The key to ending violence in the Middle East is the democratization of tyrannical regimes, said Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian democratic activist and sociology professor at the American University in Cairo, in an optimistic keynote address Sunday afternoon.
His speech opened the Providence Journal/Brown University Public Affairs Conference, which explored the possibilities of democracy in the Middle East.
"I argue that peace and democracy are two sides of the same coin," Ibrahim said. "Therefore, by working for democracy, not only will we be fulfilling a lofty goal that all mankind is entitled, (but) we will be sparing not only ourselves but you (the Western world) from further bloodshed."
He addressed the question of whether democratic developments in the region in the past two months were a "spring of freedom" or "a desert mirage."
Middle Eastern countries are ready for democracy because they have been democratic societies in recent history, Ibrahim said. He cited his native land of Egypt as an example of a country with a pre-existing democracy.
"Our part of the world, especially Egypt, had our first constitution and parliament in 1866," Ibrahim said. The Middle East "had a liberal age from the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century."
He dismissed the fear that a democratic election in the Middle East would result in an Islamic theocracy. In both Turkey and Morocco, Muslims have been incorporated into fledgling democracies without disturbing the liberal processes, he said.
"These two experiments shining in the Middle East ... they showed in my own cell in prison," Ibrahim said, referring to his political imprisonment under the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Ibrahim said he is optimistic about democracy in the near future because of the activism and involvement of Middle Eastern youth and other individuals against despotic regimes.
"These are real (developments). These are real men and women, defying and asserting themselves," Ibrahim said. "These are not a mirage. Is it a full-blown spring of freedom."
Panel Discussion
Echoing the questions Ibrahim mentioned in his lecture, four leading foreign policy experts and journalists debated the legitimacy of the recent democratic developments in the Middle East as part of a discussion panel Monday.
Described by moderator and Assistant Professor of Political Science Melani Cammett '91 as a "critical topic at this juncture, first and foremost for the people of this region and also for the world," the chances of democracy in the Middle East were debated by the panelists, who were split evenly between self-described optimists and pessimists.
Democracy in the region is very much attainable, said Joshua Muravchik, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of "Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism" and "The Imperative of American Leadership."
"We probably are at the dawn of a very big change in the Middle East," Muravchik said. The "very rapid" global trend of democracy around the world has "reached every corner of the world except the Middle East - until now," he said.
Muravchik is optimistic in light of recent developments in the region, especially the "relatively clean" Palestinian election Jan. 10 in which Mahmoud Abbas was declared the winner. The region is "convulsed in a kind of democratic ferment," he said.
Salameh Nematt, Washing-ton bureau chief of both Al-Hayat, an international Arab publication, and the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, is less sure.
Pointing to the European Union's Barcelona Process, a set of goals aimed at creating a free trade zone in the Middle East, Nematt said the "democracy project has been tried before. ... Ten years later, we know the project failed." Nematt said he fears the United States today is "adopting the same approach as that of the European Union."
"I am less optimistic than many of my colleagues of what is going on in the Middle East," he said. "I do not see this sudden realization of people that democracy is something to fight for."
Nematt said the Jan. 30 Iraqi elections took place only because Saddam Hussein was no longer in power and not as part of a larger trend toward democracy in the region. He went on to question whether establishing a democracy in the region was one of the United States' initial goals for the Middle East.
"I would say that there is no doubt that something is happening in the region," he said. "Democracies mean regime change. Will the U.S. really pursue this project regardless of the instability that could result with oil prices going through the roof?"
Nora Boustany, diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Post, echoed Muravchik's optimism for democracy in the region. Calling recent developments "exciting," Boustany said the Iraqi election was "nothing short of historic."
She said nobody had a "cookie-cutter format" for democracy, but said she thinks it would evolve differently for different countries in the region. "Sorry to be hopeful," she said.
John MacArthur, a journalist, author and president and publisher of Harper's Magazine, was on the pessimistic end of the spectrum.
"I think the Iraqi democracy is a fiction, and it's a very old story," MacArthur said. He also said it is not "absolutely urgent or essential that democracy break out all over the world. In some cases, democracy can be destabilizing in traditional cultures."
He singled out a quote in Edward Said's "Orientalism" as indicative of the current attitude of Americans: "They cannot represent themselves. They must be represented." He went on to say advocates should be careful of prematurely proclaiming "how great it (would be) if democracy breaks out everywhere."
