Middle East burns

Afsan Chowdhury
Published : 24 Feb 2011, 10:41 AM
Updated : 24 Feb 2011, 10:41 AM

Middle East is in turmoil as repressive regimes finally face public accountability in the form of massive public protests. Some of these corrupt governments are also violently fighting back as in Libya and Bahrain. It is a shock to see that the entire Middle East, heart of the so-called "Muslim Ummah'' is made up of undemocratic regimes. It is with some pride that we also realise that Bangladesh is probably the most democratic Muslim majority country in the world, flaws and all.

But as the Arab world faces flames, Bangladesh is also going to be touched by the heat as stories of affected Bangladeshis fly in.

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As many as 47 countries are listed as Muslim majority in several sources with 16 of them in the Middle East, but there are only six Muslim majority countries which can claim to be democratic. They are Malaysia, Maldives, Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. All are Asian countries and are far away from the Arab/Islamic heartland, located in their own culture that is not a democracy disabling Middle Eastern export variety.

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The Arabs have a long history of repression and anti-democracy. For us Bangladeshis, this is particularly significant because in 1971, almost all Arab countries sided with Pakistan and cheered the massacre and rapes. Since the Arab world barring Egypt have rarely produced any significant number of technically qualified and educated people, they have borrowed Pakistani skills to run their armed forces, the ones that get regularly thrashed by Israel. It was to Pakistan's advantage to keep relations strong though it never took any credit for the losses suffered at enemy hands.

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Bangladeshis have been hired in low-end jobs in the Middle East but with present crisis looming, alarm bells should ring in Bangladesh policymaker's mind because most Arab economies have already suffered and as the unrest continues, it will shrink more. That will inevitably impact on jobs particularly those held by expatriate workers so the negative impact of the resistance movement will be felt in many quarters including here. Even if the matters settle, it will be a while before the economy functions as before so remittance flow will be affected.

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South Asians are in great difficulty in several cases. In Libya for example, many are in forced conditions and stuck in places with no access to anything as armed battles rage. Since both the protestors and the military are using arms and Gaddafi's son has threatened a civil war and a fight to the last bullet, things won't get immediately better. Bahrain is as much restive. As rising unemployment has already become a major source of protest and locals will complain at expatriate workers, things don't look too good for anyone. The point is this was bound to happen and it was always a matter of time.

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For the Arab world, it will mean redesigning their entire political structure and relationship with the rest of the world including Israel. Most Arab leaders have used the conflict with Israel to stay in power forever and ignore their own people. While each Arab country will have to figure out what the future should look like, it will not look the same again. It's a risky guess but the biggest challenge is the fact that these countries have no tradition or practice of democracy and will initially find it hard to move forward and manage the extreme expectations that are generated when people rise in revolt.

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Yet the Jasmine revolution as it has been called already echoes elsewhere and every undemocratic regime is concerned. This includes almighty China that is into emergency discussions finding that people aren't always happy to be ruled without consent.
Zhou Yongkang, China's official in charge of the state security apparatus has said that there is a need to find new ways to defuse unrest.

He mentioned this as an internet campaign to trigger a net based 'revolution' in China floundered. Police dispersed a meeting of people who had answered the call. Leading human rights activists and lawyers were taken into police custody before the protests were due to begin.

BBC says that the country's leadership was worried about challenges to its rule in the longer term. Chinese government spends almost as much on maintaining internal security as on defence. A leading government think-tank has said there have been 90,000 so-called ''mass incidents'' — examples of public unrest — in China every year since 2007.

While China is nervous it also thinks its control of dissent and the internet is huge but every regime that is undemocratic thinks that way before the bubble bursts. Unlike China, India is much safer because with all the limitations, it has a much better functioning democracy than China.

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If Bangladesh has to look at the Arab world for finding expatriate work, the Arabs could learn about democratic practices from Bangladesh and surviving with very little as it has over the years. Bangladeshis are one of the bravest people on earth but now may face a tougher future. It is poor on money but high on democracy and the people have survived for long while carrying the burden of bad politicians. In the future, now more uncertain than ever before, it is the democrats who will survive the longest and that's the lesson we are hearing the loudest.

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Afsan Chowdhury is a journalist and researcher.