I couldn’t grasp the reason why people were so distressed about the military coup which overthrew the democratically-elected president of Mauritania.
In the third world, the role of the military is, in fact, none other than to lead coups, and not necessarily to achieve victories over the enemy at times of war. Indeed military defeats are their main characteristic and defending their country is not one of their strong points.
Although many of these countries are under threat of invasion, the only mission in which third world military men have excelled are coups, spanning the gamut from Pakistan, to Afghanistan, to Syria, Iraq, Libya, Tunis and Algeria.
Obviously some of these military leaders perform their tasks more efficiently than others, maintaining a regular rate of one coup every few months the way it was in Syria in the 1940s and 50s, while others are lazier, leading one coup every few years, as is the case of Mauritania itself, which has witnessed a mere 14 coups over the past 30 years which succeeded in overthrowing “So and so, the son of So and So and propping up a different “so and so who is always a soldier and son of a soldier who hasn’t been marred by popular election.
Hence our great Arab militaries continue to prove to us that they have never fallen short of their sacred and noble mission of leading coups if not every few months, then at least every four years. What’s important here is not so much the rate of staging a coup, but the military leaders’ readiness to when necessity dictates, or whenever a president is elected, whichever comes up first.
In other Western countries which call themselves democracies, the military has been so sidelined from political life that they find no justification for their existence. They are no longer engaged in conventional warfare which ended with the end of World War II over half a century ago. There is also no need for them to protect the borders which are now stable and free of conflicts over the Western Sahara in Morocco, or over Gulfs in the Arab peninsula or over the borders separating north and south Sudan.
No wonder some of these democracies send their militaries to some of our countries to get back into shape and relive their past glory whether in Iraq, Sudan or Afghanistan in order to rebuild their confidence. But our militaries, by contrast, remain fresh and solid, performing their duties with great loyalty.
Perhaps their only problem is having a hint of over-confidence.
General Mohamed Wuld Abdel Aziz,the head of the ruling military council who led the latest coup in Mauritania, recently commented on suggestions to amend the Mauritanian constitution giving the military a role to play in governance, by saying that he saw no need to alter the constitution because the role of the military is well-known and is extremely important.
Sadly there are still some dreamers among us in the Arab world who still long for democracy as if they were living in Switzerland where the only soldiers are the ones controlling the traffic or in Japan, whose constitution forbids the existence of a strong military. They even regard military coups as events that go beyond what is considered ordinary, just like speaker of the Mauritanian parliament Masoud Wuld Bulkheir who openly condemned the coup and declared that he supports the ousted president calling for his reinstatement.
But the parliament itself was more informed than its leader with 67 out of 95 members declaring their refusal of Bulkheir’s statements while emphasizing that they do not represent the parliament’s opinion.
At a recent press conference held in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakshot, the vast majority of the national council condemned the position of the parliament speaker, saying that he was talking about something strange called democracy. “We’re in the Arab world, they told him, “who needs democracy?
Mohamed Salmawy is President of the Arab Writers’ Union and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Ahram Hebdo.
