Letter: Arabs need freedom and democracy

Sir: Robert Fisk's meticulous evaluation of the lack of democracy in the Arab world (14 October) deserves to be commended. He raises two intriguing questions that address the core of the problem:

(1) 'Over the years, the Arab struggle against Israel became the excuse for oppression . . . (now) with Palestine secure what further excuse can there be (for repression) . . . unless it is to preserve the personal power of despots?' This is precisely the point. The Arab regimes' top priority has always been to maintain their power base at any expense. Because 'liberating Palestine' was never really on their agenda, it was easy for Israel to conquer Arab lands. Now that they are conceding to Israel everything they once claimed to have stood for, they feel exposed and more threatened than when they portrayed themselves as defenders of Arab dignity.

(2) 'Confronted by our latest enemy - the real or imagined threat from revivalist Islam - does anyone believe the West will call for democracy in the Arab world?' To grasp this dilemma, one needs to view the issue of Islamic revivalism from a wider angle. Many Muslims, not only the Arab world and the West, agonise over it.

Communism is wicked except when it is a tool to block Islamic awakening in Tajikistan and Azerbaijan. Yeltsin, who banned the Communists in Russia, is the one who installed Communist puppet regimes in these two infant states. Genocide is evil except when it is a tool to eliminate the imaginary threat of the 'possibility' of a Muslim majority state in Central Europe experiencing an Islamic revival. Democracy is wonderful except when the outcome is the strengthening of Islamic political sentiments.

Western ignorance and prejudice stand at the root of the misery in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Driven by lust to impose secularism on Muslim societies, Western media and political institutions depict the 'threat' from Islamic fundamentalism as an accomplished fact. However, the distinction is stark between the majority Islamists who strive peacefully to implement the teachings and laws of Islam and the minority extremists who resort to violence. This distinction is systematically, and/or deliberately, blurred in the West.

Moderate fundamentalists can indeed be 'dependable allies' as well. Democracy should not be conditional to its outcome. It is time for the West to acknowledge that the Arabs are a different people, that they long for their own laws and way of life and that they need to enjoy freedom and democracy, for without them there is no escape from this hardship that engulfs their communities.

Yours faithfully,

SALAH EZZ

Cowley, Oxford

15 October