Egypt: Arab Spring - a tightrope between freedom and theocracy (opinion)

The East African (Kenya), by Jenerali Ulimwengu* -August 19, 2013

Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) - Trying to realise the dream of a democratic Arab society based on popular will without slipping into the pitfalls of a constricted theocracy is a tightrope act that the great Blondin himself would not have wanted to try.

The dramatic events heralded as the Arab Spring have now given way to troubling questions that seem intractable in the short run, attaching to the complexities of the very nature of Arab states and the way they relate to their diverse populations and the world. Of course, these states are very different, they have extremely varied historical backgrounds, and, all too often, they have little in common apart from their “Arab” identity, which is itself sometimes contested. But then there is Islam. More than the “Arabness” of the various nations in North Africa and the Middle East, it is Islam that defines the various peoples that populate them, to the extent that it becomes their first and foremost identity. The very nature of these nations lends itself to a kind of haziness, an ambiguity born of their arbitrary demarcations and fragile cohesion. Most were created out of the moribund Ottoman Empire — the Sick Man of Europe — in the early 20th century through the energetic interventions of the imperial powers in the dying order. They aimed to carve up the rich oilfields, at a time when oil was just announcing its extraordinary economic and strategic importance for industrial nations. An impressive parade of noted imperialists crisscrossed the Middle East, staking their claims and haggling over boundaries. Among the most conspicuous of the British actors were Winston Churchill, Percy Cox, T.E. Lawrence (of Lawrence of Arabia fame), and an extraordinary daughter of the British Empire, Gertrude Bell. For the French, there was Francois-Georges Picot, who with Mark Sykes penned the agreement that shared Iraq and Syria between Britain and France. In the dubious treaties reached between these marauders, the splintered nations that were formed after World War I — what the late Tajudeen called America’s filling stations — had little common historical identity except that many of them were ruled by warrior sheikhs and feuding emirs who claimed to be “direct” descendants of the Prophet Mohammad. So, whatever nationality they claim to belong to, the “Arabs” — some of them are Bedouins, Berbers, Amazigs, Somalis, Tuaregs, Moors, Phoenicians — consider themselves Muslims first and foremost. When conditions are dire, at any time when things do not seem to be going right, when economic hardships bite, when society feels it has lost its bearings and is in drift, when corruption seems to have devoured the whole edifice of governance, when whole national entities feel like they need a rock of ages to lean on because everyone else has betrayed them — the Palestinian question, for instance — these people will turn to their “fundamental” identity, Islam. The world not being simple, other forces and processes are still at work. The younger and more enlightened generation feel a JJ Rousseau-type urge to not only overthrow the corrupt and oppressive regime, but to also refuse to get out of one form of dictatorship (Mubarak’s, say, and the military’s) only to jump into another (the Muslim Brotherhood’s). Morsi supporters say they won the election, and they are right; his opponents say that that does not allow him to do as his party wishes, and they bring out millions in protest. The former come out in equal force, and these are prepared to die if need be. TerEven Blondin — who crossed the Niagara on a rope several times — could not have managed the balancing act of overthrowing a dictatorship, allowing free elections to be held and then throwing out the elected leader on the strength of a huge street protest that the elected leader’s supporters matched with another huge street protest. *Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam.