Answer, just as Democratic as the Nazis were. A great article.
Al-Arbiya:
Can the Islamists truly be democratic?
(Lara Logan's terrified face, minutes before Islamists act as expected, the face of Arab spring, IMHO)
All of a sudden, many Arab and Western writers volunteered to testify
that the political Islam movements are democratic and deserve to get an
opportunity to rule. These suggestions cover some well-known parties
such as Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party, which is the official party
of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Ennahda Movement in Tunisia, and the
Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, as well as the al-Adala Party in Morocco.
Most of those writers have mainly stressed the argument that Islamist
groups have not been given the opportunity to work in politics and that
the Arab Spring is an occasion to test their popularity and commitment
to the democratic path. Of course, talking about giving them the right
to participate is acceptable – it is a right that is given to everybody,
not just the Islamists – but claiming that they are democratic, and
that they did not get their chance, is fallacious.
For example, in Sudan, the
Islamic Front, led by al-Turabi, participated in the elections in 1986;
the Islamists won 51 seats in the parliament, which means they ranked
third, after the national and the federal parties. Although they did not
distrust the elections, which were free and fair, they plotted and
organized a coup two years later, and then seized the power in
cooperation with General Omar al-Bashir, who is still ruling the country
after destroying its resources and waging wars in it.
Algeria has lived a different experience, one in which the military
regime that ruled from behind the curtain had to organize elections
after seven years of turmoil and protests, where Islamists and many
others were active. The military cancelled the elections in 1991 when
the possible victory of Islamists loomed in the horizon, but we must
note as well that the moderate leaders of the Islamic Salvation front,
such as Abassi Madani, were suffering from the extremist young leaders
such as Ali Belhajj, who had the dominant popularity in the movement and
was challenging openly in front of his followers, declaring a rejection
of democracy: “No democracy and no Constitution ... but just Allah said
and the Prophet said”. The extremists attacked cinemas and markets, so
the militants seized the opportunity and declared martial law.
The third experience was in Palestine, where the authority approved the
participation of Hamas in the elections in exchange for its commitment
to democracy and the respect of the agreement signed with Israel. It won
in 2006, with 76 seats out of 132, and was given the presidency of the
government, but Hamas seized all the public services and expelled the
Palestinian Authority from Gaza in a bloody battle.
Let us not forget the actions of Hezbollah, which is involved in the
democratic work through elections from one side and imposing commands by
the force of its arms from another side.
I am not against the involvement of Islamist parties in politics as long
as they are prepared to respect the rules democracy, which has not
happened, not even once, as I mentioned above. We have to realize that
the nature of “ideologicaled” parties and political Islamic groups,
intellectually and tactically, consider other parties as unacceptable,
no matter how much they talked about tolerance and adaptation to
democratic thinking.
I think that the Turkish experience is the best example to give for Arab
countries that really want to give an opportunity for all popular
parties to participate, especially the Islamist groups. The army can be
the guarantor, with the importance of protecting the freedoms and rights
that are always in dispute; the Islamists do not differ from the
patriotic, nationalists and Baathists regarding the foreign policies
issue, but they have an exclusionary stance against women and other
religions and sects’ followers, in addition to the right of expression
and personal freedoms, which do not agree with their belief.
Saying that the Islamist movements did not have their chance in
governance, and that they are democratic, is not true. I presented
examples of Islamist parties, such as the Islamic Front that ruled in
the Sudan and Hamas in Gaza. There is also in the region an Islamic
republic that is in absolute control in Iran, and Hezbollah is
represented in the government in Lebanon and many other … All of them
had good opportunities, through the elections such as Hamas, or by
taking over, such as Khomeini and the Islamic Front in Sudan. Thus, we
have actions that confirm that these “ideologicaled” movements pretended
to be democratic but when they got to the verge of power they showed
that they were just another dictatorial party that rejects the other and
wants absolute domination.
By what I have mentioned above, I do not mean that Islamist parties
should not be allowed to benefit from the Arab spring, though they
hampered it and did not originally take part in the revolutions. In
fact, I admit that there is not a real democracy in the region without
the Islamist parties, because they represent a force that cannot be
ignored and their involvement in the political process achieves two
important goals: the first is momentary, which is ensuring stability,
because the Islamist parties are capable of sabotage if excluded; the
second is a long-term goal, where, through the practice, they can evolve
their general political discourse and behavior and become decent
parties that truly believe in democracy, not opportunism.
The problem today is the confusion between the dictatorial reality of
Islamist parties and what they should be in the future, namely,
democratic. Since the toppling of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in
Egypt, many people have been promote a theory that it is the time of the
Islamists, who have been deprived of the opportunity to rule. And above
all this, they claim that the Islamists’ image has been marred by the
Arabs and the West to prevent them from entering political
participation. The Islamist party leaders hastened to embellish their
image for the Western countries, so they have issued statements alleging
that they would not prohibit wearing bikinis or prosecute wine drinkers
and would accept women in the general mandate and a Christian as
president.
Of course, these speeches are public relations acts, and could only be
believed by someone ignorant about the region or by the logic of the
religious parties. If the claim of freedom of faith is true, it
expresses the opinion of few leaders only, because the majority of
leaders and cadres of these groups consider cleansing the society as
their first duty, and it would not be long before they topple the
tolerant leaders.
Arab societies are going through a difficult development that may lead
to more dictatorships under the name of democracy, such as what happened
in Iran, which revolted against the individual dictatorship of the
shah, so that the dictatorship of the religious group took control.
Therefore, we cannot settle for reading the intentions and believing the
propaganda. If these societies, such as Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and
Morocco, truly want a democratic approach and want to give an
opportunity to all political forces, including the Islamist and
nationalist forces, then we should expect from them that they build a
state, with constitutions that protect individual rights, and armies
that believe that their duty is not to rule but to protect the
democratic institutions and practices.
We can see in Egypt, and from the first round of elections there, how
the society – military, politicians and rebels – has failed in the
application of fair competition rules. Although it was forbidden for
competing parties to use religion and mosques in electoral purposes,
they all have used it, so they gathered millions of voters through
thousands of mosques and media to stimulate people’s fear of liberals,
Copts and Christians. As a result, the Islamists got about 65 percentof
the votes! So where is the democracy?
(The writer is the General Manager of Al Arabiya. The article was
published in the London-based Asharq al-Awsat on Nov. 7, 2011 and was
translated from Arabic by Sarah Sfeir)
