Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID)
22nd Annual Conference Report
Democracy Denied:
Political, Human Rights and Policy Implications
for the Arab/Muslim World
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
Panel I: The Israel-Gaza War: Implications for Democracy in the Arab-Islamic World
1. How indifference to Palestinian suffering in Gaza is alienating moderates and tarnishing the appeal of liberal democratic values
Mustafa Akyol (Senior Fellow, Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity)
As a Turkish journalist put it “From now on in this side of the world, who can refer to global values… Who would listen to them?” This question puts into question the frustration of people in the region by the double standards common in the Western world. While many in the West have been rightly horrified by the atrocities of Hamas that broke not only international but also Islamic law, they have not been as horrified by the Israeli military’s subsequent campaign that killed over thirty thousand people in Gaza. In the meantime, western democracies have been cracking down on pro-Palestine speech in the manner of an authoritarian state.
For people who have always despised liberalism, this might be good news. But I disagree, I think the depreciation of liberal values can have even worse consequences for the world. It can lead to authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia rising even more. It can also lead to the emergence of more radical groups and pave the way for more conflict. In the face of these risks, western governments should show the world that the lives of Palestinian children as much as Israeli children. And those of us who support Palestine should be aware of two things. First, not everyone who champions the Palestinian cause does so in a humane manner. Regimes such as Syria and Iran stand against Israel’s operation but have notoriously inflicted enormous harm on their own people. Similarly, we know the human rights records of Russia and China from what they have done in Ukraine and East Turkistan. Second, we should not see the West as a monolith. It is not only made of governments but it is also of civil society and media, and people who do care about universal values. That’s why, we should not stop believing and ask for universal values.
2. Epistemicide in Gaza: Implications for Free Speech in Palestinian Universities and Across the Arab World
Rebecca Ruth Gould (Professor of Comparative Poetics and Global Politics, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London)
This research began before the October 7 attack and it was initially planned to be academic freedoms and pressures against them in universities in Gaza and the West Bank. Yet, Israel’s war on Gaza has dramatically shifted the realities and the focus of this ongoing study. First, it is important to note that universities hold an important space in Palestinian society which has high literacy rates and a high proportion of post-graduate degree holders. Survey results show that freedom of speech is still an important priority for Palestinian students despite occupation. Universities have been crucial in organizing networks of resistance in Gaza but also in providing alternatives to Hamas. Yet, Palestinian academics had to face control and repression from Palestinian authorities as well.
This was all before October 2023. As of now, no universities are left standing in Gaza. What’s going on can be considered as an epistemicide i.e., the “killing, silencing, and annihilation or devaluing of a knowledge system”. This is happening in the context of a genocide and universities constitute a specifically important element to consider. After all, what is the meaning of freedom of speech when an entire education system is being destroyed? Yet, I argue that even in this context, knowledge production is important. When we speak about Palestine and Gaza, we need to not only focus on “humanitarian rights” but also on human rights. As much as we are concerned with the starvation and killing of people, we also need to think about the destruction of their cultural knowledge. There is a need to consider the cross-generational consequences of epistimicide since it has the risk of carrying genocide to a permanent condition.
3. The War on Gaza: Regional Impact and Future Implications
Emad El-Din Shahin” (Professor at College of Islamic Studies, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar)
A recent study found that the factor that had the most profound impact on the MENA region was war. That’s why, no matter how the Gaza ends, a new narrative will emerge. We can discuss Israel’s war on Gaza in terms of its regional impact, its meaning, and its future implications. Before October 7, the Palestinian issue was almost sidelined and a new regional order was coming into being particularly with the normalization of the relations between Israel and different Arab countries. Gaza war derailed the plans to establish a new order in the region. Furthermore, this conflict is different from previous ones. After a long time, Israel lost initiative; he was not the first one to attack. Not only that, Hamas was able to breach into Israeli territory and inflict military damage. The position of Arab regimes was also different; they were more in support of Israel than ever before and most of them condemned Hamas.
So what does the war mean? First, we can see the erosion of Israel’s deterrence; the idea that Israel has a free hand is weakening. In addition, we witnessed a clear vulnerability of Israel. Generations had believed that Israel was militarily undefeatable. This belief was shackled in 1973 and it has been shackled now. Finally, it led to a re-consideration of the USA’s role in the region. Regimes of the region have not only been unable to defend themselves but also to resolve conflict. Historically, the US has been an actor providing these two. Today, the US is seen as a belligerent actor actively involved in war. As for the future implications of this war, we should think about what a withdrawal can mean since Israel does not seem to be achieving its goal of completely destroying Hamas. Yet, the latter will need to consider a more reconciliatory position to begin the reconstruction of Gaza. I believe that a two-state solution is not possible, the international community has been asking for it for decades without any success. I think we need to remember that the essence of this conflict is about occupation and self-determination and resisting an occupation has always been violent. I expect that a new round of war and conflict can begin after several with a change in the balance of powers.
Panel II: Lessons Learned: Arab Spring Uprisings and Failed Transitions
1. Policy Implications: What have we learned from Failure to Promote Democracy?
Abdul G. Dardery (Former spokesperson of the FRC of Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party)
Arab uprisings were a necessary response to the post-colonial failure of the Arab states and unless indigenous democratic transitions take place, new colonial powers will continue to rule the Arab world and violations of human rights will continue to thrive. In my country, Egypt, democracy was executed by the post-colonial military junta, which was supported by the “illiberal liberals”, regional authoritarian regimes, and the international community including officials and institutions from Europe and the USA. When the coup happened, the US Secretary of State John Kerry claimed it was “restoring democracy”.
Yet, we have not seen any democratic process since 2013 at any level, be it through municipal, parliamentary, or presidential elections. If we look at the post-coup context and regime in Egypt, we can see that democracy deteriorated. Since the military coup, 800 political prisoners have been reported dead out of jail conditions. Today many members of parliament are still in prison in Egypt. In the rule of law index, Egypt regressed from 110th place in 2016 to 136th place in 2023 (out of 142 countries). President Sisi arrested candidates who wanted to compete against him in elections, even military generals. I believe that democracy for post-colonial countries is not a luxury, it is a national security issue, it is a developmental issue, and it is an issue of economic property. Supporting indigenous democracy is a necessity regardless we agree with their culture or not. And if we remain silent, we will be enabling the continuity of oppression.
2. Lessons from an Arab Spring Activist and His Shortcomings: Reflecting on the Life of Saad Eddin Ibrahim
Daanish Faruqi (Visiting Researcher, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University)
In September 2023, the world lost one of its greatest human rights activists, Prof. Saad Eddin Ibrahim of Egypt. Entire generations of scholars and activists have been influenced by his work, and he was a teacher for many of us here including myself. After receiving his PhD in political sociology from the University of Washington in the USA, Ibrahim spent most of his teaching years at the American University of Cairo. He worked on a variety of issues including Islamic activism in Egypt, election surveys and monitoring, intellectual history in the Arab world, and especially the thought of Ibn Khaldun. He has helped found human rights NGOs and research centers, particularly the Ibn Khaldun Center in Cairo. His study of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to argue that it should given a legal and legitimate status in Egyptian society created a lot of controversy. In his studies of Arab political thought, he considered the 1920s as the liberal age following Following Hourani and he studied the works of liberal age thinkers like Taha Hussein.
Under Mubarak, he was accused of using foreign funds to finance to election monitoring campaign and was sentenced to prison. He was released after three years in prison and sought exile in the US. After the 2011 Revolution, Ibrahim turned back to Egypt and supported the democratization process. Yet, he later backed General Sisi’s military regime claiming the 2014 elections were the "greatest" in the history of Egypt. So why did Ibrahim take such a course? Arguably it’s because the project of Arabic liberalism had several contradictions. Liberals were willing to forge authoritarian alliances to impose their liberal worldview. Liberal thinkers were so terrified by a public for Islam that they went to ally with authoritarianism. Today, we can work with Ibrahim’s legacy to understand his thought and contradictions as well as the broader Arab thought.
3. Democracy Destabilized: Protecting the Secular Democratic State, Citizenship Rights and Building a Cohesive Democratic Coalition in Malaysia and Beyond
Lily Zubaidah Rahim (Honorary Fellow, Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University)
This presentation is part of an ongoing book project on ethno-religious nationalism in Malaysia. The ascent of ethno-religious nationalism appears puzzling in light of the decline in religious beliefs and practices around the world. Ethno-religious nationalism has become prominent in various countries including here in the USA, particularly under President Donald Trump, as well as in Europe, and in India. Ethnoreligious nationalism differs from civic nationalism which rejects vertical forms of ethnic hierarchy in favor of horizontal forms of citizenship rights. I take a comparative approach to look at transitional and fledgling democracies in Southeast Asia.
My work focuses mainly on a Muslim-majority state outside of the Arab World, Malaysia. In 2018, a government that was in power for 61 years was overturned in the ballot box fostering democratization. The reformist government had formed a coalition with an ethno-religious nationalist party. In doing so, they needed to answer their demands and take more authoritarian policies stepping back from their reformist agenda. It was soon after overturned through a bloodless internal coup supported by the ethno-religious nationalists. Since then, we have seen a further politicization of Islam similar to other cases of ethno-religious nationalism. One lesson the Malaysian experience could teach us is that reformist governments should be careful in their coalition-building process. Who they ally with, and which one of their policies they adopt.
4. The Contrasts and Contradictions of Democracy in a Secular State in Central Asia, Uzbekistan
Anthony Bowyer (Europe & Eurasia Advisor, International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES))
Why study Uzbekistan? It is not a country known for a democratic transition or a history of free elections. This is also not a country that had a revolution or a colored “spring” like. But there is a desire among the leadership and the people, 40% of whom are below the age of 24, to break from the post-soviet authoritarian condition and to develop into a modern state that is economically viable and one that values human rights. In that vein, President Mirziyoyev implemented the National Development Strategies which attempted to address the shortcomings of the state, particularly focusing on its economic viability and development of an independent identity that breaks from its Soviet past. Similarly, there have been two consecutive five-year plans. While these have been mostly economically oriented, they also touched upon human development and the creation of a socially responsible state. In 2023, there was a major constitutional reform. What grasped attention was the extension of the president’s term from 5 to 7 years and the ability to serve two new terms in office, a common strategy in post-soviet authoritarian regimes. Yet the constitution also included ideas aimed at invigorating citizenship for the people of the country.
Today, the Uzbekistan-2030 strategy foresees an economically viable state, which integrates peacefully with its neighbors and acts as a regional hegemony in Central Asia. Another big ambition is to transform the mahallas, the lowest level of local governance bodies. These can be a source of grassroots development of democratic ideals. Moving forward, we can enumerate several recommendations that can push Uzbekistan toward democracy. These include: providing civic education for all students, opening the political space to new parties expediting direct elections of local executive authorities, clarifying the roles of mahallas, loosening restrictions on civil society, and allowing the formation and participation of domestic election monitors.
5. The Rule of Law and Democracy’s Denial in Contemporary Arab Politics: Lessons Learned and Strategies for Change
David Mednicoff (Chair, Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, University of Massachusetts-Amherst)
Rule of law is probably the last global political ideal that governments and people continue to champion, at least rhetorically. I argue that we need to understand the rule of law (RoL) as a contested diverse phenomenon. According to the UN definition, “rule of law is a principle of governance in which all persons, institutions, and entities, public and private, including the State itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated, and which are consistent with international human rights norms and standards.” In this definition, RoL is understood as constraining the government. Many believe that there is a virtuous circle between democratization and the rule of law and expect these two to reinforce one another. However, I argue that the rule of law does not need to always reinforce democracy. Current leading measures of RoL are made of a variety of criteria, including concepts related to order and corruption prevention. Yet, These goals can very well be achieved under repressive regimes.
If we look at the MENA countries, many of them, especially Gulf countries, fare rather well on this metric. Nevertheless, they continue to fare poorly in other indicators regarding accountability, freedom of expression, democracy, etc. That’s why we need to see the rule of law as a seesaw; laws can be democratic or not. In a recent study, we collected data on how law students and lawyers in Qatar and Kuwait talked about the rule of law. We found that people care about the rule of law but their understanding often doesn’t fit into the above-provided definition which considers it as a limitation of government by law. Nor do their understandings necessarily connect with the idea of international legal norms. That’s why we need to consider rule of law as a contested concept. This contestation also allows governments to obscure the connection between RoL and the possibilities of democratization. Going forward, I believe we can take advantage of how these norms are locally understood and contested. And I believe such regional and bottom-up approaches to big problems are worth considering.
Keynote Luncheon: Biden, Gaza and the End of the Rules-Based Order
By Trita Parsi (Executive Vice President, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft)
My focus today is the current situation in Gaza and its role and impact on shits in global politics. I believe that Gaza in a way has become the international version of the George Floyd experience. In the USA, we started seeing what’s happening in Gaza not through the lens of terrorism but through the lens of colonialism or de-colonialism and from the lens of occupation. The crisis in Gaza also coincided with a major shift in global politics. In recent years, we began hearing the term “rules-based international order” very frequently. Although this term was coined by the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to hold China accountable on the international stage, since then it has been used more broadly with a less clear meaning. The use of the term rose particularly after the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. President Biden defined the war not as a matter of sovereignty or violation of international law but primarily as “a battle for freedom: a battle between democracy and autocracy, between liberty and repression, between a rules-based order and one governed by brute force”.
So, what is the difference between rules-based international order and international law? In the rhetoric of the Biden administration, it is treated as if it is the same thing. This is broadly rejected by countries outside of the West. The critics say that the interpretation and enforcement of these rules are prerogatives of Western powers, which supersede international law, whereas the latter is considered to be made with the participation of all countries through the signing of treaties. The rules-based order is essentially set by Western powers with or without the consent of the other countries. In fact, the Biden administration claimed that the US would provide support for countries that subscribe to the rules-based international order and make sure that those countries can defend themselves against foreign influence. This is not how you define international law, this is more a description of a block. As we shift to a multi-polar order, this stance is deliberately eroding international law to create a multi-order world. Such an approach differs from the Cold War era which was defined by two blocks but still the existence of one overarching global order in which international law was accepted as applying to all.
The crisis in Gaza happened as this transformation was unfolding. Since October 7, not only the USA repeatedly vetoed UN Security Council resolutions for a ceasefire but even when it allowed one through abstention, the Biden administration claimed the Council’s resolution was not binding. Such a stance meant not only undermining a specific resolution but undermining the entire UN Security Council and international law. It begged the question, can those aligned with the US put themselves above others? Hence, people around the world are galvanized not only because of what’s happening in Gaza but also because this issue that symbolizes everything that the global majority has found unfair and problematic with the “rules-based international order”: the double standards, the American exceptionalism, second-class status of the majority of countries. That’s why today the Palestinian cause signifies the demand for dignity for a global majority. It highlights the need for an international order that is equally applied because the alternative to rules-based international order is international law applied universally and equally to all countries. I believe the energy around Gaza will not disappear because it is now one with a broader and inescapable struggle to define the post-unipolar world.
Panel III: Lessons from the Failure of the Tunisian “Model” in Democratic Transitions
1. Unmasking Constitutional Authoritarian Populism: Lessons from Tunisia and the Imperative of a Human Rights Perspective
Jose Ignacio Hernandez (Senior Associate of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies)
I argue that Tunisia should be considered a case of what I have been calling “constitutional authoritarian populism”. Until thirty years ago, democracy typically used to die at the hands of traditional military coups. It was clear that the constitution was violated: External forces removed the government through processes not established in the constitution. But, in the last two decades, a new way of democratic backsliding emerged which is now hidden beneath constitutional formalities. As Levitsky and Ziblatt said: “democracies are dying from the inside out”. The winners of the elections are the ones killing democracy. It is much harder to demonstrate the emergence of constitutional authoritarianism because the autocrats of today are acting under the disguise of a constitutional form using constitutional mechanisms. Yet, if we look beyond formalities, the authoritarian essence of the measures emerges. Moreover, in the last years, we have also witnessed how the populist rhetoric “the defense of the people” is used to justify this attack from the inside out over democracy.
This characterization of constitutional authoritarian populism fits perfectly with the case of Tunisia. It began with a political crisis and the election of an outsider to the presidency in 2019. This populist charismatic leader who promised to reboot the system argued that people were in danger because of the “elites” and that it was necessary to use exceptional powers vested in the presidency by the Constitution. Once the president uses such exceptional powers, he starts to dismantle the checks and balances. One of the victims of this concentration of powers is the parliament. The other is often the constitutional court, which did not exist in Tunisia.
Another element in this playbook is constitutional reform, as it happened in Tunisia. So, what can we do to stop constitutional authoritarian populism from rising? The first battle that democracy needs to win is the battle of the narrative. We need to demonstrate the authoritarian nature of the regimes that act under the constitutional form to be able to combat it.
2. The Democratic Backlashes in Tunisia and their Implications on the Media Landscape
Sahar Khamis (Associate Professor of Communication, University of Maryland, College Park MD)
As we all know how social and digital media played a big role in the Arab Uprisings and we have seen a growing scholarship on the role of social media and the youth-led movement aiming at political transformation. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned and we saw backlash in a number of countries and most recently in Tunisia, creating a reassertion of authoritarianism. With the democratic backsliding, the new reality for Arab journalists has been intimidation, imprisonment, forcible disappearances, arrests, harassment, shutting down of media organizations, and blocking of websites. Similarly, when the July 2021 presidential coup ended “the Tunisian exceptionalism”, this had important consequences for the media landscape. In the aftermath, we have seen a shrinking of media freedom. The state has closed down the headquarters of different media outlets such as al-Jazeera, al-Zitouna TV, and al-Arabi TV. It launched assaults against journalists covering protests and arrested journalists for criticism. It also took new punitive measures such as the cybercrime laws to crack down on journalists under the mantle of “spreading misinformation”. Yet, it is also important to note that Tunisian journalists are also pushing back and resisting repression in different ways. They are organizing sit-ins, signing petitions, and reaching out to international media. The thug of war between the regime and the journalists will likely continue and as part of these struggles, new tools will be invented by both parties.
3. Tunisian Democratic Decline in Comparative Perspective
Samuel Greene (Associate Professor and Co-Chair, Dep. of Social and Applied Behavioral Sciences, Shepherd University)
If we situate the Tunisian democratic experience in the broader academic literature, we can consider two large competing arguments in political science. The first approach exemplified in the thought of Samuel Huntington is focused on cultural elements and how they block democracy. The second approach espoused by Alfred Stepan among others focuses on political reasons instead of cultural ones to explain why democracy doesn’t work in certain contexts. I argue that the failure of democracy in Tunisia is not about a culturally distinct impassibility but rather comes from institutional problems comparable to culturally dissimilar cases. When I compared cases of political crises with successful and unsuccessful coup attempts as well as successful and unsuccessful self-coup attempts, I found that neither culturalist nor economic development arguments to a good job of explaining. Instead, the institutionalist explanations appear more convincing; there is more likelihood of democratic survival for countries that have higher institutional quality according to various indexes. Yet, Tunisia appears to be an exception; it has the same measures of institutional quality as the countries where democracy was maintained. What can be the reasons for that? It could be that measures of institutional quality are not fully accurate in some of these indices. Second, in Tunisia, there seems to be a perception that the actors involved cannot solve the problems. Such popular perception may have hampered the prospects of democratic survival. And finally, we need to consider external powers and interests since the EU has been willing to engage with the current Tunisia regime, due to its central strategic location.
4. Party System Weakness and Democratic Backsliding: Evidence from Tunisia
Salih Yasun (Department of International Studies and Political Science, Virginia Military Institute) & Bedirhan E Mutlu (George Washington University)
Why do party systems remain weak in transitioning countries in ways that can hamper the democratization process? We answer this question through a case study of Tunisia, which was the only success story of the Arab uprisings. Tunisia has been experiencing autocratization since President Saied’s presidential coup in 2021. Utilizing a historical institutionalist framework, we conducted interviews with 15 leaders from the major political parties. We find that, in contrast to conventional wisdom, the strong party institutionalization under authoritarian rule did not lead to an institutionalized party system after authoritarian rule ended. We attribute this dynamic to the inability of regime-successor parties to institutionalize, perpetuating democratic vulnerabilities inherited from authoritarian rule. We also find that too-powerful civil societies can be detrimental to transitions. The labor union (UGTT) acted as a de facto veto player and limited the ability of cabinets to implement reforms. Furthermore, leftist parties could not benefit from the UGTT’s base. The 2011 revolution was a critical juncture to potentially strengthen the party system. However, the political elite’s institutional choices put additional challenges on parties. The weakness of the party system in turn contributed to President Saied’s self-coup and dismantling of Tunisia’s democratic institutions.
5. Navigating Women's Rights in Tunisia: The Intersection of Islamic Thought, Human Rights, and Political Realities
Jumana Al-Ahmad (Visiting Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, Washington and Lee University)
My presentation makes the case that the power of ideas can affect change, particularly focusing on Islamic studies and family law in Tunisia. Historically, Tunisia had a progressive Islamic thought and a progressive human rights thought and it was a pioneering country in these domains. It particularly succeeded in “tunisifying” human rights norms to make them acceptable by society. Islamic studies, studies of Islam using modern tools, had a significant role in Tunisia’s intellectual history. These scholars relied on other disciplines such as legal studies, anthropology, and hermeneutics. Tunisian school of thought (madrasa Tunisiyya) emerged. For instance, Taher Haddad used these tools to write about women and their empowerment. The result is a religious diversity and the consideration of Islam as a matter of personal piety as these professors generally opposed literalist readings of the Quran.
In post-Revolutionary Tunisia, the Tunisian school continued their production and their thought was particularly influential in the creation of the the Individual Freedoms and Equality Committee (COLIBE) report commissioned by President Essebsi. This committee included professors such as Abdelmejid al-Sharfi and Iqbal Gharbi who were key figures in the Tunisian school. Their approach was to re-read and interpret the heritage. In this effort, they emphasized maqasid, the ultimate objectives of Sharia, and maslaha, the public interest. They tried to come up with an authentic voice from within the heritage. Nevertheless, the proposed bill based on their report didn’t pass in the parliament and the current president closed the debate by particularly opposing inheritance equality. I think that although the law didn’t pass, their work planted seeds that can affect change in the future.
Panel IV: Policy Implications: What Have We Learned from the Failure to Promote Democracy?
1. Democracy Is not the Goal of U.S. Foreign Policy
Tamara Sonn (Professor Emerita in the History of Islam, Georgetown University)
When we founded CSID, among our objectives was to counter claims that Islam is incompatible with democracy. But despite countless studies and panels, policymakers remained oblivious to our calls. We thought that their policies were the result of their ignorance and that if we better educated them, they could make better policies. I finally recognized that those policies were deliberate. The promotion of democracy and human rights is not a goal of US foreign policy.
People in high positions are only interested in one thing euphemistically called “national interest”. Universities train policymakers to promote only national interest and not to understand the people who are affected by our policies. And they are not even trained to think critically about what’s actually in the US national interest. The policies adopted promote and protect the strategic advantage of the US corporations, not the people.
So how did these interests become the driver of US foreign policy? The USA emerged from World War 2 as the richest and militarily most powerful country and since then, the foreign policy served to maintain this strategic advantage. During the Cold War, the main foreign policy goal was to contain the USSR while it was called to “promoting democracy”. In the 1980s, the US ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick, devised a more candid version of US FP than Truman’s promotion of democracy doctrine openly admitting that it is preferable to support anti-communist dictatorships than to promote democracies that might tilt toward socialism. When the USSR fell, G.W. Bush first spoke of a peace dividend and we thought a new approach could take place. Yet, instead, the White House listed to the IR-trained specialists who argued it was not the time to shrink military spending with the rise of militant Islam. So, what’s the US national interest today? Its core focus is maintaining international order, a status quo in which US corporations are the richest in the world. In the Middle East specifically, the US has four key national interests: securing the supply of oil, preventing the region from falling under the control of a rival power, supporting partners and allies (especially Israel and Saudi Arabia), and maintaining regional stability i.e., the status quo. In this context, human rights and democracy promotion receive only rhetorical not practical support and the failure to support post-Arab Spring democracies is a clear example. So who can we work to promote democracy and human rights in the region? First, I think success will come despite US foreign policy and our hopes primarily rely on civil society. Second, we can revise how we train people to make policy decisions since currently, we train them to make policies that violate the values we claim to uphold.
2. Why Palestinian National Liberation Is Inseparable from Arab Regional Democratization
Nader Hashemi (Associate Professor & Director, Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU), Georgetown University)
My intervention is focused on the issue of Palestinian national rights and self-determination, the question of democracy around the MENA region, and the interplay between these two matters. I believe October 7 is a transformative moment. Yet, so far we focused much on Hamas and the US but not enough on the role of the Arab states. The pre-October 2023 peace deals i.e., Abraham Accords were made with authoritarian leaders and they were only possible with the existence of authoritarian regimes in these countries. The survival of these peace deals almost depends on the lack of democracy in the Arab world. I argue that Arab political transformations toward democracy will support the Palestinian cause for self-determination. Currently, Israel is about to start operations in Rafah and there isn’t a Western government that will come to the rescue. No election or government change will significantly alter this reality concerning the US or many other western powers. So where can we turn for hope? I think in the long run, the change can come from the region itself and we need to focus on the efforts for democratization in the Arab world. Because long-term peace can only be made with the people of the Arab world and not with the dictators. And such a peace can only be concluded if Israel can give Palestinians some justice.
3. The Rise and Fall of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Implications on the Future of Democracy in the Middle East
Dalia Fahmy (Associate Professor of Political Science, Long Island University)
Three years ago people noted the end of political Islam in the Arab world with the self-coup in Tunisia and the electoral loss of PJD in Morocco. As the crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood also continues, we can see that the post-Arab Spring phase of Islamist parties’ participation in power is over. This seems to be the decline of political Islam in the Arab world. In the meantime, we can see that the autocratic regimes are alive and kicking; they proved that they have what it takes to stay in power. For decades, Arab regimes portrayed the Islamist movements as the biggest risk. Yet, now that Islamists are not in charge, we can see that things haven’t changed for the better.
Is Islamist politics over then? Until recently, I thought so but recent data shows that this might not be the case. Arab Barometer’s 7th wave shows that there has been a rise in religiosity in the last five years around the Arab world. Moreover, more people, especially among the younger generations, indicate a preference that Islam should have a place in governance, indicating a comeback for political Islam. That’s the first time that support for political Islam increased in any meaningful way since the Arab Spring. In the meantime, the support for democracy continues to increase in the region reaching over 70%. These trends may not continue, but if they do, Islamism could regain importance in Arab politics. This may not necessarily mean the rise of Islamism as a social movement akin to the 1980s but we need to think seriously about the implications of such changes in attitudes, especially among the youth that has no strong memory of the pre-2011 politics.
4. The Problem of Democracy: America, the Middle East, and the Rise and Fall of an Idea
Shadi Hamid (Columnist and member of the Editorial Board at The Washington Post.)
We can start by saying “We lost the debate”. The US foreign policy is not what our side asked it to be. When the 2011 Uprisings happened, we thought that Israel wasn’t central, we didn’t want to be distracted by it. And it’s true, for the most part, what was happening was not about Israel. We pushed back against the linkage theory which suggests that progress in the region is dependent upon where you stand on the Israel and Palestine issue. I think we cannot ignore the linkage theory anymore. If we look back at American foreign policy in the 1990s, we see that making peace for Israel and Palestine was the priority, not democracy. American diplomats clearly say that they didn’t want to complicate things by supporting democracy. This was a sort of exceptionalism applied to the Middle East.
Therefore, when we think of US policy in the region, we need to constantly remember that Israel is at the center of the US-led regional order. We cannot forget this when we push for democratization in the region. One thing to our advantage is that younger people in the US are more critical of the status quo regarding Israel and Israel may become de-prioritized in ten or twenty years but such a change will take time. That’s where we are today. Thus, we need to think of a new approach in which the US can still force democratically elected governments not to cancel peace with Israel. To achieve policy change, we can seek positions of power and influence over US policymaking. That’s what Neo-cons managed to do in the past and we can try a similar course.
Closing Remarks by Ebrahim Rasool
Former South African ambassador to the USA and former member of the African National Congress
Historically, defying and defeating colonial precepts has been our goal in the foundation of a democratic South Africa because we understood that our freedom comes from removing this surveillance that stems from the colonial heritage. Similarly, when we met with a Palestinian delegation before October 7, we understood normalization as an existential threat to Palestinian liberation. If we look back on the results of October 7, indeed, we are no longer speaking about normalization but it came at the cost of 40k lives. When considering the current situation in Gaza, in South Africa we understand that we are dealing with 3 massacres. First, a genocide, the killing of a genealogy including the killing of a future with thousands of murdered children and babies. Second, a patricide, the killing of a state. The original state of Palestine was subjected to patricide 75 years ago, today the two-state solution is the victim. And thirdly, we are witnessing a veracide, the killing of the truth.
It is those three massacres that South Africa set out to stop by taking Israel to the ICJ. This act carried the risk of the US Congress deciding to push South Africa out of the African Growth and Opportunities Act, which creates a revenue of 21 billion USD annually for our country. But the Palestinians gave South Africa a greater gift. At a moment in which our country is going through a crisis and it is most vulnerable to corruption, Palestinians gave Africa a sense of its true goal, and its purpose in the world. It is true that through our act, we didn’t yet win the ceasefire, we didn’t stop the killings nor the support for Israel. But, we changed the narrative to show that the conflict started 75 years ago with an occupation, that Israel is not a victim but the perpetrator of genocide, and that Palestinians aren’t sub-humans terrorizing others but a people. And I believe there is room for optimism in this moment of darkness. The U.S. has squandered its unique leadership of the world since 1989 by taking us from one adventure to another, from one war to the other. The USA confused unipolarity with unilateralism. That’s why at this moment, the world does not need a perfect Russia or China. It needs a counterbalance so that unilateralism can be pushed back. That, for me, is the greatest cause for optimism that we have, the fact that we are building a counterbalance.
