Political seasons
Across the sands of North Africa and Asia, dictators well past their ‘use-by’ dates were deserted by those who had once used them. In most places, the West cheered the newly awakened masses, lending voice and money. In Libya, they flew in the warplanes.
Regimes are like the weather: they can change in a day. But the concept of nationalism has the lasting, cyclical nature of ‘climate’ — and it doesn’t take very kindly to tinkering. The Arab Spring is behind us, as is most of the violent ‘summer’ that followed it. What we can reasonably expect now is the arrival of an Arab autumn — a time when all the ornaments of Arab nationalism will fall away like leaves, laying bare the branches that held it together. Not everybody will like what they see.
The constitutional crisis in Egypt isn’t what the urban revolutionaries of Tahrir Square expected from their uprising. It has come about because a majority of Egyptians voted for a party created by the Muslim Brotherhood — an organisation Hosni Mubarak did everything to crush — which the protesters didn’t think Egypt would actually elect.
President Mohamed Morsi’s public positions are moderate, but his leadership is built on a radical base. His campaign was launched by a prominent cleric, who held out the hope that President Morsi’s election would “liberate Gaza tomorrow” and that it would restore the “United States of the Arabs” with its capital not in Cairo, Mecca or Medina, but in Jerusalem.
President Morsi and his party won Egypt’s first democratic election fair and square. And the Arab Spring was also an awakening of the Muslim Brotherhood, banned for 84 years in Egypt. It is a little late to express discomfort over the Brotherhood’s motto — ‘Islam is the solution’ — or have apprehensions about the kind of constitution Egypt may get under the new president.
In Libya, the intervention was direct. Military action was short and sharp but has had consequences in a much larger swathe of land than intended. Muammar Gaddafi’s brutal murder by his own people, a democratic election and the fact that Libya hasn’t been splintered by the civil war might be seen as victories. But what about neighbouring Mali?
The Tuaregs, scattered across North Africa and in perpetual rebellion in Libya’s south have sympathy for al Qaeda and ambitions of nationhood. The weapons from the Libyan War provided them an opportunity to carve a country out of northern Mali.
Mali’s small army — disgruntled by the weakness shown by the democratically elected government in the capital Bamako — headed south and mounted a coup. Now, Mali is split between a junta and an Islamist regime. The West wouldn’t have wanted either outcome in Libya. They have got both in Mali.
Mali doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have oil. Though once, its rulers are said to have had so much gold that they would exchange gold dust for equal quantities of salt. Today, its wealth lies in things like the wonderful Saharan blues music that comes out of Bamako. But Mali also has a special place in Islamic history. Its other great city, Timbuktu, was, by some distance, the greatest seat of Islamic scholarship in Africa many springs ago.
One of the most repeated lines from Percy Shelley’s “Ode to The West Wind” is its final optimistic assertion: ‘if winter comes, can spring be far behind?’ But the first lines of the poem describe the West wind as the “breath of autumn’s being” that carries “pestilence-stricken multitudes” to their graves. Once Spring and summer are over, the less salubrious seasons kick in. The length of that period of strife is fixed in nature — not in the politics of nations. Hence, the Arab autumn promises to be a season of self-discovery among the Arabs.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 13th, 2012.
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The writer is right in wondering about the Arab autumn. Spring brings with it greenery and scent of flowers everywhere the winter on the other hand deprives the earth of that and brings on hardships. The fact that Morsi was elected by the majority does not hide the fact that behind him are radical Islamist who have the reputation of strong arm tactics. Look at Mali where in the North Islamists are destroying hundreds of years old mosques and other monuments that are world heritage sites because suddenly they do not fit into their thinking. In Pakistan only the other day Ahamadiyaa Mosques had its minarets destroyed and Koranic verses deleted from the walls of their mosques. The Pakistan Government has decided who has the right to practice Islam and who has not. Egyptian minorities have much to fear from Islamic brotherhood as is the case in all Muslim world. All eyes are on Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood has to show that it is really inclusive. So far Morsi has only mouthed good words but can he follow through is the question. For the sake of the world I hope he can and include copts and other minorities in his cabinet and give them important posts.
The entire article appears contrived to convey the author's poetic thoughts on the seasons in the context of regime changes in the last 18 months and is not founded on fact. 1. But the concept of nationalism has the lasting, cyclical nature of ‘climate’ — and it doesn’t take very kindly to tinkering. Arab nationalism (primary assumption in this metaphor) was not the reason for the 'Spring' revolutions - it was a contagion of civil discontent with despotic and corrupt regimes that coincidentally spread in nations that were ethnically Arab. Thus Mali or any other nation experiencing turbulence would not get classified under this heading. 2. President Morsi and his party won Egypt’s first democratic election fair and square. Morsi won the elections in Egypt by winning around 51% some 29 mn votes in a country with a population of 58 mn. This in no way indicates a majority, but clearly underscores the Brotherhood's organizational skills and its ability to weave a coherent narrative that appealed to people who were worried about the continued rule by the SCAF. Despite clearly being part of the old guard, Ahmed Shafik won 48% of the vote which shows that there is a strong feeling against the Brotherhood as well. 3. Military action was short and sharp but has had consequences in a much larger swathe of land than intended. This appears based on some privileged information that the masses have not had access to. Libya has a lower population than Tunisia despite its size.Once the West began supporting the Libyan revolutionaries, the objective was to protect them, and then to overthrow Gaddafi, which was a painfully long drawn-out process with no unexpected windfall as indicated.