>> I am Kari Borne.
I'm from the Office of Continuing Education at UW
Whitewater.
We sponsor the series, the Fairhaven Lecture Series here at
Fairhaven each semester.
So thank you so much for coming.
And now today's speaker.
Dr. Hala Ghoneim is a native of Egypt and is assistant professor
of Arabic in the Department of Languages and Literatures at UW
Whitewater.
She earned her MA and PhD degrees in African languages and
literature from the University of Wisconsin Madison and her PA
degree in English literature and translation from the University
of Ain Shams in Cairo, Egypt.
Her areas of expertise are Arabic and Anglophone African
literature, Arabic language, and Arab and Islamic cultures, Islam
and post-colonial theory.
Dr. Ghoneim's lecture today is titled Is Democracy Possible in
the Middle East: Exploring the Egyptian Spring.
Welcome.
[APPLAUSE]
>> Good afternoon, and thank you so much for coming.
The title of my lecture today is a question, and at the very end
of my presentation I'm going to attempt to answer this question.
The answer is very, very difficult, and so many factors
contribute to the answer to this question.
My answer is pure speculation, of course.
We cannot know if it's possible.
It's a matter of the future.
Tomorrow is election day, so this is a very relevant topic to
be here today talking about democracy.
So my talk consists of three section.
In the first section, I'm going to just attempt to explain why
do we hear that question a lot?
Why are we always skeptic about the possibility of democracy in
the Middle East?
In the second section, I'm going to talk generally about
democracy, and also describe why it is also a legitimate question
to ask out of the Middle Eastern context.
Even in the west we sometimes question democracy, question its
viability, and also question its possibility.
In the third section, I'm going to give an overview of the Arab
Spring with a little bit of more details about Egypt just because
I happen to be particularly familiar with the events.
And at the very end, I will revisit the question and give
you my speculations about a possible answer to that.
So, first part of the talk I would like to ask the question:
why do we ask this question?
Why do we ask this question so frequently?
So there must be some reasons.
And these questions, by the way, this skepticism, question
whether it is possible or not, it gets asked in the west and we
ask it in the Middle East as well.
So there is skepticism both in the Middle East and in the west
about the possibility of democracy in the Middle East.
So the first reason contributing to this being a question that
gets frequently asked is the legacy of colonialism.
The Middle East was a part of the Ottoman Empire.
After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War
I, European colonizers occupied almost the entire Middle East.
During that period, there is, the legacy of colonization is
never pleasant, and people became skeptical about democracy
being itself part of the legacy of western civilization.
It is sometimes, it was considered to be part of the
colonial legacy.
So people got skeptical about it.
People have seen, in the Middle East, have seen wars destroying
parts of their lands, claiming to bring democracy to the Middle
East.
So, hence, the idea of western colonization contributing to a
little skepticism about whether or not this is a good idea to be
adapted in the Middle East.
Definitely the question is legitimate, but just to attempt
to address that a little bit, most of the people in the Middle
East accept the idea of government by the people for the
people.
This part, there isn't much contradiction or opposition to
this notion.
Sometimes they want to color democracy with some native
colors.
So an Islamic form of democracy or a modified form of democracy.
Not the exact cut and paste Western democracy being
implanted in the Middle East, but the idea itself of
government by the people for the people doesn't have much a
position in the Middle East.
The other reason why people question that, both here and in
the Middle East, is the doubt that these societies have never
practiced democracy.
Is it possible for them to master it, to deal with it well,
to make the right choices given the history of no experience
with it?
So that has been a factor.
It has been dubbed in Egypt the not ready for democracy
proposal, and, ironically, the people who actually embrace this
concept are the former dictators.
They actually tried to convince people that it's not that we
don't want to give you democracy, you're not ready for
democracy.
Definitely people dismiss this.
And they even joke about it.
In recent days in Egypt, they have been having power outages,
a lot of them, and they have been critical of the government,
and people joke and say no, no, no it's not the government,
we're not ready for electricity.
[LAUGHTER] So they joke about it, and the joke itself suggests
that they don't buy the original proposal, which is not that
we're not giving it to you, you're not ready for it.
Also contributing to this question being frequently asked
is that it has been attempted, and the results haven't been
very promising.
So it has been attempting in Iraq and the west bank in Egypt.
It hasn't worked.
But the good news is it just started about three years ago.
So it's a relatively young experience, and the expectations
for it to work right from the beginning, I would argue, are a
little bit unrealistic.
So I would say give it time.
On the other hand, other Muslim countries like Turkey,
Indonesia, and Malaysia, they are fully democratized They have
been for a while.
It has been successful.
And most recently, just last week, Tunisia, the first of the
Arab Spring countries has successfully conducted its first
parliamentary elections after the Arab Spring.
It has been successful.
The liberals won.
The Islamists are a minority in the parliament.
So it is at least working in one Arab Spring country so far.
In the west, this is actually really relevant in the west.
The stereotypical assumption that people in the Middle East
don't want it.
It's not that they're not ready for it; they don't want it.
And definitely it's a stereotype.
People in the Middle East have been protesting for years for
democratic reforms.
Some of them went to, I'll show you photos of Tahrir Square, the
epicenter of the Arab Spring in Egypt.
People went to the square fully knowing that they are going to
be shot at, they are going to be killed or imprisoned, and they
still did it.
So definitely people want democracy in the Middle East.
Finally, skepticism about the compatibility of Islam and
democracy.
Some argue that is Islam is not compatible with democracy.
They are not going to work together.
Actually, Muslims not just deny this argument, they actually
argue that there have been seeds of the concept of democracy in
the Muslim religion itself since its inception in the seventh
century.
The concept of Shura, it's like a council of consultants that
the ruler is supposed to consult before taking major decisions.
These are considered primitive forms or predecessors to
democracy.
The concept of -- , where representatives from the tribes
elect the leader.
At the part of Muslim history that Muslims consider to be the
golden age of Islam, the time of the prophet Muhammad and the
four following caliphs, or successors, choosing the leader
has been like that.
Then the dynasties got established.
So, Muslims are nostalgic about that particular era because
there wasn't kings, and the king didn't install his son.
There was some sort of election of primitive, of course, but the
idea itself is built in the history and the religion.
So, when we ask question like is democracy possible in the Middle
East, we're kind of suggesting that this is unique to the
region.
Democracy is the way we do business here.
So we never question it, but we tend to forget a few facts about
western democracy.
Number one, it's relatively a new idea.
Some people have the assumption that it has always been around,
or it has always been acceptable.
First of all, it hasn't been around for a long time.
It has never been taken seriously, even in the west,
until the 19th century.
When it was introduced back in time, and even today, it has
never enjoyed consensus.
Not everybody agreed on it or saw the value in it, and some
people who saw the value in it questioned whether or not it is
possible, just like the people in the Middle East are asking
that very question.
Famously, Plato, the famous Greek philosopher, actually
resented democracy.
His perfect form of government is an aristocracy, the
philosopher kings rule the state and the smartest, the brightest.
He never trusted the people.
He never thought that it's a good idea for the people to
govern.
He actually did a hierarchy of good governments.
So aristocracy at the top, then timocracy, then oligarchy, rule
of the wealthy, and at the very bottom tyranny, and democracy is
just one step above tyranny.
So that's how resentful he was to the idea of democracy.
>> What is timocracy?
>> Timocracy is rule of the brave.
So we can understand like rule of the soldiers.
>> Okay.
>> Oligarchy, rule by the rich.
So power sharing is proportionate to how wealthy a
person is.
The term oligarchy, actually we hear it now a lot because some
people question whether or not, with money effecting politics in
today's democracy, whether or not it hasn't turned into an
oligarchy.
So we still hear that term nowadays a lot when we discuss
democracy.
So the question, the critics have always centered around two
questions.
Is it good?
And some well respected leaders and western thinkers thought
that it's not good.
And the question that gets asked more frequently and more
seriously, people acknowledge it is good.
At least it's better than any possible alternative.
It's the only form that guarantees peaceful power
sharing.
So they agree it's good, but they ask whether or not it's
possible.
Is it possible?
Because people quickly invented ways to really fool the system
of one individual, one vote.
So, is it possible?
Is it still possible?
Aristotle, the famous Greek philosopher, that's the ideal of
democracy.
That's the core of democracy.
It's one person, one vote, and he thought that we have more
poor people than rich people and, therefore, the poor will
have more power because we have of them.
They have more votes.
Right. He's a dreamer, right?
We know that this is the perfect, the ideal, in the
theory.
But while we turn it into practice, sometimes it doesn't
happen the way it has been intended.
Winston Churchill actually expressed his distrust to the
voter.
So the problem with rule by the people, in his opinion, is the
people.
Just like Plato.
And John Adams, he said that it's good, but it's not
sustainable.
It ends. It doesn't last.
Also, British author William Golding, he said it is
inevitable.
It is inevitable that it ends.
It will not survive.
It's not sustainable.
So all of these critiques have been voiced in the west, and
definitely in the Middle East, people are asking the same
questions.
And since it's a new experiment for them, they are going, the
question, remember I told you people now ask if it's possible
more than whether it's good?
In the Middle East, they're still asking is it good and is
it possible?
Both questions are being asked.
Just a quick overview, some background about the Arab
Spring.
I know my colleague Molly Patterson has introduced some
terms, but this is the Arab world, the Arab countries.
It's part of the Middle East, and it occupies North Africa and
southwest Asia.
The Arab world is part of the Muslim world.
And not every Muslim country is Arabic speaking, and there are
Christian and Jewish populations within the Arab world.
So that's the distinction between the term Arab and
Muslim.
But it predominately Muslim, but it's not exclusively Muslim.
In December of 2010, a young man by the name of Mohamed Bouazizi
set himself on fire on Tunisia.
He's a Tunisian young man who was very poor, and he was
treated very badly by a government official.
And right after his suicide, the country erupted.
It was protests, some peaceful and others violent, and within
days the Tunisian dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, was kicked
out of the country.
And people were like I grew up in Egypt under Mubarak, Mubarak
ruled Egypt for 30 years, I am the one, one of the people who
have never seen it possible for him to go.
I did not see that happening.
It was impossible in my mind.
Ruling with an iron fist for too long, cracking down on
opposition, I thought it's impossible for him to go.
And people also shared this view.
You have to live in one of these dictatorships to understand the
impossibility.
Right after the Tunisian president was ousted, just I
think, I don't know the exact math, but I think it was two
weeks, about 14 days, Egypt started its own Spring.
People gathered in Tahrir Square, activists, young people,
old people, people of all political orientations.
They chose January 25th to mark the beginning of the Spring.
And the date is significant because even though there are so
many reasons for the protests, demands for democracy, demands
for equal opportunity, demands for equal treatment, the
immediate reason was police brutality.
January 25th is the day when the country celebrates its police
officers.
So the protestors chose that day to start their protests.
Within a matter of weeks, there was uprisings all over the Arab
world.
Of course, in each country has its own unique circumstances.
It has been more powerful usually in the less economically
privileged countries, and quieter in countries like Saudi
Arabia, for example, because the poverty there, even though the
political oppression is not easier there but the economic
conditions are better.
So you see a different story and different outcomes for each
country.
Some countries successfully ousted their dictators, like
Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Yemen.
Some countries have kind of learned their lessons, and
they're trying to appease the people, the ones in sky blue,
Morocco, Jordan, Oman, and Kuwait.
They gave the people, they changed, reshuffled government.
Some of them lifted notorious emergency laws that have been in
place and just allowed people to get arrested without warrants
and so on.
So the gains have varied, the degrees of violence or
peacefulness have varied, but the pattern has been people are
not happy and they need change.
Demanding change.
So now, zooming in on Egypt, because I use it as my case
study to attempt to ask and answer this question just
because I'm a little bit familiar with Egypt.
So, just to get an overview to see how democracy is a
completely alien idea, Egypt has never, Egyptian people have
never practice democracy since pharaoh It's the oldest country
in the world and I would argue the oldest dictatorship in the
world.
So, prehistoric Egypt, it's a period that ended in 3150,
before the common era.
Dynastic Egypt, it's a period of the pharaohs, three kingdoms,
the old, the middle, and the modern kingdom.
This is the time of building the pyramids and the temples and
this is the era that produced the figures that people attach
to Egypt when they think about Egypt There has been a
Greco-Roman period.
So the Greeks invaded Egypt and ruled it.
The Romans, Egypt became a part of the Roman Empire, and under
the Roman Empire Egypt became a Christian nation.
In the seventh century, the Muslims invaded or conquered
Egypt, and it slowly became Muslim.
Modern Egypt has 10% Christians.
The majority of them belong to the Greek orthodox sect, and
about 90% Muslims, mostly Sunni.
Of course, this is a large, this is a really long, long period of
time.
Several dynasties, one after the other, until we reach the
Ottomans, and then Muhammad Ali, founder of modern Egypt, ends
Ottoman rule, at least in reality.
They remain a part of the Ottoman Empire nominally in
1805.
Muhammad, of course, Napoleon left his mark.
For three years he invaded and occupied Egypt.
Muhammad Ali came in 1805.
His family ruled Egypt until 1852.
The British occupied Egypt 1882 to 1920.
This is when officially gained independence.
People don't consider this the right date.
They consider 1952 to be the right date because the British
maintained military bases in the Suez Canal area until 1952.
What Muhammad Ali did for the very first time is to establish
an Egyptian army, and that was a very important turn of events
because the army, from 1952 on, will actually become the most
powerful player in Egyptian politics.
So, just keep that in mind because in 1952 it was that
army, the national army, that Muhammad Ali founded that
conducted a revolution/coups.
I put both terms there because it depends on whether you agree
with it or not, you'll use a different term.
Most people use the term revolution, and it is also has
all the trademarks of a coups because it was done by army
officers and they have been in power since.
So to be respectful, I put both terms there.
So, since the 1952 revolution/coup, three
presidents have ruled Egypt.
Nasser, Sadat, very well known in the west for the Israeli
peace treaty, Arab-Israeli peace treaty, and finally Mubarak, who
ruled for 30 years, three decades.
And his rule came to an end 18 days after January 25th.
18 days of protests brought his...
Some actually suggest that even this is a coups because when he
resigned, he gave the authority, handed down the authority to the
military council, and people just say it's kind of a silent
coup.
So the army was in control, taking care of a transitional
period.
During this transitional period, there was so much breaching to
human rights, people were so disappointed, the political
players were the army, definitely controlling
everything, and number two, the Muslim brotherhood.
It's a group, a political group, that was founded in the early
20s, and it has been active, politically, for about 80 years,
for eight decades.
It has many supporters.
It was the most well organized, at that time.
It was the most persecuted by Mubarak.
Everybody who was in the Muslim brotherhood has definitely
visited Mubarak's prisons for some time.
So people sympathized with them.
People identified with them, and they have been seen as the
victim of the brutal previous regimes, so there was a lot of
sympathy to them.
And there was the liberals who actually did the protests, who
should take credit for the whole thing except they weren't
organized enough.
They couldn't form a coalition.
I'll tell you in a minute.
The liberal candidates combined, when there was a presidential
election, combined they won more votes than the Islamists.
So more people supported the secularists than the Islamists
were united in one block, so they won the elections.
So sometimes the statistics are a little misleading.
You see the Islamists winning but the secularists combined one
more political support than the Islamists.
Muhammad Morsi because the first democratically elected
president, and people were happy.
Even the people who didn't support him were happy.
But Muhammad Morsi misunderstood democracy.
He thought that democracy means to follow the democratic process
until you get elected, and then disregard it.
So he did not do a very good job.
He excluded people.
He censored.
He did this, he did that, and the liberals really were very,
very afraid of Egypt turning into another Iran, of Egypt
turning into a religious fascist state.
That's why they were impatient They couldn't wait until the
next election.
They took to the streets, he refused to resign, and the army
interfered again and ousted the first democratically elected
Egyptian president.
I wish they had waited for him to complete his term because he
most definitely going to be defeated in the following
elections, but they were impatient.
Right now, a former army general is the current Egyptian
president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
This is Tahrir Square.
This is how many people.
That is supposed to be behind these buildings.
People just lived there, and this is where many, 800 people
were killed, until Mubarak actually resigned.
During that time, it was really good times.
You see the cross and the Quran.
You see the Egyptian flags.
Everybody were united.
Everybody wanted Mubarak gone; they just disagreed on then
what.
The secularists, represented by this young lady unveiled.
This is a very famous -- .
Some of you may even know her.
She lectures a lot in the US, and she teaches at American
University.
I think 85 or 87 years old.
She was in Tahrir Square demonstrating with everybody.
The Islamists of all orientations, because there are
division among the Islamists as well, and children.
They were on the square.
This picture is an iconic picture of this little boy
facing the police officers and telling them from now on there
is no government, I am the government.
That was the caption for that picture.
So, it was a good, refreshing story up until Muhammad Morsi
started really disrespecting the concept of a democracy.
So it didn't succeed.
The deep state of Mubarak, they ousted the head.
The remnants of his regime were still in control, so they were
still kind of controlling what's going on.
Opposition fragmented.
They agreed on removing Mubarak.
They disagreed on everything else.
Of course, the way he behaved, Muhammad Morsi, the fear of
descending into religious fascism.
Egyptians really like their songs, like their art, like
their literature, the liberals were so afraid of being robbed
of that to the point that they are really accepting some form
of oppression just as long as it's not religious fascism they
are okay because under religious fascism they suffer the most.
Under just fascism, they are the most privileged.
So they kind of just are paying attention to their own well
being, if you will.
Of course, people are, Egyptians love their military.
They love their army, and they really sometimes romanticize the
military.
They think it cannot be, it cannot have ulterior motives.
They cannot have bad intentions.
They mostly don't, but you should continue to question.
So is it possible, back to the question, is it possible?
This is a quotation that I think makes sense.
Democracy evolves.
We discover the problems and we correct the problems.
Other government systems do not allow that.
So, yes, democracy has issues.
It will continue to have issues, but this feature of being
self-correcting is what, in my opinion, will save democracy.
Just an overview.
It's a new form.
It didn't start perfect, right?
So sometimes the expectations for the Middle East to start
perfect is a little bit unrealistic.
The first attempt to a constitution in the United
States did not free slaves, did not allow women to vote.
So it happened over time.
So we kind of, the expectation for them to start perfect is
unrealistic, in my opinion.
There will be flaws, and then the self-correcting feature of
the democracy will hopefully kick in and fix that.
This is just rearticulating some of the things I'd like to look
at the Arab Spring as a process rather than an event.
And it's a process.
It just started.
It's going to continue, redefine itself, correct its mistakes.
I'm kind of still optimistic.
I just don't not with regards to time.
I think it's going to take a long time, but I think it's
going to happen in the end.
So this is the take away points from the lecture.
Democracy is a new concept in the west.
Democracy has not started perfect.
It has evolved over time and redefined itself, and it took it
many years.
It took many years for this to happen.
After so many powerful struggles.
It is not perfect even now in the west, but it is
self-correcting.
In the Middle East, we're talking about three years.
So the picture looks grim, especially in Syria.
It looks hopeful in Tunisia.
It looks grim in Syria.
It looks everywhere in between elsewhere.
But it has just started.
They didn't have, remember in American history, there was
civil wars.
There was a Civil War.
There was civil rights movements, etc, etc until we got
to this point.
So I'm still optimistic.
Most people accept it.
Some do accept a western style liberal democracy.
Some want to spin it to put a different spin on it, but the
idea of government by the people for the people is overwhelmingly
supported in the Middle East.
It has been successful in Muslim and Arab countries.
It will take time.
It will be imperfect, but it will evolve over time.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]