Muwatin Conference on The Arab Revolutions and their Political and Intellectual Challenges
The widely known Palestinian Institute Muwatin (The Palestinian institute for the Study of Democracy) held its 17th annual conference on “The Arab Revolutions and their Political and Intellectual Challenges”. The event was co-organized by Heinrich Böll Stiftung Arab Middle East Office. On the 16 th and 17th of September 2011, academics, students, civil society activists and NGO representatives gathered at Best Eastern Hotel in Ramallah in order to attend one of the most established Palestinian events in the field of democracy promotion.
Inspired by the events of Arab Spring, the conference was focusing on the political and intellectual challenges after the revolutions. In four sessions experts from the Arab world and abroad were invited to share their knowledge and to identify in lively discussions the challenges. Those were identified as: a unified Palestinian strategy to end the occupation, using the power of new social media responsibly, reconsidering social, women and human rights by Political Islamic groups and assuring minority rights after the transformation.
One of the key speakers, Hani al-Masri, pointed out the effects of the Arab revolutions on Palestinian strategic thinking. He emphasized that the Palestinians needed a comprehensive, national strategy for all Palestinians, unifying them. “The past had shown that negotiations failed and we have to continue in a different way”, al Masri said. The acknowledgement of Israel’s right to exist was not mutually set for a Palestinian state to evolve. “The current events strengthen the impression that Israel’s right to exist simultaneously means the negation of the same right for the Palestinians. After the Oslo Accords the borders shrank to the 1967 borders (22% of historical Palestine) of which only half of it still is available to the Palestinian people. This development was mainly caused by the land cuts of the separation wall and Israel’s continuous settlement policy violating international law. The right of return and the Jerusalem status remained unconsidered in the negations, too. But following al-Masri there will be no solution without solving the refugee problem. This is why the Palestine question is not firstly of building a state but of assuring rights. For that reason Palestinians also have to be prepared for other options than focusing on the state declaration only.
The following key speakers were focusing on the transition in Tunis and Egypt.
Musa Budeiri showed new models of revolution and their enemies. “New about the revolutions is the fact, that they were not lead by a single person following an ideology or by a politically organized group. Even the Muslim groups joined in quite late. The main force where young people without political forces.”, he explained. The counter revolutionaries on the other hand were not only old regimes, colonial and imperial powers, but also traditional and conservative powers within the society fearing change and new powers to take over.
The American scholar Charles Hirschkind from Berkeley University went on talking about the different participating groups in Cairo in his presentation Beyond secular and religious: An intellectual genealogy of Tahrir Square.
Afterwards Basim Al Zbaidi presented the Role of Political Islam in the changes of Arab world. He thinks after the revolution Islamic groups, having a great influence in society, might have to reconsider their actions by taking challenges in account as how to deal with democratic claims such as human, women and social rights.
George Giacaman talked about the necessity to create awareness of the democratic risks at times of political transition. He was concerned that in Egypt everybody was currently promoting majority rights, such as the right to vote, but not taking minority rights into consideration. According to Giacaman the key question is what kind of constitution and rule will assure equal citizen rights and social freedom, especially as the political transition in Egypt might have a role model function to other Arab countries.
In another session Khaled Odettallah from Birzeit University gave an insight on the view from the Social Sciences on the Arab revolutions. Afterwards Abaher as-Saqqa, presented his paper on New Arab protests movements: Rethinking social space. As-Saqqa stated: “The Arabs are not as ‘lazy’ and apolitical as they were accused of in the past. Their decision to not participate in politics before the revolutions actually was politically motivated: By rejecting the political standards of an unreliable leadership, classical opposition and existing parties they had expressed their dissatisfaction on the current situation.” Thus their “lazyness” and missing political involvement also can be interpreted as a political attitude. Finally as-Saqqa resumed: “When Azizi burned himself he moved the political stand from the private sphere to the public sphere calling for dignity.”
In another paper Raja Khalidi explained the economic impacts of the Arab revolutions on the region. Due to him new liberalism actually encouraged them to break out as on the contrary of its claim to bring prosperity, poverty was increased and unemployment rose.
The seeking for the lost happiness, humanity and virtue promoted by the growing gap between ruler and ruled was Esmail Nashif’s main point. With his paper on an intellectual history of despotism he wanted to take the audience on a “morning journey”, as he stated. Another topic he stressed was the critique of the media’s short-term reporting: “To understand what really happened in the society of Egypt it needs a look back for at least two centuries and not only a couple of weeks.” Thus the question is how media has to change to do justice to the happenings.
With a long term analysis the media might have prevented the lack of prediction of the Arab revolutions, as discussed by Majid Shehadeh. “With classical analysis terms like Orientalism, Eurocentrism and Modernity the events could not be expected.”, he explained. Thus it would require new theories and ways of analysis. For instance, the adaption of Western thoughts as non-violence or the usage of its technology like Twitter and Facebook (which importance later was explained in another paper of Fadi Kur’an) played a huge role that could not be predicted by the old patterns of thought.
Finally Ala Al-Azza’s talk about the limited impact of the Arab revolts in Palestine a few days before Mahmud Abbas’ UN claim for full membership of Palestine. Al-Azza considers it to be problematical to focus on the reasons of the absence of such a revolutionary event in Palestine. “This has nothing to do with analyzing but rather reflecting a wish. There is a strong nostalgia to the first intifada after what happened at Tahrir Square. But psychologically analyzed one has to take into account that the Palestinians partly are tired and frustrated: they went through two Intifadas within the last 30 years while the Israeli military machine still tries to defeat their consciousness.”, he stated continuing: “But the fact that the youth is ready to die, shown on Nakba day trying to enter the borders, shows a change in resistance.” All in all Al-Azza rather sees an interaction than an impact of the Arab revolts. The 15th of March call for the end of division and unity reflects that and hopefully, as mentioned in the beginning by al-Masri, will lead to a unified strategy in future.