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Arab Spring No Guarantee of Middle East Democracy
(The Australian) Shlomo Avineri - For the first time in modern Arab history, authoritarian regimes and rulers were toppled or seriously challenged by popular demonstrations, not through military coups. However, while dictators associated with military juntas were challenged overnight, the Arab Spring never came to the region's conservative monarchies such as Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states (exception for Bahrain). It appears that these monarchies enjoy a form of traditional authority that the secular nationalist rulers never had. In Egypt, the transition to a functioning democracy will be a lengthy process. The great majority of Egyptians were not in Tahrir Square, and many of them lack not only access to online social networks, but also electricity and safe drinking water. Democracy and free speech are not at the top of their agenda. Egypt's silent majority also identifies with the authenticity represented by various Islamic groups, while principles of democracy and civil rights seem to them to be imported Western abstractions. The writer, professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was director-general of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs under prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.