The Arabs have not yet known a democratic regime, according to the Greek philosophical definition of the concept or the modern Western equivalent. The Arabs will not establish democratic regimes right away either, although it must be mentioned that the Arabs have known, both in the ancient past and in their contemporary history, regimes that enjoy a high level of popular support, even with the absence of traditional democratic institutions. The democracy sought-after needs patience, and pressure in the street to make it happen right away means killing the chances of ever attaining it, whether in this Arab country or that. The Arab revolutions of rage started in Tunisia. However, Tunisia is distant and small. What matters at the level of the nation is the Egyptian youth revolution, because it is its success or failure that will chart the way forward for us all. This is of course without neglecting the importance of the confrontations in Syria, the beating heart of Arabism, and Yemen Al-Saeed [Happy Yemen] (when, where and how was it every happy?), and Bahrain, Oman, Morocco, etc. I have the following commentary to the brethren in all these countries: The youths of the revolution in Egypt have divided into factions and parties, and there is nothing wrong with that. Pluralism is part and parcel of democracy. However, this also means that the demands are now too many, and often contradict one another, making them impossible to be met. There are also those who rode the wave of the revolution, and now claim to be the ones who had instigated it, and they too have a basket of other demands. I would like to propose to the youths of the revolution, instead of assembling in Tahrir Square every Friday or on other days, to go back to work and stop protesting, and to monitor the performance of the Egyptian government over a maximum period of six months. If half of the task is done by then, the government should be left alone to continue what it is doing, and if by then it would have failed, then the youths can rise up against it once more. Egypt has been without democracy for the past thirty years, and from 1952, 1799 and the departure of Napoleon from Egypt, and ever since the time of pharaohs and the Hyksos. The youths can wait for another six months, having waited three thousand years, because the work of the government requires time before results can be reached, be they positive or negative. In Syria, meanwhile, there are bloody clashes between two losing parties, even if they deny this. I do not believe that the confrontation will be settled next week or next month, or even the one after, which means more losses for all of Syria. I call on the Syrian opposition to give the regime a six month respite to implement the required reforms. If this happens, then Syria would be on the path to recovery, and if not, the dissenters can resume protesting and challenging the regime. Everyone pretends to care for Syria […], while everyone will no longer care for Syria if these clashes continue […]. Syria, like Egypt, has not known democracy in thousands of years of its recorded history (except perhaps for three years in the fifties). So perhaps the advocates of democracy, freedom and dignity can wait for another six months. Then there is Yemen. I know a great deal about President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his regime, and a little about the opposition, or the oppositions to be precise. For this reason, I will refrain from passing foolhardy judgments. Instead, I say that the solution in Yemen must be by consensus, or through direct negotiations among the parties to the conflict with a specific timetable, say a period of six months. The incidents in Yemen have proved only one thing, which is that no party to the conflict can claim in earnest to represent the majority of the people. The solution in Yemen must have a slogan of “no winners, no losers”. It is possible to achieve if everyone has good faith. Otherwise, the terrorist group al-Qaeda will turn Yemen into another Afghanistan. I conclude today with Bahrain, the country where I worked one summer by coincidence in the press, then continued there until this very day. Bahrain is my country, just like Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and every other Arab country is. I am blind to religions, and I do not differentiate between a Muslim and another, and I am not interested in learning the difference. An opposition movement in Bahrain had emerged with demands that I have always maintained are legitimate. However, the opposition soon turned into an attempted coup d'état or a plot by a minority whose allegiance is to Iran. To date, I cannot understand how the Al-Wefaq group was dragged into this, with the ensuing events. The plotters then made the opposition lose the opportunity for reform, and ended up in prison. Then we read that the rational men returned to the national dialogue, only for our optimism to be cut short, when Al-Wefaq withdrew from the negotiations under the pretext that the agenda did not include their demands. But I wish Al-Wefaq had given the dialogue a six month period to give it the chance to either succeed or fail. Let's assume that the opposition's claims are true. The question is what is the solution? I believe that the only solution is negotiations, not boycott, and to demand that the issues of interest of the opposition be included in the agenda. More importantly, the opposition can achieve a part of its demands this way, which would allow them to demand more in every upcoming dialogue. Meanwhile, a boycott is futile and ruinous of a country that is small, but that nonetheless, as the popular saying states, that “Even a narrow house can accommodate a thousand friends…', can indeed accommodate a million citizens in harmony. [email protected]
