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When Minorities Rule in the Middle East - Historical Realities

(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) - Martin Kramer Minority rule has a long tradition in the Middle East, where it has never had the same stigma that the modern West attaches to it. We have seen Alawi rule in Syria (where Sunnis are a majority), Sunni rule in Iraq (where Shi'ites are the largest group), Hashemite rule in Jordan (imported from Arabia, over a Palestinian majority), and dynastic rule throughout the Persian Gulf (where foreigners outnumber natives). Americans see democratization as a process that will loosen the grip of tyrannical rule. Middle Easterners see it as a lever to shift power among different ethnic and sectarian groups, overturning social hierarchies established by a thousand years of internal struggles. More important than democracy is the principle of self-determination for sub-national groups, majorities and minorities, the guarantee of autonomous control of their daily lives. The writer, the Wexler-Fromer Fellow at The Washington Institute, is senior research fellow and former director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University.
2004-12-31 00:00:00
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