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Arab regimes reaching 'critical
mass'
By Matthew Riemer
The
question of ruling legitimacy in the Muslim world is as
old as Islam itself, beginning with the conflict that
was to create the two primary branches of the religion:
Sunni and Shi'ite. With the death of the Prophet
Mohammed, the Islamic community, or ummah, was
thrown into a crisis over who was best suited to rightly
guide his followers. With the accession of the fifth
caliph, Muawiya, the Muslim world became genuinely split
along sectarian lines, with the Shi'ites, essentially
claiming that the successor should be chosen from among
only the closest followers of Mohammed, emphasizing the
importance of the continuation of a spiritual connection
to the fallen leader. Muawiya was basically a corrupt
governor who functioned primarily in a political role,
while only appeasing Islam and had less legitimacy with
the most devout Muslims; however, the majority Sunnis
accepted him as their caliph.
This rift between
religious versus secular authority and emphasis still
continues today in the Muslim world, not only in the two
branches of Islam themselves, but more prominently, if
not ironically, in the mainstream of popular Muslim
political discourse. What role will be played by the
religious leadership, which constitutes the political
leadership in many instances, as the Arab world is
forced to modernize, or more accurately, to integrate
itself within the Western-guided, globalized climate in
the Middle East? In much of the Muslim world, this is
one of the questions of greatest significance as the
first few years of the new century have established an
explosive atmosphere of radical change in the region.
For many, familial rule, whether in the form of
monarchies such as those found in Jordan, Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and
Oman, or dynastically like in Syria, is becoming an
increasingly undesirable form of government as each
successive younger generation is exposed to more Western
political ideas and as technology such as the Internet
proliferates.
The environment created by these
ancient tensions is leading to cracks within many Arab
regimes in the Middle East today as the region is not
only embracing much Western culture, but at the same
time questioning the liberalness of many Western values,
especially those surrounding sexuality and the role of
women in society.
Another pressure being exerted
from within on the Arab regimes is friction caused by
the support and cooperation with the United States-led
"war on terror", thus creating more domestic problems
for Arab regimes throughout much of the Muslim world -
though these problems are not entirely new as the issue
of US support has always been at least a minor point of
contention - as many Arabs are becoming further
disillusioned by their respective government's
complicity in the US's actions in the Middle East and
Central Asia.
Following September 11, 2001, the
US quickly gathered a largely willing coalition of
states and gained permission from the relevant countries
to use the necessary military facilities needed to
attack Afghanistan. At no other time in recent memory
had the world so unanimously condemned an act of
aggression and violence. The French daily Le Monde
printed the headline on September 12, "We are all
Americans now."
But this sympathy did not extend
as deeply into Arab society. The evening of the
terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, revelers
from Egypt to Pakistan were shown celebrating the
devastating blow to the country they perceived as
responsible for many of their ills and many of the
conflicts throughout the Muslim world.
Eighteen
months later when the US invasion of Iraq began, there
were extensive and violent protests throughout the
Middle East. Egypt was home to some of the most
extensive rioting. Cars were overturned and set on fire
in Cairo and crowds were dispersed with water cannons.
Plainclothes police beat protestors with metal and
wooden batons. Four people were killed, along with
dozens injured when protestors clashed with police at
the US embassy in San'a, Yemen on March 22. There were
also large gatherings in Oman, Bahrain and the capital
of Jordan, Amman, where tear gas was used against
thousands of protestors.
These demonstrating
civilians were expressing their anger towards corrupt
bureaucracies that they felt were insufficiently
critical of the US's actions in Iraq or for their
outright cooperation with Washington. Furthermore, many
of these same people had already criticized their
leaders' apathy with regard to the plight of the
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
The US
is also pressuring Middle Eastern regimes to speed along
this process of political and social reform and to,
perhaps, ride the wave of the US's toppling of Saddam
Hussein, which many feel will result in democracy in the
beleaguered state. At the recent US-Arab Economic Forum
held in Detroit, Michigan, US Secretary of State Colin
Powell, giving the keynote address, said,
"Tonight I have come to enlist your power and
your passion in a great cause for our times; a cause
that links America and the Arab world. I have come to
ask you to help build the new Middle East - a Middle
East peaceful, prosperous - a Middle East that is free.
We face no task more important. Over the past half
century alone, we, and the peoples of the Middle East,
have suffered through war, revolution, boycotts and
terrorism. The region has seen the development and use
of some of the most lethal weapons known to man. It is
no exaggeration to say that without a transformation of
the Middle East, the region will remain a source of
violence and terrorism fueled by poverty, by alienation
and by despair. We must not let that happen. We will not
let that happen."
The confluence of this force
of discontent in the Muslim world fueled by those who
transcend the profile of pigeon-holed extremists and the
continued exposure to Western-style government and the
boons of capitalism threatens to extinguish the old rule
in much of the Middle East and beyond, especially in
some of the more famous and entrenched instances, such
as the House of Saud on the Arabian Peninsula. The
addition of continuing US pressure for Arab regimes to
reform only adds a sense of urgency to what many now
feel is an inevitable process.
Published with
permission of the Power and
Interest News Report, an analysis-based
publication that seeks to provide insight into various
conflicts, regions and points of interest around the
globe. All comments should be directed to
content@pinr.com
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