Rami G. Khouri

Two things happened in Paris and Khartoum this week that portend bad times ahead for the Arab region and for relations between Arab and Muslim-majority countries on the one hand, and America Europe on the other. 

The more dramatic development was the massive solidarity march in Paris to uphold values such as freedom of the press and expression and condemn the two terror attacks in Paris by four radicalized, socially alienated French citizens who had joined militant Islamist networks. 

The second, and in the longer term the more significant development, was the announcement that Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir had submitted his candidacy for re-election to a five-year term in elections set for April 13.

These two developments capture two of the three main reasons that have seen many parts of the Arab region become sinkholes of political violence, extremism, sectarianism and state fragmentation or collapse – most frightfully captured in the ISIS reality and the threats it poses in the region and abroad. 

These two main reasons are the control of Arab state power structures by military establishments at the service of individuals or families; and the militarized interventions in the Middle East by Western powers (alongside parallel military or diplomatic interventions by countries such as Russia, China, Iran and Turkey). The third reason for chronic stress, waste, militarism and national incoherence is the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict, which only had faint echoes in Paris. 

If we were to identify a single foundational reason for the problems and instabilities of the Arab world, it must be the continuing legacy of mostly incompetent military officers who seize control of governments and remain presidents for life. This process hollows out the indigenous governance systems of countries, undermining competent personnel, and replaces them with systems that favor the mediocre friends and cousins of the great leader. It also redirects security systems to domestic control rather than protecting the nation; it promotes corruption that ultimately translates into socio-economic stagnation and massive disparities; and it creates conditions of conflict and dependence on foreign powers that ultimately gives an opportunities for those powers to intervene at will in the region, including by attacking and removing regimes that are identified as undesirable. 

This is why the single most important priority across the Middle East is to figure out how to make the transition from this kind of top-heavy autocratic power structure to more democratic and participatory governance systems that tap the creativity, commitment and energy of all citizens. 

Indirectly, the terrorism in Paris by radicalized young French Muslims includes causal factors that touch on Western actions in the Middle East (especially in Iraq) and the growth of cult-like criminal groups such as ISIS whose birth and growth were incubated in the repression and jails of Arab dictatorships.

So this week’s focus in Paris on fighting “Islamic terror and extremism,” or other enemies with similar names, with a combination of police actions and appeals to “moderate Muslims” to take more vigorous cultural-religious measures to reduce youth radicalism is likely only to intensify existing stresses and further alienate youths who are potential recruits to radical groups. This is because Western governments continue to work closely with Arab and other states whose autocratic policies contributed to the birth of the radicalism now being targeted by the West. This means the grassroots drivers of terrorism in the Middle East will remain unchanged. 

Also, the West has focused excessively on religion in this equation, rather than addressing the more significant socio-economic and political forces that transform slightly directionless young men and women into hardened killers. This is likely to aggravate the divide that plagues all concerned. This divide is also deepened by developments such as Omar Hassan Bashir’s announcement that he will perpetuate his presidency that started when he seized power in a military coup in 1989 – a quarter of a century ago. 

Sudan’s presidential election will be only the second since that time. It perpetuates the illusion of popular participation in choosing a government, which we see in societies across the region. The most farcical case was the recent re-election of Algerian President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika, who is so ill that he never appears in public and essentially fronts for the military’s control of power in the country, which has lasted since the 1960s.

So this has been a bad week in the continuing saga of an Arab world in search for decency, democracy and development, which remain elusive despite the proven thirst for these things across the region. The Arab autocracies cement themselves by satisfying the Western tendency to use militarism as the main way to fight terror. We have witnessed this again in the past week. Meanwhile, dictators such as Bashir ignore the West and single-handedly perpetuate their own incumbency at home by fighting and destroying any credible opposition.