The new Arab revolutions: conspiracy theory or a nation's will

By: Fadi al-Husseini

No sooner had the revolutions knocked at the door of the Arab region, and swept quickly through the gates and walls of their rulers' palaces — deposing some of them and shaking the thrones of others — than the analyses began pouring in from every side. You see one group seeing in them a tight Western plan to change the map of the Arab homeland, or what remains of it; another group seeing that they are an uprising of dignity and pride long awaited; and between this group and that, others who see in them rich scientific material for analysing the backgrounds and motives of this grave event, which reflected a leap in a region long described as inert and slow in its interaction with the world changes.

We aim in our article today to bring out the viewpoints that are common and much circulated these days — not only in the academic and political milieu, but among the masses of the Arab peoples, who have been seized by much anxiety and apprehension after tasting the taste of hope with the first spark that set out from green Tunisia — while presenting a simplified analysis that makes it easy for the reader to determine the features of this important event.

Many of those who saw in the Arab revolutions, or what has been given the name ‘the Arab Spring’, part of the conspiracy theory, tied their opinions to many Western statements and writings, such as the articles of writers like Bernard Lewis and Thierry Meyssan, which pictured the Arab region in a new image, resembling a new fabric and shape for the Arab region more like what happened in the Sykes-Picot agreement. At the official level, the Greater Middle East project launched by the American administration of President George W. Bush in March 2004 was another sign and proof of such an orientation.

The Greater Middle East project came in the frame of a comprehensive project seeking to encourage political, economic, and social reform in a region comprising all the Arab countries in addition to Turkey, Israel, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The American view of this project was built on two fundamental factors: the first of them the necessity of rearranging the region's conditions after the tightening of the single pole's control over the reins of affairs in the world; as for the second factor, it is repairing what the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had spoiled, which greatly harmed its image, its interests, and its aspirations. The weakness of trust in the American sponsor, and the absence of a clear vision for this project, led to its failure and to its being set aside like previous and subsequent regional projects (such as the Union for the Mediterranean, which met the same fate). This failure pushed the American planner to search for a new plan that would bear fruits its predecessor had not been able to achieve, so the search began into the project of moderate Islam (meaning moderate Islamic systems), whose compass begins with the Justice and Development Party, which succeeded and continued in Turkey since the year 2002, and continues with the promotion of the Turkish model and what resembles or simulates it of Islamic systems in the region.

Hence, the holders of this opinion see that the launch of the Arab revolutions was nothing but an announcement of the beginning of the new American plan of placing moderate Islamic systems, which had earlier presented their credentials to the head of the world pyramid, to be an acceptable sponsor of its interests and to be a new model different from the previous systems, which were characterised by the Western form — if the expression is correct. The holders of this opinion tie their argument to the relations that bound these Islamic groups to the United States of America before and after the revolutions, as well as the warm relations between them and the West, which embraced them at the time when they were struggling against the oppression of the previous systems.

The other opinion, to which I incline more, is that the Arab revolutions would not have arisen but for the escalation of the pace of frustration among the generation of Arab youth. This generation, which is the largest stratum of the components of the Arab peoples, inherited from its fathers stories and tales of a bygone glory, and of a nation that preceded many nations in civilisation, sciences, culture, and power alike. But these stories collided day after day with a frustrating reality filled with the feeling of their rulers' explicit subordination to the other powers, successive defeats, gloomy economic conditions, and difficult social circumstances, with the continuation of the state of oppression and the absence of democracy and freedom of expression. As for their rulers, they went to excess in their dominance and exaggerated in their confidence, so that the legislative elections became a laughing-stock and a stage for mockery, and the issue of the rulers' sons inheriting power (in the republican systems, theoretically) became comic material mingling with the bitterness and regret of reality. In return, the Arab youth saw development, success, and victory achieved by others, and economic and social conditions they wished for themselves. The social networks and the technological development in the science of communications contributed to the young generation's transmission of these concerns, and the internet world became the world in which they express what is hidden within themselves.

The moment of truth came, without the expectation of any expert, analyst, or politician, and the spark of the Arab revolutions set out from green Tunisia, which was known for its calm and the gentleness of its people's natures. And it was only days before the revolutions spread like a fever from country to country and from house to house, and the imaginary world on the internet turned into a true reality, bearing its fruit and changing a hateful reality — after their rulers had diminished the value of these social networks, which is not a strange matter, for most of the Arab rulers are of an old generation far from the ideas and concerns of the young generation.

What supports this opinion is a number of facts: the first of them the Western floundering and hesitation regarding these revolutions at the outset. The French foreign minister paid a price for the Tunisian revolution, as Michèle Alliot-Marie was forced to resign after she had expressed, days before the flight of former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, France's readiness to present its expertise to his system in the field of maintaining security in the first days of Tunisia's revolution. As for the American position, it was characterised by confusion with the launch of the first spark of the Jasmine revolution. The BBC's correspondent in Washington, Kim Ghattas, described the first reactions of the American State Department as ‘taken by shock’, adding that they did not have sufficient information about Tunisia in the recent period. Indeed, the American statements in the first days of the Tunisian revolution were confined to security guidance and advice for its citizens present in Tunisia.

We shall not fail in this context to note another fact, which is that despite the Western and American floundering regarding the Arab revolutions, with the passage of time these powers began regaining their balance and re-evaluated the position based on the new givens, in an attempt to make the results of these developments pour into their interest, and an attempt to win over the victor in these revolutions — especially as they possess power of all kinds. They are skilled in using soft power through the development projects and aid, and cultural, academic, scientific, and artistic cooperation and other kinds; as for hard power, they are the most distinguished in it, as they possess the greatest military power in the world and possess a stock of alliances in the world that also makes them use the economic weapon and the sanctions as an effective and influential weapon. Yet the United States of America prefers to use what the American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called smart power, especially regarding the Arab Middle East region — and it is a mixture of soft power and hard power.

The third group sees in the new Arab revolutions rich scientific material worthy of study, as a good stage for tying them to previous counterparts, and as an important platform for launching new theories in international politics. Some began tying these events to the realist school, in their explanation of the state of chaos, the alliances, and the use of force; others attached them to the neoliberal school to explain the role of the soft power of regional states, and the diplomatic role of the great states that influenced the course of events, as well as the state of connection between the Arab Spring states. Others tied them to the theory of revolutions to prove the soundness of this theory with its different components; and others attached the events to role theory to explain the roles of the regional and world states in these events. As for the new orientation, it is the invention of new counterparts to explain the Arab Spring: for example, some saw that it is the fourth wave of the world waves of democratic change (in reference to Huntington's theory), and others saw that it is the third episode of the Arab revolutions — as we set out in our previous article titled ‘A new spring: the Middle East between the history of revolutions and the future of the countries’.

The matter that admits of no doubt is that the revolutions shook the hearts of all the inhabitants of this region; and after they represented a glimmer of hope for all the Arab peoples, their continuation and the escalation of the pace of violence led to the loss of much of their trust in them, and doubt began creeping into their souls, and it began to occur to their minds that they are a new plot to destroy what remains of the Arab homeland. What has increased the severity of these doubts is the external scramble over the region after these changes, as all the states, regional and world, began trying to weave new relations with the modern systems in order to secure the lines of their interests, as they were in their former condition, or better if they could.

Yet casting doubt on the intentions and belonging of those who made the Arab revolutions aims, intentionally or unintentionally, at breathing the spirit of defeat anew into the souls of the Arabs, after they had awakened from a long coma during which the delusions of doubt raided the hiding places of their ambitions and the nightmares of frustration weakened the pillars of their resolve — so that it appears as though the Arab element, even if it rises up, will remain a plaything tossed about by the feet of the covetous.

But woe to wakefulness if it is not mingled with belonging, and to confidence and boldness if they are not fragrant with the perfume of patriotism and the spirit of giving — and that is the way to preserve a first step on the road of liberating a nation from the clutches of subordination and the burying alive of pride. For the sake of a future that simulates glorious days, conspiracies are crushed and systems are removed, a will is awakened and a resolve is roused, in a nation that will not be unable to give birth in a day to thousands of heroes: it is the nation of the Arabs, the nation of the martyrs, the nation of the prophets.

‘ A Palestinian writer and diplomat