Martin Shaw: The Global Democratic Revolution: A New Stage
[Martin Shaw is professorial fellow in international relations and human rights at Roehampton University, London, and an honorary research professor of international relations at the University of Sussex. His books include War and Genocide: Organised Killing in Modern Society (Polity, 2003); The New Western Way of War: Risk-Transfer War and its Crisis in Iraq (Polity, 2005); and What is Genocide? (Polity, 2007).]
The epic events across the Arab world in the first months of 2011, diverse and many-sided as they are, can be understood as a single episode: the latest phase in the worldwide democratic revolution which has been remaking the world since the 1980s.
The process that began in Tunisia in mid-December 2010 and led to the overthrow of the country’s president a month later, achieved a similar outcome in Egypt following over two weeks of mass mobilisations there, and has spread from Yemen in the east to Morocco in the west.
True, the very different experiences of Arab countries - including the continuing strife in Libya, the protests in Bahrain, and the elite concessions in Jordan and Saudi Arabia - underline how variegated the process is and how uncertain the precise outcome in each case. And it is too early to say whether the changes in Tunisia and Egypt (and the results elsewhere) will lead to the creation of recognisably democratic states, let alone what the regional and global impact of the events will be.
But everywhere, the unifying thread is opposition to authoritarianism and aspiration to democratic rule; and the sense of a psychological break with the dictatorial past is unmistakable.
The immense movement in Egypt in particular - the middle-east’s largest and most influential country - has opened the space for politics, in a way that has ramifications far beyond the region. It is notable in this respect that authoritarian regimes from Tehran to Beijing have curtailed access to information about the Egyptian and other dramas. Their fear is a tribute to the achievement of this “Arab awakening”, however provisional the achievement remains in practical terms....
Read entire article at openDemocracy
The epic events across the Arab world in the first months of 2011, diverse and many-sided as they are, can be understood as a single episode: the latest phase in the worldwide democratic revolution which has been remaking the world since the 1980s.
The process that began in Tunisia in mid-December 2010 and led to the overthrow of the country’s president a month later, achieved a similar outcome in Egypt following over two weeks of mass mobilisations there, and has spread from Yemen in the east to Morocco in the west.
True, the very different experiences of Arab countries - including the continuing strife in Libya, the protests in Bahrain, and the elite concessions in Jordan and Saudi Arabia - underline how variegated the process is and how uncertain the precise outcome in each case. And it is too early to say whether the changes in Tunisia and Egypt (and the results elsewhere) will lead to the creation of recognisably democratic states, let alone what the regional and global impact of the events will be.
But everywhere, the unifying thread is opposition to authoritarianism and aspiration to democratic rule; and the sense of a psychological break with the dictatorial past is unmistakable.
The immense movement in Egypt in particular - the middle-east’s largest and most influential country - has opened the space for politics, in a way that has ramifications far beyond the region. It is notable in this respect that authoritarian regimes from Tehran to Beijing have curtailed access to information about the Egyptian and other dramas. Their fear is a tribute to the achievement of this “Arab awakening”, however provisional the achievement remains in practical terms....