To skip this introduction and go directly to read Alexander Mirescu’s In-Depth Analysis “Civil Society in Tunisia: The Arab Spring Comes Home to Roost,” click here.

The Arab Spring is now commonly understood as a tragedy, if not a colossal failure. Those who “knew” that Islam and democracy are fundamentally incompatible feel vindicated. Those critical of American foreign policy find their criticisms confirmed, whether the object of their criticism is that of realpolik – the U.S. should have never supported the purported democratic uprising – or more idealistic – the U.S. should have supported such forces sooner and more thoroughly. I believe these common understandings and criticisms are fundamentally mistaken, based as they are on lazy comparative analysis, not paying attention to the details of political and cultural struggles, and by ethnocentric obsessions and superpower fantasy, not realizing how much the fate of nations is based on local and not global struggles.

In today’s post on Tunisia, a very different understanding is suggested, as I as the author of The Politics of Small Things, see it. The uprising in the Middle East of 2011, sparked by protests in Tunisia, opened up possibilities for fundamental transformation. The possibilities were opened by ordinary people, when they spoke to each other, in their differences, about their common concerns, and developed a capacity to act upon their concerns. In most countries in the region, one way or another, the power these people created together faced other powers and has been overwhelmed. But the game isn’t over, as this report on civic associations in Tunisia shows. The report suggests a corollary to the old adage: those who live by the sword, die by the sword. The persistence of civic action in Tunisia suggests a continued opening: those who manage to speak and act in the presence of others, in their differences, with common principled commitment to their public interaction, open the possibility of an alternative to tragedy.

The promise of the Arab Spring may yet live in the country of its birth. I think we should pay close to this, as we are overwhelmed by the tragic reports and images coming out of Syria and Egypt.

To go directly to read Alexander Mirescu’s In-Depth Analysis “Civil Society in Tunisia: The Arab Spring Comes Home to Roost,” click here.

Since the ouster of authoritarian leader, Ben Ali, in January 2011, Tunisia, with its vibrant landscape of civil society organizations (CSOs), continues to distinguish itself from other MENA states affected by the Arab Spring. Indeed, since its independence from France in 1956, Tunisia has long been an exception in the region.

The first decades of independence under the stable, albeit single-party leadership of Habib Bourghiba brought profound levels of modernization in public healthcare, education and, for the Arab world, the most far-reaching set of women’s rights. Praised by the World Bank, IMF and UNDP for its rapid, yet sustained development, Tunisia stabilized its future through an expanded tourism and a more diversified economy, coupled with a more efficient and increasingly export-oriented agricultural sector. Bourghiba wisely transitioned economic output, as Tunisia’s limited petroleum resources decreased. After a quiet change of power in 1987, former interior minister, Ben Ali, continued his predecessor’s development legacy and stayed loyal to the country’s secular political culture, which allowed for private expression of religious life, but guaranteed governance that was markedly non-Islamic in its day-to-day business.

Micro-level civil society before the revolution

While more extensive inspection is required, recent field research reveal a small, but unexpectedly vibrant CSO sector before the beginning of the Arab Spring in December 2010. While regimes will often tolerate, contain, control and even co-opt CSOs for their own purposes, exceptions will arise. Pre-Arab Spring Tunisia challenges this assumption: by the mid-2000s, neighborhood-level associations with modest financial development aid from foreign embassies successfully negotiated pockets of “free spaces” outside of the regime-approved, corporatist CSOs. Under Ben Ali, CSO activity and development projects were centralized under the Ministry of the Interior, representative of the “police state” Tunisia had become.

Chema Gargouri, president of the Tunisian Association for Management and Social Stability (TAMSS), was among the first pioneers of civil society. Initially working through standard channels of application, she directly engaged the much-feared Ministry of the Interior to allow for neighborhood-based educational programs for children and gender-based training programs that were not officially sanctioned by the government. Despite regular police surveillance and occasional raids by intelligence officers, Gargouri carved out a space, as she explained to me in an interview this month: “that neither directly challenged Ben Ali’s regime, nor overtly supported the government. We were strictly apolitical; if they asked me to become political or they thought I was becoming political, I would have closed the doors.” Hence, while authority unquestionably rested in regime hands, a tacit agreement based on negotiated response emerged whereby crucial, micro-level civic action, free from direct state co-optation, could be nurtured and nascent ideas and practices of independent social engagement and collective action established.

Civil society during the Arab Spring

In December 2010, the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi in the backwater town of Sidi Bouzid tapped into the deep well of Tunisian youth’s frustration with lack of employment, socio-economic marginalization, police repression and petite and grand corruption. In the immediate phases of the Jasmine Revolution, informal civic networks quickly began to collectively organize, even while mass demonstrations and general strikes took place. Since independence under Bourghiba, Tunisians could rely on state institutions to maintain day-to-day functions, such as administering schools, hospitals, emergency services, traffic regulation and garbage collection. Ahmed Hamza, program coordinator at the Women’s Enterprise for Sustainability (WES) in Tunis, described to me how neighborhood- and even street-level organizations in January 2011 took on the responsibility for issues like transporting children to school, public safety and rubbish removal. Political orientation, religious observance or the absence of religious observation, economic background and level of education were placed aside as neighborhood groups “took on the state’s role, when the state apparatus disappeared.” Hamza recalled the palpable sense of excitement of citizens taking the lead on organizing their society at the most basic level.

In rapid fashion, similar-minded civil society organizations began to bond around common ideas, while simultaneously preventing class, ideological or religious differences from spoiling the common goal of ousting the Ben Ali regime. Under other circumstances, Islamist Tunisians may not have had much in common with secular, Western oriented Tunisians, yet a palpable ‘spirit of solidarity enveloped the country.

Civil society after the first elections

The first free elections in Tunisia took place on 23 October 2011. The Islamist party, Ennaddha, won 41% of the vote, thereafter creating a coalition with two smaller secular parties, the Et-Katatol and Congress for the Republic (CPR). In the face a multitude of political, economic and institutional reforms and the creation of the National Constituent Assembly tasked with formulating a new post-revolution constitution, Tunisia’s transition seems to have ground to a hear halt. In some ways similar to its ideological brother in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, Ennaddha has failed to introduce necessary reforms for foreign investment and commerce and trade. Unemployment remains staggeringly high, despite Ennaddha continued promises for improvement, while tourism, Tunisia’s historical cash cow, has suffered from low bookings due to domestic and regional political instability. The assassination of two leading secular, oppositional leaders within six months, the brutal murder of eight members of the military and a porous border with Libya continue to destabilize the country. With increased calls from the secular opposition, led by the multi-party conglomerate entitled Nidaa Tounes, for the dissolution of the government, civil society has lost much of its initial spirit of collective action for a more durable democratic transition.

As much as civil society can influence politics, so too can political instability affect civil society. This has become evident in the restructuring of Tunisia’s current CSO landscape.

My current research points to three distinguishable categories of CSOs that emerged in recent months: religiously affiliated, secular/oppositional and interest-oriented.

Religiously affiliated CSOs are nothing new to the Arab world, and certainly not a phenomenon in Tunisia. When one speaks of religious CSOs in the Tunisian context, then the automatic reference is to Islamic organizations, a clear reflection of Tunisia’s homogenous religious landscape: nearly 99% of Tunisia are Sunni Muslim. Islamic organizations and make up the vast majority of this first category. They seek to fill in the large socioeconomic gaps that have emerged as a result of the revolution and political gridlock. Religiously affiliated CSOs are comparatively more concentrated in the central, port city of Sfax, followed by formidable activity in Tunis and, finally, in the historically poorer, agricultural regions of the interior. Religiously affiliated groups, even those who claimed to me to be politically neutral or confessionally moderate, tacitly or even overtly support Ennaddha and its religious-conservative agenda. Similar to like-minded groups in Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon, Tunisian Islamic CSOs are largely engaged in neighborhood-level actions, collecting monetary donations and gathering and distributing school books, shoes and clothes and, in some cases, handing out durable goods like refrigerators.

Secular/oppositional CSOs have emerged on the other side of the spectrum. The secular tradition in Tunisia, long influenced by the French tradition of laicite, demonstrates its adaption to and respect for the country’s deep Islamic tradition: their understanding of establishing an Arab democratic tradition does not necessarily exclude religious actors from participating in CSO activities. Indeed, of the varied secular groups I interviewed during the month of Ramadan, many individuals felt compelled to express their religious observance and their commitment to inclusion and openness. Others in this category exemplify markedly less or even no religious observation. However, there are two closely intertwined, overarching elements of the secular/oppositional CSO category.

Firstly, indifferent of personal religiousness, there is a desire to deepen Tunisia’s tradition of Bourghibian secular governance. Since its independence in 1956, Tunisian politics displayed a marked commitment to keeping religious influence out of day-to-day politics. Bourghiba, himself a moderately observant Muslim, embodied the capacity to govern secularly, but practice his personal faith privately. Secular/oppositional CSOs do not seek to aggressively remove or eradicate Islam’s role in society. Rather, as Dr. Salah Bourjini explained in an interview: their goal is to “separate governance from religion. We want complete liberty in religious practice, but let’s keep unnecessary influence out of government.”

In light of Ennaddha’s electoral win and its inability to offer convincing remedies to Tunisia’s growing problems, these CSOs have adopted their current oppositional stance, in part because of perceived threats of a gradual Islamization of society and risks to the rights of women and the small religious minority groups.

Interest-oriented CSOs focus their efforts on achieving specific goals, indifferent of the current political deadlock. This is best exemplified by the increasing number of environmental groups, which see their mission as being located beyond party-based politics. In the southern town of Gabes, the site of a decades-long environmental degradation through the local heavy chemical industry, members of the Association de Sauvegarde de l’Oasis de Chemini (ASOC) demonstratively locate their work outside of party politics. Collaborating with regional Mediterranean and EU member states, ASOC “specifies its focus strictly on improvements in the quality of water and air in and around Gabes.” Improving the state of the regional environment would have positive results for the local economy, local agriculture and tourism, all of which are policy areas still uncontested and, at a minimum, verbally supported by all municipal political parties. In Sfax, similar groups included the Mediterranean Network for the Promotion of Sustainable Development Strategies and the internet-based EcologiePlus organization.

Tunisia’s second post-Arab Spring elections are scheduled for 23 October 2013. The tense political climate will surely become yet more pronounced as Election Day approaches. However, if there is one common element that unites all members of Tunisia’s CSO community, it is an awareness that the success of the Arab Spring has returned to where it began in 2011. While Egypt and Syria are gripped by continued violence and while political stagnation has ground further political development in Yemen, Oman, Bahrain and Libya, Tunisian CSOs realize that the last chance for an Arab democracy rests in their hands.

I feel as if I am following President Obama’s itinerary through Europe. For me, it started with a quick stopover in Dublin on my way to Paris. My wife and I will spend more time in Dublin next week, where she will explore her father’s hometown for the first time. Naomi is one of a rare breed, an Irish Jew. Her family spent a generation there between Latvia and Canada. We are even going to be looking for a long lost elderly cousin. Later this summer, I will be off to Poland, on my annual teaching stint in The New School’s summer Democracy and Diversity Institute. These coincidences (I was also in London a few months ago) and returns come to mind because, as with Obama, my stay in Europe this time is stimulating me to think not only about European matters, but also about North Africa and the Middle East from the point of view of European experience.

During his stay in Poland, the President met with former leaders of the democratic opposition and Solidarity movement, and noted that what Poland went through twenty-five years ago proves that the move from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one is quite possible, though also quite difficult. He spoke as a political leader wanting to position America and its allies together in support of the Arab Spring. He emphasized institution building, the rights of minorities and a free press. I don’t disagree with him, and I should add as an old Polish hand, it warms my heart to see my friends being used as an example of political success.

Yet, democratic consolidation is not completely achieved in Poland and among its neighbors, and there is always a threat, as has been observed here in Andras Bozoki’s report on the situation in Hungary, that a transition to democracy may be followed by a transition from democracy. This depends upon attitudes and shared beliefs of the citizenry.

Mourners in front of the Presidential Palace in Warsaw after Smolensk plane crash. Sign says "What a President. What a Patriot." © Sebk | Wikimedia Commons

In Poland, the demonstrators who were outside President Obama’s appearances represent an anti-democratic threat. They are sure that the Russians are complicit in the murder of the former President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, who died in airplane crash, and many of them are pretty sure that the present President, Bronislaw Komorowski, is somehow involved. Such conspiracy theories, in which political opponents are perceived as murderous enemies, undermine democratic life. These demonstrators resemble the more outrageous members of the Tea Party and are kissing cousins of the birthers.  Such agents are more dangerous in new democracies than old, more dangerous still in the nations of the Middle East and North Africa trying to form democracies. Even in well-established countries such as the US, people who approach politics in this way present serious problems. No big deal, if they remain on the margins, but when they enter or even define the mainstream, they pose a significant threat.

Thus, when I think about Poland, Egypt, Tunisia and their neighbors, I am concerned not only about democracy as a political system, with a democratic constitution and institutions. It seems to me that just as important is democracy as a matter of ongoing political practice and beliefs. This is one of the great achievements in Poland, which changed its political culture in the course of the making of a democratic opposition, the Solidarity movement, and a democratic state, helping it weather anti-democratic currents. This suggests possibilities among the perils now present in the Middle East and North Africa.

In Poland, during the Solidarity period (and even before), the oppositionists acted as if they lived in a free society, and in the process, freedom actually became a part of the life of the people involved. They showed how the sociological theorem of the definition of a situation, as first developed by W. I. Thomas, constitutes a crucial dimension of political power. “If men [and women] define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”

The demonstrators in Tahrir Square revealed this power as well. When Muslims and Coptics openly supported each other during the transformational events, they constituted Egyptian democratic pluralism. Their common action created a political reality, which I will analyze in my next post.

I am thinking about such things, as I follow the path of Obama. The world looks differently from the summit and from the ground. A major end of his trip here this time was to help galvanize support for his approach to the great potentially democratic transformations in North Africa and the Middle East, while also attempting to get the European powers to support the U.S. in its opposition to the UN resolution recognizing Palestinian statehood. In his words and actions in Poland, he attempted to underline the possibility of fundamental democratic change and its persistence. From my point of view, looking at democracy in everyday practice, I see that his high-flown rhetoric can and has been sustained, but also that it depends on the definition and redefinition of democratic realities as social practices. Democracy in the Middle East and North Africa, and in Central Europe, confirms fundamental insights of Tocqueville, as he was looking at democracy in America.

President Barack Obama gave a powerful speech today, one of his best. The president was again eloquent, but there is concern here in the U.S. and also abroad in the Arab world, that eloquence is not enough, that it may in fact be more of the problem than the solution. The fine words don’t seem to have substance in Egypt, according to a report in The Washington Post. There appears to be a global concern that Obama’s talk is cheap. Obama’s “Cairo Speech” all over again, one Egyptian declared. Now is the time for decisive action. Now is the time for the President of the United States to put up or shut up. (Of course, what exactly is to be put up is another matter.)

This reminds me of another powerful writer-speaker, President Vaclav Havel. Havel is the other president in my lifetime that I have deeply admired. Both he and Obama are wonderful writers and principled politicians, both have been criticized for the distance between their rhetorical talents and their effectiveness in realizing their principles.

Agreeing with the criticisms of Havel, I sometimes joke about my developing assessment of him. I first knew about Vaclav Havel as a bohemian, as a very interesting absurdist playwright. I wrote my dissertation about Polish theater when this was still his primary occupation, and I avidly read his work then as I tried to understand why theater played such an important role in the opposition to Communism in Central Europe.

I then came to know him as one of the greatest political essayists and dissidents of the twentieth century. At the theoretical core of two of my books, Beyond Glasnost: The Post Totalitarian Mind and The Politics of Small Things: The Power of the Powerless in Dark Times are the ideas to be found in Havel’s greatest essay, “The Power of the Powerless.”

However, as president, Havel was not so accomplished. He presided over the breakup of Czechoslovakia, a development he opposed passionately, but ineffectually. He sometimes seemed to think that he could right a political problem by writing a telling essay, often translated and published in The New York Review of Books. He expressed a moral high ground in these essays, but he did not address the tough and messy side of politics. This is a real weakness of the intellectual as politician, the temptation to think if one can put a solution into words, one has solved a problem.

Does this problem apply to Obama, specifically to his speech today? Many on both the left and the right have heard enough of his speeches. They want action.

I watched a PBS News Hour discussion last night in anticipation of the speech today, and this was the consensus of the expert observers. Therefore, I think it is significant how much of this speech pointed in the direction of specific policy developments. Yet, they were placed in a broader historical and moral context. And the words were important. They did politics. They acted. They were speech acts in Austin’s sense.

I was particularly moved by the way the president told the story of the Arab Spring. He gave it great significance. He alluded to the killing of bin Laden, but didn’t dwell on it. He started with the politics of small things and pointed to civilizational transformation.

“On December 17th, a young vendor named Mohammed Bouazizi was devastated when a police officer confiscated his cart. This was not unique. It’s the same kind of humiliation that takes place every day in many parts of the world -– the relentless tyranny of governments that deny their citizens dignity. Only this time, something different happened. After local officials refused to hear his complaints, this young man, who had never been particularly active in politics, went to the headquarters of the provincial government, doused himself in fuel, and lit himself on fire.

There are times in the course of history when the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has been building up for years. In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat. So it was in Tunisia, as that vendor’s act of desperation tapped into the frustration felt throughout the country. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets, then thousands. And in the face of batons and sometimes bullets, they refused to go home –- day after day, week after week — until a dictator of more than two decades finally left power.

The story of this revolution, and the ones that followed, should not have come as a surprise. The nations of the Middle East and North Africa won their independence long ago, but in too many places their people did not. In too many countries, power has been concentrated in the hands of a few. In too many countries, a citizen like that young vendor had nowhere to turn -– no honest judiciary to hear his case; no independent media to give him voice; no credible political party to represent his views; no free and fair election where he could choose his leader.”

The president maintained that this power as it spread throughout the Arab world can no longer be easily repressed, and he expressed a conviction that given the media world we now live in the protestors’ “voices tell us that change cannot be denied.”

But that was it for the moving rhetoric. Obama then turned sober and practical. “The question before us is what role America will play as this story unfolds.” And he described what might very well become known as the Obama Doctrine.

“The United States opposes the use of violence and repression against the people of the region. (Applause.)

The U.S. supports a set of universal rights. These rights include free speech, the freedom of peaceful assembly, the freedom of religion, equality for men and women under the rule of law, and the right to choose your own leaders – whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus, Sanaa or Tehran.

And we support political and economic reform in the Middle East and North Africa that can meet the legitimate aspirations of ordinary people throughout the region.”

This all sounds quite good, but perhaps empty, as some have maintained. However, the substance of the matter is in the details. It is noteworthy that when the president referred to the importance of universal rights he mentioned not only easy targets, but also Sanaa, increasing the pressure on Ali Abdullah Saleh, our ally in “the war on terrorism” to resign. And later when he criticized regimes that violently repress their citizenry for engaging in peaceful protests, he included not only Libya, Syria and Iran, but also the important American ally Bahrain.

“Bahrain is a longstanding partner, and we are committed to its security. We recognize that Iran has tried to take advantage of the turmoil there, and that the Bahraini government has a legitimate interest in the rule of law.

Nevertheless, we have insisted both publicly and privately that mass arrests and brute force are at odds with the universal rights of Bahrain’s citizens, and we will – and such steps will not make legitimate calls for reform go away. The only way forward is for the government and opposition to engage in a dialogue, and you can’t have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail.”

He spoke to the people and not only to the rulers of the region. He understood that the problem was not only political, but also economic, offering assistance and engagement in economic development as it addresses the needs of ordinary people. Moreover, he promised to listen to diverse voices coming from the region.

“We will continue to make good on the commitments that I made in Cairo – to build networks of entrepreneurs and expand exchanges in education, to foster cooperation in science and technology, and combat disease. Across the region, we intend to provide assistance to civil society, including those that may not be officially sanctioned, and who speak uncomfortable truths. And we will use the technology to connect with – and listen to – the voices of the people.”

He gave a forceful commitment to support religious minorities and strong support to the centrality of women’s rights.

“History shows that countries are more prosperous and more peaceful when women are empowered. And that’s why we will continue to insist that universal rights apply to women as well as men – by focusing assistance on child and maternal health; by helping women to teach, or start a business; by standing up for the right of women to have their voices heard, and to run for office. The region will never reach its full potential when more than half of its population is prevented from achieving their full potential.”

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Obama was careful but took a strong position. There was a little to warm the heart of those on both sides, but also much that would concern both.

Obama made news and earned the wrath of his domestic opposition by declaring, “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.” This earned him an immediate protest by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But he also expressed concerns about the recent Hamas – Fatah agreement and about “symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state.” Thus, the Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri denounced the speech completely.

To my mind, Obama was not tough enough on Netanyahu, but he did move forward. Clearly, something other than complete support for the Israeli right’s position is necessary, contrary to Obama’s hysterical Republican critics. Obama advanced the U.S. position a bit. He said the obvious. The future border between Palestine and Israel will be based on the ’67 borders with negotiated adjustments. That has been the implicit assumption of the peace process for decades. Saying it bluntly, as President Obama did, provides some grounds for progress, suggesting a real response to the Arab Spring.

In his speech this morning, the president gave an account of a rapidly changing political landscape, showing an appreciation of the dynamics driving it and presenting a role for the U.S. to play. It was a broad and impressive depiction of our changing political world. He revealed an understanding of the role of the U.S. in this changing world, and he started playing the role when he turned to the all-important details. He staked out a position.

We will get a sense of how full or empty his rhetoric was today, when he meets Prime Minister Netanyahu tomorrow.

I am convinced that the success or failure of historic political transformation has less to do with moments of violent confrontation, more to do with the politics that precede and follow violence, or are non violent from beginning to end. If the repressive forces back down before a society is torn asunder, success is more likely. This provides the grounds for political creativity that actually make what seemed to be impossible one day, likely the next. Two pieces by informed scholars I’ve read recently notably still think that this is the case in Tunisia and Egypt. Indeed, I just read a piece in today’s New York Times that seems to confirm their optimism.

Alfred Stepan, a long time student of democratic transitions, reports in a post on the Social Science Research Council blog, The Immanent Frame:  “Tunisia’s chances of becoming a democracy before the year ends are surprisingly good.” And that “Democratization in Egypt in the long term is probable, but it does not share the especially favorable conditions that we find in Tunisia.”

Deliberately Considered contributor, Hazem Kandil, gives a precise overview of the historical developments and background of the fall of the Egyptian old regime in an interview he gave to The New Left Review. He paints a vivid picture of the interactive forces that made up the old order and of the forces that are going into the making of the new. He also is realistically hopeful. He concludes:

“So the outcome will really depend on how strong the revolutionary tide is in Egypt. If the movement remains as it is now, moderate and pragmatic, we will have a much better Egypt than existed before, not a perfect democracy. If the movement gains strength and momentum, there is no telling what might happen. For, there is no revolutionary movement with the capacity to take over control of all the institutions that need to be purged. Nasser had the army—he could send soldiers out to enforce his agrarian reform, or to run factories, or to become undersecretaries in the bureaucracy. In Russia or China, there were political cadres to carry out these tasks. But so long as there is no revolutionary movement to fill the void, cornering opponents without possessing an organization to take them out freezes the revolt into a position of simply demanding, and then hoping for the best.”

Being a veteran participant observer of the opposition movement in Poland and Central Europe of the 70s and 80s, and an analyst of the Communist and post-Communist systems, I am rooting for a “not perfect democracy” and believe it is good for the Egyptians that “there is no revolutionary movement with the capacity to take over control of all the institutions that need to be purged.”

I suspect that Kandil and I may disagree on this, but that is an alternative political judgment, not to be decided theoretically, in my opinion, but politically. More important are the facts and analysis he provides that can inform such judgments. For his careful account of the Egyptian political terrain and its historical background, I highly recommend Kandil’s piece.

The great changes in the Middle East didn’t come from the usual sources. Religion was not nearly as important as many expected.  Class was far from the center of the action, as youth stole the show.  And internationally backed civil society was not nearly as important as Western donors would hope. In fact, Western aid may have been more of the problem than the solution.

Religion

The Islamic movement, in particular in Egypt, is in a state of relative weakness, very much connected to economic change. When Egypt embarked on structural adjustment programs and started privatizing its state-owned enterprises in the late 1970s, the economic reform was a façade, masking the enrichment of a handful of high-ranking officials who were the only ones who could do business. In the process, state and welfare services were dismantled, and the regime encouraged non-governmental charities. In this context, the Ikhwan (the Arabic name for Muslim Brotherhood) was able to build many private mosques and new charitable organizations, leading to significant social support. Yet, in the 1990s, when the Ikhwan started running for elections (culminating with the 20% of the seats in 2005), it paid the price of this political engagement by having no choice but to let people close to the government gradually take control over their charities. The movement became complexly connected to the regime and began to lose its credibility, increasingly so when it refused to boycott the 2005 elections and, more recently, because it took on positions that were viewed negatively by the viewpoints of the lower classes. One example is the Ikhwan’s condemnation of the strikes of Muhalla al-Kubra in the textile sector in 6 April 2008. Similar anti-union positions from Islamists are documented in Gaza and Yemen, creating a rift between the working class and the Islamists. Interestingly, in his 2005 book the sociologist Patrick Haenni, calls this new strand of Muslim businessmen ‘the promoters of Islam of the Market.’

As a result, the Muslim Brotherhood has become both politically and socially a much more fragile actor than it was in the past. Only the lack of alternative opposition and the regime’s stigmatization of the Ikhwan as a Taliban-like movement kept an otherwise fragmenting organization united. Daniela Pioppi has explained this with great detail and accuracy in her article, Is There an Islamist Alternative in Egypt?.

Class

The traditional sociological force of class was present but not at the center of the recent struggles. Although the main trade union in Tunisia played the role of an important triggering agent of the revolt, it was a loose combination of educated people and liberal professionals, such as lawyers and doctors, who gave the decisive boost to the popular protests. The same can be said of Yemen. To be sure, the class dimension should not be written off completely, as the daily strikes and newly formed trade unions in Egypt after the fall of Mubarak show. But another factor, the use of Internet and other media technology is overshadowing the old-fashioned influences.

Youth

A girl in Benghazi holding a paper, it reads:"Tribes of Libya are one group" © Maher 2777 | Wikimedia Commons

Especially significant is the young age of the new media-savvy protesters. More than half of the population in the Middle East is below the age of 25. And many of these young people are disgruntled for several reasons. One cause is their struggle to land a real job after earning their degrees. Mohamed Bouazizi epitomized the ordeal of this generation. He was the Tunisian street vendor in the small town of Sidi Bouzid who set himself on fire last December,

Another reason of the youth’s unhappiness is their disillusionment with Islamist ideology.  An insightful article appeared in the New York Times (NYT on Imbaba) on a slum in Cairo where the Ikhwan gradually lost control over the local youth.  In Egypt, the old Ikhwan leadership procrastinated its decision to join the first main protests on Tahrir square on 25 January. Its youth wing eventually participated, but the organization was in the hands of the trade unions and the youth. Also, in the Palestinian territories we see how the younger generation is growing resentful of the political games played by both Hamas and the nationalist party Fatah.  The young have also been fed up with the opportunistic behavior of the left and their NGO partners. And this brings us to the third factor that has made the outbursts in the Middle East unique.

N.G.O.s and International Aid

I believe Western aid has had a negative impact on the development of democracy in the region, even when it apparently is meant to support this development.  It negatively affects the formal civil society as aid both promotes and excludes.

It promotes a professionalized form of activism, which has been lost when it comes to the extraordinary and spontaneity of the demonstrations. Aid also contributes to exclude those resisting both the institutional and discursive isomorphic pressure, by encouraging a managerial version of civil society. You want to receive money as a civil society organization? Then you have to speak the same language and buzzwords as donors and also be a fully institutionalized organization, matching donor standards. But once you have done that, you are more like a business, than an organization able to respond to the autonomous and fluid claims of your constituency.

To be sure, aid for democratization and civil society is only one tiny portion of the overall envelope of aid disbursed to the region – for Egypt, Yemen or Palestine. Here are some data to illustrate my point: between 1971 and 2001, the US has given about $145 billion of aid to the Near East, the vast majority to Israel (79 billion) and Egypt (52 billion) (see February 2009 and June 2010 reports for the Congress). Aid becomes a tool to support strategic interests (stability for and around Israel being in this case is the top priority). The ideals of democracy, empowerment, human rights, etc. are only nice words wrapped around the Realpolitik nature of US aid.

Menachem Begin, Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat in Camp David © Bill Fitz-Patrick | Wikimedia Commons

After signing a peace treaty with Israel at the Camp David agreement in 1978, Egypt has received large annual envelops of aid from the USA. In the last ten years, Egypt has cashed in an average of $1.3 billion per year, 85% of which is military aid. The same is true for the Palestinian territories, where the US with the EU support increasingly subsidize the West Bank Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Budgetary support means that (western) governments are paying the PNA employees, about half of whom are police and security forces.  Rather than supporting autonomy, this type of aid increases Palestinian dependency.

This source of aid is focused on security matters out of fear that the State itself could become the object of predation by non-state actors. The threat of Islamic fundamentalism or Al-Qaeda, as in Yemen and now in Libya, is usually invoked to justify such a high level of aid for security purpose only.  Perhaps now that Qaddafi has also accused al-Qaeda of orchestrating the revolts in Libya, we will realize the vacuous nature of such arguments.

The result of this aid pattern leads to a form of Bonapartism, a regime with a very strong executive largely ignoring the legislature and based on very strong police.  The aid actively contributed to this kind of regime in and around Egypt as Juan Cole, in a blog last month, explained in detail:

“The US-backed military dictatorship in Egypt … exercises power on behalf of both a state elite and a new wealthy business class, some members of which gained their wealth from government connections and corruption. The Egypt of the Separate Peace, the Egypt of tourism and joint military exercises with the United States, is also an Egypt ruled by the few for the benefit of the few.”

Unless we see another revolution (in the approach of the main donors to the region), western aid is likely to thwart the self-organization of these extraordinary popular movements and kill the spontaneity of the counter-power of civil society.

Benoit Challand, the author of Palestinian Civil Society: Foreign Donors and the Power to Promote and Exclude (2009), is currently Visiting Associate Professor at the New School for Social Research.  He is affiliated with the University of Bologna where he has been teaching Middle Eastern politics since 2008. He has been Research Fellow at the Graduate Institute at the Center on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding in Geneva, working on its Religions & Politics project. -Jeff

We are witnessing the emergence of the counter-power of civil society in the wave of revolts in the Middle East and North Africa.  It is embedded in nationalist revolts in which youth and trade unions have played and very well may continue to play important roles. I choose the phrase ‘counter-power of civil society’ to describe the ongoing developments in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Libya, and also the little covered protests in the Palestinian territories, because I believe that there is more to civil society than its organized form.  There is more to civil society than NGOs and the developmental approach which imagines that the key to progress is when donors, the UN or rich countries, give aid to boost non-state actors, in particular NGOs, in the “developing south.”  In fact, overlooking this, leads to a complete misunderstanding  of present transformations.

In western social theory, civil society is described by Hegel and Tocqueville (among others) as opposition to the State, or as an intermediary layer of associations between family and the State.  This has been the counter – power in the Middle East and North Africa.  Thus, when we read in this Sunday’s New York Times that “Libya has no civil society,” it is not only a conceptual error.  It makes it impossible to understand what is happening in the region.  It’s one thing to say that Libya does not have a national chapter of Human Rights Watch, or a cohort of service-providing NGOs. It is quite another matter to say that Libyan or Tunisian people cannot organize themselves on their own to cover their needs and express their autonomy, as they have done in the last weeks.

To escape western-centrism and avoid thinking of it as a residual category, I define civil society by saying that it is the source for collective autonomy. The rendering of autonomy in Arabic illustrates my point as the term is translated as tasayyir daati – that is the “self-impulse,”  or “self-drive.”

Cairo graffiti, translation from Arabic "ash-sha’b yourid isqat al-nithaam” the people want the fall of the regime © Unknown | occupiedlondon.org/cairo

And indeed, once the initial spark was lit, it was as if the Tunisian people moved as a whole, into spontaneous protests. Egyptian, Libyan, and Yemeni people called for the fall of their respective regime. The slogan “ash-sha’b yourid isqat al-nithaam” [the people want the fall of the regime], appearing across the region, captures this social cohesion (the people) and the unity in the project.  The BBC also had a picture of a similar slogan on some governmental building in Libya last week.

These protests entail a radical break with the fragmented social structures existing in many Arab countries. Are these revolts or revolutions? Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997), the Greek libertarian Marxist exiled in France tried to answer a similar question in the case of the Hungarian 1956 revolt. To paraphrase his seminal “The Hungarian Source“ (published in 1976 by Telos), one could say that this moment of self-organization in Egypt was coupled with a moment of radical re-imagination, by placing the nation itself at the heart of all these protests. Make no mistake: we are talking about the secular notion of territory, homeland (in Arabic ‘watan’) as opposed to the religiously tainted notion of an Islamic ummah.

Protesters camping out on the Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain, March 4, 2011 © Stepnout | Flickr

This secular re-imagining of the people as a united nation against its leaders is true for all of the ongoing revolts. Thus, sectarian, religious or class divisions are transcended into a call for national unity. This trait is valid for all ongoing protests:

– Think of the Egyptian Copts and Muslims protecting one another on Tahrir square while praying,

– Bahrainis chanting that it is not about being Sunni or Shiite, but about the defense of the watan (“Sunni and Shiite Brethren! This country / nation (watan) is not for sale!”)

– Ibn Thabit, a Libyan rapper, invoking past resistance of Omar Mukhtar to Italian fascism as an example for the nation and for youth to take the street against Col. Qaddafi,

– or Palestinians youth calling (on a Facebook page called in Arabic “National Unity”) for a national protest on 03/15 to end their own political divisions.

This idea of spontaneity which translated here with the idea and practice of self-organization of the people on the street, can be seen both as the strength of these regional protests, and as their weaknesses. Revolution is, we are told by Castoriadis, the explicit self-institution of society, the expression of the capacity to choose the content and the form of the protests. While in Tunisia, it appears that there has been a real split inside the army, which enabled a fully-fledged expression of such a capacity, this soon was threatened in Egypt, where the armed forces own so much of the economic sector. By entrusting the army with managing the post-Mubarak transition, the people in Egypt have probably lost to another group its capacity to decide what to do and how to do it.

After decades of Orientalist depiction of the Middle East as essentially anti-democratic, it is with a great sense of elation that one witnesses the surge of spontaneous civil societies. Middle Easterners are no exception in their desire for equality and freedom. Yet, one needs to be cautious about the chance of their success, because there are too many counter-powers to civil society itself.  To which I will return in future posts.

Until now, the current revolutions in the Arab world were a case of serious politics, momentous politics, the “politics of tall things.” To try and decipher such lofty events, analysts, including myself, have had to rely on large categories. One had to be hopeful despite the many odds, or skeptical against a climate of pervasive bliss, both expressed at DC. In either case, what was at stake was much too large to be really assessed. Events were shrouded by their very size. But something new and genuinely baffling has happened in Tunisia that has caused analysts to cast aside previous assumptions.

After what has been hailed throughout the world as the “Jasmine Revolution,” thousands of Tunisians fled their country. Flotillas sailed towards the Italian Island of Lampedusa, filled with young people seeking access to Europe. Fishermen had to spend the night aboard their boats to prevent them from being stolen by would-be emigrants. I heard of an estimated five thousand already on Sicilian soil.

Judging from television images, these refugees are not hardened members of the former ruling party. These are not officials in flight from retaliation or punishment: their group includes women, and young people. These are economic immigrants who have taken the risk to cross over to Europe in search of employment.  These boat-people share the same kind of desperation as the young man whose suicide triggered the insurrection. As he chose to die by fire, they chose to risk everything at sea.

Yet, the street vendor’s sacrifice was immensely consequential. A revolution took place. The future looked rosy. Why would thousands of his brothers be running away from happiness? Why would they become refugees at the risk of drowning? One cannot just speak of an unfortunate timing, of a coincidence. 5,000 passengers cannot just happen to board dozens of boats by accident. Did they forget they had just won? Imagine 5,000 French attackers of the Bastille migrating en masse to Brazil. Imagine victorious Bolsheviks settling in Tyrol. Why bother with a revolution, if you do not wish to stay?

As Albert O. Hirschman would have put it, Tunisians who did not ‘consent’ to live under dictatorship were confronted by two choices;  One was “exit.” The other was “voice.” You do not expect the people first to “voice,” and then to “exit.”

Those who fled the revolution “voted with their feet.” They expressed a clear distrust of the realities to come. Why such a distrust? I heard some of the boat-people tell Italian journalists that they were fleeing because of Ben Ali. Did they believe nothing had changed? Did they believe that the revolution was just a game, and that the game was now over? I have no answer to offer. Yet I believe that this baffling exodus should not be explained away. Either one understands this detail, or one does not understand anything about what happened in Tunisia.

I had the good fortune of being an eye witness to one of the major changes in the geopolitical world of my life time.  I observed the Soviet Empire collapsing, chronicled it at the front lines, even before many saw the collapse coming.  I don’t have such a privileged seat as we observe the transformations of in Egypt and Tunisia, but my intuition tells me that these may be every bit as significant as the ones I saw in their infancy thirty years ago.  We can’t be sure that the changes begun this past month will reach a fully successful conclusion: fully? probably not.  But there is no doubt that the world has changed, not only there, but also here.

A big change: the idea of the clash of civilizations has been defeated.  It turns out, and should be clear to all, that Muslims are quite capable of initiating a genuine democratic movement.  It may or may not prevail, but it is certainly an important strain in Egyptian and Tunisian political culture.

Another big change: I suspect that the commitment to democracy is now “in,” more appealing than radical jihad, even for the disaffected in the Muslim world.  How long this lasts and with what effect will depend on the continuing success of the transformation begun last month.  I believe this is the first major victory in the so called “war on terrorism.”

A little change, close to home: in everyday life, Islamophobia may be in retreat.  After seeing the images from Cairo, why should Juan Williams wonder about that person in Muslim garb on an airplane?  It may never have been particularly rational, but especially not now.  There are crazy people of all sorts of cultural and religious persuasions, and also admirable ones.  Now the admirable of the Arab and Muslim world are front stage.  Now they are most visible.  Only the most close-minded will refuse to see them, i.e. over at Fox, Glenn Beck but, I suspect, not Juan Williams.

And now the “only democracy in the Middle East” seems to be most openly uncomfortable about democratic developments in Egypt and among its neighbors.  Better the autocrat you know, than the democrat you don’t know, seems to be the operative insight animating Israeli official reaction to recent events.  The striking limitations in Israeli democratic practice are also now strikingly apparent, as will be explored by Nahed Habiballah in her post tomorrow.

Indeed, this is not to say that everything and everyone is or should be happy.  Such expectations of revolutionary change are naïve, even dangerous.  The contradictions in American foreign policy, our professed commitment to democracy, and our pursuit of good relations with our “moderate” autocratic allies, are now clearly revealed and present pressing problems.  I have some expectations that this may be resolved in Jordon with the formation of a genuine constitutional monarchy a la Britain. Perhaps we will even see an interesting movie in the not to distance future about the King’s speech and the President’s speech there, and discuss it at DC. But such will not be the case in Saudi Arabia.  If there are negative consequences of these contradictions for American interest, we may be hearing the nationalistic question – who lost Egypt?  – echoing the old who lost China debate.  This will be explored by Gary Alan Fine in an upcoming post.

I think the discussion that we have had about the events in Egypt this past week illuminated the events as they were happening and provide insights for understanding what is yet to come.  Hazem Kandil concern about the need for the democratic movement to develop alternative grounds for political action is even more pressing this week, than it was last.  Thus far there has been a military coup against a dictatorial regime.  Those in control right now include principally those who benefited from the old order.  It is imperative that the forces in the society that opposed that order get their act together.

There is a clear analogy to be drawn to the changes of ’89.  There is a danger that those who can say “no,” but little else, will be overwhelmed by those who positively assert a new authoritarian order, as I have shown happened in Romania in 1989.  I am not sure that the alternatives are as stark as Daniel Dayan fears, military dictatorship or religious integralism.  But there clearly is a need for people who want alternatives to these stark alternatives to speak to each other and develop a capacity to act in concert, as Hannah Arendt would put it, beyond protesting against.  They must develop programs, policies, and parties, and a way to discuss their competing visions.  They must present alternatives to what Dayan calls “fear mongers “and “sleepwalkers.”

I was talking to Elzbieta Matynia about her post through Skype on Friday, just as Mubarak’s resignation was announced.  I thought that her post was too long.  We were discussing how I might edit it, so that it appeared in two installments.  But at that revolutionary moment, I decided not to cut her piece in two, because of the importance of what she had to say and my sense that it should be said as quickly and coherently as possible.  She put forward a key way that the sorts of problems that Dayan and Kandil anticipate have been avoided in transformations from dictatorship to democracy in the recent past.  Opposing parties and interest groups have to work together on the transformation, and the roundtable with its public etiquette, is an invention that has facilitated this.  I hope the Egyptian generals and oppositionists keep such experience in mind.

And as I am posting this, the revolution is spreading, confirming my conviction that 2011 may very well be as significant as 1989.  The headline in The New York Times is “Unrest Spreads in the Middle East” at this moment, with reports from Iran, Yemen, Bahrain and Egypt.

A specter is haunting the Middle East and it is up to the people of the Middle East to decide what this specter is all about – my point in my appraisal of President Obama’s performance thus far in these revolutionary times.

Both the Tunisian insurrection and the Egyptian revolt have been described in terms of an absolute evil versus an absolute good, i.e. a mean, illegitimate and greedy dictatorship in contrast with a popular insurrection. In a first snapshot one can define the insurrections as “lessons in democracy.” But the larger question is: What comes next?

In the French account of the Tunisian events, an immolated street vendor has become an emblem, or ‘root metaphor’, for the uprising. Here was a young man who had gotten himself an education but could not find a job in the corrupt economy that was controlled by the families of the former president and first lady, the Ben Ali-Trabelsi clan. Courageously, this young man tried to earn a living by acquiring a street-cart to sell vegetables. The youngster went wild with grief when the police confiscated his cart. He put himself on fire. Immediately, he became a symbolic figure, a martyr. But whose martyr will he be? Who are the future victors?

The Ambiguity of ‘NO’

These current insurrections are often described as negations of what exists. Yet, what exists is rarely unambiguous. Rejection of the former Tunisian president Ben Ali can be inspired by both a yearning for a just or free society, as well as by a desire for another sort of authoritarian society. In the case of Egypt, some analysts believe that the dismissal of Mubarak carries an obvious meaning. But of course it does not. Behind it can be both the urge to challenge a police state AND the wish to salute another type of police state. Mubarak himself is both an adversary of democracy and an enemy of fundamentalism.

The first images of the Egyptian insurrection were crowd shots, aerial views. They project unity over diversity. While the masses show unanimous fervour now, over time the picture will become more specific. Already now we can see that the champions of democracy wear hijabs, demonstrators carry banners proclaiming “Mubarak in Tel Aviv,” they stomp with their feet on American and Israeli flags, and row after row of protesters turn Tahrir Square into an open air mosque. The point is not to criticize such actions, but to stress that they seem to converge around a relatively incoherent set of motives.

This is not your typical insurrection, but a specific insurrection. Or, in other words, those who are saying ‘no’ seldom express a pure ‘no.’ They are saying no in the name of something. Simple ‘no-sayers’ will be rapidly pushed aside by those who have more substantial things to say.

Pamuk’s Choice: Scylla and Charybdis

Many possible scripts can steer the turn of events. The comments of the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk on Turkey, as expressed in his wonderful novel ‘Snow’ are illuminating.

Pamuk systematically explores a baffling and paradoxical situation in Turkey. On the one hand, groups that traditionally support military dictatorships advocate ‘progressive’ ideas, i.e. notions that challenge religious fundamentalism. On the other hand, any democratic choice is condemned to be aligned with religious integralism. Thus, depending on one’s preferences, or fears, the battle can be described as both one between progressive ideas and religious integralism, and one between military dictatorship and democracy. The choice may end up as one between the Scylla of dictatorship and the Charybdis of integralism.

Such a choice exists now, but it will not last very long. Religious integralism often comes to power through a democratically valid electoral process. Yet once the seat of power has been reached, integralist movements may erase all institutions that are incompatible with their values. At the end of the day, we are left with regimes that started out democratically, through the will of the people and helped by Western journalism, but morphed into authoritarian orders. Look at Iran and Turkey. The real choice at that later stage is no longer one between dictatorship and integralism. Instead, it is one between two sorts of dictatorships: Religious dictatorships on the one hand, and military dictatorships with slight progressive inclinations, on the other.

Fearmongers or Sleepwalkers?

The French politician and former head of the Communist Party Marie-George Buffet stressed in a recent interview the diversity of those who are taking part in the Egyptian insurrection. She predicted that it might lead to one of the first free regimes in the Arab world. Impressive leaders, such as Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei are waiting in the wings. Buffet emphasized that one must be confident in Egypt’s democratic potential. One should not fall prey to the ‘politics of fear’.

Indeed, the “politics of fear” feel quite ugly. In addition, there is no certainty that the gloomy scenario sketched above will happen. Yet there is no certainty that it will not. The situation is open. While the politics of fear should be avoided, we should also steer clear of what I call the ‘politics of sleepwalking.’ Sleepwalkers are usually intrepid, fearless. They believe themselves invulnerable and there is a good reason for it: They sleep deeply.

Perhaps we are about to witness an extraordinary event: the advent of true democracy both in the Mashriq and the Maghreb. However, we should also ask ourselves the questions of ‘what will happen if democracy will be used as a disposable instrument?’ and ‘can we assume that the democratic nature of a transition will automatically transfer itself to the ensuing regime?’ Now that Ben Ali and Murabak are gone, what is next?