Notice that the Arab Spring is really more of a Big Bang - Rami G. Khouri [View all]
At a panel discussion I participated in earlier this week on the Arab uprisings, a key point of debate was whether the Arab world was experiencing a crisis of regimes or of states.
Looking around the region today, with unsettled conditions in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Libya in particular, it seems obvious that the answer is “both.” One of the eventualities that some Arab countries must come to grips with, but that remains largely unspoken, is that some countries may not survive in their present configurations, and may undergo modifications of borders, populations and national identity – as happened to much acclaim in places after the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
The Arab world has suffered the humiliation of authoritarian or dictatorial regimes in the past half-century because of reasons related to the nature of states and regimes. Artificial states that were created by the retreating Europeans early last century often could be held together only by a strong central government headed by strongmen of the ilk of Saddam Hussein or Hafez Assad. The antidote to state artificiality was authoritarianism. In other cases like Egypt, where the state was never vulnerable because of its artificiality, the state succumbed to dictatorial rule for other reasons – military assertion, the repercussions of the Cold War, and the conflict with Israel.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2011/Dec-21/157480-notice-that-the-arab-spring-is-really-more-of-a-big-bang.ashx#ixzz1hBVfAyPx
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
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