Breaking the last Arab taboo

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

By Rami G. Khouri

Intriguing signs from several Arab countries suggest that citizens and political activists alike may have started to breach the last "red line" of modern Arab governance - the control of political and economic systems by the many local security and military institutions. If, indeed, the military's dominance of Arab societies is gradually to be assessed, challenged and reduced, this might one day open the way to bringing Arab security institutions under civilian oversight and control, through elected parliaments and independent judiciaries.

Late last year, disgruntled young Palestinian militants attacked police posts and briefly kidnapped a security official who was loyal to the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. In Lebanon, the opposition to Syrian dominance of the domestic political scene, and the Syrian-engineered three-year extension of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud's term, has sparked a series of explicit, public criticisms of the Syrian intelligence service's involvement in Lebanese domestic affairs. The latest occurred Monday, when former Prime Minister Salim Hoss called on Syrian and Lebanese security services to stop interfering in Lebanon's public and political life.

In Cairo last month, a small demonstration of around 1,000 people publicly called on President Hosni Mubarak not to run for a fifth term, and asked that a genuine presidential election take place this year rather than the norm of a nearly farcical referendum on the single candidate nominated by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). The demonstration reflects a deeper challenge to the prevailing control of the Egyptian political system by a combination of the armed forces and the NDP.

In Jordan last week, an unprecedented one-day workshop took place at the University of Jordan on "security sector reform and challenges to institution building." It was co-sponsored by the university's Center for Strategic Studies and the Geneva-based Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, and brought together security sector officers, government officials, researchers and activists. The potential significance of these developments is enormous: it is slowly becoming acceptable to discuss the role of security and defense agencies in Arab public life, primarily comprising the armed forces, police and assorted intelligence agencies, and, in some countries, official and private militias. This is the last taboo in the Arab world in terms of what is acceptable for public discussion. Some 10 or 20 years ago, in Arab public life, the media, educational institutions and civil society, it was impossible to discuss sensitive issues such as religion, sex and gender, domestic violence, the legitimacy of ruling regimes and elites, demands for democracy, the use of drugs among youth, the security sector, and perhaps a few other topics. All of these matters are now routinely discussed in public - except for the last taboo: security and defense establishments, and their appropriate role in governance and public life.

Others around the world have raised this issue for some time. Just a few months ago the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., published a fine analysis paper entitled "The Unspoken Power: Civil-Military Relations and the Prospects for Reform," written by Steven A. Cook, now a Next Generation Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. The Brookings Institution noted that "until an understanding is made of the central role of militaries and a proper response built, the talk of reform and democratization will remain pure rhetoric." It notes correctly that military institutions and officers were once appropriate organizations for state-building and even progressive forces of modernization and development, but military sectors have now become "conservative elements clinging to the authoritarian status quo" and seeking "to preserve political orders that are increasingly illegitimate." It is noteworthy that exactly the same thing is being said by Arabs throughout this region. At the Amman meeting, a former prime minister said correctly that Jordanians trust their security services for preserving national well-being in a volatile region, but also that the Arab world had to put behind it the days when the second man in every regime was the security director.

A former university president said that if the country was serious about security sector reform, it "would have to accept that security services must stop interfering in the political life of the country, and also that the security sector would ultimately have to come under civilian control." One retired major-general in the armed forces said that life could be "comfortable and lucrative" for senior officers in Arab defense and security establishments, and that neither sticks nor carrots had been offered sufficiently to bring about real reform in this sector anywhere in the Middle East. "Democratic governance of the security sector is a prerequisite if reform is to happen," he concluded.

None of these people would have said such things in public a few years ago, but today they do so almost routinely. The last taboo is crumbling before our eyes. Legitimizing public discussion of the role of security and defense institutions in the Arab world ultimately could help those security sectors by making their relations with citizens clearer and mutually constructive, instead of being shrouded in secrecy, as is generally the case now.

The Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), which started work in 2000 in former communist states that were transitioning to democracy, has now begun exploring projects with Arab, Turkish and other partners in the Middle East.

They see the Jordan workshop as the first in a series of endeavors with colleagues in the Middle East who also want to make sure that armed forces and security institutions are characterized by a combination of efficiency, public support, accountability and noninterference in nonsecurity sectors, such as the mass media, education, the economy or appointments to the bureaucracy.

We may be witnessing the start of that process these days, and if so, it should be encouraged and nurtured with great care and responsibility, but also urgency.

Rami G. Khouri is executive editor of THE DAILY STAR