May 1, 2007:
At a recent meeting of the Arab
League, the king of Saudi Arabia told the assembled rulers that the biggest
problem in the Arab world was poor leadership. This was a bold statement, but
not unusual for the senior people in the Saudi government. These princes have
also been supporting the Arab Reform Movement, which is based on the idea that
most of the Arab world's problems are internal, not the result of outside
interference. Actually, most educated Arabs will readily admit that their
leaders have been less than stellar, and largely responsible for the corruption
and bad decisions that have put the Arab world so far behind the West, and
everyone region except Africa, when it comes to economic growth.
But knowing and admitting to the problem does not
solve it. The United States found that out after Saddam Husseins Baath Party
dictatorship was overthrown. Iraqis eagerly embraced democracy, only to find
that the people they elected, were not a big improvement over Saddam. Some of
Iraqs new leaders backed terrorists. This was especially true of Iran backed
Shia factions, which unleashed death squads that killed thousands of Sunni
Arabs last year. Some of the Sunni Arab leaders supported terrorists who
targeted Shias. And then there was the corruption, with billions of dollars of
government money missing.
This incompetence is also, as the Saudi king likes
to point out, the cause of the Islamic terrorism that is growing in the Islamic
world. Indeed, these terrorists only began attacking kafirs (non-Moslems) in
the 1990s when they realized they were getting shut down in Arab countries. In
Egypt, Syria and Algeria, Islamic radical attempts to toss out corrupt
governments all failed. While Arab leadership may suck, these guys have
certainly mastered the art of running a police state.
But attacking non-Moslems, outside of the Moslem
world, brought into play the Western media. This was important, because the
Western media now had 24 hour, world-wide (via satellite) outlets. All the
people that mattered could now see what the Islamic terrorists did. Before,
terror attacks inside Arab countries were largely ignored by the rest of the
world. The publicity was important, because there were millions of Arabs living
in the West. These people were making more money than they were back home, and
that's one reason they moved. Fed up with the corrupt and incompetent
leadership back home, they moved. This Arab Diaspora provided a refuge for
Islamic militants. Another benefit was the appearance of Arab language satellite
news services in the 1990s. Terrorist movements thrived on publicity, and the
more news channels there were out there, the more attention terrorist attacks
would get.
All that terrorism is a sign that some Arabs are
very unhappy. For decades, the powers-that-be refused to acknowledge why the
kids were pissed off. Thanks to all those suicide bombs and breathless news
reports, the family secret was out there for the entire world to see. No, not
the al Qaeda "the West is making war on Islam," canard, but an earlier al Qaeda
call to overthrow the corrupt leaders of the Arab countries. Al Qaeda has to
come up with the "war on Islam" angle to justify September 11, 2001, and
earlier attacks. But the root cause is bad leadership at home.
So when the king of Saudi Arabia tells the
assembled Arab leadership that they are the problem, you can take that as a
sign of progress. But real progress it ain't. Arab leaders are victims of their
own success. Their rule is based on corruption and police state tactics. Think East
Europe before 1989. Big difference is that, although the populations of East
Europe then, and the Arab world now, were both fed up with their leaders and
governments, the Arabs are not willing to make as painless a switch as the East
Europeans did in the 1990s. That's because the East Europeans had two choices;
communism or democracy. The Arabs have three; despotism, democracy or Islamic
dictatorship.
In Iraq we see how the Islamic radicals react to
democracy. They call it un-Islamic and kill those who disagree with them. The
Arabs have to deal with this, and in Iraq they are. But the violence in Iraq
has revealed another Arab problem. Even if you remove religion from the
equation, not all Arabs are keen on democracy. In Iraq, the Sunni Arab minority
believe it is their right (or responsibility) to run the country. This is a
common pattern in Arab countries. One minority believes they are rulers by
right, and that democracy is an abomination and un-Islamic. This is the pattern
in nearly every Arab country.
But there is hope. One of the least known members
of the Arab League, Mauritania, held elections last month and now have the only
other, besides Iraq, freely elected democratic government. The divisions in
Mauritania, with a population of less than four million, are between the Arab
(about a third) and "former slaves" (black Africans from the south). Mauritania
exists on the border between Arabs and Bantu (the ethnic group that
predominates in Africa south of the Sahara). Blacks were the slaves, and slavery
was formerly abolished only in 1981. But slavery still exists in Mauritania,
but so does democracy. Like South Africa, and a lot of other places where
"democracy won't work," it does. Not democracy like in the United States, or
Europe, or anywhere else. Every democracy is different, just like every culture
is different. Democracy is a messy, inefficient form of government, but
compared to all the others, it tends to be preferred by most people.
Arabs, even Arab leaders, know they need democracy.
They have tried everything else, and nothing else works. But democracy is
strong medicine for the current Arab leadership, and many would rather just
talk about it, and go no further. And that is the problem in the Arab world.
Islamic terrorism is the result.