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Arab Democracy; Now or Never.
by Sami Jamil Jadallah
It seems the tens of millions the United States injected in Egypt to promote democracy went down the drain, with most of the beneficiaries of such funding are now undermining the first free presidential election in over 7,000 years. Unless Arabs; left and right, Islamists and Secularists, nationalists and independents accept the principals of “democracy” of one person one vote, free and transparent elections, citizens not government funded parties, accountability and transparency, there is no hope for democracy in the Arab world.
If the world and the Arabs think the “Arabs” are ready for democracy they better have a second look and a second thought. What is happening in Egypt now is nothing short of deliberate undermining of the fledging and infant democracy in Egypt with the opposition (National Salvation Front) and the trio of (Hamdeen Sabahi, Amr Moussa, Mohamed ElBaradei) determined to drive President Morsi out of office and bring a quick end to democracy in Egypt.
Of course President Morsi and the Muslims Brothers also share the blame for the anarchy and the collapsing of the Egyptian state having failed to understand the priorities of the Egyptian people and the priorities of those who faced Mubarak’s bullets to bring down his dictatorship. The priorities are not of rebuilding state institutions but addressing the pressing needs of a failing economy, poverty, hungers, broken down if existing infrastructures, high unemployment, personal dignity, civil and human rights abuses standards at police stations, security agencies and the courts. A new constitution was the last thing on the mind of Egyptians and this is where Morsi lacking political acumen and smarts failed and failed miserably.
The opposition, “sore losers” taking advantage of Morsi’s failings, lack of political experience and shortcomings not only are determine to make his presidency short one, but are active in enticing and promoting violence and anarchy in the streets of Cairo and other cities to make up for what they lack in wide popular support. Together with Mubarak “fuloul” they are working hard to have a second revolution to replace and undermine the first revolution.
President Morsi and the Muslim Brothers ignoring the “pulse” of the Egyptian streets for jobs and dignity and recognizing the “State” institutions are for the most part untouched and unaffected by the “revolutions” wrongly were determined to remaking the “state institutions” in their own image, a task that will take decades and not months or years and once again, it was not the priorities of the revolution. The fear of the Brothers complete take over of “state institutions” even if not the objective is a serious threats that Egyptians are not willing to substitute one party state with another one even if this party is the Muslim Brothers.
However Egypt is not the first country to experience undermining of a fledgling democracy and free elections. The Palestinians leadership of the PLO and Fatah were the first ones to undermine and abrogate free elections, the first and perhaps the last free elections in the Arab world.
In 2006 the Palestinians under Israeli Occupation went to the poles in the first ever-free election held in the Arab world, an election that all international observers testified to its transparency. Hamas won that election defeating long time decadent and corrupt Fatah and the PLO.
The Palestinian established leadership of the PLO and Fatah did not accept the result of the elections and decided to conspire with Israel, Jordan, Egypt and the US to undermine such transparent election, actions that lead to the bloody routing of Fatah out of Gaza and the take over of Gaza by Hamas and a division that had dire consequences if not criminal consequences for the leadership starting with the Israeli siege of Gaza and subsequent Israeli attacks on Gaza and the murders of thousands of people and the repeated destruction of Gaza.
However Palestine and Egypt are but few examples of the failings of Arab democracy. In Iraq the American invasions and the end of Saddam dictatorship did not bring democracy to Iraq but brought anarchy and sectarianism. Many thanks goes to the American legal experts who helped draft the Iraqi constitution that, rather than bring about transparent and accountable democracy and government established and entrenched evil “ sectarianism” as we see today with Almalki’s government and the start of the disintegration of the Iraqi state as we know it thus achieving the objective of the American Zionist Neocons behind the war.
Tunisia and Libya are not doing any better. In Tunisia the post revolution government so far failed to address pressing issues that lead to the uprising with priorities to economic and regional development, employments and improvements of the daily lives of people. The “Salafis” who were not in the front lines of the revolutions are now bent on transforming the civil state to a “theocratic state” in their own image and the “secularists” thus far failing to have a vision of the new state one that can accommodate “Islamists” and “secularists” or make a dent in the failing Tunisian economy and regional development.
Libya continues to suffer from armed “anarchy” with national government under constant threats from armed militias that having fought Qadafi dictatorship are now pushing to establish their own anarchist’s dictatorship. Very few in Libya are willing to put aside their weapon and spend badly needed time and talents to rebuilding state institutions, a process that needs the good will and support of all Libyans.
The recent elections in Jordan were nothing but a rerun and repeat of past elections with no real and material changes that truly and practically addresses key failings of the state, specially corruption, failing and inefficient state institutions and keeping Jordan as an international welfare state.
Perhaps Hilary Clinton is right when she stated “lack of experience” of emerging political leaders as a shortcoming. However perhaps Lt. Col. James Lacey is more accurate in describing the status in the Arab world with his prediction of the collapse of “Arab Civilizations”. This prediction came in his published article “ The Impending Collapse of Arab Civilization” in the Naval Institute: Proceedings. Concluding that it is the Arabs that are failing not Islam as predicted by Bernard Lewis and Samuel P. Huntington.
It is so ironic that the Arab world with so much natural resources, many internationally renowned thinkers and intellectuals is unable to bring about a civil change in dictatorial governments rather than bloody revolutions and uprisings. It is also unable to bring about real and material reforms in existing governments that are badly in need of reforms before the streets goes bloody.
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Posted by Sami Jamil Jadallah on Feb 4 2013, With 0 Reads, Filed under Middle East, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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I thought the first & only truly Arab democracy happened only1400 years ago when this book came down:
http://quran.com/
May be the fear of many people that the Muslim Brotherhoods will be the new Soviets, establishing branches of “communists parties” or Muslim Brotherhoods parties all over the Arab world reporting to a “supreme leader” thus not truly representing the people of certain countries but with loyalties to an outside group or leadership just like the days of the former Soviet Union when local parties were reporting to Moscow. Perhaps the Muslim Brotherhoods are also pushing for Sunni political Islam that is in so many ways similar to but competing with the Shiites political Islam and the rule of a supreme leader that is not elected by the citizens but by the “central committee” or “politburo”. So far the Muslim Brothers did not present a working vision for a new emerging state that is diverse in cultural values even faiths. As for the claims of the secret alliance with Israel and the Zionists this is far fetch with the purpose of discrediting the Brotherhood.
Well some knowledgeable people report the Muslim Brotherhood was created by MI6 years ago. It’s reasonable to think the Israelis infiltrated the Muslim Brotherhood. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Mossad has blackmail material on Morsi.
This is interesting I don’t know if it’s correct, excerpt from an article:
Dr. John Coleman, a former British Intelligence agent…states in his report on Iran’s Islamic Revolution that the Muslim Brotherhood was created by “the great names of British Middle East intelligence”…and that their mission was to “keep the Middle East backward so that its natural resource, oil, could continue to be looted…”
The Muslim Brotherhood is a London creation, forged as the standard-bearer of an ancient, anti-religious (pagan) heresy that has plagued Islam since the establishment of the Islamic community (umma) by the Prophet Mohammed in the seventh century. Representing organized Islamic fundamentalism, the organization called the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslimum in Arabic) was officially founded in Egypt, in 1929, by the British agent Hasan al-Banna, a Sufi mystic. Today, the Muslim Brotherhood is the umbrella under which a host of fundamentalist Sufi, Sunni, and radical Shiite brotherhoods and societies flourish.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a tool by the British-based Globalists whose main objective is to overthrow the established world order and create a new one-world system of global governance.
Without the British, “radical Islam would have remained the illegitimate, repressive minority movement that it has always been, and the Middle East would have remained stable and prosperous.”
The real Muslim Brothers are…the secretive bankers and financiers who stand behind the curtain, the members of the old Arab, Turkish, or Persian families whose genealogy places them in the oligarchic elite, with smooth business and intelligence associations to the European black nobility and, especially, to the British oligarchy.
By fabricating a bogus war between Islamic fundamentalism and the West, the globalists are able to attack their real enemy, humanity. Pulling the strings, they will ensure that both Western and Muslim states are degraded and finally completely subjugated to their odious rule.
From the Forward, to me the Mossad infiltrates just about all Muslim organizations:
A conspiracy theory circulating in the Arab world holds that the Muslim Brotherhood is secretly allied with the Jews, the Anti-Defamation League said.
“It would seem that no allegation made against Jews and Israel is too absurd when it is used to discredit others,” ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said in a statement.
Protesters were shown in a television broadcast last Friday chanting “Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews, the Brothers (Muslim Brotherhood) are the Jews,” according to the ADL, which explains that the slogan is meant to evoke an Islamic story of a battle between the Prophet Muhammad and the Jews in the town of Khaibar.
Also, Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan in a Twitter campaign aiming to discredit the Muslim Brotherhood recently alleged an allegiance to Israel and Jews.
“However bizarre and ludicrous, it is an increasingly popular conspiracy theory that the Muslim Brotherhood is a Jewish production to destroy Egyptians,” Foxman wrote.
Among other tweets to his 30,000 followers suggesting a Muslim Brotherhood connection to Jews, Khalfan has retweeted a link to a YouTube video titled “The Jewish-Muslim Brotherhood alliance and the project of establishing Greater Israel.” The video accuses Jews of using the Brotherhood to achieve their goal of controlling Muslims and establishing a greater Israel.
I hope not at least not the American model of “gerrymandering” unlimited financial contribution, no term limits, a congress for sale, fifth column senate for a foreign country, campaigning that start with election, lobbies that dictate legislation, certainly not the American model which s perhaps the worst “democratic model” in the world. The Hagel hearing is a shameful and insulting act for all Americans… It is the day Americans and America was humiliated by the American Knesset.
Just not the form of that western demockcracy please.