The prevailing tendency to depict unrest in the Middle East as symptomatic of region-wide social and political injustice, exacerbated by suppression of dissent and a lack of democracy, is dangerously myopic. Using this template keeps observers from knowing the specific reasons for violent political demonstrations, by treating crowds as the rudderless, leaderless sum of their parts.
But crowds are not rudderless. They are governed — often by leaders who deliberately misremember the past in order to misconstrue the present, for better or worse — and those who govern them must be held accountable for their actions, especially when human life is sacrificed. So despite strong desires to forgive “unthinking crowds” for waves of destruction, especially when carried out for “progressive” reasons, individual accountability is key.
Too many political activists are allergic to self-reflection and tend to deflect calls for dialogue and moderation. They prey on the truth — manufacturing convenient politics with modern technologies and shrewd imaginations — to fulfill their own larger objectives. This has resulted in the proliferation of serial revolutionaries who upload decontextualized or manipulated pictures and videos to the Internet. Owing to the moral (and financial) austerity of many news agencies, such uploads are accepted, replayed with only scant warning that “independent verification” is impossible.
Within such a climate, how can accuracy be restored, and accountability applied, to balaclava-clad warriors who occupy the stern of revolutionary movements? The key is to deconstruct each crowd, reveal those individuals whose objectives are gaining power for themselves, and force them to practice democracy — not the democracy of votes, but of public accountability. Elections are just a part of democracy, dwarfed by bonds of social trust and a stable civil society. There can be no democracy without civil society, and civil society cannot exist in an atmosphere of political violence.
A criminalization of political violence must therefore be instituted, weighing each action on its merit so that assault is treated as assault, murder as murder, and arson as arson. In the Middle East, too many morally dubious actions are routinely categorized as legitimate political expressions, or suppressions, instead of crime. Whether committed by demonstrators or members of a state’s security forces, crime must be recognized as crime.
As these points become more widely grasped, broadly depicting Arab unrest as a “Spring” is becoming passé, and each demonstration has started to be viewed within its specific context. Members of crowds are finally being distinguished to see who is an honest demonstrator for economic and political reform, who is a radical, who is being manipulated by external actors, who is a criminal, and who a victim of circumstance.
Still, many in the media have not gotten the message. Misplaced shock accompanies reports that Libya’s Benghazi or Misurata crowds have been infiltrated by al-Qaeda, and that the Syrian opposition is actually a motley crew of radical ethno-religious movements. Few have publicly explored the segregation of men and women in Bahrain’s demonstrations, or the tribal nature of those in Yemen. Few have sought to identify the members of demonstrations to understand the essence of what is actually occurring.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the mysterious case of Bahrain, a country where all citizens — Shiites, Sunnis, Christians, and Jews — enjoy subsidized food prices and housing, free health care and education, and pay no taxes, yet protests have continued for more than a year.
Some argue that the demonstrations are being held to produce a more open society. While the protesters do have some legitimate grievances, in the Arab world there is no society more open than Bahrain. Over the past year its government has begun the arduous task of critical reform, hiring veteran police from the U.S. and U.K. to retrain the country’s security forces so that the excesses of the past will not be repeated. It accepted — to the letter — the recommendations of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry report, released in November 2011, and it has consistently attempted to bring opposition groups into constructive dialogue for the purpose of political reform.
The BICI report and the sustained offer of national dialogue have set Bahrain apart from other states in similar positions. Yet, many in the opposition — especially the al Wefaq party — dismiss reconciliation efforts, insist on street demonstrations, and leave an empty chair at the negotiating table. Such rejection is not the work of the crowd; it is the policy of a self-empowered minority, the same people who were comfortable dipping their hands in human blood, obtained from a hospital blood bank, to smear on their faces and clothes to feign injury, who assaulted and murdered based on sectarianism and racism (against guest workers), and who continue to stoke discontent.
Bahrain serves as an example of what happens when a few manipulate the many and the press treats violence as normal instead of criminal. However, Bahrain’s story does not end here. There is another chapter to be written, to show how a society can reinvent itself, how demonstrations can end peaceably and the participants go home, reflect, and find a better way to solve national problems. February 14, 2011, saw a terrible outbreak of violence, which only begat more violence; security forces and demonstrators both provoked and overreacted. February 14, 2012, in contrast, saw measured police responses, no fatalities, and only sporadic violence. Al Wefaq and its brethren parties throughout the region are clearly spoilers, seeking to achieve power through intimidation instead of negotiation and acceptance of responsibility for their own misdeeds, and they are being abandoned, one by one. This, it is hoped, will be the real engine of change in the wider Middle East: when people stop sacrificing their lives and livelihoods for the muscular determination of power accumulation of wolf parties in sheep’s clothing.
— Mitchell A. Belfer is editor of the Central European Journal of International and Security Studies at Metropolitan University Prague.