When the United Nation Development Program’s Arab Human Development reports appeared a few years ago, the authors spoke with sanitized language. When analyzing political tyranny in the Middle East, they dubbed oppressive governance as “freedom deficit. This medical diagnosis of the “deficit in freedom treated tyranny as if it were a nutritional lack, a problem in degree, not a problem in kind. The implications were that if we added bit of freedom in this regime and a bit more in that regime, Arab society would be liberated. The assumption of the reports was that we just had to wait for the rulers to reform. I propose a four-category analysis of the current predicament of Arab societies. They are occupied four ways: rulers occupy freedoms, religious authorities occupy the mind, colonialists occupy territory, and local militias occupy the street. Let us examine political freedoms. Rulers personify the state. They act as if they own the nation. They are in constant search for legitimacy. They control national elections and guarantee the results ahead of voting. As for religious freedoms, religious establishments regulate social life and its legal framework. The cleric, the priest and the rabbi require strict application of the faith. Despite the openness of Middle Eastern faiths to reason in principle, in reality religious authorities emulate political rulers in restricting freedoms of adaptation and interpretation of the scriptures. Then, consider colonialism. This type of injustice exists in the forms of occupation of territories, annexation of land, external invasions for so called “democracy building and foreign military presence to protect external strategic interests. There are occupied territories in Palestine, on the Golan, and in Lebanon. There is Iraq under a brutal occupation in the cover of a misguided war on terror. In the Gulf countries a more covert style of colonialism is rampant. The security of the Gulf region is in the hands of external powers. Aspects of the economies of this oil-rich region are run by foreigners. Iran has a hold on Lebanon and a more nuanced one on Syria. The only region that is relatively free of colonialism is North Africa. But the region is not doing well in providing domestic freedoms. No wonder then that we have militias erupting like mushrooms to fill the void of the failing Arab state. Unauthorized armies become a state within a state. They undermine the authority of existing national regimes. Militias often use force indiscriminately. When these armed groups are focused on liberation of land they are known as resistance movements. When their target is civilians they qualify as terrorists. Labeling militias thus becomes a very subjective endeavor. These four layers of hegemony are there thanks to rulers, religious authorities, colonial powers and militias. These four types of domination rely on radical minorities while overwhelming the silent majority of Middle Eastern societies. The silent majorities are confused and are not free to speak out. But radical minorities, including unemployed youths, are seduced by quick-fix solutions of the militias. These four hegemonies are interactive; they operate in society like a vortex system. The silent majority is sandwiched between militia power in the street, the power of the regime in the capital, and foreign influence beginning on the borders. The socio-political situation in the Middle East goes from bad to worse because there is no clear analysis of the prevailing problems. Arabs deny what is going wrong domestically and the West denies what agony their policies are costing this less fortunate side of the globe. The situation of suffering in the Middle East may escalate to a point of a political meltdown. Street power may become too strong; militias across borders may wipe out national regimes in a domino sequence. A Pandora’s box would open up, when United States and Israel, panicking, would respond militarily. What is needed is a new American regional foreign policy to deal with comprehensive territorial injustices and a new economic empowerment program like the Marshall Plan. This requires an international effort for peace-making, with the involvement of responsible stakeholders from the region and the international community. The region also needs an industrial empowerment program that will start labor-intensive projects to engage the youth, build the middle class and encourage women in political reform and all walks of life. It also requires a massive educational exchange program that should replace military assistance and democracy-building initiatives. Middle East international universities should be funded generously. Scholars from all over the world could thus work to promote social change and regional cooperation. Finally, a new era of awakening in religious education should be developed locally and regionally. Revised standards for teaching religion to encourage respect for intellectual inquiry and respect for other religions are urgent. A new world order requires new political thinking. Ghassan Rubeiz is an Arab American commentator. His blog can be read at aldikkani.blogspot.com. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.
The four occupations smothering the Middle East
