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Opinions/Editorials Title: Democracy Is Back – How Awkward It has taken just six weeks for the arrest of a fruit-and-vegetable seller in Tunisia to spark a chain of events that now threatens to topple the government of Egypt. Watching the revolt against autocracy spread across the Arab world is exciting, uplifting – and also deeply alarming for the world’s major powers, all of which are, in different ways, fond of the status quo. The discomfort of the US is obvious and much remarked upon. As the world’s only superpower and President Hosni Mubarak’s main outside sponsor, it is the US that everybody is looking to. But the turmoil in Egypt will also be a source of anxiety for European and even Chinese leaders. Europeans have long been acutely aware that theirs is an ageing continent, separated by a narrow sea from a much poorer, much younger north African and Arab world. They have wrung their hands about the economic and political stagnation in countries such as Tunisia and Egypt – while co-operating closely with those countries’ leaderships, in an effort to combat everything from terrorism to illegal immigration. Now, Europeans are left cringing at the old photos of their leaders embracing the likes of President Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia. In the long run, the emergence of more dynamic and freer societies on the other side of the Mediterranean could be a huge boost to Europe. In the short run, the fear of social and political turmoil is uppermost. Why should the Chinese leadership, many thousands of miles away, care about what is happening on the streets of Cairo? Because the sight of pro-democracy demonstrators occupying Tahrir Square in Cairo is uncomfortably reminiscent of events in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Of course, the Chinese economy is infinitely more dynamic than that of sclerotic Egypt. But there are some elements in the Egyptian uprising that might ring a few bells in Beijing: popular fury at corruption, the destabilising effect of rising food prices, youth unemployment, the ability of the internet to mobilise popular protest, the gap between a ruling elite and the people they are trying to govern. Of course, it is highly unlikely that the political contagion that has spread from Tunisia to Egypt will leap across continents to Asia. But the battle of ideas between democracy and authoritarianism is shifting once again. It is ironic that the democratic movements in the Arab world broke out just as autocracy seemed to be coming back into fashion. Francis Fukuyama, whose “end of history” thesis epitomised the democratic triumphalism of 1989, recently wrote an article for this newspaper that lauded China’s ability to “make large complex decisions quickly, and to make them relatively well”, while lamenting that American democracy “will not be much of a model to anyone if the government is divided against itself and cannot govern”. This month has also seen the publication of Dambisa Moyo’s much-discussed How The West Was Lost, which laments the “economic folly” of western democracies and lauds the dynamism of China. Placed in the context of the wider debate between democracy and authoritarianism, the sight of demonstrators on the streets of Cairo demanding freedom should be immensely cheering to the west. The neoconservatives who always argued that the Arab world could not forever be an exception to the global spread of democracy may be tempted to claim vindication. But, of course, things are more complicated than that. If democracy comes to Egypt, it will not be on the back of an American tank – as was tried in Iraq. Indeed in Cairo, the American weaponry is mostly aimed at the demonstrators. The Mubarak government gets more than $1bn in military aid from the US every year. Last year’s Pew Global Attitudes survey suggested that only 17 per cent of Egyptians had a favourable view of the US, with 82 per cent unfavourable. It was the worst rating for America in any of the countries surveyed. Those figures suggest that a democratic Egypt may well be much more hostile to the US. The prospect of renewed turmoil in the Middle East is also the last thing that President Barack Obama will want now, just as he tries to focus on reviving the US economy and on the historic challenges posed by the rise of Asia. As China has roared ahead over the past decade, the US has wasted lives, money and attention on the Middle East. Yet efforts to concentrate on new challenges may be thwarted by the outbreak of a fresh crisis in the region. As Michael Corleone lamented in The Godfather: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” American thinking about the prospects for Egypt is, of course, haunted by memories of the Iranian revolution. Liberals in the west welcomed the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 – only to see him replaced by something worse. The one regime in the Middle East that would be unequivocally pleased by the fall of the Mubarak government is the government of Iran. And yet, Iran is not the only example of a successful popular revolt against autocracy in the Islamic world. Indonesia offers a more inspiring alternative. In 1998, the Suharto regime – which had lasted 32 years – was overthrown. Today, Indonesia is a functioning and increasingly prosperous democracy. It can happen. The uprising in Egypt is undoubtedly a dangerous moment. It is also the most hopeful event in the Arab world for decades.
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
The Financial Times is one of my favorite papers. This is a great article. Thanks for posting it.
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