand size of military in select Middle Eastern countries Defence Armed forces per Country Expenditure/ GDP (%) population Algeria 2.0 0.80 Egypt 11.0 1.00 Iraq 51.0 5.50 Israel 17.0 3.50 Jordan 11.4 2.10 SaudiArabia 19.0 0.70 Syria 18.0 3.90

Publicinterest in the plight of the Palestinians, especially before the 1967 defeat,focused the attention of the region on developments in Arab± Israeli affairs,and belittled the importance of political developments. Promises were madeto the effect that the defeat of Israel wouldbring about prosperity and freedomfor everybody. In that sense, Arabpopular interest in the affairs ofthe Palestiniansstemmed from an association in the public mind between the resolutionof the Palestinian problem and the general welfare of the masses in theregion. To help the Palestinians was tohelp oneself, so arguedthe propagandaclaims of Arab regimes. The success ofSadat in going against this lineof thought(of course, his success shouldbe quali®ed with a reminderof the wayhe diedÐ by assassination), was theresult of his attempt to convince ordinaryEgyptians that their welfare resided in ending the state of war with Israel.

Therenewed role ofpolitical parties in Arabpolitics Referenceto the renewed role of political parties in Arab politics includes the rolesof ruling parties. A distinctionshould be made in this regard between rulingparties, those that are createdto establishlegitimacy and popular mobilis- ationof themasses, andthose political parties that operate either in the open or inthe underground against the government or the established order. This distinctionmay help one in understanding the difference between parties with legitimacyand parties without legitimacy. It could be said that popular dis- illusionmentwith ruling partiesÐ and their ideologiesÐ allowed opposition par- tiesto present themselves as thealternative. Of course, those parties have had varyingdegrees of credibility and appeal, depending not only on the public moodof the masses butalso on the characteristics of their leadership at a particularpoint in history. Nasir, for example, increased the appeal of Arab nationalismwhile Saddam Hussein, among others, discredited the idea. Khalid Bakdashwas perhapsharmful to thecause ofSyrian (and Lebanese) becauseof his intolerance of dissent and his blind obedience to Stalinist Marxist±. Whilethe image of theArab world in the West still resides inthe old cliche Âs ofOriental despotism and Islamic attraction to autocracy, there is evidencethat 155 AS’ ADABUKHALIL theArab people have not been willingly accepting the dominance of the oppressivegovernments under which they live and suffer. To be sure, only apologistsof Arab governments would claim that the obstacles to democracy in theregion are allexternal or regime-induced. There are seriouscultural, economicand religious impediments to democracy in all societies, not excluding westerndemocracies. The Middle East has todeal with the legacy of the historicalmarriage between the political establishment and the religious estab- lishment.Both establishments have now been discredited, but to the bene® t of anewclerical counter-elite which does not necessarily further the cause of democracyand pluralism, and which does not further the cause oftheexpansion ofthe public sphere. Nonetheless,political parties can be active and effective in non-democratic contexts.The example of Weimar Germany is acase inpoint. Similarly, to emphasisethe increasing role of political parties in the Middle East is notto expectinevitable democratisation in those countries where political parties have beenactive, and is notto expect the political parties themselves to lead the process ofdemocratisation, although they remain its main bene® ciaries. Some- timespolitical parties are brie¯y toleratedto add legitimacy to acertainregime, especiallyin transitional periods. It took the Egyptian revolutionary regime a coupleof years beforeit decided to ban political parties altogether, as was the case withthe Communist Revolution in Russia. The 1968 Ba ¨thistcoup in Iraq initiallyallowed political parties to operateonly to banthem several years later. Khomeinialso used the multiplicity of political parties in Iran to his own advantagein the early phase of the revolution, although he later banned all of themwhen the regime felt secure enoughto monopolise all political representa- tionand leadership. Gadda® of Libya, on the other hand, coined the slogan ` He whojoins a partybetrays the homeland’ very early in his rule. 23 Anotherfactor that explains the increasing role of political parties in the regionstems fromthe ideological diversity that characterises the political culture ofthe Arab world. It is tooeasyÐ and quite inaccurateÐ to maintain that Arab politicalculture is entirelyderived from its Islamic heritage or from the ill de®ned tradition of Oriental despotism. In all countries where democratisation has occurredin the past few years, the political opening produced a relatively largenumber of politicalparties vying for political power. There are nowsome 23legal political parties in the small country of Jordan, 24 andlegal restrictions prohibitthe increase of the number of political parties in Egypt. Lebanon continuesto have at least 100Ð legal and undergroundÐ political parties, and Algeriawitnessed a rise inthe number of registered political parties before the military coup d’ Âetat in1992 which ended the process ofdemocratisation. Themultiplicity of political parties, albeit with different political weights, re¯ects therange of ideological preferences of thepeople. While the fundamen- talistsremain the single most popular political force in general, there is stilla presencefor leftist and nationalist parties in those countries where parties are allowed.Furthermore, Green parties or environmental associations have now beenformed and legalised in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon.25 Theissues aboutwhich the voters care oftentranscend the dogmas ofreligio-political parties. And even people who sympathise with Islamic 156 CHANGE AND DEMOCRATISATIONS INTHE ARAB WORLD fundamentalistthought are notentirely satis® edwith only one political party espousingthe cause. One ® ndsthat at least 10 different political organisations andparties carry the mantle of Islamicfundamentalism in Algeria,Egypt, Jordan andLebanon. To be sure, there are dominantpolitical partiesÐ or frontsÐ in some Arabcountries, like the FIS (FrontIslamique du Salut)in Algeria. But some ofthese movements, like the FIS,comprisedifferent factions and strands within theirown structures. It isdoubtfulthat one monolithic party will lead the process o f th orou gh political transform atio n once the p olitical system o pens up com pletely. Theideological diversity in the Arab world is notnew. While many of the classicalorientalists ha vepresented Islamic history in terms ofanall-encompass- ing` Islam’ withno dissent and opposition, the reality of Islamic history was ®lledwith sedition, civil wars andconstant opposition. Since the time of the Prophet,there have been people and groups who questioned not only the decisionsthat Muhammad made but also his very claims to prophethood.Dissent continuedafter Muhammad’ svictoryin Medina, and cer tainlylong after his death.The existence of numerous Islamic sects andtheir uneasy survival attestsÐnot necessarily to thetolerance of therulers, who were rarely tolerant of anti-conformismÐbut to the political, ideological and religious dissatisfaction amongthe people. Even among Sunni Muslims, the ar ti®cial unity of theirranks soonga veroom for the different jurisprudential schools of thought that became indistinguishablefrom sects. Inthe modern Middle East, the relative political openness that existed under clearconstraints in pre-independence times in Iraq and Egypt under the British, andin Lebanon and Syria under the French, produced a scene ofpar typolitics thatstrayed from the stereotypical image of the one, undisputed par ty.InIraq, thecommunists were at odds with nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists, and thepolitical par tiesin Syria and Lebanon also clashed over matters of policy.The rise offundamentalists today should not obscure the existence of `otherpolitical parties’even if thosepar tiesare smallerin size andweaker in effectiveness than thefundamentalists. In theGaza strip, a regionthat is increasinglyreduced in the newsto the activities of Hamas andIslamic Jihad, Palestinian communist organisationsremain active and vocal. The often succeed through their own vehiclesof civil groups and professional associations in in¯ uencing public discourseand setting the national agenda. The elder statesman of Gaza, Ha ydar ¨Abdul-Sha®, is himselfidenti® ed with the Palestinian left. It is unlikelythat the rise ofIslamic fundamentalism will put an end to the multiplicit yofpolitical partiesunless the fundamentalists win an election and then decide to ban par ty activitiesaltogether. The prospects of free partypoliticsunder Islamic fundamen- talistrule does not look promising given the dist rustthat fundamentalist leaders express towardsany facets ofwestern democratic life, and given their tendency todismiss theirenemies as `in®dels’ and/ or` traitors’. Thereare alsosome otherless apparentreasons forthe increasing role of politicalpar tiesin the Arab world. The education rev olutionin the Middle East andsuccess inslowly raising the literacy rates amongfemales (despitethe preservationof the gap between male and female literacy rates inall Arab countries)ha veincreased expectations for modern means ofpolitical expression andrepresentation in most Arab countries. No longer will a largesection of the 157 AS’ ADABUKHALIL

TABLE 2 Literacyrates in the Arabworld, 1990 (%) Country Female Male Bahrain 69 82 Iraq 49 70 Jordan 70 89 Kuwait 67 77 Lebanon 73 88 SaudiArabia 48 73 Syria 51 78 Yemen 26 53

Arabpopulation allow traditional family and tribal leadersÐ many of whom havebeen increasingly marginalised over the yearsÐ to articulate political interestsand demands. Table 2 showssome ®guresof literacy rates forsome Arabcountries. 26 Politicalparties have allowed members ofthe educated, urban middle and lowermiddle class toorganise themselves away from those political associations thathave been under the dominance of the rural and/ orurbanelites. And Islamic fundamentalistand communist political parties have succeeded in undermining thedominance of political families that still have crucial roles among ruling politicalgroups. Political parties for the middle class, sincethe days of the IstiqlalParty among the Palestinians in the 1930s, represent a rebellionagainst thehegemonic in¯ uence of ` theprominent families’ . Onecannot say, however, thatthe roles of ` prominentfamilies’ have been completely eliminated; those familiesoften draw support from state apparatus and traditional value systems.

Constraints onthe role ofpolitical parties Thepresence of political parties on theArab political scene doesnot necessarily meanthat change will be undertaken onlyÐ or even primarilyÐ by them. The fear ofone-party dominance, a dominancethat has broughtabout tragic results inSyria and Iraq, among others, will continue to contribute to a measure of politicalpluralism once the hand of repressive,absolutist government is partially orcompletely lifted. Even if the fundamentalists seize powerin one or more Arabcountry, it is unlikelythat the populace will tolerate a crackdownagainst free politicalassociations. But political parties have to face theirown record, whichdoes not leave many people comfortable with their ability to lead the process ofdemocratisation. Politicalparties in the Arab world have not been accustomed to a lifeof free politicalexpression and association. Many of theseparties exhibit a lowlevel of tolerancewithin their own ranks and also of each other. The undemocratic structuresof these parties is revealedin the numerous schisms thattore at the heartof mostÐifnot allÐ of thewell established political parties, like the Ba ¨th, thecommunists, the Nasserists andthe fundamentalists. Leadership of all contemporaryArab political parties has beenunwilling to allow collective 158 CHANGE AND DEMOCRATISATIONS INTHE ARAB WORLD leadershipand participation of rank-and-® le members indecision making. Criticismof theleadership and its decisions has beenequated with unacceptable betrayalof partyprinciples. The political climate of theArab± Israeli con¯ ict has alsoencouraged party leaders to dismiss theirrivals and enemies in otherparties andwithin their own parties as `agentsof imperialism and Zionism’ . Theweekly mouthpieceof the extremist Palestinian organisation Fatah-Revolutionary Coun- cil(led by Abu Nidal) often carries announcementsof ` execution’of party members whowere accused of working for ` theenemy’ . Notall parties, of course,kill dissident members buttolerance of differentviewpoints is quiterare inArabpolitical party life, perhaps re¯ ecting the legacy of ageold authoritarian anddictatorial rule. Whilethe credibility of political parties is weakenedby virtue of their own sti¯ing organisational structure, their effectiveness as vehiclesfor political changehas beenminimal over the last two decades. Arab oil money has succeededin buying off the loyalty of formerly leftist members andleaders. FormerCentral Committee members ofthe Marxist± Leninist Popular Front for theLiberation of Oman now sit in the cabinet in the Sultanate of Oman. Similarly,some formerlybitter enemies of the Saudi or Jordanian states (like GhaziAl-Qusaybi in Saudi Arabia or Kamil Abu Jabir in Jordan) are now supportersof theregime. Regimes were able to focus on key individuals within partiesto lurethem with money and of® cial posts. As aresult,some peoplehave lostfaith in the ability of political parties to deliver desirable political changes. Ofcourse, governmental cooptation has notbeen a success storyas far as Islamicfundamentalist organisations are concerned.In fact, these organisations havemore credibility because their leaders and members are seen as more principledand more uncompromising than their counterparts in other secular and nationalistparties. Butthe credibility problem of political parties raises questionsabout the identityof political forces thatcould lead the process ofdemocratisation and thoroughpolitical transformation once the era ofdictatorship begins to wither away.If thepolitical parties of the Arab world are incapableof undertaking the leadershiprole of the process ofdemocratic transformation, then other groups mightplay that role. The literature on civil society is beginningto attract the attentionof scholarsin theMiddle East, especially since the search fortheoreti- calparadigms has characterisedthe ® eldof Middle Eastern politics for more thantwo decades, ever since modernisation theory was attackedfrom all sides. 27 Withoutgetting into whether the civil society paradigm will prove useful when appliedto Middle East studies, 28 themove away from the state and family is still needed. The problematique ofcivil society in the Middle East, and the hazards of applyingWestern-originated ideas like Foucault’ s notionof the diffusion of power,reside in the temptation to belittle the overwhelming presence and in¯uence of the state in the name of dispelling the Western ® xationwith the culture-basedtheories of Oriental despotism or Islamicautocracy. If civilsociety refers tothe realm between the state and the family, 29 thencivil society can shed lighton areas formerlyignored in Middle Eastern studies. The works of Middle Easternanthropologists, for example, have dispelled many misconceptions about 159 AS’ ADABUKHALIL theroles of Arabwomen. The study of Arabpolitics will inevitably bene® t from exploringthose areas thatsucceeded in avoiding state control, small as theymay be.Studies of the Middle East should also challenge the classical cliche Âabout thefamily as theprimary source of identi®cation and loyalty. Not enough studies havebeen conducted on the dissolution of traditional family ties in light of the migrationto the big cities from the countryside of millions of people in every MiddleEastern country. Professionalassociations, like syndicates of lawyers, physicians, journalists, artists,university professors, and teachers may enjoy a credibilitythat political partiesdo not have anymore. Professional associations could be entrusted with thetask of politicaltransformation and democratisation because they appear less corruptand rigidly organised than political parties. In all countries where democratisationÐas aprocessÐhas begun,professional associations are assert- ingthemselves. Whether in thePalestinian occupied territories, Lebanon, Jordan orYemen, professional associations are oftenasked to arbitrate disputes and settlecon¯ icts. They have emerged as thevoice of theprofessional middle class, avoicethat is notnecessarily dominated by the state, as is thecase inEgypt, wherethe regime has beentrying to amend the law to diminish the independence andin¯ uence of professional associations. The Egyptian government has re- centlygone as far aspassingspecial laws to reserve theright to interfere in the internalelections of professional associations and in the formulation of their internalrules. The associations were even prevented from protesting against anti-democraticlaws. 30 Women’s organisationshave also emerged in the countries cited, although Islamicfundamentalist organisations dismiss thepriority of genderequality. But organisedforums for women exist even within the bodies of Islamicfundamen- talistorganisations. Their ability to enact change to improve conditions for womenin society is restrictedby virtue of the male domination of political organisationsand professional associations. But human rights organisations and feministorganisations are nolonger willing to neglect the gender question until `theland is liberated’, as malenational leaders are fondof saying. Thedif® culties facing political parties, and the restrictions that apply to politicalactivities everywhere in the Arab world, make it hard to predict the courseof politicalchange at theend of twentiethcentury. It is clearthat change isinthemaking, but it is unclearhow fundamental change will come about and whatshape will the region take once political transformation settles in.

Conclusion Theshape of Arab politics is rapidlyevolving thanks to regional and inter- nationalchanges and internal developments that have been accelerated since the endof the second Gulf war. Arab regimes are nowmore aware of popular dissatisfactionand the support by severalArab regimes for the US warcampaign has onlyput more pressure onthe ruling regimes. Symbolic and super® cial changeshave been introduced in most Arab countries. State-sponsored councils andcommittees have been sprouting at a rapidrate in manycountries, including 160 CHANGE AND DEMOCRATISATIONS INTHE ARAB WORLD inthe Gulf region where identi® cation with Shari¨ah was allthat the regimes werewilling to submit to. Regularelections in Jordan, Kuwait and Lebanon have resulted in a changed politicalstructure. It can be maintained that the in¯ uence of Islamic fundamen- talismhas beenweakened in countrieswhere relatively free electionshave taken place.Only in Kuwait have the fundamentalists been able to bolster their support;any explanation of this phenomenon has totake into consideration the peculiarelectoral laws in the country, where women are stilldenied voting rights.Women have not formed the backbone of Islamic fundamentalist organi- sationsin any Arab country and they constitute the bulk of secular forces in Algeria,Jordan and Lebanon. Anotherfeature of recent events in the Middle East is thegrowing role of non-governmentalorganisations ( NGOs). Ecologicalparties, human rights organ- isations,feminist networks and election monitoring groups have received added attention,perhaps because the picture of partypolitics still lacks credibility. Arab states havedominated political parties, either in their countries or in other countries,for too long. People are oftensuspicious of the motivations of party leadersand they often accuse themof loyaltyto externalforces. Furthermore, the rise ofthe Islamic fundamentalist movement, which often expresses hostilityto traditionalparty organisations in the Arab world, has notincreased the credibility ofpolitical parties. Itis notunlikely that the next few years willwitness competition between traditionalpolitical parties (of the left, right and centre) and the professional associationsconcerned with human rights, feminism, ecology and development. Thecompetition will intensify as some ofthose groups seek representationin parliament,as was thecase inthe recent parliamentary election in Lebanon. Withinthis context, political parties of theleft and centre are nowincorporating itemsand issues promotedby the popular NGOs. References tothe environment andhuman rights now make their way into the programmes of of® cial political parties.The changing discourse is unlikelyto undermine the power base ofthe professionalassociations although it re¯ects achangein the discourse within the publicsphere. Finally,what is missingfrom the literature on democracy in the Middle East andNorth Africa is anycritical assessment ofthe concept of democracy itself. MiddleEastern scholarship now accepts without hesitation the assumed virtues ofWesterndemocracy. That democracy is capableof resolvingthe acute social, economicand political problems of the Arab world is as questionablean assertionas theslogan ` Islam is thesolution’ . Eventsin Eastern and Central Europeillustrate the limitations of capitalist transformation and of democratisa- tion.The former bene® ted Western economic interests, while the latter allowed wealthyelites to sing the praises of` freedom’, Americanstyle. The literature doesnot contain any linkage between social justice, which is essentialfor the long-termdevelopment of the region, and the path of democratisation. In light ofthewidening gap between the rich and poor in theMiddle East, democratisa- tiondoes not necessarily guarantee any positive change in the lives of the majorityof Arabs. Similarly, voters in Central and Eastern Europe have been returningformer communists to power as aresultof their disillusionment with 161 AS’ ADABUKHALIL

Westerndemocracy. This should not, of course, be interpreted as acallfor the preservationof the status quo, which entails acts ofviolence and oppression againstordinary citizens, but it only raises questionsabout the wisdom of the toneof religious dogmatism in which Middle Eastern specialists invoke their callsfor the democratisation of the region.

Notes 1 See DavidHeld, Prospectsfor Democracy ,Stanford:Stanford University Press, 1993;and Held, Models of Democracy,Stanford:Stanford University Press, 1987. 2 Thebest book on the subject is JohnEsposito & JohnVoll, Islamand Democracy ,New York:Oxford UniversityPress, 1996. 3 See inthis regard, Michael Hudson, ` After theGulf War: prospectsfor democratization in the Arab world’, MiddleEast Journal ,45(3),1991 pp??; and John Esposito & James Piscatori,` Democratisation andIslam’ , MiddleEast Journal ,45(3),Summer 1991. 4 James Bill& RobertSpringborg, Politicsin the Middle East ,New York:HarperCollins, 1994, p 20. 5 The® rst studyof political parties inthe Middle East came outin 1994. See FrankTachau, ed, Political Partiesof the Middle East and North Africa ,Westport,CT: GreenwoodPress, 1994. 6 See As¨adAbuKhalil, ` Thestudy of political parties inthe Arab world:the case ofLebanon’ , Journal of Asianand African Affairs ,V(1),1993. pp 49± 61. 7 See JosephLaPalombara &MyronWeiner, eds, PoliticalParties and Political Development ,Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1966. 8 RoyMacridis, ed, PoliticalParties: Contemporary Trends and Ideas ,New York:Harper Torchbooks,1967, p 9. 9 Thishas beeneloquently represented in the writings of the in¯ uential Orientalist Bernard Lewis. 10 Thisdoes not mean, ofcourse,that colonial powers fought traditional forms oforganisationand loyalty. In manycases, colonialgovernments used the tribal and sectarian systems totheir own advantage, especially whenfaced withthe sophisticated political threat of effective politicalparties, like the communists in Iraq duringthe monarchist period. 11 Bill& Springborg, Politicsin the Middle East , pp 91±98. 12 See, forexample, YehoshuaPorath, ThePalestinian Arab National Movement, 1929± 1939: From Riots to Rebellion,London:Frank Cass, 1977;Ann Mosely Lesch, ArabPolitics in Palestine, 1917± 1939: The Frustrationof a NationalistMovement ,Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press, 1979;and Philip Mattar, The Muftiof Jerusalem ,New York:Columbia University Press, 1988. 13 See PhilipKhoury, Syriaand the French Mandate: The Politics of ,Princeton,NY: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1987. 14 As¨adAbukhalil, ThePolitics of Sectarian Ethnicity: Segmentation and the Clash of Political Identities in Lebanon,forthcoming. 15 Fora treatment oftheprewar historyof the Lebanese PhalangeParty, see JohnEntelis, Pluralismand Party Transformationin Lebanon: Al-Kata ¨ib,1936± 1970 ,Leiden,the Netherlands: EJ Brill,1975. 16 Life inIraq under Saddam Hussein is depictedin Samir Al-Khalil, Republicof Fear ,Berkeley,CA: Universityof California Press, 1989. 17 See DavidPryce-Jones, TheClosed Circle: AnInterpretation of the Arabs ,New York:HarperCollins, 1991. 18 FriedrichNietzsche, Onthe Genealogy of Morality ,New York:Cambridge University Press, 1994. 19 Onthe domineering role of Bakdash, see Maxime Rodinson, Marxisme et le MondeMusulman , Paris: Editionsdu Seuil, 1972. 20 See thesection on the party in Michael W Suleiman, PoliticalParties in Lebanon: The Challenge of a FragmentedPolitical Culture ,Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press, 1967. 21 Yasir Arafat deniesthe existence ofsuch a problemalthough he complains that his movement is `too democratic’¨ .See theinterview with Arafat in Al-Musawwar ,30December 1994. 22 Thetable is adaptedfrom John Waterbury & AlanRichards, APoliticalEconomy of the Middle East: State, Class,and Economic Development ,Boulder,CO: Westview Press, 1990,p 362. 23 As-Sayyad,13January 1972. 24 See thelist in FBIS (ForeignBroadcast InformationService), NES-95± 021, 1 February1995. 25 Iam gratefulto my sister MirvatAbuKhalil, a foundingmember ofGreenlineAssociation in Lebanon, for thisinformation. 26 Data forthis table come fromUnited Nations Children’ s Fund,United Nations Development Programme, UNESCO, WorldResources, 1992±1993 . 162 CHANGE AND DEMOCRATISATIONS INTHE ARAB WORLD

27 See AugustusRichard Norton, ed, CivilSociety in the Middle East ,2Vols,Leiden: E JBrill,1994. 28 Thecontributions on the subject in PoliticalScience provethat the theoretical value of the application is stillminimal. See PoliticalScience ,September1994. 29 Foran introduction to the subject, see KeithTester, CivilSociety ,London:Routledge, 1992. 30 Al-Hayat,21February 1995.

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