Unfinished Revolutions الثورات التي لم تكتمل

الثورات التي لم تكتمل : الولادة إلى المستقبل

Unfinished Revolutions: Giving Birth to the Future

All Arab countries have benefited from 'the Arab Spring.' Even in those countries where the revolution failed – Oman, Djibouti, the UAE and even, we hope, Bahrain – important concessions have been made, or will be made. The costs have been high, but the revolution is bearing the fruit of the future. There was no revolution in Saudi Arabia, but the king dumped a cool $1 trillion on young, poor people. Sultan Qabus quickly co-opted the young rebels in Oman by asking them to register at the Ministry of Labor and Industry, to get jobs (created by the state) or, if no job, then a stipend, plus a chance to get extra money, for opening a business. The same tactic was used to co-op the rebels in Djibouti, and also in the UAE, I suspect.

The problem in Dubai and Abu Dhabi was a group highly educated secular intellectuals, most educated in Europe and the USA, who started a protest movement back in early February 2011. They could not be bought off. There were only some two hundred of them, and they did not occupy road intersections or provoke the police. They were told certain things which led them to disband. At some point, from the highest level of the government, they were graciously accommodated. All their detailed criticisms were rigorously cataloged and presented to the leaders of the Al Khalifa and Al Makhtum clans, the UAE's ruling emirs. The UAE is flush with cash so can invest in job-creating. It is important to see exactly how they are generating jobs. The emirs have opened universities and museums and art plazas and research institutes and is almost ready to finally find jobs for their hard-working intellectuals.

Morocco and Jordan are two Arab monarchies that have moved, step by step, to effect big changes in their governments. The Arab Spring brought to a head decades-old grievances. In each case, some progress had been made before the revolutions of 2011. King Abdallah the IIth of Jordan has agreed to give more power to parliament. King Muhammad the VIth of Morocco also gave back to parliament some of his powers. These kings keep for themselves their defense and intelligence bureaucracies, and have made sure that they control the revenues collected from the people, to be invested in just the right way. (Jordan has a severe water crisis. Amman depends on bottled water trucked in.)

It is also pertinent that both kings have retained their traditional roles as 'leaders of the faithful' so can move against well-known radical Islamist organs.  Two other features Jordan and Morocco share: minority religions – Jews in Morocco (who have long had at least one seat in parliament), and the Christian Arabs in Jordan. Both still have nomads roaming around.

Both are deeply involved in crises: the enforced exodus of non-combantent Arabs from Palestine into Jordan, as a result of premeditated policies of ethnic cleansing (and theft of property). In Morocco, the whole government-led annexation of, and expansion into, the Southern Sahara has been 'victorious.' The Arab Spring began in the summer of 2010 deep in the Algerian Sahara, in the four huge refugee camps around remote Tindouf. In these four sprawling camps live (barely)  refugees from the Spanish Sahara, nomad Berber-Arabs.. All during the summer and autumn of 2010 the Polisario government led protests and demonstrations; when one camp stood down, another started its protests, so the voices of the West Saharan Berber refugees, was amplified and sustained - constant.

Not surprisingly such vocal unrest disturbed the Algerian people, who have an even longer traditions of protest. What happened, on January 11, is that a large protest in the suburbs of Algiers, refused to obey curfew – and stared down the police.

The other Arab countries had their own internal grievances, ready to explode. But when the Algerian democrats stared down the police, a new way was open - take the streets, the ministeries, et al., - and was quickly exploited by young, wired protesters in Tunisia, then Egypt, then Yemen, Libya, Bahrain, Oman, Djibouti, Jordan, Morocco, Mauritania and the UAE.

I'm sure constitutional experts from Western Europe and the United States can be of assistance to Arab rebels as they struggle to form new governments. But we must remember that the Arabs do have deep traditions of democracy. Bedouin generally elect their sheikhs, and I have been to meetings in Muslim societies where people voted with their hands. Arab sheikhs and emirs keep open their doors to common people with grievances (or capitalist opportunities). Furthermore, Islam has democratic traditions, first in its equality of believers, then in certain principles laid down by Muhammad: “government must consult with the people at every step.” and “my people will never agree on an error,” a profound statement legitimizing (intelligent) dissent. And of course the four ensuing Khalifs – Abu Bakr, Oman, Uthman and Ali – were all elected by the 'ulema, the educated elders. Though Muhammad died without preparing his patrimony (he was too modest to even imagine that he was the most powerful human who ever lived), he must have instructed the community, the 'umma, to elect its leaders. Probably because he used elections and consultations while administering Medina.

In the generations which followed, a clergy grew up, led by specialists in law, and Islam became a religion. In the early years following Muhammad's death, power passed to Damascus, where the rich Arab emirs, the Umayyads, moved to control and take the wealth. Many Muslims looked to Muhammad's own family (including Ali) to preserve Islam's core moral principles in the face of rapidly expanding commercial actors. These rich men hunted down and killed Ali and Hussein and Hasan, Muhammad's grandsons. The Middle East have never gotten over that.

The emergence of a heavily-armed Shi'a block, stretching from Iran, through southern Iraq, to Syria and Lebanon, has been rather eclipsed by events on the streets. Even Iran has advised Syria to “meet the demands of its people.” Though the government in Lebanon is currently headed by moderate Shi'a, they do not care to fight the Sunni and Christian and Druze Lebanese.

While I am writing this, there is a battle underway in Cairo, as violent mobs attack the Israeli embassy. The government, under international pressure, has been trying to disperse hundreds of Arab rebels, angry at Israel's stupid shooting to death of five Egyptian soldiers. That was in early August, after a Palestinian terror group fired at a tourist bus, killing seven Israeli non-combatants.

That incident at Eilat was, is, unfortunate, in that it greatly aggravated the people of Egypt. The Egyptian had long watch Israel's use of collective punishment, and its use of extreme violence against rather innocent Palestinian people, but here we see the same gun-happy trigger-pulling 'tactics' of the IDF. They may have some military competence, but the Israelis are as politically powerless as its backer, the USA. Lack of language skills, ignorant of Islam, the US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan were unable, even with translators, to engage in effective political dialogue with the average Arabs on the street.

Israel of course has had its own mass demonstrations. People flooded into Tel Aviv, occupying sidewalks, not road intersections. I know Israel, and many Israelis, and am not surprised at the collective shows of dissidence. Most Israelis want peace with the Arabs, but the American Republican party, egged on by Christian Zionists, evangelicals from the American south, has given the narrow right-wing government of “Bibi” "The Whiner" Nitanyahu, a carte blanche and a green light. This encouragement of the Israelis to basically take over the West Bank, is a bid to re-construct the Israeli empire. Did not God tell them to do so? No. Of course not. These fundamentalists betray the core moral principles of their own religions. That goes for the Muslim leaders as well as the Jewish and Christian political upstarts. They are obviously deluded, and they hurt millions of innocent people.

Historically, the Israelit empire lasted less than two years. Judah, Samaria and Israel were of course very different places, different cultures. Today, few Zionists talk of ruling 'from the Nile to the Euphrates' but the complete annexation of the Arab West Bank is well underway. The Jews moving into these illegal settlements include many Americans, while American taxpayers' money is used directly and indirectly to build and maintain these settlements. But even if the Jewish extremists, led by deluded fundamentalists in both Israel and America, succeed in 'cleansing' the land completely, the West Bank will always be stolen land. It is a quiet genocide. Israel has long applied collective punishment, and Palestinians are not free to do many things in their own land. For example, they cannot travel freely in their own country.

Palestine was created in 1948 alongside Israel. The two states were conceived together. Originally, the two state idea was just a concept, prompted by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War One. After World War Two, the US took up the idea of a two-state solution, and the UN advanced the concept. Just before independence was declared in May, 1948, both Jewish and Arab armies fell on each other. Neither side wanted to adhere to US and UN law. Each side forfeited its own legal basis, by denying the other. The two always went together.

This week the UN will be deciding whether Palestine might be admitted as a country into the UN, a move long opposed by Israel and the USA. But if Israel is to be a legal enterprise, free of ethnic-sectarian genocide, then, as I explained, a free country called Palestine must come into being.

Right-wing American political players are determined to stop any such freedom for the Palestinian Arabs. Why? Because they are Muslims, I guess. Also: the rich spit at the poor. Also: a casual lack of law, a disregard of fundamental legal decisions by the world. That world was originally led by the USA, but no longer. True, America has gained some prestige for its armed support of the Libyan rebels, but the US government under G.W. Bush foolishly and tragically invaded Iraq in 2003. Iraq remains a bleeding wound that does not heal.

Richard Perle, Douglas Fythe, Eliot Abrams and other Jewish US security officials have been rightly cited as the originators and executors of the US invasion of Iraq - they had been talking about it for a decade - but George W. Bush, who feels Iraq was a terrible but blameless blunder, says all responsibility for the tragedy was with him. Yet, Mr. Bush is no intellectual, and was lured into a most unholy alliance with crazed violent aggressive Zionists, both Jewish and Christian, to "thwack the serpent on the nose."

Israel is one quarter Arab. It is a Muslim as well as a Jewish country. Israel's courts understand this: they routinely used the Shari'a and fiqh to adjudicate disputes and to manage Muslim waqf properties. Most Israeli judges speak Arabic, and there are elements of the judiciary which are the impartiality of the law. Israel's supreme court is the most reliable (and just) organ in the Israeli government.

The Arabs of course have played right into the right-wing Israeli bid to annex (most of) the West Bank, teaching and enforcing inveterate hatred against all Jews. Obviously this too is unjust – and counter-productive. Furthermore, the mass indoctrination of children into hating all Jews (and Americans) makes it un likely that these populations will be restored to each other. There is a huge positive synergy potential between them.

Given the American government's (tacit) support for Israel expansion beyond its lawful borders, augurs poorly for the future. The Holy Land will be opened to the Western Crusaders. Israel will, should, militarily dominate the Middle East. Many American leaders believe in that. The evangelical imperialists really do believe that the End of Days is near, and that the final showdown will be in Israel, at Meggido. Not surprisingly, the Israeli government closely monitors Americans visiting Meggido, and not surprisingly, the the clinical Israelis view American evangelicals as crazy and potentially drastically dangerous.  The idea of the Apocalypse is, of course, an Iranian idea, from the Zoroastrians, who believed in a final showdown between light and dark. The Jews took it (and much more) from the Persians when they were exiled to Babylon in the 6th C. BC.

But who is the light and who is the dark? I have had to counsel the US government (especially the Defense Dept.) not to be so infiltrated and dominated and compromised by Iranian ideas. The Republicans, the loud, aggressive ones, don't like science, but such adherents to Iranian ideas also betrays their own Biblical principles. They don't know their own traditions. Nor do the Muslims.

Of course the USA is great big nation, ethnically diverse, and democratic, with a secular government (thank God). It should never choose sides based on ethnic/sectarian favoritism. If the USA were a great nation, it would not take sides.

Arab regimes have long used the Arab-Israeli dispute to distract their citizens (blaming the 'other') and prevent them from moving for reforms at home. Now the Arab Spring – revolution – has shown the Arab people to be temporarily un-distracted by Israel. So it is worrisome, I suppose, that the Arab dissidents are fighting their own police at the Israeli embassy in Cairo, as I write. Yet the Mubarrack policy of joining with Israel (and America) to wall off (imprison) the Palestinians in Gaza, was not just either.

An outside (or inside) observer might think it implausible that any Palestinian state will emerge in the near future. The ultra-right crypto-fascists are rich and determined. The Bible tells them to fight, just like they fought 3,000 years ago.

Actually the Hebrew Bible (also revered by the Arabs) is against any such thing: “If you use my name to cause harm, I will lay waste your soul.” (Ex.20:7) Curiously, the Qur'an is a more pro-Jewish text than the Hebrew Bible. About 40% of the Qur'an recounts Biblical stories – but the characters are white-washed. Abraham is not held account for driving his concubine into the desert with his own son, then marrying his barren half-sister Sarah. Moses was a murderer, and not a Hebrew at all. King David murdered one of his devoted officers, Absalom, in order to marry his wife, Tamar. The prophets of course were scathing in their criticisms of the Israeli imperial pretensions - the influence of loud ignorant fundamentalists who were used by war lords and even the king.

But the way is open: the new Palestinian nation will simply have a Jewish minority, just as Israel has a Muslim minority. The Jewish settlers are all extremists – using the Bible (and guns) to annex much of Arab Palestine. They will not want to be part of Arab Palestine, even though they are (they live there). Will either the Israeli or the American government have the moral fibre to enforce a two-state solution? Not if the willfully ignorant Republican Zionists in the US government have their way.

I lived in Palestine and in Israel, and know that Arabs and Jews can get along splendidly if they were not so crassly influenced by their mean leaders. So, as long as America betrays its own core code of equality before the law, the whole Israeli-Arab dispute will continue to be exploited by religious hotheads on all three sides. And hypocrisy breeds anger.

As I finish, I hear on the radio that the big fight at the Israeli embassy in Cairo has become more violent, as Egyptian army commandos fire at the protesters. Thousands of enraged Egyptian urban young males are trying to break into the vault, the inner sanctum. Will the army shoot them dead? The revolution in Egypt is hardly finished.
 

                                                  -John Paul Maynard, Amherst, Massachusetts

for papers on Islamic land law, reform in Islam, an analysis of economic change in Egypt, log onto

www.middleeastspeculum.blogspot.com.

The author is the moderator for the graduate alumni association's on line discussion group on Islamic civilization.  His e mail address: johnpaulmaynard@post.harvard.edu.