This post may enrage some pro-democracy activists in the Middle East and North Africa, but I’m willing to take that risk hehe.
We have all witnessed the recent push for democracy in the Middle East and the results it gave us. Anarchy and rise of Islamism.
Some Arabs/Imazighen and pro-democracy activists, if not most, see the rise of Islamism as something good. They see it as a valid result of a valid democratic process.
I see the rise of Islamism as something terrible, since it clashes with the secular elite/middle class, the folk/native culture and the merchant classes of a society. Eventually leading to instability and maybe all out chaos.
Thats why I hesitate promoting democracy in North Africa. That doesn’t mean that I’m promoting evil dictatorships a la Saddam Hussein just for the sake of stability.
Democracies and Saddam-dictatorships are 2 extremes in the same spectrum. There is a third way, that seems to have been mostly ignored until now.
But that same third way has led to notable successes in some countries.
Kazakhstan, Thailand, Portugal, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Tunisia and Brazil all share the same thing. They all were, or still are, dictatorships were a thriving middle class and civil society was created. In some cases this has led to the establishment of an official, working democratic system.
These countries were governed by an enlightened dictatorship. Enlightened in this case means allied with the West, understanding and acceptance of free market principles, containment of religion and free movement of its citizens.
All these components are necessary for the creation of a serious, stable middle class and civil society. And a stable middle class and a civil society are again necessary to create a succesfull democracy.
Of course they still were/are dictatorships were free elections were non-existent. That of course can be perceived as something bad/evil/whatever.
But I wonder if free elections are of any use for an uneducated society without a stable middle class.
What is the use of free elections if the outcome results in instability, harsh reactions and stagnation?
And that brings me to Morocco. With the upcoming elections and the rise of the reli-mongers (also known as PJD and Al Adl wal Ihsane) I wonder if Morocco really needs these elections.
Do we need more instability caused by the fear of the ruling elite that the islamist might take over?
Is it really worth it to (try) having parliamentary elections if this might endanger Morocco as a whole?
Shouldn’t Morocco and the Moroccans be working for economic and educational reforms and stability first?
I definitely believe that Morocco isn’t ready to be a “normal” functioning democratic state.
If we look at the country as a whole we see that it is too unstable.
The middle class is just emerging, the educational level of the country is still shamefully low and economic reforms are not fully implemented yet.
Of course, I would like to see Morocco as a fully functioning democracy. But in order to achieve this we have to make some temporarily sacrifices.
Sacrifices that would tighten the kings control on political activities. Yes I know that the king already has a lot of control on whats happening in the political field of Morocco. But the same king tries to implement some kind of democratic reforms. Alongside these democratic reforms, economic reforms are being implemented as well.
I just don’t see why those two have to go together. It would be more beneficial if economic reforms would be implemented first.
Tunisia is a good example of what I mean. In my earlier post I posted the ranking of both countries in 8 main indexes. Tunisia performed exceptionally well in the economic indexes, while Morocco performed better in political/press freedom indexes.
Tunisia is an example of a country being led by an “enlightened” dictatorial leadership. This has led to a situation whereby Tunisia became one of the strongest economies of Africa and the Middle East. 80% of the households owns their own house ( house ownership is usually used as an economic indicator) and according to some reports 60% of the population belongs to the middle class. An unusually high number in that region.
The ruling elite of Tunisia emphasized the need of economic reforms and have succesfully implemented most of them.
But the situation in Tunisia must not be regarded as the desirable final outcome for Morocco.
As I said earlier, Tunisia doesn’t perform well in the political/press freedom indexes. This can be attributed to the tight state-control on all political and press outlets of the country.
This is what I mean with a temporarily sacrifice.
In order to create stability and democracy we have to sacrifice our liberties for a while.
That is exactly what happened in other countries like Taiwan, Turkey, South Korea, Portugal, Greece etc.
In those countries, the stabilized middle class eventually demanded political reforms in order to achieve full liberty. The ruling elite of the country and the merchant classes realized that in order to attain the economic prosperity the middle class has to be kept “happy”.
The transition from dictatorship to democracy happened there without (too much) violence and went almost smoothly.
This has to be the final outcome for Morocco as well.
No Iraq or Sudan situations whereby the transition to democracy was accompanied with all-out chaos and instability.
To summarize the whole post, in order for Morocco to achieve both political and economical stability, the country has to emphasize economical stability first. Since this is the key to a succesfull transformation to a democratic society.
Emphasizing democratic reforms and implementing them without a stable economic society would lead to a short-term democracy.
I am not calling for a total and everlasting repression of everything and every movement. I’m calling for a moratorium on democratic reforms in order to achieve democracy.
I will end this post with a Robert D. Kaplan quote:
Democracy works best when it is introduced last, as a crowning achievement for societies in which all the other requisites for order are already in place.
