I just finished reading the first book of The Cairo Trilogy, written by Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz. It is a fascinating tale of life in the early 20th century of a wealthy Egyptian family headed by a hypocritical and domineering patriarch who rules his family with an iron fist but is a playboy by night. In many ways it could be seen as a metaphor for the autocrats who dominate the Middle East.
At the end, the author recounts scenes that are eerily familiar to those that have blanketed the airwaves and newspapers for weeks: peaceful protesters taking a stand for democracy, only to be met by batons and bullets by the ruling elites. In this book the elites happen to be the British, who summarily murder hundreds of innocent Egyptians standing up for their freedom.
The passages that describe these massacres were a painful reminder that Western countries have often been oppressive overlords, all too willing to crack down on colonial subjects who dared to demand their liberty.
While the former European colonies have long since been granted independence, it is important to remember that these transitions were generally not peaceful, but instead were preceded by decades of sporadic violence. Even the West’s recent commitment to democracy has been inconsistent, especially regarding the Arab world and the Middle East. In exchange for stability, both to maintain the flow of oil and to stamp out potential Islamist movements, the West has coddled and supported brutal dictators for decades.
Pictures of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, and more recent pictures showing presidents of both parties hugging and kissing members of the Saudi Royal family, are reminders that the U.S. has long supported some of the most brutal and repressive regimes in the world. Today we demonize the Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi, but only a few years ago the Bush Administration normalized relations with Libya and removed it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. As recently as 18 months ago, GOP Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain warmly greeted Gadaffi to discuss U.S. relations and military training. The now-deposed Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was a close U.S. ally for over 40 years, receiving tens of billions in direct aid.
The contradictions in U.S. and Western policy towards the Middle East have always been apparent, but the tradeoffs were deemed sufficiently worthwhile to turn a blind eye. Behind the scenes, and sometimes publicly, we might chide the despots and push for reform; but the money kept flowing, and no serious adherence to human rights was ever enforced. Nowhere is this more obvious than with respect to Saudi Arabia, one of the most oppressive nations on earth. We made a “devil’s bargain,” and for decades have stuck with it.
But now everything is changing. The events of the past months in the Middle East may well turn out to be as significant as the fall of communism, and the reverberations will likely be felt for decades. These struggles have yet to be resolved and huge uncertainties loom. Many worry that Islamists will use the space provided by democracy to usher in religious extremism and hostility to the West and Israel. Only time will tell; I suspect that the forces of pluralism and human rights will win out over the Islamists, whose models in Iran and Afghanistan under the Taliban have demonstrated how anti-democratic and repressive they are.
Another welcome result of the incredible change in the Arab world could be an end to the West’s hypocrisy with respect to human rights and democracy, and the beginning of a new era of moral consistency. The U.S. in particular finally has an opportunity to come down firmly on the right side of history, and begin to unwind its duplicitous role as both leader of the free world and supporter of some of the world’s most autocratic regimes. This is truly something to work for, and celebrate if it occurs.
Jason Scorse