"The PEOPLE Want the Fall of the Regime"
My travels through the Middle East and the Muslim world over the next few weeks will mean a drop in posts for about the next month or so, but when the fall starts, the torrent will resume.
Last Friday was a rather active one on the naming front in the various regimes of the Arab world where the inspiring Arab spring has melted into hot summer. Just as I was scanning a Beirut newspaper stand Saturday, I found in Syria the "Friday of the descendants of Khaled", in Jordan it was the "Friday of Dignity and the Free Press", in Yemen the "Friday to Refuse Collective Punishment", and in Egypt the "Friday of Resolution". We've had Jerusalem Day (last Friday of Ramadan) since the Iranian Revolution, and during the heady days of the Spring we had the Friday of Wrath and the Friday of Departure in Egypt, but when the names start to proliferate like this, doom on the Friday nomenclature is near. It's hard to even remember whose Friday is what at this point.
But if that phraseology is different, there is other strong similarity. Uniting these various tumults is the common refrain heard everywhere from Yemen to Egypt, Syria to Bahrain--the people want the fall of the regime. This one is nearly universal. We've heard it countless times, but we haven't internalized it. It's worth thinking carefully and more seriously about what it means.
The significance of the phrasing shouldn't be discounted, as the implication respecting popular sovereignty is absolutely clear. The reason the regime must fall, the reason it lacks legitimacy, the basis for its moral right to rule is not God, or the shari'a, or Islam, but the people. The notion is a profoundly secular one, that if a regime crosses its people, to quote Jefferson (or really the Declaration of Independence, "it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."
Secular means here, to be clear, the notion that a government is established not necessarily on the basis of what a religion might require but something else. I certainly make no assertion of any kind respecting the personal piety of the demonstrator, which varies I am sure from the deeply devout to the casual believer to those almost contemptuous of religion. Far be it from me to say anything about the relationship of a person to their Creator. Nor am I even suggesting that the state that emerges will be one that establishes some sort of eternal barrier as between church and state--it could well be that the people want not only the fall of the regime, but some role for the shari'a in the state. But I do mean that the touchstone of the state's legitimacy is not, at all, whether or not it is deviating from the Will of God, but rather from the will of the people. This is a far contrast from the call from Hassan Banna of the Brotherhood, who described the king as a modern day pharaoh, Sayyid Qutb, who described Arab regimes as akin to the rulers in the pre Islamic Days of Ignorance, or Ayatollah Khomeini, who only agreed to a referendum on an Islamic state as "confirmation" of the revolution's aims rather than validation of Islam's legitimacy to be the basis of state organization. The people never got another referendum on the matter. The idea using these metaphors (Days of Ignorance, Enemies of Islam, Pharaoh as to Moses) was that what made the regime illegitimate was its lack of Islamicity--the people were merely the instrument, not the end.
Not so anymore. I'm sorry, but I cannot begin to understand the continuing fixation with the notion that in the Muslim world, we have to start with shari'a, because if we don't, then the people won't accept it, when you have a bunch of demonstrators getting shot while chanting "the people want the fall of the regime." They aren't complaining that you have violated shari'a, they've told you they don't want you, and if they don't want you, then that's what makes you have to leave. How can anyone take seriously the argument that there aren't deep, important, nationalistic and secular political ideas that have taken strong hold in the body politic in light of this?
What my colleague and friend Lama Abu Odeh would call the (mis)recognition is amply demonstrated by the continuing concern that all of these Arab states have large numbers of young unemployed youth with higher levels of education, that this is a catalyst for terrorism and that without the existing authoritarian regimes in place, it could well be that these youth will finally "explode" and join terrorist units en masse because Islam is where the legitimacy is, and violent extremist versions of Islam are where the rage is, so that's the logical home.
Yeah, except for one problem.These angry young people DID explode, they ARE exploding, they went out into the streets and got themselves shot trying to overthrow the regimes that repressed them. Who in the world is on the streets more than unemployed, educated youth? Their anger led them to call for a popular democracy, not terrorism. The fixation of these angry people wasn't to find the solution in Islam, it was to find it in democratic rule, validated by the will of the people. Again, I don't mean they aren't believers, no doubt many are, it's that what they wanted in the revolution was a fall of a regime demanded by the people.
Isn't it ironic, the force, and the rage, that we thought would lead to suicide bombers led to irresistible and inspiring demands for democratic rule? And, to add to the irony, in one of the West's most advanced democracies, a frustrated, angry young man found no hope in democracy, or in the will of the people, which he felt betrayed the nation, and turned his rage into terroristic violence?
Do we need to give up on the Arab youth quite yet? Might they still believe democracy will work out for them? Should we be more concerned about the disaffected on the right, here and in Europe, who live in democracies and are finding that's not quite working out for them as they hoped? Just wondering.
HAH
Last Friday was a rather active one on the naming front in the various regimes of the Arab world where the inspiring Arab spring has melted into hot summer. Just as I was scanning a Beirut newspaper stand Saturday, I found in Syria the "Friday of the descendants of Khaled", in Jordan it was the "Friday of Dignity and the Free Press", in Yemen the "Friday to Refuse Collective Punishment", and in Egypt the "Friday of Resolution". We've had Jerusalem Day (last Friday of Ramadan) since the Iranian Revolution, and during the heady days of the Spring we had the Friday of Wrath and the Friday of Departure in Egypt, but when the names start to proliferate like this, doom on the Friday nomenclature is near. It's hard to even remember whose Friday is what at this point.
But if that phraseology is different, there is other strong similarity. Uniting these various tumults is the common refrain heard everywhere from Yemen to Egypt, Syria to Bahrain--the people want the fall of the regime. This one is nearly universal. We've heard it countless times, but we haven't internalized it. It's worth thinking carefully and more seriously about what it means.
The significance of the phrasing shouldn't be discounted, as the implication respecting popular sovereignty is absolutely clear. The reason the regime must fall, the reason it lacks legitimacy, the basis for its moral right to rule is not God, or the shari'a, or Islam, but the people. The notion is a profoundly secular one, that if a regime crosses its people, to quote Jefferson (or really the Declaration of Independence, "it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."
Secular means here, to be clear, the notion that a government is established not necessarily on the basis of what a religion might require but something else. I certainly make no assertion of any kind respecting the personal piety of the demonstrator, which varies I am sure from the deeply devout to the casual believer to those almost contemptuous of religion. Far be it from me to say anything about the relationship of a person to their Creator. Nor am I even suggesting that the state that emerges will be one that establishes some sort of eternal barrier as between church and state--it could well be that the people want not only the fall of the regime, but some role for the shari'a in the state. But I do mean that the touchstone of the state's legitimacy is not, at all, whether or not it is deviating from the Will of God, but rather from the will of the people. This is a far contrast from the call from Hassan Banna of the Brotherhood, who described the king as a modern day pharaoh, Sayyid Qutb, who described Arab regimes as akin to the rulers in the pre Islamic Days of Ignorance, or Ayatollah Khomeini, who only agreed to a referendum on an Islamic state as "confirmation" of the revolution's aims rather than validation of Islam's legitimacy to be the basis of state organization. The people never got another referendum on the matter. The idea using these metaphors (Days of Ignorance, Enemies of Islam, Pharaoh as to Moses) was that what made the regime illegitimate was its lack of Islamicity--the people were merely the instrument, not the end.
Not so anymore. I'm sorry, but I cannot begin to understand the continuing fixation with the notion that in the Muslim world, we have to start with shari'a, because if we don't, then the people won't accept it, when you have a bunch of demonstrators getting shot while chanting "the people want the fall of the regime." They aren't complaining that you have violated shari'a, they've told you they don't want you, and if they don't want you, then that's what makes you have to leave. How can anyone take seriously the argument that there aren't deep, important, nationalistic and secular political ideas that have taken strong hold in the body politic in light of this?
What my colleague and friend Lama Abu Odeh would call the (mis)recognition is amply demonstrated by the continuing concern that all of these Arab states have large numbers of young unemployed youth with higher levels of education, that this is a catalyst for terrorism and that without the existing authoritarian regimes in place, it could well be that these youth will finally "explode" and join terrorist units en masse because Islam is where the legitimacy is, and violent extremist versions of Islam are where the rage is, so that's the logical home.
Yeah, except for one problem.These angry young people DID explode, they ARE exploding, they went out into the streets and got themselves shot trying to overthrow the regimes that repressed them. Who in the world is on the streets more than unemployed, educated youth? Their anger led them to call for a popular democracy, not terrorism. The fixation of these angry people wasn't to find the solution in Islam, it was to find it in democratic rule, validated by the will of the people. Again, I don't mean they aren't believers, no doubt many are, it's that what they wanted in the revolution was a fall of a regime demanded by the people.
Isn't it ironic, the force, and the rage, that we thought would lead to suicide bombers led to irresistible and inspiring demands for democratic rule? And, to add to the irony, in one of the West's most advanced democracies, a frustrated, angry young man found no hope in democracy, or in the will of the people, which he felt betrayed the nation, and turned his rage into terroristic violence?
Do we need to give up on the Arab youth quite yet? Might they still believe democracy will work out for them? Should we be more concerned about the disaffected on the right, here and in Europe, who live in democracies and are finding that's not quite working out for them as they hoped? Just wondering.
HAH
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