These are values academicians normally associate with classical liberalism. Although conventional thinking makes the “L” word anathema to the Islam world, the message coming from these revolutions is that this is exactly what they want.

Those taking to the streets or occupying the public squares in the major cities are telling their despot leaders that they can take it no more after decades of leading suppressed lives.

They want a change, and for most, this means that the dictators and their regime must go before any meaningful transformation toward freedom and democracy can take place.

At the start of 2011, no one would have thought this possible in predominantly Muslim societies. The events seen in the streets of Tunis, Cairo, Tehran and other capital cities defy the widely held notion that Muslims, because of their religion, do not embrace the kind of values and principles that have been seen as exclusively Western.

Instead, Islam is regarded as a self-contained religion with ideological and philosophical underpinnings of its own. Freedom and democracy are not part of the package, or at least are not seen as important or dear to Muslims as they are to people in the West.

They had been wrong, with serious policy consequences.

The United States, the world’s champion of democracy, has put security and stability ahead of democracy, freedom and human rights in its Arab policy, obviously to serve its strategic interests in the Middle East and also in the belief that these were not something that the Arab people needed.

Far from pushing its freedom agenda, Washington has been the biggest supporter of longtime dictators and absolute monarchies, turning a blind eye to the undemocratic and violent practices of its allies.

This policy has strengthened in the past decade under the pretext of the global war on terror, as these Arab regimes were widely regarded as bedrocks for stability and best safeguards against the rise of Islamism.
May be it is just as well that this was the case, because the slightest hint of Washington support for the uprisings today would quickly be portrayed by the desperately embattled regimes as American meddling, which would undermine the revolution itself.


“Those taking to the streets or occupying the public squares in the major cities are telling their despot leaders that they can take it no more.”

The initiatives for change had come from the people with little or no outside prodding. The only claim the West has is in providing the technology, for the social media network has been an indispensable tool for the protesters to spread their message between themselves, across borders and into the world.

No one can accuse the United States of imposing its freedom agenda on the Arab world today. If we go by Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington actually has a very poor track record in the region when it comes to exporting freedom and democracy.

The success of the people power in bringing down president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia on Jan. 14 gave the inspiration to people in the region that no one but themselves can decide their fate.

All hell broke loose when president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, the largest country in the region, quit on Feb. 11 after briefly putting up stiff and violent resistance. Most countries in the region have since experienced revolution of some kind: Iran, Bahrain, Yemen in the east and Libya and Algeria to the west.

Regimes in Jordan, Palestine and Saudi Arabia have quickly offered concessions to defuse the revolutionary fever. For good measure, the uprising has also inspired people in China to organize the “jasmine revolution”.   

Obviously we have yet to see the end of the story. The turmoil across the Middle East and North Africa is far from settled. Each dictator or regime struggles to cling to power in their own way, and unfortunately, some like Moammar Qaddafi of Libya, are prepared to kill as many people as it takes to crush the revolution.

Tunisia and Egypt, meanwhile, are just sobering up to the reality that the real hard work of rebuilding their country has only just started. Removing the tyrant is only the first of many baby steps toward real freedom and democracy.

Those watching the changes in the Middle East and North Africa are now wondering whether democracy could take root among people who had no such tradition and whose religion, Islam, is widely considered to be incompatible with the values and principles of liberalism.

The region’s recent history of what happened after the downfall of authoritarian regimes is discouraging: in Iran, it led to the takeover by Islamists that turned the country into a strict Islamic state.

Democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq has only led to worst chaos and anarchy. Some conventional thinking even suggests that democracy in Arab countries would mean “one man, one vote, one time” and Islamists will override others in the first election and will quickly put these countries back in control of a new and worse form of authoritarian government.

But Egypt, Tunisia and other countries that follow suit arrive at their revolution through a completely different path. Theirs is a path inspired by the principles and values of liberalism, from freedom of expression, human rights and constitutions to free and fair elections. They have destroyed the myth that these values are contradictory to Islam. Protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square held mass Friday prayers during the “Day of Rage” and “the Day of Departure”.

The threat of Islamism lurking to grab power has been widely exaggerated and certainly played up by the regimes to ensure continued support from the West. Supporters of the Islamist agenda were nowhere to be seen at the peak of the people movement in Egypt and Tunisia. And the protesters in these countries did not use religious symbols in pressing their demand for change.

Instead, protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Algiers and other countries are united by their common desire for freedom, democracy and justice. There is nothing contradictory in what they desire with what Islam teaches them, but it is interesting to see that no one had tried to cloak their revolution with Islamic slogans the way the Iranians did when they launched their Islamic Revolution in 1979.

While political Islam exists in these countries, it has not played a major role in any of the uprisings. Islam may be the dominant religion, but the Islamists parties will have to compete for support and votes in elections with other parties.

The Muslim Brotherhood may be the best organized political party in post-Mubarak Egypt, but it does not necessarily enjoy widespread support. This is something that only time will tell, when the country holds its first free elections.

Rather than looking at Iran, Afghanistan or Iraq, the experience of Indonesia and Turkey, two predominantly Muslim countries on the fringes of the Islamic world, provide some encouraging signs that democracy and Islam can coexist, and that while the Islamists have a role to play, they have to share the field with others, including groups founded upon liberalism, though not necessarily in name.
Those who espoused liberal values in Egypt and Tunisia – and they were the ones who braved the bullets and batons – have time to organize themselves into new political parties.

While they may not use the “L” world in their name or platform, they would do well to open the history of the French Revolution and the American Revolution, two events that were inspired by the liberalism teachings that completely redefined the Western world.

 
The writer, a visiting fellow at the East West Center in Washington, is former editor-in-chief of The Jakarta Post.

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