"They told us: Democracy is not a value that has much currency in the region!..."

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

The Arabist writes in the Guardian:

"There is a phrase coined in 2004 by Michael Gerson, a speechwriter for George W Bush best-known for having come up with "axis of evil", that I've always liked. In a speech about education, he bemoaned "the soft bigotry of lowered expectations" that he believed existed against disadvantaged children.

For several decades, there has been a soft bigotry of lowered expectations in the west and among Arab elites about the Arab world. The prevalent thinking about this region of over 300 million souls is that it offered no fertile ground for democracy, either because democracy risked bringing political forces hostile to western interests or because democracy is not a value that has much currency in the region. Many regimes understood this, and played a double game of decrying their societies' "immaturity" while encouraging anti-democratic tendencies such as populism and, at times, a reactionary social conservatism. After the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, no one will buy this any more – and nor should they about two more north African countries: Libya and Morocco.

.....For most people around the world, Libya was Gaddafi....It turns out there are another 6 million Libyans, many of whom are now rebelling against the Gaddafi family, and that at least 200 have died in the last few days fighting for their freedom. Libya is the Arab world's North Korea, a near-totalitarian nightmare and an insult to common decency. And as Pyongyang is protected by China, so Tripoli is being given cover by Tony Blair, BP and academics-turned-consultants like Anthony Giddens and Benjamin Barber. The idea is that it was best to try to help countries like Libya "reform", even if the reforms in question tended to be mostly about making the place more business-friendly.

The same rationale of lowered expectations can also hold for much more liberal and open Arab societies, For 15 years, Morocco has been considered the "best student" in an Arab class of deadenders. Next to Algeria's traumatised society, Tunisia's police state or Libya's sheer hell, who could disagree? ...

But for the last few years something has been increasingly rotten in the kingdom of Morocco. Advances for press freedom made in the 90s have been reversed. A political transition that had been made possible in the late 90s by a historic reconciliation between the opposition and the palace has stalled. A fragile economy has been hampered by a predatory royal holding that creates monopolies for itself.

More and more Moroccans want something akin to what they see in Britain or Spain: a constitutional monarchy where the king is head of state but does not interfere in government....

Libyans are not condemned to be ruled by Gaddafis for eternity; Moroccans do not have to settle for an absolute monarchy, no matter how enlightened. Encouraged by their neighbours' example, they have higher expectations for their future, and so should you."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 3:11 PM

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian