Yesterday, a constitutional referendum in Tunisia has effectively given the chief executive, President Kais Saied, unchecked power. This brings to a close a period of roughly a decade, during which Tunisia was held up as a beacon of hope for the spread of Democracy in the Arab world. The apparent demise of the government, and along with it much of the hope from the so-called “Arab Spring,” tells us a lot about the Arab world, but also about the future of Democracy, and the still-potent allure of totalitarianism, at home and abroad.
A brief history of the region to date might read as follows: Alongside the destabilizing presence of the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East, seemingly spontaneous demonstrations broke out in January and February of 2011 in a number of Middle Eastern and North African countries that had, up until that point, been ruled by dictatorships — that is to say, by a single man with more-or-less absolute power, in most cases by the same man for decades. Gaddafi had held power in Libya since 1969; Saleh in Yemen since 1978; Mubarak in Egypt since 1981; and Ben Ali in Tunisia since 1987. Assad, in Syria, had only been in power since 2000, but he was succeeding his father, who had run the country since 1971. And of course Saddam Hussein also rose to power during this same period, controlling Iraq from 1979 until the country was conquered by the U.S. in 2003.
Yet within a span of a few months in 2011, almost all of these regimes fell to widespread protest and calls for reforms, led by seemingly grassroots movements. A great deal was written at the time about the hopeful implications of these revolutions, in particular about the role of social media; one blog post that was quoted in countless articles back in 2011, by tech journalist Micah Sifry, argued that “the biggest factor in the unfolding events, to me, appears to be the emergent power of young people, compounded by how urbanized they are and how connected they are by mobile phones.” The Western press dubbed these revolutions collectively as “Arab Spring”, and with Obama in the White House and Democracy in the Middle East, there were great pains to paint a very rosy picture of the future of global Democracy.
But we all know how it’s actually gone since then. A recent Al Jazeera opinion piece wonderfully debunked the social media myth as it related to the 2011 protests, and pointed out how, quite the contrary, “Facebook, Twitter, and Google have turned into powerful enablers of vast disinformation campaigns, harassment, censorship, and incitement of violence against activists, journalists, human rights defenders and any dissenting voice,” much as we’ve seen in the U.S. Even back in 2012, there were numerous articles written from European and Middle Eastern perspectives, pointing out that “Arab Spring” was an incredible misnomer. The uprisings in the U.A.E. were more or less swiftly shut down; the Saudi government, with the implicit approval of the U.S., intervened to cripple the nascent reformist movement in Yemen, leading to a still-ongoing and brutal civil war. Libya, too, collapsed into civil conflict, with the U.S. taking a far more active, and misguided, role.
Syria, of course, is the one nation where the original dictator managed to survive the initial rebellion, holding onto power through a combination of flagrant disregard for international rules of combat and courting the support of Russia in quashing the would-be revolution. But if this story of once-hopeful Democracy seems disappointing, it’s only out of naivete, or worse, a kind of cultural blindness to the reality of Middle Eastern politics, and a quintessentially American assumption that the concerns and goals of anyone anywhere in the world would be the same as ours. To quote an excellent op-ed written in 2013 about the Syrian conflict, “Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government.” (I won’t tell you who wrote this op-ed; it’s a fun surprise if you want to find out!)
A similar reality was faced in Egypt, which reflected the reality of how Mubarak came to power in the first place. His predecessor, Anwar Sadat, one of the greatest leaders in the history of the region, was assassinated by radical Islamists who objected to his efforts to seek peace with Israel and the West. Following this assassination, his successor, Mubarak, cracked down on these Islamist organizations, in ways that definitely violated Western conceptions of freedom; but can you blame Mubarak for trying to destroy the organizations which literally murdered the President before him? And in Egypt, predictably, once Mubarak was removed from power by the “Arab Spring,” open elections were held for the first time, and the victorious political party was the Muslim Brotherhood, led by a hardline Islamist, Mohamed Morsi. Morsi attempted to impose Islamic law on Egypt, but was removed by a military-led coup in 2014; Abdel Sisi, a General, emerged as the new President. Sisi has ruled Egypt in a more-or-less authoritarian manner ever since and, much like Mubarak, is unlikely to ever step down.
This is the argument that Hussein, Assad, Gaddafi, and Mubarak (now Sisi) make to the West: At present, like it or not, there are only two viable options in the Arab world: A secular, military dictatorship, or an Islamic fundamentalist regime. In its foolhardy quest to foment “Democracy,” the U.S. has unintentionally given a tremendous boost to the latter of those two alternatives. It is all well and good to hope for liberal democracy to take hold in these regions, but why should it? Are we so sure that our system is the best system, that we think that every culture on Earth, from China to Egypt to Congo, is eager to adopt it? And in our willful ignorance about the realities on the ground, we are making the situation far worse, giving victories to groups that will be far more problematic for us, and their own citizens, and the whole world, down the line (see: The Taliban).
Tunisia was the only bright spot, it seemed; ten years after the initial protests, Tunisia was the one Middle Eastern or North African nation with a functioning Democracy. So with the fall of Tunisian Democracy, we see perhaps the final nail in the coffin of the problematic myth of the “Arab Spring.” It should be pointed out that, although Tunisia never went down quite as Islamist a path as Egypt, Saied’s new dictatorial constitution removes language from the 2014 Constitution defining Tunisia as an Islamic State — in short, the new dictatorship is legally more secular than the preceding democracy. Still, the impetus behind this successful power-grap wasn’t about Islamist extremism or foreign intervention; from all reports, the main concern of the Tunisian people was economic strife, and a general feeling that the government wasn’t doing anything for them. As described by Human Rights Watch, “Many people held the parliament largely responsible for governmental paralysis, including a failure to revive Tunisia’s flagging economy and manage the Covid-19 pandemic effectively.” Saied and his supporters have consistently described the political situation as “paralyzed,” a world that probably seems familiar to American voters.
International media has rightly pointed out the low turnout on this all-important referendum, with only about a quarter of the Tunisiain electorate coming out to vote (and a vast majority of those who did turn out to vote supporting Saied), largely due to boycotts by the disorganized opposition to Saied’s rule. While the Western media uses this low-turnout point to emphasize the non-democratic nature of the referendum, it also points to a sense of disenfranchisement among Tunisian voters. They apparently didn’t believe their votes would even matter in this case, and so they have mostly stayed home and allowed Saied to consolidate his power.
To me, at least, much of the above seems reflective of problems we face in Western Democracies, too: Low voter turnout and high voter apathy; complaints about the government being inefficient, paralyzed, unable to help people in economic strife; a general frustration with all levels of parliamentary government. It has, frankly, always been the calling-card of dictatorships to complain about “inefficiency.” Lenin bemoaned that socialist-leaning parliaments in 19th Century Europe were little more than “talking shops,” that is, bodies that produced only debate, and no real results. This was his justification for the total consolidation of power in the hands of the Comintern: complex Parliaments couldn’t be trusted to efficiently carry out the Communist reforms that he believed in. Hitler, too, complained about the inefficiency of a pluralistic government, and knew he needed to purge all opposition in order to carry out the Nazi reforms that he had been elected to pursue. It is, in fact, a common complaint among many dictators, and it’s sadly one that many of us fall into, as well, just as citizens.
It is, of course, highly frustrating when government is ineffective and slow. It is incredibly upsetting when political machinations render the Senate into a “talking shop,” or as it’s been for the past decade, not even that; the post-2010 Senate has been more or less a “nothing shop,” producing neither debate nor legislation, but simply wasting everyone’s time, intentionally deadlocked against progressive legislation that, in referendum form, would easily pass. When we face national crises, whether regarding gun violence, or climate change, or an attempted coup, or the most basic human rights of pregnant people, we are tempted to scream, “DO SOMETHING!”, or to ask, as Senator Chris Murphy did on the Senate floor after the Uvalde shooting, “Why are we here? What are we doing?” It is rightfully infuriating how little gets done … and yet, the passion for things to get done faster is perhaps the most existential of all threats to Democracy.
We must not be afraid of, in the words of Edmund Burke, “the business of a tedious, moderate, but practical resistance.” The goal of the deadlocked Senate is, in fact, to ratchet up our frustration. The more frustrated we are with the inefficiency of government, the more likely we are, like the Tunisians, to turn to a leader who promises us swift, dramatic, and decisive action. But this is not how Democracy can ever work. In a nation of hundreds of millions of people, the only path forward is debate, compromise, more debate, modest action, more debate, and then still more debate. Congress is inefficient by design; it’s part of our much-heralded system of checks and balances that Congress can’t do anything without the consent of the Senate (and thus, theoretically, of the State governments, as it was initially designed), and neither can do anything without the consent of the President or the agencies under his control, who themselves can’t do anything without the consent of Congress, and none of them can do anything without the consent of the Supreme Court. Yes, this is frustrating, and yes, when we face emergencies like a global pandemic or a climate catastrophe, it’s even dangerous. But consider the alternative, and consider the ideology behind anyone who claims that he could manage the nation more “efficiently.”
There is no question that a dictatorship is the most efficient form of government. The intentional deadlock of government, pushed by the Republican leadership, is part of an effort to cripple it, to undermine it, so that our voters, disaffected and disenfranchised, will see it, as the Tunisians have, as “paralyzed” and useless. As the economy worsens and the cultural issues become more dire and the government does less and less, we may find ourselves faced with the same bad choice as they have been faced with: Put up with ongoing inaction, or appoint someone with the power to take action unilaterally, for the Greater Good. The former is tragic; the latter is nightmarish.
The only good option left to us is to cling to a belief in pluralism, in compromise, in debate. As weak and foolish as it sounds, and as much as it is unpopular among many on the Left, the only path forward is to vote, and to organize, and to support the system against those who would replace it with something simpler, more streamlined, more “efficient”. Not to boycott, as most Tunisians have done; not to give up, even in the face of tremendous obstruction; and not to accept that a “talking shop” must be as inept as our current Senate. I am the first to acknowledge that our system is broken, and I’ve written as much many times, but if we are to reform it, it must be to encourage more democracy, more debate, more checks on power.
We are not, to be blunt, going to successfully combat climate change, or gun violence, or economic injustice, or Christofascism through having a strong government of our own choosing crack down with swift and decisive authority. These are problems that can only be solved collectively, and as long as tens of millions of us take the opposite side, no Strong Man is going to save us. Regardless of the imminence of the threat, the only path to positive change must be “tedious, moderate, and practical.”
And if we fail, then Democracy fails, and like Egypt and Tunisia and much of the Arab world, we will have to choose between a secular dictatorship and a fundamentalist dystopia.
Like my writing? Share it, and enter your email below to subscribe, so that you can an email notification whenever I write something new. Thanks!
