It's Time to Tear Down the 'Arab Wall'

Washington Post ^ | 11/23/03 | Shafeeq N. Ghabra

[Pokey78]

Politics in the Arab world has long been consumed by two fears. First, the fear of the status quo, maintained by regimes that lack vision yet dominate endlessly. Second, the fear of the alternative: a puritanical opposition and its potential for revolutionary or even nihilistic takeover.

Between these two poles, the Arab world has had no middle ground. Choose the present authoritarian governments with all their shortcomings, bad economic policies and limited measures of social and personal freedom. Or choose upheaval and the extremists whose theocracy would be draped in strict codes of behavior governing such things as dress, social interaction and the role of women in public life. Faced with these alternatives during the past two decades, the Middle East opted for stagnation.

Now, however, the Arab status quo has been challenged -- by President Bush's Nov. 6 speech urging the Arab world to adopt liberal democracy, by the war in Iraq and, above all, by internal forces such as the growing population of young and discontented subjects. Arab regimes that before Sept. 11, 2001, seemed stable and enduring now seem vulnerable to a militant brand of Islam such as al Qaeda's.

[Sabertooth]

The problem is, the name of the Arab Wall is "Mohammed."

[wretchard]

The problem is, the name of the Arab Wall is "Mohammed."

That was the gist of the Washington Post article: that the Arabs were trapped in a choice between dictatorships, one of which was Islamism. But if, to extend your analogy, there were a hole in the wall and a third choice were available, then the dynamics of the whole situation would change.