On
March 8th George Bush's speechwriters launched a
new catchword: 'The Arab Spring'. Thus kicked off
an intense and widespread international media and
political campaign, adequately and spaciously reflected,
as is always the case, in Ireland. The objective
is to convince popular opinion that a very deep
process of democratisation has started in the Arab
world. A process, we are told, that is the direct
result of the invasion of Iraq and the far-reaching
US foreign policy spearheaded by Bush.
Some in the US are deliriously over the moon as
they perceive that those Europeans who stood against
the Bush adventure in Iraq will be now seriously
discredited. The conservative pro-Bush clique, on
the other hand, is gradually coming out of its bunkers
and showing its face over the parapet again. For
both, this is a great opportunity to change the
negative climate both in the US itself as well as
internationally.
The
situation is considerably more complex in Europe.
The 'Arab Spring' as much as the 'Cedar Revolution',
PR concepts throwing the mind back to the 'Prague
Spring' of 1968, are concepts whose political significance
is as yet unclear. Even more questionable is the
concept of the 'Orange Revolution' in the Ukraine
- supposedly a copy of the 'Velvet Revolution' in
Czechoslovakia of nearly 40 years ago.
Iraq
as an Alibi
During
his pre-election campaign last October, George Bush
repeatedly made the point that History will show
that he was right in invading Iraq. Echoing him
and using the recent elections in Iraq, the US media
has gone onto the offensive projecting an international
image of an unqualified neo-conservative success.
Linking the Iraqi elections with a calmer climate
in the Middle East and the two to the events in
the Ukraine and now the events in Lebanon, the story
being propagated is that US foreign policy is succeeding
in changing the world for the better. This is no
more than an ideological morphing of the US foreign
policy after World War II - shaping it to current
conditions. It is suggesting that what America did
to defeated Germany, Japan and obliterated Europe
then is now being repeated in the Arab world - and
the remants of the 'socialist empire' that destroyed
itself from the inside at the end of the 20th century.
Condy
Rice is playing the demure young lady of the manor
role here. Her recent stance was: "There is
no need to go overboard, because whatever success
has been achieved has not happened because of America.
It is the human spirit, the desire of humankind
to live in freedom that is behind all this…"
A perfect one for the road, following the barrage
of propaganda that equates freedom, democracy and
the so-called indomitable human spirit with American
values!
It
would be seriously uncool and anti-productive if
Rice went overboard and started banging the drums
- would it not? It is far more effective when the
PR project is carried through by The New York Times
and Newsweek whose editorials this last week stated,
"not without some surprise", that Bush
was in fact "correct when he envisioned a better
future for the Arab World" when few in the
West had any hopes left!!
Palestine
as an Alibi
Looking
at reality from another - a more realistic and progressive
- angle methinks, gives us a rather different reading.
The US positions outlined above are, at best, a
mixture of wishful thinking and a partial understanding
of the situation. For example, while elections in
Iraq did take place, and leaving aside the issue
of whether they were democratic or not, it is very
questionable that they would have a positive outcome
for the people in Iraq. Some argue already that
they have set the basis for further bloodshed. To
argue today that democracy has arrived in Iraq is
an ideological and metaphysical stance that little
has to do with the situation there. In Palestine,
the change of climate is primarily the result of
Arafat's death and the internal collapse of his
authoritarian system of control of the Palestinian
Authority. It is unlikely that the US would want
to assume responsibility for that. Or is it? As
the International Herald Tribune argued this week:
"One day soon Fidel Castro will die - would
Bush then argue that the inevitable change of climate
in Cuba would have been the result of his foreign
policy?"
An
interesting pointer to the winds of democracy blowing
in the Arab world is the situation in Qatar. There
has been a very significant positive change in that
small country in the Gulf that started in late 2001.
The most democratic of all Arab media operations,
Al Jazeera, has its HQ in Qatar. Is it surprising
that the US has been trying desperately to pressurise
the rulers of Qatar to muzzle the TV organisation?
The wind obviously there decided to change direction.
To look at the recent restricted local elections
in the Saudi, where only men were allowed to vote,
or the very restrictive presidential elections in
Egypt as examples of democracy would be stretching
the meaning of the word somewhat. And it is worth
examining what the US would really do when the forthcoming
real elections in Iraq brought to power somebody
like Al Zarqaoui. Elements of the recent (anti-)
Sinn Fein circus closer at home. Adams and Arafat.
McGuinness and Al Zarqaoui….what a nightmare!
Juan Cole, History Lecturer in the University of
Michigan, recently told me: "Washington would
be in a terrible situation if the strong fundamentalist
movement in Tunisia suddenly gathered and demanded
the resignation of the dictator Ben Ali - asking
for the same rights that the Lebanese opposition
is asking for in Lebanon."
If
one looked at these developments through a Marxist
prism, what's happening in most of the Arab world,
as much as in Georgia or the Ukraine, is that the
(new)middle classes, having been strengthened and
invigorated by the globalisation process, are entering
the political arena and demanding their legitiamate
place in the sun. It is the emerging middle class
that was in the forefront of the Orange Revolution
in the Ukraine and it is this mixture of Christian
and Muslim midlle class of Beirut that is leading
the Cedar Revolution. To argue, however, as the
neo-conservatives do, that this section of the population
is by definition an ally of the US is, again, an
ideological and metaphysical mystification. Can
they forget that it was the emergence of this specific
section of the middle class in Iran 30 years ago
that brought down the Shah and instituted the present
theocracy?
PS.
As the article above was being finalised, I read
that George Bush, following his meeting with King
Abdallah of Jordan, in a message addressed to the
Shiite organisation Hezbollah in Lebanon, told them
that the US would accept their integration into
the Lebanese democratic process. "We see Hezbollah
as a terrorist organisation", Bush added,"but
I hope that by getting rid of its arms and by not
threatening the peace process in the region, it
can become and element of stability"! Am I
imagining that this movie is currently on our screens
too?
