The Arab insurrection has come to sweep
authoritarian regimes which have fatigued t the people striving towards dignity
and decent life. It has unleashed the reformist potential of citizens but has
not offered yet helpful remedy, or means to establish mechanisms of civic engagement
in effective governance. Both in Egypt and Tunisia where protesters managed to
change the visible toppings of political structures and in Yemen, Syria and
Libya, where the existing regimes were radically challenged, we could not see
leading opposition figures which could compete charismatic dictators in the
government.
That might
be of no hurt to the destiny of those liberation movements, if not a lack of
effective citizenship institutions and consequently a demand for alternative leaderships.
Visible figures in Egyptian landscape are General Secretary of the League of
Arab states Amr Musa and Nobel price
winner Mr. Mohammad Al-Baradei, who unfortunately do not manifest a quality of
new leadership and are anchored in the past. No actual leaders emerged in Libya,
Yemen, and nothing is clearly known on Syrian protesting leadership.
No strong civic
institutions and organizations have been advanced and nor individuals have emerged
to undertake the responsibility of pressing reforms toward democracy and
transparent governance. In Egypt there is an army which acted as guarantor of
necessary constitutional challenges, but the former leaders of the country were
also ramifications of those institutions, and whether the same institution could
overhaul the system that served its own interests does not remain much to hope
about radical innovations.
Then where
is actual potential for reforming the Arab society? We may assume that new
leaders are expected to rise. However there is no sign of that to come soon.
Does the situation lead to Islamic institutions to occupy much demanded leadership
position? There is nothing implausible in
such assumption, unless the point of consequently demanded harmonization of relationships
with the West as well as human rights respect and limitations to outrageous pressure
on human dignity are guaranteed. That is why there is an increase of contacts
with Islamic groups on behalf of the Western governments. In the long run the
Arab insurrection has also been about Islamic transformation and upgrade of
Islamic groups to the acceptable degree of their engagement with the West and
final transformation into a political force with considerable capacity to
promote tolerance and security to all citizens regardless of their ethnicity
and confessions.
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