After the dictators

Want to know what will happen in the Arab world after the fall of despots such as Gaddafi and Mubara

By Sholto Byrnes Published 12 September 2011

After weeks of riots, demonstrations and bloody counterattacks, the dictator at last stood down. His promised reforms were not enough. Eventually the armed forces, from whose ranks he had emerged and whose loyalty had shored up his regime for nearly 30 years, would no longer support him. Some feared that when elections were held, Islamists would take over. In the event, the first fair presidential vote did bring to power the leader of a Muslim organisation; but moderation prevailed. The country's citizens were too attached to their newly won freedom to allow anyone to restrict their rights again.

A decade on, corruption is rife, many of the dictator's past associates are big political players, and the former ruler was never brought to account for the human rights violations that took place on his watch. But change has come. The US president has hailed the country as a model for how Muslim-majority autocracies can become pluralist democracies.

This is an outline of what happened when a long-serving dictator fell from power in 1998 - General Suharto of Indonesia. Can something similar happen in the Middle East and North Africa? For decades of their post-independence history, the countries of the Far East and south-east Asia were ruled by autocrats. One by one, however, nearly all the despots have fallen, or stepped down, or begun to open up their state's political sphere and relinquish power. In some countries, the change happened dramatically, as in Indonesia and in the Philippines' People Power Revolution of 1986, which saw off Ferdinand Marcos. In others, "soft authoritarians" such as Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad voluntarily terminated long periods in office. Democracy today may be limited, as it is in Singapore, shaky (Cambodia) or intermittent (Thailand). But principles of good governance, such as independence of the judiciary, took root so quickly in South Korea and Taiwan that both countries have tried and convicted democratically elected presidents.

Throughout the region, repression is on the wane. The cheers for democracy have been unstoppable. So, what lessons can east Asia offer to an Arab world awakening to a new revolt in which the despotic leaders of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and, in effect, Yemen have departed while others, notably in Syria and Bahrain, sweat in their gilt-edged beds?

To borrow a phrase from the Jakarta Globe columnist Karim Raslan, "an authoritarian consensus" existed in both regions: economic development was the trade-off for lack of democracy and civil rights. The leaders of these lands used the same tool - varying forms of anti-colonial rhetoric - and not just those who had won their position through revolution or armed struggle, as in the case of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser and Indonesia's Sukarno, but also monarchs such as Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, whom the French had placed on the throne thinking he was a playboy they could manipulate, but who ended up touring the world demanding his country's independence.

In both regions, stability was a prize attained only with great effort - the boundaries of many countries had been drawn by the colonial powers, and frequently created artificial barriers between ethnic groups or lumped together historically antagonistic peoples. That prize was palpably fragile, but the consequent imperatives of "national unity" also became a convenient excuse for heavy-handed police action, risible elections and the restriction of liberties. This was overlooked by the west, however, for the dictators were our allies.

In the implicit bargain between autocratic leaders and their populaces, everything hung on the prospect of prosperity. In his 2007 modern social history Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong and South-East Asia, Joe Studwell argued that the countries he covered had enjoyed a "developmental honeymoon". In this state, he wrote:

"Populations are unusually willing to trust authority and their leaders' promises to deliver continuous improvements in standards of living. When south-east Asians were told that free association of labour was antithetical to growth . . . and that constraints on individual freedom and the media are part of Asian culture, they acquiesced."

When the honeymoon soured or came to an abrupt end, the regimes fell. It was not anger about human rights abuses that brought Suharto down, but his government's catastrophic response to the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Eleven years earlier, if an ailing President Marcos had not lost control of the Philippines' economy, his wife, Imelda, might have been able to carry on expanding her notorious shoe collection.

People can tolerate plutocratic elites so long as some of the wealth appears to trickle down. For most of the time, it did in east Asia. Not so, or not sufficiently, in west Asia and its environs. And it is not just in this that the Arab dictators have worse records than their western-backed east Asian predecessors. In terms of targeted massacres of their own people, for instance, few of them went as far as promising the "rivers of blood" that Colonel Gaddafi wanted rebellious Libyans to suffer. Nor could many match Syria's destruction of the town of Hama in 1982, when up to 40,000 people died in President Hafez al-Assad's attempt to wipe out the Muslim Brotherhood in his country. A desire for punitive retribution is understandable. But, judging by the precedents in east Asia, it should be resisted.

This is because if there is one thing that has marked the transition towards democracy in east Asia, it has been an almost bewilderingly magnanimous accommodation with the past. In Indonesia, several of Suharto's top generals have been on the ticket in presidential elections; one, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is the incumbent. Marcos's widow is in the Philippines congress, and their son is a senator. Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen, is a former member of the Khmer Rouge and was also premier of the Vietnamese-installed People's Republic of Kampuchea in the 1980s. Pol Pot's genocidal regime fell over 30 years ago, but only five senior Khmer Rouge cadres have faced trial so far, and one has been convicted. There appears to be little appetite for the UN-backed war crimes court to bring more to justice.

Strategic amnesia

Occasionally, the willingness to ignore the dictators' past atrocities and embrace their memory is quite incomprehensible to the outside world. In the Philippines, there have been calls for Marcos to be honoured with a state funeral. And last year the Indonesian government proposed to make Suharto a "national hero". The award-winning author Tash Aw, whose first two novels are set in Malaysia and Indonesia, puts it thus: "I think it is a typically Asian way of dealing with the trauma of history: we have to ignore the ugly truth of what happened in the past in order to move forward."

This amnesia can also be explained partly by a necessity to salvage something from the strongmen's decades. If the dictators and autocrats were entirely bad, even evil, then swaths of the years these states have been independent must be regarded as shameful. Indonesia, for instance, was ruled from 1945 to 1998 by two such men - Sukarno and then Suharto. Can its people only celebrate the last 13 years of its existence? Moreover, at the time they took power, these men nearly all drew on local sources of legitimacy and enjoyed tremendous popularity. Many were involved in the liberation struggle. Quite a few were elected to begin with, as were Marcos, Sukarno and Sihanouk (when he renounced the throne to become prime minister in 1955), while those parliamentary autocrats, Mahathir and Lee Kuan Yew, earned their leadership time and again in national polls. Even Ne Win, who led the military coup in Burma in 1962 and ruled until 1988, had become prime minister entirely legally in 1958, and duly handed power back after 17 months.

Neither are their records as unequivocal as western observers usually portray them. They were mostly successful at maintaining stability - dictators tend to be good at that - but also in bringing millions out of poverty. In a region where Lee Kuan Yew could proudly title the second volume of his memoirs From Third World to First, raising standards of living was an achievement neither ignored at the time nor forgotten today. Western-style pluralistic liberal democracy was absent from Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan in the 1970s and 1980s; but that was also when their astonishing growth led them to become known as the Asian Tiger economies. All his crimes cannot take away from Suharto that he reduced Indonesia's inflation rate from 650 per cent in 1966 to under 20 per cent within three years; and his harshest critics will admit that substantial progress was made in education, health care and infrastructure.

It is not that the populations of these countries are not aware that, in many cases, "these people stole their money, and with relative impunity", says Bridget Welsh, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins and Singapore Management universities. "But there comes a point when these individuals become part of the national story. Their legacy is in things that people can identify with, like roads and schools."

Similarly in the Middle East, the revolutions that brought the generation of Pan-Arab nationalist leaders to power were "popular" in both the political and the quotidian senses, at least initially. The memory of the most prominent of those men, Gamal Abdel Nasser, remains sufficiently inspiring that, in the early days of the Arab spring, al-Jazeera reported images of the former Egyptian president being "raised in Cairo and across Arab capitals by people who were not even alive when Nasser died in 1970". He was a dictator nevertheless, as was his successor-but-one, Hosni Mubarak. Will the latter be remembered only for his tyranny? Or will future generations of Egyptians recall the air force commander who became a hero of the 1973 Yom Kippur war? The Gulf monarchs, on the other hand, have not only kept their part of the economic bargain (easy, with all that oil) but are the heads of ruling families that for generations have stood at the apex of tribal hierarchies.

If an emphasis on reconciliation rather than truth is a feature of the post-dictator landscape, then so is a rather different form of democracy from the kind practised in the west. It will almost certainly be one in which religion assumes a prominence that would dismay secularists. It is also likely to be one in which a very different notion of liberty prevails. "You place so much value on individuals' rights that you forget that the majority has rights also," Malaysia's Mahathir told me in an interview last year. He, and other proponents of the "Asian values" theory, reject western-style liberal democracy on the grounds that it is based on foreign social, cultural, religious, ethnic and economic factors, and that it constitutes a "reckless free-for-all".

As the highly respected Singapore-based political scientist Farish A Noor wrote recently: "Democracy, it has to be remembered, is a rather novel introduction to our part of the world. Prior to that, our ancestors lived in the realm of god-kings where the ruler and the state was one and the same thing. Our real concern should be whether the peoples of the Arab world . . . know how to handle the public domain with the care it deserves. This includes having to learn the rules of participatory democracy while on the go."

We should certainly lend whatever help we can to countries newly embracing such challenges. Beyond that, however, the lessons from east Asia's transitions towards to democracy are for the outside world to refrain from judging too loudly when dynastic tendencies emerge; from lecturing when our standards of transparency and governance are not met; and above all from intervening and taking control of the process. The US and other western countries, Welsh says, "have to recognise that they can't do it themselves. Invasions and no-fly zones put them, and not the people who need to be, in the driving seat. Telling people that things need to be done for them just infan

Tags: Libya Egypt

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3 comments

Mon, 2011-10-10 23:46 — amin

Libyan Constitution Between Policy and sophistry:
About The new Constitution and Articles provided by, the persistent attempts of some to influence the general public opinion, either by using religion of some called the Clergymen or by exploitation of the ignorance of the general concept of democracy and the right of choice to get what they wanted, the issue that Quran is the source of legislation in the Libyan, As they are the guardians with their ignorance on us and our religion, if we did not build on the experiences of the others “developed countries” to create the new Constitution of our state, it means we are not aware of our reality, namely what the criminal tyrant did; the destruction of the minds and souls, today we must be aware of our reality very well including our weakness, but tomorrow will be better through taking advantage of the developed countries, those established their constitutions after suffering and hard work, we do not have to start from scratch or making new silly experience, it is not logical nowadays to make a new machine without the experiences of other developed countries in this field, the insertion of religion in politics is the source of real danger, we’ve to take an example of the experiences of nations before us, all advanced countries now adopt a secular constitution because it guarantees the rights of all without religious distinction, and to block those who try to exploit religion in order to influence the public for their own interests, of course this taking into account the respect for the official state religion, so that new constitution should not incompatible with the official religion, to whom named clergymen when they no longer have room for logical controversy, they do put religion in front of them and say things like God said, Do you want to challenge the word of God?! “ward off the others”, of course, interpretation of the religion is loose “Multi-interpretation”, and opens the door for exploitation of ordinary people, some of the Clergymen giving an examples of false that the countries established on the basis of a religious system are a democratic countries, of course this is something flawed completely, regarding some of the so-called fallacy of the former Islamic countries , such as the Umayyad, Abbasid and The Mogul later,,, rulers were using Islamic religion system when the others try to touch their rule, they said you’ve to obey the Ruler, not to mention their corruption and evildoing, truth it’s not applied to all Muslims only to those simple, but modern states such as Malaysia and Turkey are a secular states, have multi-religious, despite the majority of them Muslims, even they using religion for their political interests. The idea here is that there is no a successful religious state, because it is not possible for the applying of utopia on earth, no room for the loose laws, although the example of Iran; the oppressive theocracy that exploits the ordinary people, the so-called men of religion, the religion of their only whims and interests, For those who speak of history to be conscious of what they say first.
The dilemma is that the mere entering of religion in any way prejudice the Constitution, the fact that civil constitution should be without wrap or turn.
the idea is Establishing an Constitution which does not prejudice the principles of the religious community, but incorporating the constitution is something else different.
We should know very well that there is no successful religious state throughout the ages, this is a fallacy, the interpretation of loose religion system makes tyrants, giving them the opportunity to use it for their own purposes and to suppress their opponents later.
I have noticed covering and exploitation of God’s religion to appeal the feelings of ordinary Muslim people, as well as exploitation of the events of the revolution as it’s an entry phase of armament for self-defense and the right, knowing that most people who entered of what named the Islamists those had participated the “Mukatila” fighting group in Afghanistan, their knowledge of how to use weapons, especially as most of Them are a Russian-made weapons, and so they got the opportunity in Libya, especially that most people here do not have experience with it, some of them managed to leading positions taken it easily, although most of them do not deserve it because they do not have leadership at all.
We are at stake, Patriotism is above everything else, the extent of this simple and good people such as those will facilitate climbing, religion of God is not supposed to be seized on by others.
Conclusion: We are a human beings we are sinners and we have our prejudice, will never protect us only a strict law; does not give the opportunity to exploit the gaps in it, strange that when so-called Islamists seek for a refugee they found it only at shelter of law and freedoms states, namely the Western countries with a secular constitution, it’s Islamite’s hypocrisy they trying to bring the law into a loose to exploit it later this is a risk on the progress of any country, we say that we strive for a advanced modern country, how to establish the Constitution on the basis of religion, the developed modern state will have a secularists and Christians, Buddhists,,, how will they be treated when the Constitution does not take into account the rest of the religions and ethnicities,,, , we must note the contrast between Articles 05,11 and 21 in the old Libyan Constitution, we must learn from the experiences and mistakes of developed societies for the establishment of the strict Constitution not lose one, if we didn’t then the culture of tyrants and vampires will prevail they are waiting for Usurps the future of our children, culture of respect for the scientific capability and the granting of having them is better than leaving room for bluffing or who have only sophistry that does not make good after all, only it will lead to the abyss, now we are in a sensitive position likely it will be a knockout blow may be fatal, being we’re moderate religious people, does not mean to leave the area to exploit the future of our children, or giving chance to promote the idea of covering the genitalia!; such as drunkenness and adultery : hiding and covering them up does not work, covering dirty will make it worse, the hypocrisy of sick people does not solve the problem but exacerbated by, we’ve to face the world with our minds and not with weak souls and covering up grappling problems, trying to find solutions is better than hiding “the doctrine of covering the genitalia”, the truth is there is no escape from the fact that it cannot be apply the religion on earth means utopian does not exist and is not applicable on the ground, otherwise there will be no punishment and reward in the reckoning day.
Also we should not forget to be careful of the Iraq experience, and the Abuse of office and lack of respect for the suffering of the Iraqi people and their destinies, one example is the failure to solve the problem of electricity there so far, despite the disbursement of billions of dollars, we must be aware of criminals their appearances and certificates is not enough to make straight men, Patriotism is essential, based on the original culture and being psychology sound from incurable diseases, we should know that the high certificates does not mean high scientific ability to think and solve problems or makes a straight man, not all human beings have the appropriate logic to solve problems or leadership,
Do you know the reason behind underdevelopment countries like Africa; Although it is full of natural resources continent which allow to rise a developed countries, due to the psychological character first of all; if we compare the African man for example with the Western man we find that the Western man cares about the future of his children for hundreds of years to the contrary from the African who care about only himself and his low instinct, this is worse than level of the non-rational animal, not to mention that the concept of humanity is very weak, that is why human should care about the future of his children away from dirty emotions to be a real human.
we should know the extent of the destruction and the deliberated ignorance inflicted by the criminal tyrant this going to make it easier for us to get out of danger zone, we must be careful of whom play on the patriotism string in addition to the exploitation of religion, but our choice will determine how our children will respect and look to us in the future.
Also, everyone should realize that Libya is for all Libyans and that most Libyans took part in this revolution by any means, this is blessed revolution and no one to boast or claim being more deserving than others, as the crazy tyrant previously said: I took it by my rifle, if it’s a matter of booty as they raided a foreign aggressor’s land, If this is the logic of the ignorant people then NATO alliance has the right of 90% because they played a key role in this war, we have to respect the souls of the martyrs and whom suffered harm from this dirty tyrant and enough ignorance, but all unite for free and civilized Libya, and we should recover what we lost, with Solidarity, tolerance and love for our country these what will determine the fate of our children’s future.

Mon, 2011-09-26 06:02 — Ivan Miletitch

I don't think that anyone can seriously compare Asia & Arabic countries. all situations need to be evaluated individually, and I fear that, 5 years down the line, the situation after the 'arab spring' will not be all that different to what it was 6 months ago.... The rich oil producing countries (S Arabia/Bahrein etc...) will be propped up by the West, Egypt/Lybia will still be dealing with corruption & civil unrest with Islamic extremists trying to gain the upper hand (poss a ray of hope for Tunisia, trying for closer integration into the Euro-Mediterranean Alliance)...I hope I am proved wrong but I somehow doubt it !

Sat, 2011-10-01 23:29 — amin

Libyan Constitution Between Policy and Religion:
The new Constitution and Articles provided by, the persistent attempts of some to influence the general public, either by using religion for some called the clerks and the exploitation of the ignorance of the general concept of democracy and the right of choice to get what they wanted, if we do not make use of the experiences of others to create the new Constitution of the state, it means we are not aware of our reality, namely what the criminal tyrant did, the destruction of the minds and souls, we must be aware of our reality very well today, going through the situation of weakness, but tomorrow will be better that the advantage of developed countries, which established its constitution after the suffering, we do not have to start from scratch, it is not logical that make a car now without the benefit of the experiences of others in this field, the insertion of religion in politics is the source of real danger, we’ve to take an example of the experiences of nations before us, all advanced countries now adopt a secular constitution because it guarantees the rights of all without religious distinction, and to block those who try to exploit religion to influence the public, for their own interests, of course, this taking into account the respect for the official state religion, so that a new constitution is not incompatible with the official religion, to whom named clergy men when no longer have room for controversy logic, they do put religion in front of them and say things like God said, Do you want to challenge the word of God!, of course, interpretation of the religion is loose, and the exploitation of ordinary people, some of the cleric men giving an examples of false that the countries established on the basis of a religious are a democratic countries, and this is something flawed completely, regarding some of the so-called fallacy of Islamic countries the former, such as the Umayyad and Abbasid The Mogul,,, rulers were using Islamic religion when the others try to touch their rule, as if to say to obey the Ruler, not to mention their corruption and evildoing, truth is not applied to Islam only to those simple, but modern states such as Malaysia is a secular state, has the multi-religious, despite the majority of them Muslims. The idea here is that there is a religious state is successful, because it is not possible for the application of utopia on earth, no room for the loose laws, although the example of Iran's oppressive theocracy that exploits the ordinary people, the so-called men of religion, the religion of their whims and interests only,
For those who speak of history to be conscious of what he says first.
The dilemma is that the mere introduction of religion in any way prejudice the Constitution of the fact that civil constitution without the wrap and turn.
Establishing the Constitution does not prejudice the principles of the religious community, and incorporating the constitution is something else different.
We should know very well that there is no successful religious state throughout the ages this is fallacy, an interpretation of loose religion system makes tyrants will use for their own purposes and to suppress their opponents later.
I have noticed cover and the exploitation of some of God's religion to appeal the feelings of ordinary people, as well as exploitation of the events of the revolution its entry phase of armament for self-defense and the right, knowing that most people who enter of what name the Islamists who had participated the “Mukatila” fighting group in Afghanistan, including the knowledge how to use weapons, especially as most of Them are a Russian-made weapons, and so they get the opportunity in Libya, especially that most people do not have experience with it, some of them managed to leading positions taken it easily, although most of them do not deserve it because he is not a leader at all.
We are at a pivotal, Patriotism is above everything else, the extent of this simple and good people such as these will facilitate climbing, religion of God is not supposed to be seized on by others.
Bottom line: We are human beings we are sinners and we have our prejudice, and will not protect us, only a strict law does not give the opportunity to exploit the gaps in it, strange that when so-called Islamists seek for a refugee they found it only at shelter of law and freedoms, namely the Western countries with a secular constitution, hypocrisy and try to bring the law into a loose to exploit it later is a risk on the progress of any country, we say that we strive for a modern advanced, how to establish the Constitution on the basis of religion, the modern state and developed will have a secular and Christian, Buddhist,,,, how will be treated, when the Constitution does not take into account the rest of the religions and ethnicities,,, , we must note the contrast between Articles 05,11 and 21 in the constitution, we must learn from the experiences and mistakes of developed societies for the establishment of the strict Constitution not loose, if we didn’t then the culture of tyrants and vampires will prevail they are waiting, for the future of our children, culture of respect for the scientific capability and the granting of having them is better than leave room for bluffing or who have only sophistry that does not hurt after all, only will lead to the abyss, we are now in a position not likely to experience drove the other may be fatal, we’re religious and moderate people, does not mean to leave the area to exploit the future of our children, or promote the idea of covering the genitalia!, such as drunkenness and adultery : hiding and covering them up does not work, covering dirty will make it worse, the hypocrisy of patients does not solve the problem but exacerbated by, we’ve to face the world with our minds and not with weak souls and covering up grappling problems, and trying to find solutions is better than hiding and the doctrine of covering the genitalia, the truth is but an escape from the fact that it can not be applied religion on earth sense utopian does not exist and is not applicable on the ground, otherwise there will be no punishment and reward on the reckoning day.
Also we should not forget to be careful of the Iraq experience of bad policy, the exploitation of office and lack of respect for the suffering of the Iraqi people and destinies, one example is the failure to resolve the problem of electricity there so far, despite the disbursement of billions of dollars, we must be aware of criminals appearances and certificates is not enough to make man, Patriotism is essential, based on the original culture and psychology of sound from incurable diseases, and that we should know that the certificate does not mean high scientific ability to think and solve problems, not all human beings have the appropriate logic to solve problems or leadership,
our acknowledge of the extent of the destruction and the deliberated ignorance inflicted by the criminal tyrant, will make it easier for us to get out of danger zone, we must be careful of whom play on the nationality string and the exploitation of religion, but our choice is in charge of what will determine how our children will respect and look to us in the future.
Also, everyone should realize that Libya is for all Libyans and that most Libyans took part in this revolution by any means, this is blessed revolution and no one to boast or claim to be more deserving than others, as the crazy tyrant previously said: I took it by my rifle, if it’s a matter of booty as if they raided a foreign aggressor, If this is the logic of the ignorant nations then NATO has the right of 90% because they played a key role, we have to respect the souls of the martyrs and whom suffered harm from this dirty tyrant and enough ignorance, but all unite for free and civilized Libya, and we recover what we lost, with Solidarity, tolerance and love for our country these what will determine the fate of our children's future.