A spring and a limp in Arab step

It seems a long time since a vegetable seller in an obscure town in Tunisia performed an act of self-immolation as a protest against a tyrannical regime leading to the dethronement of his country’s long-time ruler Zine Abidine Ben Ali. The Jasmine Revolution, as it came to be called, lit the spark that fired Egyptians to their own revolution

to topple a three-decade-long ruler, President Hosni Mubarak.
The Arab Spring, as the world called it, met a roadblock in Muammar el-Gaddafi’s Libya which has, for the present, led to a military stalemate between the regime and the rebel forces, poorly armed but beneficiaries of UN-authorised North Atlantic Treaty Organistaion (Nato) bombing runs. The fire shows no sign of abating, having singed to varying degrees Algeria, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria. Even the hermetically sealed kingdom of Saudi Arabia felt some tremors in its largely Shia-populated eastern region with the strange sight of conservatively dressed women undertaking a candlelight procession to seek the release of their detained relatives. A mixture of force and some sops by rulers precariously hanging on to power has failed to douse the flames.
A combination of factors led to the unique spectacle we are witnessing in north Africa and West Asia. A frustrated young population, worldly wise in the ways of the technological revolution, was aware of life and liberty in many parts of the world. And as winds of the Arab Spring swept one country, they were chronicled by the new herald of pan-Arabism, the Al Jazeera television channel, keeping the Arab populace fully informed.
Other than kingdoms with hereditary rulers, the typical format in the Arab world has been an Army-supported autocracy with varying degrees of “un-freedom”. Often the autocrat did not trust the Army and formed special armed forces superiorly equipped and commanded by his sons or kin. Such arrangements lasted for some three decades, often propped up by the continuing occupation of Palestinian land by Israel, supported by the United States. Such a scheme of things could not last for ever, yet, like with the fall of the Soviet Union, no one quite anticipated that it would start in December 2010 and spread so quickly far and wide.
The triumphs of the Arab Spring are only the beginning of a long and tortuous road ahead. Future events will be determined as much by the characteristics of each country and the staying power of rulers as by the attitudes of the United States and other major Western powers and, to an extent, the regional heavyweights such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. A dramatic example was the muted American response to the Bahrain unrest because the base of the US Fifth Fleet is in the tiny kingdom and the action of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in sending troops and policemen to save the besieged Sunni king, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, ruling an overwhelmingly Shia country.
In Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh has been fighting vigorously to save his presidency by rallying tribes sympathetic to him after initially invoking his help to the US in its anti-terrorism campaign. Yet, after some hesitation, America came to the conclusion that his time was up, as did the Gulf Cooperation Council (United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait). Initially, Syria seemed an unlikely candidate, but could not escape the contagion of freedom which seems to be spreading because of the harshness of the security forces trained to use utmost force, allegedly including torture, largely nullifying recent concessions such as citizenship for the Kurdish minority and a largely cosmetic new Cabinet. Belatedly realising his predicament, President Bashar Assad has now promised to lift the 48-year-old emergency.
Of immediate interest is the situation in Libya, with the proclaimed intention of the US, France and Britain to get rid of Col. Gaddafi, America desperately trying to underplay its own role, preoccupied as it is with two other wars. There is division in Nato ranks, with some eager to see more intensive bombing and even arming the rebels, who are poorly equipped and trained, compared with regime forces. Regime change, of course, is outside the mandate of the UN Security Council resolution seeking protection of innocent civilians. The outcome and the length of the Nato bombing runs are therefore unclear.
Iran is closely watching the situation, encouraging, if not arming, the Shia rebels. But the Iranian dilemma is that it has suppressed its own spring and although it is not the only country using double standards in supporting or opposing particular regimes, Tehran’s moral authority is compromised.
Whatever the outcome in Libya and elsewhere, the region cannot revert to the pre-Tunisian age. Egypt is the heart of the Arab world and although it had lost its traditional status in recent decades, hobbled by the $1.5 billion annual US aid that it gets and becoming the co-jailor of Palestinians together with Israel, its new democratic urgings are causing great waves.
Egypt has its own domestic compulsions even as its newly-empowered civil society is to establish a new relationship with the Army and the people go through the hoops of a new set of elections for a Legislative Assembly and the presidency. Recently, the democratic forces — for want of a better definition — won a round by demanding the arrest and trial of former President Mubarak and his two sons.
It will not be easy to tame a privileged and elite Army, used to economic benefits all military rulers accumulate, in a new, more democratic setting.
Despite the hurdles that lie ahead, this is a moment to relish for the people of West Asia and north Africa. The Arab Spring brings hope and the prospect of the young living a better, freer life in the future. But the so-called bad guys will not disappear in a hurry, nor will the power play and projections of major outside countries diminish. The region has much of the world’s oil and the US and the West will continue to protect Israel to the detriment of the Palestinians and the Arab world.