ANALYSIS/OPINION:
The end of the year is generally a good time for reflection. It is a time to take stock of what has been accomplished during the past 12 months and to look forward to what one hopes to achieve over the coming year. In the case of the Arab world, it’s been a dismal year, and the outlook for 2009, regretfully, hardly looks any better.
The region’s leaders have demonstrated complete lack of political foresight. Their inability to place petty quarrels aside, combined with absolute lust for power that takes precedence over national or pan-Arab interests, helped once again to keep the Middle East trailing behind other regions.
The Palestinian-Israeli peace talks have been treading water while Hamas, now in full control of the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority, which is able to implement its authority only on the West Bank, continue to squabble. The possibility of settling the Israeli-Palestinian dispute has never been closer, with encouraging statements from both sides. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recognized in an interview granted to Yediot Ahronot earlier this year the need for Israel to withdraw from “nearly all, if not all, of the [occupied] territories.”
And Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said: “We don’t just seek peace. We seek a meaningful and lasting peace with Israel. We seek strong ties with Israel. We seek strong economic ties between the independents states and Israel and Palestine. We seek warm relations with Israel. We do not want to get to the point where we just accept each other.”
Yet instead of focusing their energies on solving the issues and creating a better future for their people, Hamas and the PA continue to battle each other.
And the Palestinians are not alone in that category. Lebanon hardly fares better with recent armed clashes proving that in Lebanon, at least, the bullet remains a more convincing form of politics than the ballot. How depressing.
At least Lebanon has a ballot. Other countries in the region pass power from father to son as though running the country were a family business.
In Libya, Moammar Gadhafi has been in power since 1969; in Egypt, Hosni Mubarak has been president since 1981, and if he could have his way, Mr. Mubarak would hand power over to his son Gamal; in Syria, Hafez Assad came to power in 1970 and ruled until his death in 2000, when he has replaced by his son Bashar.
During that same period of time, the U.S. has had 10 presidents: Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama.
The tragedy in the Arab world is that some of the area’s leadership still appears to be caught in a time warp, stuck in the twilight zone of the 1960s, when totalitarian regimes flourished in Eastern Europe and Central and South America.
The sad result is that despite the area’s many riches, from oil to minerals to manpower, the Arab world continues to come in at the back of the queue in terms of politically mature nations. The Middle East still trails behind other nations with similar gross national products in terms of respect of human rights, guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion.
While countries that were in somewhat similar situations have moved forward in leaps and bounds, many countries in the region remain stagnant.
The former communist nations that once were part of the Soviet empire are today free and democratic. Some have joined the European Union and others NATO. In Latin America, dictatorships from the left as well as from the right have all but disappeared and with few exceptions have been replaced by democratically elected governments.
Many in the Arab world raised their voices - rightfully so - in protest at the United States’ extra-judicial limbo established in Guantanamo, where suspected terrorists were detained.
However, just a few months ago, Egypt reopened detention camps where political prisoners are reportedly detained and routinely tortured.
In one of those facilities, outspoken blogger Mohammed Khairi is currently being held. An order from the government prosecutor demanding the blogger’s release was ignored because the camps operate outside Egypt’s legal system.
According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, neither the prosecutor general nor any other civil department can do anything about it.
A perfect example of the Arab world’s ill-preparedness when it comes to playing in a greater geopolitical arena is made all the more apparent by the absence of a unified approach by the leaders of the Arab world toward members of the incoming Obama administration. As indeed is the absence of any contacts between the Arab League, speaking on behalf of all its members, and Israel’s two top contenders for the prime ministership, Benjamin Netanyahu and Tzipi Livni.
As a comparison, the European Union - 27 countries speaking 23 different languages and belonging to more than a dozen different religions - presented the Obama team with a unified paper on what steps they believe the United States should take regarding a number of sensitive issues.
Rather than being proactive, the Arab leadership, however, prefers to adopt a wait and see policy - and then complain.
As Rashid Khalidy, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, commented a few years ago, “the Arabs love to complain.”
And that, no doubt they will do.
• Claude Salhani is editor of the Middle East Times
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