A Response to King Abdullah

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

sattarkassem@hotmail.com

One of the Palestinian newspapers published, on 17 April 2004, an article by King Abdullah titled “Reform Is Our Priority.” This is my response.

The King’s article contained important points on the path to reforming conditions in the Arab homeland — from spreading education, to the rule of law, to economic and social development, and on to transparency in dealings and performance, pluralism, and freedom of expression. These and the other matters the article raised are important and ought to be addressed, and I believe the Arab citizen is waiting for a change that would let him breathe a little.

But the King missed the target by passing over the fundamental pillars from which reform must proceed. In his article I found a great many important items, but I did not find a philosophy or an integrated vision governing them and weaving them into a coherent whole that produces a new order shaping the political, social, cultural, economic, security, and developmental dimensions. I read items that the Americans and the associations they have funded for a long time have long been talking about, and which now receive great attention within America’s vision for the “Greater Middle East.” In the absence of a philosophical dimension or a clear vision, these points look like a step taken in service of someone else’s philosophy and someone else’s vision of what we ought to be, measured by their own yardstick.

King Abdullah did not touch on changing the political system. The political system in the Arab homeland is backward, and its backwardness is reflected in every aspect of life. It is true that the political system is the child of the social system, but social change will not mature and take shape without the leadership of the political system. If the political system is hereditary, if the electoral systems are backward and difficult to carry out with integrity, if the national assemblies do not decide state policy, and if the council of ministers is nothing more than a body of senior employees, can the citizen’s hope for serious change or fundamental reform really grow? Is His Majesty the King prepared to change hereditary succession into elections, or to hand over actual governance to an elected prime minister, if he is serious about the reform process?

Reform is founded on choice and on direct and indirect popular participation through elected representative councils; otherwise, the calls for reform will come to the same end as the development plans did.

The King avoided speaking of national independence and the right of self-determination. I am not speaking here of sovereignty, which is relative for every state, but of Arab states that have not yet achieved independence at all — Arab states that live off the Americans and Europeans, others that lie under direct military occupation, while yet other states have their wealth plundered in exchange for personal benefits. These are regimes that do not control their own educational systems, that cannot deploy their funds and wealth freely, and that are not strong enough to make decisions that might touch the interests of foreigners or the interests of Israel. What reform, then, will the Arab citizen see while the president or king of his state cannot decide for himself?

The question of Arab unity is directly tied to the paragraph above. Does His Majesty the King believe that the Arab states as currently constituted are real states? In this fast-changing world, marked by great powers and blocs, the Arab countries end up as mere fiefdoms serving the personal requirements of their rulers, while their peoples must struggle against a dissolving globalization. The world has moved beyond the nation-state, has moved beyond all the nonsense that personalizes rule, while we remain within the tribal dimension, imagining that our vote in the UN General Assembly grants us independence, statehood, and modernity. This Arab fragmentation is the best recipe for the continuation of backwardness.

The vital point that the King’s article passed over is citizenship in the face of the security apparatuses, and specifically the intelligence services. The King did not say when the era of spying on the Arab citizen and hounding him would end. The citizen is a stranger in his own homeland, the employee trembles at his post, the teacher is afraid to speak the truth. The intelligence services of the Arab rulers gnaw at the citizen’s bones and reduce him to a dead man living without a life. Reform needs a citizen who feels his own self-respect, his own strength, and his capacity to contribute to building society — but a citizen who trembles before his spying brother, before his neighbor and his friend, masters nothing but defeat, and is capable of nothing but retreat and resignation to disappointment. Is it part of His Majesty’s program to turn the intelligence apparatus into a body that safeguards the citizen’s security, instead of being his overseer and eavesdropper?

The royal article was empty of any role for Islam in the reform process. Is this nation truly capable of forging its path toward progress without Islam? As a professor of political science, I know of no nation that advanced by shedding its own skin, or by advancing through someone else’s values. Nations benefit from the experiences of the world, but a living nation preserves its authenticity without remaining stuck in the past.

And where is Israel in the article? Can we, as Arabs, forge our path without addressing the challenges that confront us? We do not face only economic, social, and cultural challenges — we face the Zionist challenge, which has inflicted defeats on the nation and is working to conquer our countries with all the cunning, capacity, and voracity at its disposal. Shall we let defeat settle in, to remain a nightmare that disturbs our sleep, or does reform also mean developing our defensive and security capabilities in the face of this Zionist occupation? And why does the article pass over the fact that the very regime the King leads is the one that lost the West Bank in 1967? Is the liberation of the homeland not part of the reform process?

With due appreciation for the important points the article raised, I see that the King has touched on the issues that concern the Americans right now — issues meant to slightly improve the condition of the Arab human being, with the aim of prolonging the life of Arab despotism, Western exploitation of the nation’s wealth and its dependency, eliminating some of the causes behind the emergence of clandestine Islamic movements, and consolidating Israel’s dominance and expanding its sway over the Arabs. These points, Your Majesty, will not solve the problem. The American diagnosis of the condition of the Arab nation is wrong in its totality, even though it is correct in some of its details. Democracy begins first with choosing the head of state, not with criticizing the minister of water because a pipe has burst; and social reform begins with eliminating tribalism, not with preserving a woman who has betrayed her husband, or a man who has betrayed his wife.

Our fundamental issues, in my estimation, begin with the choice of ruler, respect for the human being, the achievement of independence and unity, and confronting the external challenge. Apart from that, I think we are giving ourselves a few sedative injections in the service of foreign aspirations. The nation is treated by eliminating the causes, not through cosmetic surgery.

In any case, the King deserves credit for writing at all.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “الرد على الملك عبد الله” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.