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DOSSIER

OPTIONS

W hen I argued in the February issue of PolicyOptions, in “Truth and Consequence: TheWikiLeaks Saga,” that the leak of the US cables

had beneficial impacts, we hadn’t yet seen the report bythe US Ambassador to Tunisia about his dinner at thehome of President Ben Ali’s brother-in-law, its descriptionsof decadent excess, a tiger in a cage, arrogance, entitle-ment and waste.

That seaside villa has since been wasted by vengeful cit-izens, its occupants having flown in the wake of Ben Ali’sown escape to Saudi Arabia.

It wasn’t the leaked cable that overturned Ben Ali, butit became part of the combustible material that in Decembercaught fire. The college graduate fruit seller, MohammedBouzizi, face slapped by a female police officer, his waresconfiscated for a minor infraction, set himself aflame anddied on January 2, having written he sought only his digni-ty, a message that resonated throughout a country fed upwith a corrupt and authoritarian clan that, for its amuse-ment, kept tigers in cages and, for its enrichment, a wholepopulation in subordination.

The events that cascaded through Tunisia and thenEgypt are global game-changers. It is too early to tell howwell democracy will take in either country and whether itwill now blossom elsewhere in the Middle East, but a differ-ent trend line has been set for human political aspirationand in Western public opinion.

P rior to the Tunisian breakout, public interest in estab-lished democracies had sunk to a new low.In the US, when pollsters the Pew Research Center

asked citizens to indicate their chosen priorities in foreignpolicy, democracy promotion was noted by only 10 percent,a drop in 10 years from 44 percent, the biggest drop for anycategory recorded since the Second World War.

The explanations are no mystery. Ten years ago, theBush administration launched its “freedom agenda,” anexercise in national hubris that was used to explain theinvasion of Iraq, when the other reasons such as WMDand support for 9/11 came up dry. Americans pushed backat the notion it is their business to worry about how otherpeople were governed. The quagmire of Afghanistan sealedthe point.

When I was going through US Border Protection atSeattle Airport in 2007 to take up direction of an interna-tional democracy support project for the Community ofDemocracies I was conducting out of Princeton University,the tough African-American officer bridled when she heardthe reason for my visit.

“You’re doing WHAT?” she asked. “Haven’t we stuckour noses enough in other folks’ business? Haven’t we doneenough damage?”

So they had. And with the deepest economic recessionin 60 years on their plates, as well as a vivid debate aboutthe quality of American governance, American democrats

DEMOCRACY RISING: TUNISIAAND EGYPT, WHEN IDEALISTSGOT IT RIGHTJeremy Kinsman

The democracy movements that swept North Africa and the Middle East are “globalgame changers,” observes Jeremy Kinsman, our lead writer on foreign affairs. But, headds, “it is too early to tell how well democracy will take in either country [in Tunisia andEgypt] and whether it will now blossom elsewhere in the Middle East, but a differenttrend line has been set for human political aspiration and in Western public opinion.”The whole region is in question, including Libya, Bahrain and even Saudi Arabia.

Si le mouvement démocratique qui balaie l’Afrique du Nord et le Moyen-Orientpourrait effectivement « changer la donne mondiale », observe notre principalcollaborateur en matière d’affaires étrangères, « il est trop tôt pour prédire si ladémocratie l’emportera dans l’un des pays de la région [en Tunisie ou en Égypte] etsi elle s’imposera ailleurs au Moyen-Orient. Mais d’ores et déjà, une nouvelle pageest en train de s’écrire pour ce qui est des aspirations humaines et politiques, et lemouvement infléchit l’opinion publique occidentale. » La région entière est àsurveiller, y compris la Libye, le Bahreïn et l’Arabie saoudite.

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weren’t feeling much solidarity withthe aspirations of would-be democratsacross the sea.

The drop in support paralleledwhat Freedom House, which keepsdemocratic score globally, termed a“democratic recession” in its 2010Annual Report. For the fourth year in a

row, retreats from democracyoutscored gains, the longest periodthat had happened in 40 years.

Would-be democrats sufferedunder the growing confidence ofauthoritarian regimes. China’s eco-nomic gains had created expectationsthat legitimacy didn’t need democracyif one-party rule delivered greater pros-perity. Of course, it’s a false bargain,but China’s economic growth ratesseemed a contrast to the struggles ofsome new democracies with the chal-lenges of democratic transition. Some,like Russia, were withdrawing rightsonly recently gained because of thegrowing popular notion that democra-cy had undermined order and security.

An “authoritarian internationale”had sprung up, with the Chinese help-ing Iranians game social network tech-nologies, Moammar Ghaddafifinancing Robert Mugabe and HugoChavez cheering on anybodyAmericans were opposed to.

The Tunisian and Egyptian demo-cratic uprisings turned the negative trendlines on their heads. A new Zeitgeist hasspread across the Arab world fromTunisia, that authoritarian pretensions tolegitimacy could be challenged. This“Arab awakening” is real, whether or notregimes fall to protestors elsewhere.Information technology connections lift-ed Arab youth from their humiliating iso-lation from the wider world.

Across that wider world, authori-tarians are rattled. It does seem likely

to me that New York Times columnistRoger Cohen is right, that “an author-itarian decade” — led by China andRussia — “has run its course.” In theMiddle East, authoritarians are band-ing together to push back protestors.President Obama is trying pragmati-cally to urge the Gulf’s princely

regimes to accept inevitable reformswhile fearing inward collapse instrategically key points.

A conservative-liberal politicalargument roils the op-ed pages inCanada. On successive March days inthe Globe and Mail, historian JackGranatstein presumed Obama’s for-eign policy is a “disaster” because itdoesn’t put unspecified security inter-ests ahead of Arab democratic aspira-tions, while Beirut editor Rami Khouriargued the US is marginalized becauseits support for democratic principles inthe area is muted by US interests.Obama probably has it about right.

A major question for democracies iswhy it all came as a surprise. It always does. There have been

over 60 democratic uprisings sincePortugal in 1974 (323 revolutionssince 1900) and we are always sur-prised. We over-invest in the statusquo, which we equate with securityand stability. That the undemocraticMiddle East is inherently unstable hasbeen obscured by our deference to oil,counter-terrorism, business deals, anda line out of Israel that is scornful ofArabs and their aspirations.

These focal points override ourvalues and also our judgment. Toomany bought into statements as recentas a month ago from former vice-pres-ident Omar Suleiman of Egypt orCrown Prince Al Khalifa of Bahrainthat Arabs just “aren’t ready” for

democracy, that the two — Arabs anddemocracy — don’t fit together.

S o we accept false choices, such asbelief that the choice in Egypt

was between a dictator and rule byhostile Islamists. In Bahrain, therhetorical choice is between rule by a

clan of Sunnis who are 20percent of the population,with 80 percent who,being Shia, must be cats’paws of the Iranians. Onthe consumer side, SaudiArabian youth is given thefalse compensation ofmaterial comfort in return

for a dearth of human rights.Some European countries dis-

graced themselves. The French govern-ment of President Nicolas Sarkozy,who created the “Union of theMediterranean” with Egypt’s HosniMubarak as co-chairman, was particu-larly compromised. The French foreignminister resigned because of TunisianChristmas freebies, and the scapegoat-ed ambassador in Tunisia was fired —he hadn’t seen the revolt coming, theFrench foreign ministry at the Quaid’Orsay explained, because relationswith fraternal Tunisia were too “inti-mate” for perspective.

That wasn’t an American problem.WikiLeaks showed us, as TomMalinovski of Human Rights Watchput it, US diplomats “might just meanwhat they say” about human rights,that their privately communicatedviews were the same as discourse inpublic. Authoritarian leaders who hadin the past counted on CIA winkingand nodding in inconsistency were,and are, rattled.

Of course, the first lesson aboutthe breakout of democracy is that itcan’t be exported or imported. It has toemerge from the people in question.So, how did it happen?

As democracy advocate and theo-rist Thomas Carothers has explained,democracy breakout and transitionhave two initial chapters. Chapter oneinvolves throwing off a dictator.Chapter two is the sometimes more

Jeremy Kinsman

The events that cascaded through Tunisia and then Egypt areglobal game-changers. It is too early to tell how welldemocracy will take in either country and whether it will nowblossom elsewhere in the Middle East, but a different trendline has been set for human political aspiration and inWestern public opinion.

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daunting job of building the new dem-ocratic form of governance and mak-ing it deliver what people need in theway of livelihood and security in addi-tion to rights and justice.

Popular uprisings are created overtime. They emerge when a closed soci-ety’s open secrets become “publictruths,” as US scholar Clay Shirky putit in Foreign Affairs. Examples inTunisia of what Shirky terms “sharedawareness” would run the gamut ofnarrative about the ruling family’sintimidation-for-profit, corruption,police abuse and shaming behaviour.It is not that Tunisia was in a state ofgrinding poverty, but rather that edu-cation resulted in lack of professionalfulfilment. Poorer people couldexpect no justice.

M uch has been writtenabout the role of infor-

mation technologies and espe-cially social networks inchapter one uprisings.

No doubt they provide apowerful instrument for mobi-lizing and convening protest.In Manila in 2001 text messag-ing brought a million peoplewearing black into the streetsand turned out the corruptPresident Joseph E. Estrada..The death of a young womanprotestor in Tehran, shot downin the 2009 Green Movement uprising,was uplinked to YouTube and galva-nized the Internet.

In Tunisia, Twitter and Facebookbrought demonstrators out.

But the significant communicationshad been going on for years amongTunisians, creating that “shared aware-ness.” They had been connected to theoutside. They knew what norms of gov-ernance are elsewhere, what they werebeing deprived of. Moreover, youngactivists were connected to protest pred-ecessors elsewhere, youth movementslike Otpor in Belgrade who turned outMilosevic, and Pora! in Kiev whoreversed the election coup in Ukraine.These democrats (and some interestinginternational NGOs) mentored

Tunisians — and Egyptians — in tech-niques of nonviolent civil resistance.

This sort of communications workover time forms what Shirky calls theenvironmental context of social net-working, when civil society builds itscapacities and beliefs. He writes wespend too much effort trying to per-suade authoritarians to keep our foreign“instruments” unfettered, Web sitesand TV feeds like the New York BBCWorld, when the really conclusive con-tributions to shared awareness are whatthe people in closed societies are able tosay among themselves.

The general point is that peoplestill make revolutions, not informa-tion technologies.

In Egypt, because Mubarak’s longreign was seen as important for the“peace process,” Westerners turnedtheir scrutiny away from the pent-upresentments of Egyptians over corrup-tion, lousy services and lack of accom-plishment at the national level — 44percent of Egyptians are illiterate —and for individuals. Egyptian engi-neers and other professionals roamedthe Gulf and North Africa as itinerantsbecause there was no work at home.

Egypt has grinding poverty butalso a professional middle class, andpillars of civil society, including, ofcourse, the Muslim BrotherhoodMubarak tried to demonize, but whichEgyptians know is actually prettymainstream.

W estern commentators pooh-poohed the chances of Tunisia’s

uprising migrating to Egypt where itwas said the population was passivelyfatalistic. When Obama grabbed thechair of his first National SecurityCouncil meeting on the topic, hefound the consensus expert analysisgave only a 20 percent chance ofEgyptians taking up the Tunisianuprising example.

“We are all Khaled Said,” heraldedthe Facebook page about the youngcomputer businessman beaten todeath by security thugs. Five millionEgyptians are on Facebook. TahrirSquare filled with a wide array of pro-testors demanding Mubarak’s ouster.

The government turned off theInternet and telecommunica-tions for cellphones (contraryto assumptions it couldn’t bedone just like that) but it onlymade more people pour intothe street to find out what wasgoing on. Psychologically, itcontributed to a tipping pointwhere people, ordinary people,who were not especially politi-cal at all, felt they had to bethere even at the risk to theirlives. The support Mubarakexpected from the usual estab-lished scaredy-cats once vio-lence and disorder broke out —if Mubarak’s thugs could only

force it to — didn’t materialize in anydecisive way.

The world watched, mesmerized,and largely inspired. Public opiniontrend lines about supporting otherpeople’s aspirations for democracybegan to shift. Eighty-three percent ofAmericans thought Mubarak shouldstep down — “now.”

Its spread to Libya has been a lessfortunate story. Nonviolence couldn’thold against a dictator with securityforces willing to shoot people down.Libya had no civil society to speak of.Tribal divisions contrast with Egypt’ssense of being a 7,000-year-old nation. Atthis writing in mid-March 2011, the UNSecurity Zone and the Arab League haveauthorized a “no-fly zone” over Libya.

Democracy rising: Tunisia and Egypt, when idealists got it right

The Tunisian and Egyptiandemocratic uprisings turned the

negative trend lines on their heads.A new Zeitgeist has spread acrossthe Arab world from Tunisia, that

authoritarian pretensions tolegitimacy could be challenged. This“Arab awakening” is real, whether

or not regimes fall to protestorselsewhere. Information technologyconnections lifted Arab youth fromtheir humiliating isolation from the

wider world.

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Canada is participating with six CF-18fighter jets and support staff based in theMediterranean. We shall see how effec-tive this is in pushing back Ghaddafi’spush-back of the popular revolt againsthis 42-year despotic regime.

Chapter one conflicts betweendemocratic protestors and authoritari-

an control are inherently asymmetri-cal. The regime has all the tools offorce. Many dictators have learnedthey cannot count on the professionalarmy and must have blindly loyalforces — like Iran’s RevolutionaryGuards — so heavily invested in theregime’s survival they will use all thefirepower at their disposal, which iswhat has happened in Libya (whereshamefully, the Algerian military hasbeen adding to the arms available).

Western democracies have adilemma. The Libyan revolution canonly claim authenticity if Libyansbring it off without foreign, especiallyWestern, boots on Libyan soil. Butsome sort of military support to helpbalance the unfair fight seemed tomany to be within the purview of the“responsibility to protect” — at onetime not so long ago a policy initiativethat redounded to Canadian honour.

Ghaddafi and his odious sons,courted once by Canadian businesses,scholars and even Prime Minister PaulMartin, all eager for deals, are going tobe pariahs internationally. Democracywill come to Libya, if not in the nearterm, then before long.

Other authoritarians are clampingdown. The Saudis, under the banner ofthe Gulf Cooperation Council, havemoved troops into Bahrain to helpdefend the Khalifa family from democ-

racy. Of course, the Saudis claim it is astep to counter Iranian influence. It isreally a step to counter the influenceof democrats in the Wahabi kingdomof the El-Saud clan itself, stuck in atheocratic time warp where womenaren’t allowed to drive and whereyouth isn’t expected to think.

Neil MacFarquar of the New YorkTimes regretted that the politicaldemise of Mubarak would mean theend of anti-Mubarak jokes in Egypt. Hesought replenishment in Saudi Arabia.It wasn’t easy to find but finally hecame up with a Saudi political joke.

A Somali, an Egyptian and a Saudiare asked their opinion on the eatingof meat. The Somali, baffled, replies,“What’s ‘eating’?” The Egyptian asks,“What’s ‘meat’?” The Saudi asks,“What’s an opinion?”

Yemen is another locale ofprotest. It’s a hard case. Outside thecapital, Sana’a, it is basically anar-chy. Unemployment is officially 37percent. Everyone has at least a gunor two. Al-Qaeda is there. Across thenarrow Bab el Mandeb Strait of theRed Sea sits Somalia, where al-Qaeda, gangs and pirates inhabit astate deemed to be failed almost 20years ago. Oil from the Gulf goesthrough that narrow passage toEurope and America.

What is Obama to do? The USFifth Fleet is in Bahrain, and part ofthe US oil addiction is supplied alongthe Yemen Coast where al-Qaeda hasprobably its ultimate redoubt. The USis trying, pragmatically, country bycountry to manage without glaringinconsistency the collision betweenprinciples and interests. It is extraordi-

narily difficult and deserves more thanthe usual braying about “Obama’sincompetence.”

Are the Maghreb and MiddleEastern experiences likely to rever-berate much more widely or is it aquestion of a delayed “Arab spring”catching up? Are global trend lines

really changed? The unan-imous Security Councilvote to kick Ghaddafi’sLibya out of the UNHuman Rights Council,where Libyans had heldsway for years, and torefer his lethal suppres-sion of Libyan protest tothe International Crimi-nal Court, do suggest amuch wider political

imprint.

W ill it help aspiring democratselsewhere to turn out authori-

tarian rulers and enable them to havea say in decisions taken over theirlives, which is really the most basic ofhuman political rights?

To answer, we need to study whysome democratic protest uprisings suc-ceed and others fail. Here are six com-mon features of success:

Income levels. As a rule, when percapita annual income exceeds $6,000, aprotest movement will succeed. Whenit is below $1,500, it won’t. (Egypt’s isabout $2,800, about the same asIndonesia, where it succeeded.)

There are qualifiers. Authoritarianoil-wealthy states may not turn out sohappily for democrats, even when therevenues are distributed inadequately,as was the case in Libya. Occasionally,a very poor country, such as Mali, doescome up with its form of democracy.

The point is not really aboutincome, of course, but about infra-structure and social capital. A wealthi-er country will have civil society pillarsable to conduct on social networks thesort of national conversation that con-tributes to the social awareness “some-thing must be done.”

Civil society. The existence of civilsociety is fundamental, not just for

Jeremy Kinsman

Tahrir Square filled with a wide array of protestors demandingMubarak’s ouster. The government turned off the Internet andtelecommunications for cellphones (contrary to assumptions itcouldn’t be done just like that) but it only made more peoplepour into the street to find out what was going on.Psychologically, it contributed to a tipping point where people,ordinary people, who were not especially political at all, feltthey had to be there even at the risk to their lives.

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democratic transition but for develop-ment on all levels.

Political effect emerges fromapolitical activity on a private, non-governmental level. ANC militantsagainst apartheid in South Africa cuttheir organizational teeth in footballclubs white rulers seemed to leavealone. In Prague, in the 1990s, themusic scene helped the VelvetRevolution prepare. In Cuba recent-ly, I saw daycare centres for singleworking mothers set up by theCatholic Church where women weretaking decisions about somethingthey were running for the first timein their lives.

Empowerment happens in manyways. What is clear is that without afunctioning civil society, people whohave banded together in unions, pro-fessional organizations, environmen-tal movements and day-to-dayactivities like running libraries or co-ops, a chapter one uprising will havemuch greater difficulty transitingthrough chapter two, building the newdemocracy.

The army. The role of the army isoften decisive. In Prague, Belgrade,Kiev and Jakarta, the army refused tofire on the people. Their own people.

In Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the armystayed neutral until Mubarak’s thugs

began to attack peaceful protestors. OnFebruary 2, the army intervenedagainst them and Mubarak fell.

Why did the army refuse orders toshoot and then intervene decisively?Did they see that Mubarak was by thattime a loser and just change sides? Afterall, the Egyptian military is a big eco-nomic stakeholder in the country,accounting for up to 30 percent of GDP.

There is something professionallymore noble to be factored in. The armyis a very respected national institution.The principle of being the defender “ofall the people” is real to its officers.

This is especially so because oftraining they have had at staff colleges

Democracy rising: Tunisia and Egypt, when idealists got it right

An Egyptian girl waves her national flag as antigovernment protesters demonstrate around her in Tahrir, or Liberation Square.The tumultuous events of the Arab Spring then rolled on into Libya.

CP Photo

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in democracies. Many commentatorshave presumed the $1.3 billion in USannual military aid is mostly whatinfluenced Egyptian military leaders.More likely, it is the “mil-mil” mentor-ing countless officers have had at theUS Army Staff College on the sorts ofissues that weren’t taught when suchas a young Idi Amin went abroad totrain: human rights, civilian authority,transparency.

The Ukrainian army didn’t fire onprotestors in the Orange Revolution.For 15 years the officers had beengoing through NATO partnership pro-grams. Conscripts saw themselvesreflected in the youthful demonstra-tors on the Maidan.

Contrary examples, sadly, abound.In Tiananmen Square (1989), Rangoon(2007) and Tehran (2009), orders toshoot protestors were obeyed.

In Burma, the army is the hermitregime, and the country’s wealth is thearmy’s spoils.

In China, an ideological cohe-sion kicks in. In Iran, it is more theo-cratic, spearheaded through theRevolutionary Guards whom Iranian-Canadian expert Ramin Jehanbeglooconcludes actually control the coun-try as well as its oil, gas and nuclearindustries.

Nonviolence. It is essen-tial for success that popularprotests be nonviolent.Gandhi and Martin LutherKing are often described asbeing “peaceful” protestors.Nothing could be morewrong. They disturbed thepeace to effect change, through civilresistance, which is a form of conflict,but nonviolent by definition.

Such conflicts being asymmetri-cal, the use of force invites counter-force, which is bound to be superior.

Moreover, the use of violencealienates the bulk of people. In thehierarchy of needs, safety and securitycome at the top.

Authoritarian regimes want vio-lence to break out so that they canreassure troubled citizenry they arerestoring order and safety.

Discipline. It is essential that pro-testors therefore maintain discipline.As noted, there has been an interna-tional mentoring chain of instructionin nonviolent civil resistance training,more or less in the wake of the writingsof nonviolent guru Gene Sharp, whosekey book, From Dictatorship toDemocracy, is essentially the basic text.

The counterpart to discipline innonviolence is discipline to minimizein-fighting among protestors whohave one purpose in common, tothrow off the yoke, but who comefrom often very different places interms of their political conceptions ofwhat sort of democratic governanceshould follow.

Popular protest movements are usu-ally bottom-up phenomena.Charismatic leaders such as Aung SanSuu Kyi can serve effectively as emblem-atic inspirers, but most movements aregenuinely popular not relying on top-down command and control, makingdiscipline all the more vital.

Outside support. Democracy canneither be exported nor imported. Itcertainly can’t be imposed throughIraq-style “regime change.” It needs toemerge from within, to be authenticand enduring.

But outside support can beextremely useful. Democratic govern-ments can help buttress civil society’sdevelopment everywhere, in a myriadof ways, but it isn’t as much a stateinterest as it is one in the interest ofour own civil societies. InternationalNGOs do it better. Governments sup-port it as a function of solidarity withdemocrats in our own societies, not asa function of state interest.

This introduces a vital issue ofmanagement for democracies. Wehave principles and we have interests.

They shouldn’t be in competition. Wecan do more than one thing at a time.It is a lesson that distinguishes theObama administration from US policyduring much of the Cold War or the“War on Terror.”

Strategic engagement is essential,with China, Iran, Cuba and others. Butthose partnerships on issues of com-mon functional concern have to bedeployed as well on behalf of our prin-ciples, which argue for supporting therights of assembly and free speechdenied citizens of the countries con-cerned. It is not on our account wespeak with clarity and candour to theregimes concerned, but to make surethey understand that any strategicpartnership needs efforts on their partto accommodate the human rightsthey have in almost every case agreedto in a whole host of UN and othercovenants and that they proclaimevery day in propaganda. Consistencyis critical for credibility.

H osni Mubarak, in office for 30years, fell after only 18 days of

democratic protests, the same lengthof time it took demonstrators on theMaidan in Kiev to bring about theOrange Revolution. Often, the seem-

ingly invulnerable drop the quickest:Ceausescu was dispatched in Romaniain just 10 days.

But the post-uprising phase hasimmediate perils. Post-Shah of Iran,post-fall of Saddam, post-death of Tito,post-French revolution for that matter,all veered toward extremists or intochaos, when there is always a would-be Napoleon ready to fill the void. It iswhy chapter two — governance —needs to be prepared and, to the extentit is purposeful, mentored, long inadvance.

Jeremy Kinsman

What is Obama to do? The US Fifth Fleet is in Bahrain, andpart of the US oil addiction is supplied along the Yemen Coastwhere al-Qaeda has probably its ultimate redoubt. The US istrying, pragmatically, country-by-country to manage withoutglaring inconsistency the collision between principles andinterests.

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It is much easier for democraciesto support the phase of actual demo-cratic transition, working openlywith a partner government and sup-porting civil society and institution-al and other forms of governancedevelopment.

Again, there are a number of basicrules to success (adapted from TheDiplomat’s Handbook for DemocracyDevelopment Support, 2nd ed.

1. It’s up to them. As Freedom Househas put it, “The men and womenof each country are really theauthors of their own democraticdevelopment.”

2. There is no single template fordemocracy. Each trajectory is dif-ferent, pending on traditions andstates of readiness.

3. The building blocks of change arein civil society.

4. Organic and durable change isusually bottom-up, rarely elite-driven.

5. Successful transition relies onbehaviour. It is not a process or an“app” to be downloaded or trans-ferred.

6. Democracy thus has to be learnedand over time. Education is essen-tial.

7. Free and fair elections are onlyone of many starting points. Post-election management of diversityand pluralism is critical.

8. Violence is rarely effective as aforce for change.

9. Democracy needs security — andneeds to ensure it.

10. To sustain popular acceptance,democracy must deliver otheressential outcomes — transparen-

cy, fairness, justice and adequatelyshared economic progress.

T he key is for a democratic govern-ment in transition to establish its

legitimacy. It comes from much morethan free and fair elections.

Reconciliation after conflict isimportant. The circle of retributionneeds to be narrow if the society isto move forward. Countries learn

from one another. Chileans men-tored South Africans in setting up atruth and reconciliation commissionand South Africans mentoredRwandans. The best mentors areoften those who have gone throughsimilar transitions.

But developed countries have thematerial and moral means to supportdemocracy movements. We mademajor errors at the outset of the lastwave of democratic transition. Wethought we could send expensiveadvisers from the World Bank andfinance departments to tutor Russianson how we do things in Frankfurt orNew York. We didn’t have a clue aboutthe uniqueness of their challenges,emerging from a totalitarian past andturning everything upside-down atonce. I was there at the time, asCanada’s ambassador to Moscow, and Iwas both enthralled and appalled atwhat was going on, in terms of ourinputs and their outputs.

It is not our democracy or econo-my we are trying to convey. The“Washington Consensus” is long-sincediscredited. It is the development ofother new democracies that we are fra-ternally supporting as we can, withhumility and patience, bearing in mind

that chronologically major anti-demo-cratic abuses persisted in our owndemocracies until recently, and thattoday the fault lines of anti-democraticbehaviour are major objects of our owncitizens’ complaints.

The rule of law doesn’t come fromcopying our statutes or mimicking ourcourts. The rule of law — as ThomasCarothers has written — resides withinthe heads of citizens. By now we are

hard-wired. It will taketime. We must stay thecourse alongside as long aswe are welcome. Too oftenwe have sent observers tooversee a free and fair firstelection and then walkedaway in self-satisfaction.

We have to care aboutthe quality of other people’slives and opportunities.

Vaclav Havel has writ-ten in The Diplomat’s Handbook that“more and more people are aware ofthe indivisibility of human fate onthis planet, that the problems ofanyone of us, or of whatever countrywe are from — be it the smallest andmost forgotten — are the problemsof us all; that our freedom is indivis-ible as well, and that we all believein the same basic values, while shar-ing common fears about the threatsthat are hanging over humanitytoday.”

That is what the brave citizens ofTunisia and Egypt have done. Theyhave shaken the world. So have theequally brave citizens of Libya,Bahrain and, yes, in their own way,Saudi Arabia. Stay tuned. More, afterthe break.

Contributing Writer Jeremy Kinsmanserved as Canada’s ambassador or highcommissioner to 15 countries and organi-zations, including Russia, Britain andthe European Union. He currently headsa Community of Democracies programfor democracy development and isRegents’ Lecturer at the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley. He is distinguishedvisiting diplomat at Ryerson University inToronto.

Democracy rising: Tunisia and Egypt, when idealists got it right

The Saudis, under the banner of the Gulf CooperationCouncil, have moved troops into Bahrain to help defend theKhalifa family from democracy. Of course, the Saudis claim itis a step to counter Iranian influence. It is really a step tocounter the influence of democrats in the Wahabi kingdom ofthe El-Saud clan itself, stuck in a theocratic time warp wherewomen aren’t allowed to drive and where youth isn’texpected to think.