Larbi Sadiki: New politics in "Arabia" - please without democracy exporters-
Both the US and the EU will continue to compete in the field of democracy promotion. I was in Tunisia recently learning all I could about the revolution’s dynamics there. I happened to be in a political party’s headquarters for a meeting with its president and encountered a group of energetic Americans already busy networking and looking for democratic students.
My point is that Western governments must reflect before they send their democratic envoys and mentors. The young lady dispatched from the US and who was taking residence in Tunis did not feel confident nor did she display fluency about Tunisia’s history, much less its politics.
Here silence and incoherent short interventions revealed all. The colleague she came to Tunis to replace would have been a much better choice. Is that all America can scramble for democratisation in Tunisia? Just like Bush invaded Iraq with a huge army of which only six spoke Arabic.
What about Arab democratic knowledge? Al Jazeera, Kuwaiti parliamentary experience, Moroccan transitional justice, the bar associations of Egypt and Tunisia, the Islamists of Jordan and Egypt, women’s inclusiveness in Tunisia are all essential lessons in local democracy which should not be relegated to the margins
Even when one forgets about how many Western governments chose to waltz with Arab dictators and in some cases fund them to safeguard themselves, one cannot forget about Western think-tanks, from Spain to Washington DC, many of whom have for years pontificated about Arab democratisation without direct knowledge of the locale and of language.
Unsurprisingly, most have got it wrong. Bread riots, for instance, were crying for attention and were rarely studied systematically. Interest in democratisation is largely filtered through a security mind-set, not as an ideal in its own right. Lots of money went into posh hotels and conferencing. It was a waste of resources. Very few could see, much less appreciate forms of bottom-up resistance and new forms of new media, including blogs and al Jazeera. The handful of scholars who were spot on go mostly ignored.
The onus is now on Egyptians and Tunisians to safeguard their civic triumphs and people power revolutions by transcending the narrowness of territoriality and parochial nationalisms. The youths of both countries who shared the virtual space of the blogosphere can now meet more directly to sustain co-learning through joint civic initiatives and institutions.
Both the US and the EU will continue to compete in the field of democracy promotion. I was in Tunisia recently learning all I could about the revolution’s dynamics there. I happened to be in a political party’s headquarters for a meeting with its president and encountered a group of energetic Americans already busy networking and looking for democratic students.
My point is that Western governments must reflect before they send their democratic envoys and mentors. The young lady dispatched from the US and who was taking residence in Tunis did not feel confident nor did she display fluency about Tunisia’s history, much less its politics.
Here silence and incoherent short interventions revealed all. The colleague she came to Tunis to replace would have been a much better choice. Is that all America can scramble for democratisation in Tunisia? Just like Bush invaded Iraq with a huge army of which only six spoke Arabic.
What about Arab democratic knowledge? Al Jazeera, Kuwaiti parliamentary experience, Moroccan transitional justice, the bar associations of Egypt and Tunisia, the Islamists of Jordan and Egypt, women’s inclusiveness in Tunisia are all essential lessons in local democracy which should not be relegated to the margins
Even when one forgets about how many Western governments chose to waltz with Arab dictators and in some cases fund them to safeguard themselves, one cannot forget about Western think-tanks, from Spain to Washington DC, many of whom have for years pontificated about Arab democratisation without direct knowledge of the locale and of language.
Unsurprisingly, most have got it wrong. Bread riots, for instance, were crying for attention and were rarely studied systematically. Interest in democratisation is largely filtered through a security mind-set, not as an ideal in its own right. Lots of money went into posh hotels and conferencing. It was a waste of resources. Very few could see, much less appreciate forms of bottom-up resistance and new forms of new media, including blogs and al Jazeera. The handful of scholars who were spot on go mostly ignored.
The onus is now on Egyptians and Tunisians to safeguard their civic triumphs and people power revolutions by transcending the narrowness of territoriality and parochial nationalisms. The youths of both countries who shared the virtual space of the blogosphere can now meet more directly to sustain co-learning through joint civic initiatives and institutions.
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