Arab

Some Arab 'friends' need a lesson in democracy | theage.com.au

* Irfan Yusuf
* January 26, 2009
* Page 1 of 3 | Single Page View

An Islamic heritage does not preclude having an elected government.

IN MAY 2008, prominent conservative Edward Luttwak wrote in The New York Times that Barack Obama was an apostate in Muslim eyes, deserving of death under sharia law.

I saw no evidence of this as I flicked between three Pakistani cable news channels on Obama's inauguration day. Instead, Pakistani TV hosts spoke with pride of the 44th US president whose name and heritage would otherwise subject him to the same security checks Pakistanis endure when visiting the US. Obama's election will leave a particularly deep impact in Arab League states, where changes in leadership happen either via military coups, royal succession or, in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, foreign intervention.

The absurd reality of Arab politics was reflected in the recent arrest in Kuwait of 43-year-old Sydney woman Nasrah Alshamery, who faces a possible five-year jail sentence for allegedly insulting Kuwaiti monarch Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah.

During an argument with Kuwait airport guards, Ms Alshamery mentioned George Bush saving Kuwait in the first Gulf War of 1991, at the time allegedly motivated by protecting tiny Kuwait from mighty Iraq. Saddam Hussein, for years an ally of the West, which bankrolled his war against Iran, had morphed into "that evil dictator". After liberation, Kuwait almost overnight expelled most of its 450,000 Palestinian residents — a telling example of how minorities are so often treated by "moderate" Arab regimes.

Governments of Arab League states are, with few exceptions, characterised by brutal dictatorship, near-complete absence of the rule of law, widespread corruption and little respect for human rights. To divert attention from their own failures, Arab governments frequently use anti-Semitism or religious wedge issues. The hysterical response to the 2006 Danish cartoons in some Arab states was a classic example of this diversion tactic. No doubt Obama's words ("To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy") were designed to embolden nascent democratic forces, and will have sent shivers down the spines of many an Arab autocrat.