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Change and Democratisation in the Arab World: the Role of Political Parties

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Change and Democratisation in the Arab World: the Role of Political Parties ThirdWorld Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp 149± 163, 1997 Changeand democratisation in the Arabworld: the role of political parties AS’AD ABUKHALIL Introduction Therecent elections in Kuwait and Lebanon 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 Arabs and Muslims is stillÐfor manyÐunthinkable. Theonly references madeby government of® cials in the USA about the 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 to take 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 USAwould be harmedby a situationof politicalreform in acountrylike Saudi Arabia,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 can only 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 Egypt, 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,they clearly 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
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