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GUY BECHOR:
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The real dissident is the Jewish state

Where is the Nelson Mandela of the Arab world? Why is there is not one famous dissident among 20-odd autocratic Arab states, no symbol or role model inspiring widespread emulation, as were Andre Sakharov and Ida Nudel in the USSR, despite thousands of political prisoners rotting in regional jails?

How will this impact possible change and self-censure in the Arab Middle East in the third millennium?

In the Arab world, ruler and regime are not mere means of oppression, as the West tends to believe, but primarily an assurance of stability and social order. The ruler enters into a sort of pact with the citizens, whereby they support him and, in return, he ensures lasting social stability.

A dissident in this society, then, who speaks out against the regime’s oppression, is first and foremost a traitor, threatening not only the ruler but social order itself; a traitor both in the eyes of the ruler and of the masses desirous of preserving the status quo.

As long as a political prisoner, or any other disruptive activist is perceived as a danger to social stability and the political system, he is unlikely to become a role model in the Arab world.

Self-questioning is rare in the public discourse of the Arab world, since it is regarded as undermining the collective. Writers penning scathing articles in the Arabic press which are published in Europe tend to hide behind a pseudonym for fear of retribution.

In Communist countries, Jews played a vociferous role in opposing authoritarianism, while few Jews remain in the Arab world. It is not surprising therefore that one of the most outspoken dissidents in Morocco for many years was a Jew, Avraham Sarfatti (released in 1991; returned to Morocco after the death of King Hassan II).

Dissidents inspire fear by their very existence, since many believe that any change is always for the worse — anarchy or the rise of radical Islam — and so prefer the status quo. To quote the Islamic scholar Al-Razali (d. 1111), better 100 years of tyranny than a single year of social mayhem.

Attempts at change of this kind in the Arab world have proved bitter, such as Algeria in the Nineties and present-day Iraq. Any political protest is inevitably doomed from the very outset.

THE PARADOX is that although there are no conspicuous dissidents in the Arab world, some 300 million citizens are actually dissidents themselves: Politically embittered, culturally confused, pessimistic as to any improvement in the future, they regard the West with an impossible blend of admiration mixed with envy, arrogance, and bitterness.

Organized rebellion would be pointless — not just on account of pervasive weariness, disappointment, and cynicism towards political alternatives — but because of the might wielded by Arab autocrats. The entire country revolves around the leader: Egypt is Mubarak and Mubarak is Egypt. And foreign dissidents such as this year’s Nobel Peace prize-winner, Iranian Shirin Abadi, or Iraqi Ahmed Shalabi, are regarded locally with unwelcoming suspicion. This is why the opposition-in-exile has failed to install itself in Iraq, six months following its return to the country.

Arab society has no tradition of insurgence; there has never been a popular uprising in this region. The military coups of the Fifties were, in fact, a case of one elite taking over from the other, or, in the elegy by the great Syrian poet Adonis: "The pangs of revolution gave birth only to cemeteries."

Commitment devoid of content to an ethos of military coups, learning by rote as a didactic norm, and a social identity founded on collective, anti-individualistic factors, combine to encourage conservatism and enshrine the status quo. Islam itself regards political opposition as a grave Koranic sin, while consensus (ijma’) is well-established in sources of Islamic law.

Add the vigor with which any spark of nonconformity is stamped out, as, for instance, the imprisonment of Egyptian sociologist Prof. Sa`ad a-Din Ibrahim, who was forbidden to teach civic philosophy at his Ibn Khaldun institute; persecution of homosexuals and religious and ethnic minorities, the intimidating "other," in Egypt and other Arab countries; a police force with the authority to order indiscriminate arrests and imprisonment; torture and secret mock trials in Saudi Arabia; cruel punishments; the thousands missing in Algeria; and executions, as reported year after year by Amnesty International.

So great is the power wielded by the authorities that no disillusioned citizen has any hope of contesting it, as the thousands of graves of Saddam Hussein’s opponents discovered in Iraq, prove.

The great Syrian-born poet, Nizar Qabbani, mourned the fate of political power and society in the Arab world, calling them "cities of the dead, provinces of no-poetry and no love, of frustration and despair."

EUROPE, WARY of anarchy in the Arab world which lies just beyond its horizon, has selfishly preferred to regard Arab regimes, even that of Saddam Hussein, as a stabilizing buffer, consciously relinquishing any chance of democratization and change in Arab society.

The Arab world finds itself trapped in a series of vicious circles: As long as the existing rule is regarded as justification of independence, there will not be outspoken dissidents. And without them, there will be no change of power.

As long as reform and democracy are frightening and unwanted, they will simply not happen, especially given democracy’s image as an American and Israeli stick with which to beat Arabs. How can we adopt our enemy’s way, they ask, isn’t that a kind of treason? Isn’t it surrender? It is not only democracy that is foreign; so, too, is dissent.

It turns out that the only true dissident in the Arab Middle East is Israel, proponent of Western ideas, the rights and liberties of democracy, optimism, and symbol of change-within-continuity. Europe and America are remote, but Israel is a challenging, nearby presence, which makes it a target for regional frustrations.

Since it is permitted to demonstrate in most Arab countries only against Israel, hatred against those regimes which may not be attacked undergoes a transformation, and is channeled against Israel. Israel is to blame for everything: corrupt government, the bankrupt economy, backward education system, and economic and cultural poverty.

Arabs talk about Israel but in fact they refer to themselves. Israel’s success is evidence of their failure, and they don’t like it. Israel is a tough nut for the Arab regimes to crack, notably the change and revisionism it embodies in its very existence. They have to boycott Israel and minimize its pernicious regional influence, in the same way that they have to lock up every dangerous local dissident.

The writer is an expert in Mideast affairs at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center.