Chronic. No Arab country has been invited to the democracy summit convened in December by the President of the United States, Joe Biden. One indication among others of the dead ends that make the Middle East one of the parts of the world where hopes for change are invited to go their way.
Slow and continuous implosion of Lebanon, continuation of a devastating war in Yemen, increasingly ruthless ferrule of the authoritarian regimes in place, the past few months have continued to fuel an already very full chronicle of despair. It pushes tens of thousands of migrants to leave each year. No need to look to the other part of the Arab-Muslim sphere, in North Africa, to find better prospects. The Libyan impasse, the institutional coup by Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed, and the tensions between Algeria and Morocco do not invite more optimism.
There are many reasons for this Middle Eastern misfortune. We can, however, identify three main ones which continued to produce their effects throughout the year 2021. The first lies in the resistance to democratization on the part of regimes which methodically prevent the disputes they face from being peacefully arbitrated. by their fellow citizens in free elections. With the notable exception of Israel, which was also invited to the summit desired by Joe Biden, this impossibility prevents the sanctioning of political choices when they turn out to be devastating.
Community confinement
The region has become, over the course of the repressions, a world champion in terms of political prisoners, with Egypt as a figurehead, where they number in the tens of thousands. One of the few personalities of Arab civil societies invited to speak on the sidelines of Joe Biden’s virtual summit, Egyptian human rights activist Mohamed Zaree, is also the target of a ban on leaving his home. country. The intra-Palestinian repression in the West Bank, on top of the older one in Gaza, is a final illustration of this.
When elections are held, such as those planned 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 strong men, absolute sovereigns or dictators, who justify their hold on what takes the place of institutions as on the economic cogs of their country in the name of a stability which they would be the only ones to guarantee.
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