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Arab activists meet to discuss democracy

By Agence France Presse (AFP)
The Daily Star
Posted on Wednesday November 9, 2005

MANAMA: Arab activists meeting in Bahrain on Tuesday to press for democratic change find themselves caught between battling “dictator” regimes and U.S.-led initiatives for reform. While some activists at a Manama conference insisted that Arab democratic movements are too weak to implement reforms without external help, others warned that the U.S.-sponsored pushes for reform may be meant to serve Washington’s aims in the region.

“We believe that seeking the help of enemy foreign forces will cause a national catastrophe like what is happening in Iraq,” board member of the outlawed Arab Organization for Human Rights in Syria, Ghaleb Amer said.

“We are against domestic oppression and foreign aggression at the same time. This is a difficult equation now … but we believe in gradual peaceful change from within,” Amer said.

But Rida Ali Ibrahim, board member of Bahrain Human Rights Society, said foreign help was needed to implement reforms.

“Over the past 60 years, it was evident that we could not force reforms alone. We need a foreign catalyst to promote reforms,” Ibrahim said.

“I don’t look with skepticism toward the U.S. initiative. Things are transparent so we should take what we want and abandon the rest,” he said.

Dozens of activists representing Arab non-governmental organizations (NGOs) opened the two-day conference on Monday by branding reforms as a “necessity” to modernize the Arab world.

The “Parallel Conference of Forum for Future” comes ahead of the November 11-12 “Forum for Future” during which foreign ministers of 38 countries from the Middle East and the G8 will discuss the U.S.-sponsored Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) initiative.

“Some think that the initiative is an absolute evil because it came from the G8 and democracy suffers as a result,” said Ziad Abdel-Samad, executive director of the Arab NGO Network for Development.

“I think we must utilize this historical moment to press for change … Democratic change must respond to domestic needs. It cannot be implemented from outside,” Abdel-Samad said.

Saadeddine Ibrahim, head of Egypt’s Ibn Khaldoun Center, said foreign initiatives must be judged on the basis of their merits.

“Fear of everything foreign is an old Arab syndrome … I don’t share the fear of others from foreign initiatives because we should take what is useful to us,” Ibrahim said.

“Arab regimes are trying to divert the anger of Arab masses to Israel and America … but the main obstacle to reforms are Arab rulers,” he said.

U.S. policies in the Middle East came under fire at the opening session and during workshop discussions for Washington’s perceived bias for Israel and its occupation of Iraq.

“We want to create a new Arab world, but not aboard American warships,” Mohammad Safa, Lebanese rights activist, told a discussion panel.

Recommendations of the NGOs conference will be submitted to the foreign ministers of Bahrain and Britain to be discussed by the foreign ministers of G8 and BMENA. - AFP