Has the Arab Spring wilted before its blossom?

Zafar Bangash

Expectations for rapid change in the Muslim East have not materialized despite two long-entrenched dictators in Tunisia and Egypt respectively being driven from power in quick succession. What has prevented change in places like Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Syria, that the people in Tunisia and Egypt were able to achieve in short order? Are conditions in these societies so different than in Tunisian and Egypt to frustrate change? Let us be clear: there are few representative governments anywhere in the Middle East. The two examples in the region are those of Turkey and Islamic Iran. The other wall-to-wall Middle Eastern dictatorships have managed to fight off challenge to their rule, which General Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak were unable to do.

At the outset we must acknowledge the undoubted courage of the people participating in the uprisings. They managed to shed their fear of the dreaded security forces. Fear has been a powerful instrument in the hands of all oppressors throughout the ages. There is also no doubt that the ubiquitous security and intelligence forces have acted with absolute ruthlessness to crush any attempt at dissent. But this was also the case in Tunisia and Egypt. Thus, in order to understand fully what is afoot we need to look a little deeper. Both in Tunisia and Egypt, the militaries refused to obey the dictators’ orders to open fire on unarmed civilians. When the police forces failed to quell the protests, the dictators were forced to flee. The credit for all the uprisings belongs to the people of Tunisia who were the first to take a stand. Their example has been emulated by people elsewhere.

We must also recognize that the conditions in each society are not identical. Further, there is external interference both in support of the dictators as well as against them. Again, this represents a curious paradox. For instance, in the case of Libya and Syria, external powers are actively backing the people’s movements. In Libya, the West led by Britain, France, Italy and the US, has gotten involved directly. They have now overstepped their original dubious mandate given by the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya ostensibly to prevent the Libyan government from attacking the rebels from the air. The Libyan government immediately declared a ceasefire and offered to negotiate with the rebels but the West was not interested. Since the March 17 no-fly resolution, Western planes have bombed Libyan ground formations, their equipment, oil installations and even residential areas. At the end of April, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi’s house was attacked killing his youngest son and three grandchildren. How does this advance enforcement of the no-fly zone? This was an act of cold-blooded murder perpetrated by Western forces. NATO attacks on residential areas have continued unabated as reported in this edition of the Crescent International. While Western forces have not intervened in the same manner in Syria, there is active support for the rebels there and money and guns are being supplied by the Saudis, Lebanese and Israelis.

The West’s policy toward Libya and Syria stands in sharp contrast to its behaviour in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. In all three cases, the West has not only maintained a studied silence but has actually supported suppression of peaceful protesters. This is most shocking in the case of Bahrain where peaceful protesters including women and children have been attacked and killed. Even medical personnel have not been spared because they treated those that had been injured during the protests. Entire neighbourhoods have been placed under curfew while armed thugs of the regime have gone about arresting and dragging youth from their homes as well as vandalising their properties and cars. Even masjids have been destroyed and copies of the Qur’an desecrated. Women have been raped. Such crimes have evoked little reaction from the West or its human rights organizations that are quick to denounce those they do not like. Why the double standards?

Saudi Arabia managed to both crush the meek attempts at uprising as well as bribe others into silence. The Saudi regime has also used its court ‘ulama’ to issue “fatwas” to declare uprisings against the ruler as “haram”. One is forced to ask: what ayat of the Qur’an or what hadith of the noble Messenger (pbuh) support such contention? If per chance, this is true, then why has the Saudi regime joined in the assault on Qaddafi’s regime and why is it supporting the uprising in Syria?

So we see that there is more at work than meets the eye. Many of these dictators quickly re-adjusted their policies once they had overcome the shock of the overthrow of Ben Ali and Mubarak. In fact, it is known that Saudi king Abdullah was upset with US President Barack Obama for allowing the overthrow of Mubarak who was a major lynchpin of the US-crafted order in the region. After Mubarak’s removal, the new dispensation in Egypt announced on May 26 that the Rafah crossing with Ghazzah would be opened so that the long-besieged and oppressed Palestinians can get much needed supplies of food, medicine and cement and steel to rebuild their homes.

It is clear that rulers like Qaddafi, the two Abdullahs and Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen will fight back to retain power. Saleh also has the support of the Americans because he is seen as a bulwark against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Whether there is any substance to this claim is open to debate but Saleh has convinced the Americans that he is their man to fight the al-Qaeda “menace”. Thus, while the regimes are fighting back, the West’s hypocrisy stands exposed as does the brutal nature of these regimes. Finally, the lack of leadership of all these movements is a major cause for concern. They can and are being manipulated. That is why Islam lays so much emphasis on leadership.

While one must extend every support to the people’s movements in these countries, it must be admitted that change will not come about easily or without huge cost. The dictators are fighting back and will show no respect for people’s rights or lives. They never have in the past; why should they behave differently now that they are fighting for their lives?

Arabia Without Sultanism

The Arab streets everywhere are now teeming
with popular demands for real change.
By Kaveh Afrasiabi

The late Fred Halliday, a keen observer of the laboratory of Middle East politics, once at the tender age of 28 penned an impressive book titled Arabia Without Sultan,
in mid-1970s. Years later, Halliday, who was a friend of this author,(1) once told me that he no longer subscribed to a bulk of his analysis in that book -- that was written from a Marxian perspective and vested undue hope in the leftnationalist movements ‘from the blow’ to topple the western- backed sultanist regimes in the oil region of Persian Gulf.

Still, Halliday clung to his historical materialist view that the narrow elites of those oil sheikhdoms and their fragmentary legitimation due to the profound social stratifications and unjust hierarchies and exclusionary politics were bound to experience significant jolts sooner or later and that it was simply a matter of time before the winds of change traversed the semi-closed waters of Persian Gulf and reached them too in the contemporary context of “post-cold war era.” Nearly 40 yrears later, Halliday’s astute predictions appear to be somewhat exonerated by the prospects of an Arabia without Sultanism that is a shade different from the type of wholesale regime change foreseen by him, for in both the Persian Gulf region and the wider Arab world we are witnessing the dawn of a new era where the volcanic rupture of mass movements for democracy, as in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain, may culminate less in outright regime change and more in incremental, albeit significant, democratization, understood as a process of institutional change portending the wresting away of concentrated power in the monarchical hands and into the representative hands of assemblies, councils, etc., altogether featuring a rapid metamorphosis, or said otherwise re-inventing, of those regimes along inclusionary and participatory lines. Enough hand-picked and rubber-stamped “consultative” councils or assemblies, and limited and exclusionary elections that defy the elementary meaning of true elections with genuine impact on the reified and antiquated status quo aptly perpetuated by the praetorian guards and foreign powers. The Arab streets everywhere are now teeming with popular demands for real change, and in the case of Arabia’s sultans this means the end of business as usual mandating drastic measures to make the necessary adjustments that may be painful to the ruling families and their system of patronage keenly cultivated throughout their political systems, yet inevitable if they want to prevent a massive revolution from the below.

King Abdullah II Of Jordan 10 Year Anniversary Celebration
Thus, the cabinet changes and shuffling of government personalities, witnessed nowadays
in several Arab monarchies, go hand in hand with the reluctant nods from the top to the popular demands for accountability, anti-corruption and nepotism, independence and democracy (within limits). After decades of development without liberalization, the stage is now set to close the gap and sail through the turbulent channels of change that dictate the abrogation of big chunks of monarchical power and privilege in favor of “people’s power.” Spelling doom for the future of dynastic Sultanism, the current trend is toward a new political narrative that indicates the acidic mixture of democratic institutions, such as effective, representative parliaments and an independent judiciary, with the relics of the past, above all the monarchies.


Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, King of Kuwait
The irony of conservative monarchies, forced into the uncomfortable position of initiating self-reform as a result of intensifying pressures from the below, is incomprehensible save through the intricate lenses of democratization in tune with the intricacies of local customs and traditions. In the new Arabia without Sultanism the sultans can survive only by being the grave diggers of their own sultanist power and authority, that is nowadays the focus of popular anger seeking a more diffuse and participatory political system. Whether or not the co-habitation remains temporary depends on multiple factors, chiefly the balance of forces and the ability of rulers to re-invent themselves as stakeholders in the movement for change, rather than as simply the targets of those changes.

In the case of Bahrain, where the embattled ruler has put the crown prince in charge of mapping a new course of action to appease the revolting population, now squarely in possession of the Pearl Square in Manama, this would mean power-sharing with the hitherto disenfranchised Shiite majority who yearn for citizen input and equal rights. The Sunni-led order, backed by Saudi Arabia and US power, is no longer tenable and nothing can prevent the winds of change that drift in the direction of a future coalition of Sunnis and Shiites running the government and controlling its various branches including its legislative and judicial branches. Without doubt, Bahrain’s foreign behavior and its present allegiances to US power will not remain immuned from the important domestic changes gripping the country, no matter what the degree of US’s unhappiness over these developments ringing “chaos” and “insecurity” for US’s vested interests in the region. A corresponding diminishing role and influence of US power in Bahrain is inserted in the scripts for change, albeit in a subtle way that will likely become more pronounced in the future as the internal dynamics of change shows is foreign ramifications. The US may end up keeping its naval headquarters and bases in Bahrain, but will likely come under increased pressure and scrutiny that will, in turn, put certain limits on the conduct of US military power, e.g., the US will no longer be able to take for granted that Bahrain will be a passive observer of any action against the neighboring Iran. Instead, the “new Bahrain” may consent to continuing US military presence on the condition that it will refrain from any unilateral action against Iran or any other regional player. This would clearly represent a net loss for the hitherto unfettered US military movement and power projection in the region, but one that the US may have to bite the bullet and accept, as still a better alternative than pushing the status quo ante to a reluctant population to no avail. The end-game may be not just the decline but the evaporation of US, and altogether
western, hegemony in the region, but the intermediate future bespeaks of a mixed narrative that is wrought with the tensions of an odd coupling, the strange bedfellows of monarchy and democracy.

Libya and Bahrain: contrasting Western attitudes

Zafar Bangash

The West’s hypocrisy stands exposed yet again in the contrasting policies toward uprisings in Libya and Bahrain. The US and allies Britain and France pressed the UN Security Council on March 17 to impose a no-fly zone on Libya. In Bahrain, on the other hand, 2,000 troops, mainly Saudis from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), were rushed in on March 13 where they promptly perpetrated a bloodbath against unarmed peaceful civilians. The Saudi, Bahraini and Emirati troops also invaded hospitals dragging the wounded from their beds and throwing them in the streets. Doctors were also beaten up. Despite such barbarism by Western-backed Middle Eastern tyrannies, the US and its allies remain unmoved. The lives of Bahrainis are clearly unimportant compared to their vested interests. The people of Bahrain are asking for the same rights as people elsewhere in the Middle East: dignity, freedom and fair elections.

In Libya’s case, the West’s wrath has been directed at Colonel Muammar Qaddafi. True, Qaddafi is neither a democrat nor loved by his people but the manner in which he has been targeted while ignoring the brutality unleashed by Saudi and Bahraini troops on unarmed civilians in Bahrain clearly exposes Western hypocrisy. Is Hamad ibn Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain or Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia any less brutal or corrupt than Qaddafi?

Immediately after the Security Council vote, US President Barack Obama started issuing threats: Qaddafi must immediately comply; he must stop all attacks against civilians and he must withdraw his troops from areas recaptured from the rebels. Obama also borrowed language from his notorious predecessor George Bush: “these demands are not negotiable.” Obama, the president for change, has now surpassed even Bush in resorting to raw force despite US woes in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which have bankrupted the US economy.

Numerous targets were hit in the first cruise missile strikes on Libyan cities on March 19. The date coincides with the Western crusade launched against Iraq in 2003 resulting in 1.5 million deaths. Neither Obama nor his British and French counterparts are likely to lose any sleep over the killing of Arabs; they have honed their murderous skills over hundreds of years. The latest assault on Libya is merely a continuation of the colonial enterprise launched behind the veneer of a Security Council resolution. The crucial question is: what right do Western rulers have to decide who should rule in Libya or anywhere else?

There is mounting evidence that the Saudi invasion of Bahrain was part of a larger plan involving both Raymond Davis, the CIA undercover agent who murdered two Pakistanis at point blank range in Lahore, Pakistan on January 27, as well as an attempt to prevent their own shaky hold on power in Riyadh. The Saudis were permitted to invade and occupy another country in exchange for securing the release of Davis. The murders became a bone of contention between an irate Pakistani public already seething under US drone attacks that have killed hundreds of innocent people, and the US whose CIA operative shot dead two Pakistanis in broad daylight in a busy street in Lahore. The Saudis arranged for blood money to be paid to relatives of the deceased in exchange for Davis’s release. The much-maligned Shari‘ah law was invoked to get Davis off the hook. So, Shari‘ah is OK if it facilitates the release of an American murderer but not OK if Muslims want to apply it in their lives?

The other point is also significant. The Saudis do not want disturbances spreading to the kingdom, at least not in any significant way. There were demonstrations in al-Qatif on March 10 and in Riyadh and Jeddah on March 11 but these were ruthlessly suppressed. The Saudis would rather fight their battle for survival in the streets of Manama than shooting Saudis in the streets of Riyadh or Jeddah. The Saudis view any challenge to the status quo in the region as a threat to their hold on power. Any change is also seen as benefitting Islamic Iran whose growing influence the Saudis fear.

The uprising in Bahrain and now gathering momentum in Yemen sends shivers down the Saudis’ collective spine. They fear their grip on power becoming loose. But it is Bahrain that worries the Saudis the most. The tiny Gulf state has a Shi‘i majority ruled by the oppressive Khalifa family that is closely linked with the Americans whose naval Fifth Fleet prowls the Persian Gulf from there. This explains why the Americans have been so lukewarm in supporting the struggle of the Bahraini people.



Zafar Bangash is Director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought