The Egyptian military’s removal of democratically elected President Muhammad Morsi from office and mounting troubles of newly formed governments in Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen raise questions about the future of democracy in the troubled region. As observed during the popular uprisings of early 2011 and events that followed, citizens of the region overwhelmingly desire the replacement of authoritarian governments with governments that reflect the popular will and in which citizens have a role. This transition, however, has not happened and will not occur until fundamental problems are addressed.
Many of the region’s countries face challenges needing immediate attention, such as unemployment, poverty, education, investment, economic growth, and the environment, and democracies are not always equipped to quickly find the solutions. Also, the region is generally seen as lacking the institutions necessary to establish and sustain democracy, i.e., civil society. Yet the most serious challenge for Middle Eastern countries seeking democracy is the problem of ethnic, tribal, and sectarian conflict. The suspicion and doubt surrounding such societal divisions extend back hundreds of years and are as raw today as ever. The region’s citizens may continue to express a strong desire for democratic governance, but the foundational conditions and existing circumstances conspire against them and none more so than sectarian and tribal suspicion, distrust and hatred.
Democracy requires that all interests recognize the right of all others to participate peacefully in the process and that all interests be given free and unencumbered opportunity to participate in the political process. The preservation of democracy supersedes the interests of a single group or individual. Yet, deep-seated and heretofore irreconcilable sectarian, ethnic, and tribal differences appear to militate against such a requirement. For some, democracy is either anathema to their declared ideology or merely a temporary expedient to some idealized Islamist state. At the other end of the spectrum, many Christian and other religious and ethnic minorities cringe at the thought of a change to the authoritarian status quo for fear of violent persecution. And in the great middle, Sunnis and Shiites and rival tribes harbor profound doubts about the other’s intentions.
Establishing democracy in the Middle East must start with addressing the seemingly insurmountable problems of ethnic, sectarian, and tribal rivalries. Democracies elsewhere in the world vary according to the unique histories, cultures, peoples, languages, and institutions that define them. They have adapted to the fundamental elements of democracy, such as equal access in the political process, free and legitimate elections, accountable representatives, free expression and assembly, an equitable system of rule of law, etc., to the unique cultural and historical circumstances of their societies. Nations as diverse as Malaysia, Indonesia, and South Africa, for example, all have democracies that incorporate these elements. Can Middle Eastern countries achieve this? In my view, they can. But to do so, they will have to overcome the hurdle of distrust, intolerance, and even hatred between population segments.
Borrowing a time-honored page from the diplomacy handbook and an approach employed in the therapy profession, sides must stop fighting and start talking. Whether the dialogue occurs within countries or across countries, the focus must be on mechanisms for promoting greater tolerance and incorporating those into a template for democracy.
The best place to start may be the two largest Muslim sects, Sunni and Shia, and a representative sample of religious minorities. This will require expenditure of considerable political capital on the part of the facilitators and risk on the part of the participants. Until each country has addressed this fundamental issue, no discussion of democracy can succeed.
Non-Muslim Western governments hitherto reluctant to wade into the unfamiliar miasma of religious and ethnic conflict in the Middle East will have to set aside their hesitation and pressure the right players to appear and actively participate. The UN and OIC can also play important roles to encourage and facilitate such conversations, but the responsibility for solutions ultimately lies with the societies and peoples of the region, and not any outsider, as the U.S. painfully observed in Iraq.
Assuming the right collection of groups and individuals can be persuaded to begin talking, the focus should be on stopping violence, identifying alternatives, and promoting tolerance and understanding. They could start with agreeing that “differences are ok; killing because of our differences is not.” The objective is not a grand plan for democracy in the Middle East, but rather alternative mechanisms or a platform for the region’s interest groups to voice concerns, offer solutions, and talk through some of the region’s most profoundly vexing problems. Over time, it is hoped, the voices of moderation would rise.
The Arab world’s time-honored custom of “shura,” or consultation, in which the governed are consulted for policy input, may offer the best and most familiar approach for getting started. Arguments against this admittedly naïve approach are familiar: the historic “insurmountable” wall of suspicion and distrust; current domination of the discussion space by extremist voices; lack of support for and experience among moderates; timeless grudges of one faction against another; and, predictably, an interminable debate over the compatibility of Islam and democracy.
As many have asked and continue to ask, what is the cost? Failure to address the region’s major impediment to democratic rule condemns the region to continuing cycles of violence and the rest of the world to persistent instability in a vital region. Political leadership will be surrendered to the wrong elements, marginalizing the majority of citizens in their nations’ governance. Failure means that the events we are currently witnessing in Syria, Iraq, and Egypt will continue until one side dominates the other, and then is repeated when the vanquished finally achieve their day in the sun, just as the great Arab historiographer and historian Ibn Khaldoun wrote in his classic work Al Muqaddimah more than six centuries ago.