The Long War for Freedom

Barry Rubin

Description

Praise for The Long War for Freedom

"An extremely important book. The Long War for Freedom finally presents to the Western world an in-depth portrait of those 'small voices' in the Arab world waging the most critical battle of the twenty-first century--the battle for the soul of the Middle East. No one with any interest in the struggle for economic and political reform in the Arab world can afford to neglect this penetrating and provocative work, which lays bare both the importance and the great difficulty of helping the Arab world to transform itself."
--Kenneth Pollack, author of The Threatening Storm and The Persian Puzzle
Introduction.

1. Heartbreak and Hope.

2. “Better Saddam’s Hell Than America’s Paradise”.

3. The Courage of Their Convictions.

4. What’s Wrong with Arab Society?

5. Whose Islam?

6. America: Satan or Savior?

7. Israel: The Great Excuse.

8. The Challenge of Terrorism.

9. The Iraq War: Aggression or Liberation?

10. Women’s Rights: A Test Case for Reform

11. A Thousand and One Difficulties.

Notes.

Index.

Sujets

• Middle Est
• Histoire
• Barry Rubin
• Arab world
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 02 mai 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780470353899
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Long War for Freedom

The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East
Barry Rubin

John Wiley Sons, Inc.
Copyright 2006 by Barry Rubin. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Rubin, Barry M.
The long war for freedom: the Arab struggle for democracy in the Middle East / Barry Rubin. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13 978-0-471-73901-2 (cloth)
ISBN-10 0-471-73901-4 (cloth)
1. Democracy-Middle East. 2. Democratization-Middle East. 3. Middle East-Foreign relations-United States. 4. United States-Foreign relations-Middle East. I. Title.
JQ1758.A91R83 2006
320.956-dc22
2005020231
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Judy, Gabriella, and Daniel
There is nothing worse than allowing what is attainable to slip from our grasp while we strive for the unattainable!
-Tarek Heggy, Let s Assume It s a Conspiracy! Al-Ahram , January 26, 2002
Hatred prevents us from knowing reality as it is.
-Ali Salem, quoted in Cairo Times , September 4, 1997
CONTENTS
Introduction
1 Heartbreak and Hope
2 Better Saddam s Hell Than America s Paradise
3 The Courage of Their Convictions
4 What s Wrong with Arab Society?
5 Whose Islam?
6 America: Satan or Savior?
7 Israel: The Great Excuse
8 The Challenge of Terrorism
9 The Iraq War: Aggression or Liberation?
10 Women s Rights: A Test Case for Reform
11 A Thousand and One Difficulties
Notes
Index
INTRODUCTION
The most dramatic event at the January 1992 Cairo Book Fair was a debate between Muhammad al-Ghazali, a Muslim cleric who was also a leader of the radical Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood, and Farag Fouda, an outspoken liberal. The discussion was over what Egypt s future course should be: a more secular democracy or an Islamist state. The audience was packed with Ghazali s supporters, whose chanting prevented Fouda from speaking. But Fouda outwitted his opponents. If you really think I m right, he shouted, keep heckling me because you can t defeat my arguments! But if you have faith in your own views, be quiet and listen since you have nothing to fear from my contradicting them. Fouda s gambit worked. The audience fell silent and the debate continued.
Only five months later, though, the Islamists won the debate by other means. A radical Islamist fish seller shot Fouda dead with an AK-47. Under interrogation, the killer confessed that a declaration by a group of scholars from al-Azhar, the state-sponsored Islamic university, calling Fouda a heretic, convinced him that murdering Fouda was a religious duty. One of the defense witnesses was Ghazali, who testified that killing was the proper punishment for an apostate like Fouda. After being sentenced to execution, the defendant shouted, Now I will die with a clear conscience!
By such means as slander, harassment, threats, and violence has liberal reform long been kept at bay in the Arab world. Yet the battle is not merely between small numbers of liberals and large numbers of radical Islamists. The true winner has always been the rulers, the dictatorships of various kinds that have continuously ruled virtually every Arab country. It was the regime that simultaneously sponsored those who ordered Fouda s killing and then executed his murderer. The Islamists hoped to seize power, but control remained in the hands of the Arab nationalist regimes.
The regimes held off the challenges of radical Islamists and liberals alike. In so doing, they ensured that relative stability prevailed, but so did near-absolute stagnation. The Arab world fell further behind almost every other region on the globe. Despite oil wealth, in virtually every aspect of social well-being, economic success, and political democracy, the Arab lands did very badly indeed. Given the existing situation, there was no reason to believe that things were going to get any better.
Without the open debate and thoroughgoing reform that the liberals demand, the Arab world is not going to solve its problems. Under the sway of the demagoguery that controls the defining of their difficulties-blaming them on the West and on Israel-and solutions-militant nationalism or radical Islamism-these countries remain virtually the only part of the globe incapable of articulating their real shortcomings and priorities. Only the liberals are offering workable solutions that can eventually free the Arab world from its malaise and allow it to join the rest of the planet in moving forward.
This is not merely a local, or even a regional, problem. Locked into dictatorial ideologies, methods of debate, and patterns of political behavior, the Arab world has generally rejected peace with Israel, a real encounter with the West, and the kinds of change needed for successful modernization. The rise of international Islamist terrorism-embodied most vividly in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States-has made the internal problems of the Arab countries a matter of immediate global concern.
Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that the future of the world in this era rests in large part on what happens in this three-way battle between Arab nationalist regimes, Islamist revolutionaries, and liberal reformers. Yet while becoming so engaged on this issue, the West-and indeed most Arabs themselves-knows relatively little about the liberal forces in the Arab world and their ideas, their arguments, their strategies, and their prospects.
One problematic aspect of the situation lies in the relative weakness of the Arab liberals. Many in the West assume it is inevitable that the masses support the liberals agenda and that it will ultimately triumph. This may prove true, but the appeal of Arab nationalist and Islamist ideologies as well as their powerful institutions should not be underestimated. It is likely that the Arab people want to choose their leaders, but those they would choose might well be antidemocratic and extremist ones. This is true even of women, who suffer much discrimination in the Arab world. In Kuwait, arguably the country where liberal ideas have most taken root, it is estimated that the majority of women, if granted the vote, would cast their ballots for Islamist parties that do not want to give it to them.
Regarding terrorism, a similar pattern emerges. The vast majority of Arabs oppose terrorist attacks in their own countries, yet the liberals, who argue that all terrorism is bad, are in the minority. Most Arab writers make a distinction between good terrorism, against Israel or the United States, and the bad terrorism at home. The same basic type of dichotomy applies to other issues as well.
Whatever help may be offered by the outside world, only the Arab reformers can win this battle and transform their own countries. They still stand a distant third in their competition with Islamists and nationalist regimes. Only the strength of their arguments, the cogency of their strategies, and the ingenuity of their methods can bring them ultimate victory, a process that will probably take an entire historical era.
This battle is both the most fascinating and most important struggle of ideas in our time. Even for those in the West, it can help clarify many burning questions in the lives of their own people: the best way to structure a democracy; the proper role of religion and the media in public life; the definition of human rights and civil liberties; the task of civil institutions in governance; the nature of modernity; and how different societies can preserve their own cultural traditions while participating in an increasingly global society.

This book s purpose is to examine the ideas and strategies of Arab reformers. The movement has become critically important in the early twenty-first century as a force for shaping the future of the Arab world, the Middle East as a whole, and even the entire planet.
No definition of liberal Arabs is perfect. This book defines them as people who support one or more of the following concepts: multiparty parliamentary democracy, human rights, women s rights,