No Arab country has been invited to the summit for democracy convened in December by the President of the United States, Joe Biden. An index among other impasses that make the Middle East one of the parts of the world where the hopes of change are invited to pass their way.
Slow and continuous implosion of Lebanon, a continuation of a devastating war in Yemen, ever more ruthless of authoritarian regimes in place, the last months passed have stopped feeding a definitely busy desperation chronicle. It initially pushes tens of thousands of migrants every year. No need to turn to the other part of the Arab-Muslim sphere, in North Africa, to find better prospects. The Libyan impasse, the institutional coup of the Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed, and the tensions between Algeria and Morocco no longer invite optimism.
The reasons for this near-oriental misfortune are multiple. It can, however, identify three main which continued to produce their effects throughout the year 2021. The first lies in the resistance to democratization on the share of regimes that methodically prevents that the disputes they face are arbitrated peacefully. by their fellow citizens in the framework of free elections. With the notable exception of Israel, moreover, invited by Joe Biden, this impossibility prevents political choices when they are devastating.
Community confinement
The region has become a worldwide champion in terms of political prisoners, with the figure of Egypt, where they are counting in tens of thousands. One of the few personalities of the Arab civil societies invited to speak on the margin of Joe Biden’s virtual summit, the Egyptian militant for human rights Mohamed Zaree, is also the target of a prohibition to leave his country. Intapstinal repression in the West Bank, which adds to the older one in force in Gaza, is one last illustration.
When elections are held, like those provided for in Lebanon in 2022, or those held in Iraq in October, they institutionalize a Community confinement that prevents the expression of a general will and the search for a common good. Everywhere else reign the strong men, absolute sovereigns or dictators, who justify their hold on what takes place of institutions and on the economic workings of their country in the name of a stability they would be the only ones to guarantee.
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