Many long months have gone by since the eruption of Arab protests. And so far, the final outcome of these protests has not yet taken shape, even if protesters are reiterating general slogans about freedom, democracy, pluralism, transparency and national unity. Protest movements have so far not shown any weakening of their momentum, despite the numerous victims who have fallen. Meanwhile, the authorities have not been able to decisively settle the matter, despite thrusting all of their security machinery onto the streets. Thus, a long time will go by before a balance of power is reached that would impose a minimum of stability, which would represent the next phase of this conflict. And just as in Yemen, Libya and Syria, where the regime is leading the confrontation, so too in Tunisia and Egypt, where the regime has fallen, no new balance of power has taken shape that would be able to break the equation between those in power and the popular movements. No new mechanisms have emerged to organize this conflict and restore it to the political and peaceful level, as well as to ward off the danger of slipping into more violence, reaching the point of civil infighting. In fact, one could think that those in power find it in their interest to increase the security crisis, in which they find political pretexts to refuse to deal with popular demands, on the grounds that they threaten national unity. It also provides them with pretexts to strengthen their hold at the security level, on the grounds that they are confronting systematic acts of vandalism. The people alone effectively have an interest in finding such new political mechanisms. Yet, at the same time, they lack the tools necessary to impose such mechanisms. And therein resides the fundamental predicament being faced by these popular movements. It is well known that traditional political parties in Arab countries – official parties as well as opposition parties – are carbon copies of each other. And this is the result of a systematic government policy of voiding political activity of any serious alternative. Political opposition movement have thus been formed out of the scattered voices of those hunted down and oppressed, or out of rigid ideological stances, and there are no popular movements that wield effective influence and hold programs that reflect actual interests. It is also well known that political Islam has come to represent, for motives which the authorities have sponsored and made use of in their domestic or foreign political battles, the largest force within Arab opposition movements. Yet this political Islam, which is engaged in the protest movements, has shown the same failure to shape a credible alternative formula. It is in fact, as the political parties that express it under different names from Tunisia to Yemen have shown, stumbling in its efforts to occupy a political position. It had been easy for political parties that embrace political Islam, when they were in the opposition during the previous phase, to attract a wide audience. Indeed, the cost of such attraction was low, being based on criticizing the ethical conduct of those who were in power, and on promising that “Islam is the solution”. Yet those political parties – whether part of the new power structure in Tunisia and Egypt, and even until recently in Yemen; or of the protest movement in Syria – are today facing social and political complications, as well as young democratic forces, which “Islam is the solution” is no longer sufficient to deal with. Such parties have therefore become much more preoccupied with rearranging their internal affairs with the hope of emerging from their ideological predicament, instead of working with other protesting forces on shaping a peaceful alternative to confrontations in the streets. The authorities, whether new or old, seem unable to depart from their current course, which is leading to maintaining the crisis. And the protest movements seem unable to impose a course towards salvation. Thus, the confrontations may go on for a long time before a change occurs in the current balance of power.
