When Massimo D’Alema declares in no uncertain terms that what is happening in the Arab countries is a “true revolution”, he also debunks a myth that has been in danger of taking hostage much of today’s sociological thinking. For the Arab spring has sparked renewed argument over the correct definition of “revolution”, and it’s already become a sterile debate pitting North against South, with the term’s use much contested by European observers but defended by Arab ones.
For the former, 12m Egyptians on the streets in a single day; toppling the regime and demystifying those in power after decades of personality cults; followed by a profound reconfiguration of civil society still doesn’t add up to a revolution. Yet those same people say that protests by a few thousand opposition activists in the streets of the Georgian capital Tbilisi qualified as a revolution. And to deprive Arabs of the revolutionary “privilege” reserved for “others” unfortunately matches a wider scepticism about the political and social dynamics in Arab countries.
Massimo D’Alema’s observations on the need for a less self-absorbed Europe to re-evaluate its previous stance towards a region so close and yet so misunderstood therefore seem very pertinent. Europe must abandon the policies that were no more than hollow pretexts for helping to keep dictators in power. And Europeans’ imagined fears of a destructive political Islam must be replaced by a more balanced assessment based on real knowledge of the Arab world’s political landscape.
It doesn’t help, for example, to portray immigration as an evil threat, and to consider Arab countries as some sort of geographical barrier protecting Europe’s southern flank that needs to be reinforced. Propping up dictators to maintain so-called stability has plainly failed, and now ending the injustices that the Palestinian people suffer must be a key element in any rapprochement between the two shores of the Mediterranean. As Massimo D’Alema says, for equitable development and real integration to become realities, Nicolas Sarkozy’s Union for the Mediterranean needs a profound re-think.
The Arab revolutions enjoy one great advantage that has seldom been the case in the other democratic revolutions; they have been initiated and managed locally without any direct interference from outside powers. But external support will nevertheless be a decisive factor in the transition process in those countries that have already overthrown their dictators. This external help has to match each country’s needs, however, and so avoid corrupting the emerging civil societies. What is needed is constructive advice, and not the kinds of lesson whose bankruptcy was demonstrated during the West’s hesitant, technocratic management of human rights cases under the dictators.
The credibility amongst Arabs of outside actors has been damaged, but can be repaired through transparent co-operation between Arab and Western civil societies.