This has been dubbed the “second awakening” of the Arab world. The first, according to an Arab historian who wrote about it in 1916, was the result of the resentment against the hold of Europe’s colonial powers. The second awakening took almost everybody by surprise. Even those who participated in the revolt by massing on the streets in Tunis and Cairo were surprised by what they were able to achieve. In about a month, they succeeded in toppling two regimes that had been in power for decades. They were less successful in some other countries, particularly in Libya, where the resistance by the leader who had ruled for four decades plunged the country into a civil war. At the time of this writing it appears that Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi might prevail.
The revolution will take time to run its course. Questions are being raised whether its impact on the area will lead to an improvement in the lives of the people who live in the countries affected by it. The main reason for the massing of millions of people on the streets was a deep and growing sense of what academics have called “relative deprivation”. While a small segment of the population had gained enormously from the wealth created by the exploitation of the area’s natural resources, the majority had continued to struggle. A significant number of people lived in abject poverty. The Arab countries have very high income disparities, among the highest in the world. They also have very young populations. When the young lose confidence in the ability of the economic system to deliver what they need — not just what they want — there is bound to be a build-up in the levels of anxiety. It just needed a trigger to cause the explosion on the Arab streets. It was the self-immolation by a fruit vendor in Tunisia in December last year that brought the youth out on the streets.
There are also questions as to how this awakening will impact the world around the lands of the Arab. There is no doubt that the Arab revolution will have consequences far beyond the borders of the countries in which it is occurring. By setting into place a process that is likely to establish democracy as the governing norm in some — though not all — countries, it is showing that Islam is not incompatible with democracy. By laying the foundation of a new type of relationship between the Arab world and the West, it is proving that Samuel Huntington’s fear that the world was heading towards a clash of civilisations was probably wrong. By demonstrating the power of the street, it will provide courage to those not satisfied with the way they are governed to clamour for change.
South Asia too will be affected by the change in the Arab world. Two of its several countries have Muslim majorities; both are struggling to establish democratic political orders. In one of them — Pakistan — the majority of the population is confronting the growing influence of Islamic extremism. Within a couple of months, two prominent leaders in the country were gunned down, both by extremists who were committing these crimes in the name of Islam. What is troubling is not only the use of bullets by the extremists to silent those working for the establishment of a more accommodating political and legal order. What is even more worrying is that a deep fear of the extremists virtually silenced the majority.
That the transition to a secular democratic order would not be easy was demonstrated by the eruption of Muslim-Christian conflict on the streets of Cairo. The opening of a religious rift and the intensity of the clash surprised most observers. As many as 13 people were killed, most of them Christians, who were protesting the burning of one of their churches in a town near Cairo. Although clashes between Muslims and Christians are not new in Egypt, they often take place far from the country’s capital. Violence near the heart of Cairo is bound to concern Christians as weeks of tumult in Egypt have left them particularly vulnerable in a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim. Pakistan is also a muslim-dominated country and the two assassinations that convulsed the country were also the consequence of the growing antipathy on the part of many extremists towards the small Christian minority in the country. The Muslim majority in Pakistan will watch and draw lessons from the way the evolving political order handles sectarian violence in Egypt.
The attention of the street in mainland South Asia is also turning towards the quality of governance. There is growing concern about the way people view the way they are governed. In Pakistan, the media has been extraordinarily concerned with the rise of corruption in high places. In India, thousands of people have come out on the street to demand that the government should provide better governance and punish those involved in cases of corruption such as those related to the preparation of the sites for the 2010 Commonwealth Games and the award of G2 telecom licenses.
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There is bound to be another impact of the awakening of Arab street on the economic and political systems of the developing world and also on the relations of some parts of this world with the US. The street has emerged as another check on the exercise of executive authority. The lawyers’ movement in Pakistan that sent General Pervez Musharraf packing was one manifestation of the power of the street to bring about political change. We will see more exercise of this power as the Arab street succeeds in bringing about change in some of the countries in that area. The Raymond Davis case in Pakistan, when a CIA operative was jailed for ‘allegedly’ killing two young men on a street in Lahore has complicated Pakistan’s relations with the US.
The demonstrated power of the street had reduced the room for maneuver for the Zardari government in Pakistan. Even Washington recognised that Islamabad could not do what it demanded — the unconditional release of Davis — without agitating the Pakistani street. Davis was released after the Americans paid large sums of money to the relatives of the deceased and also granting them visas for the US so that they could escape the wrath of the Islamists who did not want such a settlement. It was the fear of the street that produced that outcome.
The writer is former finance minister of Pakistan.