good comments from Iraq Pundit:
A Liberal-Islamist Axis?
Rami Khoury, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, has been thinking about why political reform, which happened in eastern Europe and in Asia, hasn’t happened in the Arab world. He thinks he knows the answer: Although such disparate forces as secular liberals and Islamists have been working for change, their efforts have been largely in vain because they haven't been working together.
"By working separately," writes Khoury, "they have had limited impact. The obvious conclusion is that it is time for Arab liberal reformers and peaceful Islamist movements to join forces, to foster the change neither side has been able to bring about on its own."
Hahaha! That's what missing from Arab politics! A Liberal-Islamist axis! These Arab "journalists" just kill me. You want to know one of the major reasons that the Arab world is so far behind everybody else politically? Because the region's journalists, like so many other professionals there, long ago let themselves be co-opted by backward regimes. There are certainly independent-minded liberal Arab journalists, and my hat's off to their courage and integrity. But by and large, Arab journalism has been a tool of oppression, of maintaining the status quo. Co-opted writers have spent whole careers spewing out whatever baloney has been useful to a given regime, or writing in support of the region's discredited and dead-end politics. What the Arab media lacks in nationalistic self-pity, it makes up for in paranoid conspiracy mongering.
But back to Rami Khoury's "solution" of Liberal-Islamist cooperation, which he sees as a "means to a breakthrough in the iron wall of Arab autocracy."
I mean, listen to this: "Their core values mesh together very naturally: democracy, equality, rule of law, peaceful political participation, majority rule, protection of minority rights, pluralism, clean elections, pragmatism, accountability, fighting corruption, and legitimacy. They differ somewhat on issues such as the religious-secular divide, relations with Israel, national versus religious identity, working with the United States and other Western powers, and some aspects of the public role of women."
Yeah, they "differ somewhat." Like, they differ somewhat on whether secular authority has any legitimacy. As for these peaceful Islamists of Khoury's who want to protect minority rights, who are they? How anxious are the Muslim Brothers to
protect Shiites? How anxious are pious Shiites to protect Baha'is? Where is there an example of a religious government that is democratic?
Never mind! When it comes to the political marriage of seculars and Islamists, Khoury has a dream! "Their initial gain would be to boost their collective legitimacy at home and abroad - the Islamists becoming less threatening, and the secular liberals becoming more credible. Their combined clout and respectability could then force the adoption of more representative electoral laws, win majorities in parliaments, and influence or define state policies."
Khoury dreams of the coalition's appealing trade-offs, too. If the secular liberals join up with the Islamists, he argues, then they would tone down their pro-West ideology, and for people like Khoury, the Arab world is always better off without anything Western. In exchange, the Islamists might tone down their rhetoric. He thinks that "agreements substantially outweigh the disagreements" between these two groups.
Hey, I've got a dream, too. Why doesn't Khoury get the ball rolling by revamping his newspaper so that it appeals to readers who are members of this remarkable coalition? What would a Liberal-Islamist newspaper look like? Good question. It would have no way to choose which daily-life stories to report, and no way to determine how to report them. On a daily-life level, the points of view are totally incompatible. That's painfully obvious for a newspaper, because worthwhile papers address themselves to their readers' daily lives. Worthwhile politics should do the same thing for citizens, right? Seems just as painfully obvious, no?
Not to some of the Middle East's intellectual journalists, it seems. For them, politics has always been about compromising with oppression. If they aren't singing the praises of an Arab Nationalism that oppressed us all for decade after decade, then they want to embrace religious zealots ("peaceful" ones, of course!) who know just how we should live every moment of our lives. The Arab world has been digging itself into a hole for more than half a century. Changing shovels doesn't seem like much of a solution.
iraqpundit.blogspot.com |
