The Economic magazine excerpts from "A special report on the Arab World" were very interesting articles. I thought the most poignant arguments were about the sham democracy's in the Arab world. The first way a government stays in power is either through a single authoritative ruler, for example a king or president, or through a ruling family. This person or persons take into their confidence many informants, which seal their power by instilling paranoia within the population. The second way this government continues to control is through government bureaucracy. They have the ability to create an extremely large amount of jobs to employ their population. I found it extraordinary that Egypt has over seven million civil service jobs. In the article, How to Stay in Charge, it stated that the national army is not always the most fierce, sometimes it's a private militia that exerts the most power. One example is the militia run by Hizbullah in Lebanon. Even though the 2009 elections brought the pro-Western Saad Hariri to power, his army does not have to ability to enforce his policies, especially over the areas run by Hizbullah. Something interesting to me was that several regimes have this sham democracy. They have elections, parliaments, and constitutions. However the parliament is virtually powerless and can never vote against the wishes of the regime. This added to the manipulated elections makes certain that the same people stay in power, thus furthering a democracy in shambles. Why do these regimes want to give the people a sense of democracy, albeit a sham democracy? The change will have to come from within and do you see that happening in the near future? Will the secular and religious factions ever join together to topple the oppressing regime?
Kayla O
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I too thought this part of the article was really interesting and somewhat depressing at the same time. I think that the change has to come from within but this sham democracy setting could cause two scenarios. The first would be that the citizens would realize this and become outraged enough to fight it. The second would be that the citizens would be happy with the sham democracy for some time and see it as improvement (when in reality it is not) and this would just cause the outraged attitude of the citizens to be delayed.
ReplyDeleteI think either way, it is going to come down to a revolution or rebellion by the citizens in order for the sham democracy to be righted. I do not know if the people of these countries could overcome their differences, but I would hope for their sake that they could. I think that unless another way of creating jobs and making money is developed in these areas and when the oil market completely suffers (ie- alternative energies are discovered or we are out of oil), this will cause a huge recession that will affect many people of all cultures - which could end up being the uniting factor that they would need to join together and stage a movement for a truly democratic society.
It will be interesting to watch if the rulers of many of the heavy oil producing Arab nations will be able to stay in power when oil loses its demand. Without the huge oil income, they will not be able to support the wages of such a robust government workforce. This could leave their regimes vulnerable to revolution from the secular and religious parties.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the sham democracy is not in place to satisfy the citizens of Arab countries, but to make it look to the world like democracy. The people within a country are probably more likely to see through the disguise of government than outsiders because they live life there everyday. Shams don't last long though. They all get uncovered eventually. -Roman
ReplyDeleteI agree with Julia. The citizens are essentially the only ones with the power to make a change through the effectiveness of a grassroots movement - and a large one at that since it seems many of the citizens disagree with the government. The idea that invading a country to impose democracy seems to be a complete contradiction in and of itself in addition to the fact that it is hardly successful. The article was incredibly fascinating and a wonderful sum up of the current conditions of the Middle East.
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