Juan
Cole's 'New Arab' Fantasies
by Andrew Harrod
FrontPage Magazine
October 28, 2014
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The "advent of a new generation" of Arabs was the overly
optimistic theme for University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole's
recent lecture at
the George Washington University Elliot School of International
Relations. Cole's discussion of his new book, The
New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle
East, to an audience of about fifty, mostly Elliot School students,
failed to substantiate his ongoing hopes for the so-called Arab Spring.
Elliot School professor Edward
W. (Skip) Gnehm introduced Cole as a Middle East
expert who is popular on television, a supposedly confidence
inspiring credential. Cole focused on Tunisia, noting that this
comparatively small North African country with no oil resources had
received "insufficient press." His main concern was
"youth revolutionaries," as the Arab press termed Arab Spring
regime opponents in Libya, Tunisia, and elsewhere.
Cole began by claiming that a "relatively successful . . .
transition away from authoritarianism" under the "Ben Ali
clique," who were "basically bank robbers," had marked
Tunisia's Arab Spring. Nonetheless, Tunisia is still "on
a tightrope," he added, as some Tunisian regions are prone to
violence and Tunisia's neighbor Libya also presents dangers. The
"Mad Max-like scenes of post-apocalyptic
horror" previously described in Cole's
writings "have . . . dashed" the Arab Spring's
"bright hopes" in Libya and elsewhere. Elliot School
professorWilliam
Lawrence noted in a post-lecture conversation that Libya's
parliament has now fled the capital Tripoli for a Greek car
ferry moored in Tobruk. However, in December 2011, Cole
stated erroneously that the "Libyan Revolution has largely
succeeded, and this is a moment of celebration."
Cole contrasted Libya with Tunisia, calling the new 2014 Tunisianconstitution "very
good on paper" and "very nicely worded." The
"secularists won" in defeating attempts to codify sharia, which
Cole dubiously compared to Catholic canon law, as well as a gender
"complementarity" clause. "The feminists in the room
know what that means," Cole said of the latter, before equating
the "party of the Muslim religious right," Tunisia's
Islamist, pro-jihadist Ennahda
Party, initial supporter of both measures, with American
conservatives.
But Cole conveniently omitted key passages of Tunisia's constitution,
including the opening traditional Islamic invocation, "In
the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate." Other
passages stipulate Tunisia's "Islamic-Arab identity" and
"civilizational affiliation to the Arab-Islamic nation."
The preamble also supports "just liberation movements . . . against
all forms of occupation and racism," whose "forefront . .
. is the Palestinian liberation movement." Article 1, which
"cannot be amended," further proclaims that
Tunisia's "religion is Islam" while Article
6 denotes state duty "to protect the sacred."
Tunisia's regionally unique "broad spectrum of politics"
includes "militant" secularists, even though Ennahda won a
thirty-seven percent plurality in the October 23, 2011 constitutional
assembly elections,
Cole observed. "People will say things in Tunisia that if
you said them in Cairo you certainly would be killed" by some Muslim
vigilante, he noted. Yet even Tunisia "pushing the
boundaries," erroneously compared by Cole with American history, has
its limits. A television broadcast of Persepolis depicting
God as an old man brought a blasphemy
conviction, he warned.
Cole contrasted his book's focus on "secular, leftist
movements" with what he called the media's obsession with the
"Arab world—Muslim barbarians," but audience questions prompted
him to address the role of Islam. "I can't deny that religious
themes are very important in politics" in Iraq now, Cole conceded.
Yet Shiites and Sunnis killing each other over theology "just
doesn't seem to me . . . the way the world works," he incorrectly
concluded.
Cole praised the Middle East's "new political generation,"
noting that, according to polls, it's "significantly less
religiously observant" than previous generations. He warned,
however, that democracy is "not necessarily . . . breaking
out." Elaborating on his Arab variant of the secularization
thesis (refuted throughout history), he added that countries like
Saudi Arabia and Libya had urbanized in past decades.
"At this point in the American Revolution, the British still had
Staten Island," was Cole's ahistorical Middle East/America
comparison. Presidential term limits in Egypt's new constitution,
for example, show that "things are changing a little
bit." Events are "still changing . . . fluid,"
and it's "too early to call" on renaming the Arab
Spring the "Islamic Winter."
Despite Cole's wishful thinking and strained comparisons of Arab
upheaval with American political history, the Middle East's road to
liberty under law will remain rocky. Small, atypically secular
Tunisia's narrow democratic success does not justify Cole's
optimism that the Middle East will develop open societies freed
from Islamic atavism. While the Shiite-Sunni sectarian strife Cole
consistently downplays ravages Iraq, Syria, and beyond, jihadists
hail from Saudi Arabia, other urbanized parts of the Middle East, and the
West. As with Arab Spring Libya, Cole will certainly err again.
Andrew E. Harrod is a freelance researcher and writer who holds a
PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a JD from George
Washington University Law School. He is a fellow with the Lawfare Project;
follow him on twitter at @AEHarrod. He wrote this essay for Campus Watch, a project
of the Middle East Forum.
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