Voices of the New Arab Public
For some reason, his published sent me the book months and months ago so I read it, didn't want to write about it because it wasn't available, and then didn't pay attention to the release date, but it seems that Marc Lynch's book Voices of the New Arab Public. The book is about the ways in which first al-Jazeera and then its competitors have created a trans-national Arabic-language public sphere and the limits and possibilities of said public sphere as an engine for political reform. It's also a narrative about the content of that public sphere focused on the question of Iraq. Contrary to stereotyped portrayals of al-Jazeera content, it seems that started well before 9/11, voices associated with the Iraq National Congress (and other exile groups) or the Kuwaiti government were regularly on the air to debate opponents of the sanctions policy or, later, the invasion.
My reading of this narrative, though not necessarily the author's, was that the United States in an important way "lost" the argument about the Iraq War before Bush even took office. Neither the Clinton administration, nor the Bush administration, nor any of either administration's Arab surrogates, were able to convince most people to view the conflict our way -- the suffering of Iraqis under sanctions as Saddam's fault, rather than ours and American policy toward the region as broadly beneficial rather than driven by narrow interests. You can learn more in Brad Plumer's interview with Lynch up on the Mother Jones website.
Comments (4)
This thought dovetails with your post about Joseph Braude's piece in the New Republic.
Putting aside for a moment the question of whether further democratization in the Arab-Muslim world would lead to the fragmentation of at least some existing states along ethnic and religious lines, it is worth asking who in the Arab-Muslim world *wants* more democracy at this point most passionately.
The answer may be not the forces of Enlightenment, but the forces of religious conservatism. The Islamists (broadly speaking, as in not just the Bid Ladenists) seem to be the ones with the strongest political motivations, not the pro-western liberals (who seem to be a small elite).
I'm not going to suggest that democratization would lead inexorably to theocracy (I think the greater danger is fragmentation, civil war, ethnic cleansing, and state dissolution in many places), but would not many people in the Arab-Muslim world be content to have more economic and cultural liberalization, like the Chinese?
Maybe the trouble with this thesis is that the House of Saud (for instance) is perhaps in not in the same position (to culturally liberalize) as the mullahs in Iran to liberalize. When the proverbial barbarians at the gates are Islamists, your regime is probably in no position to offer free MTV to the country, and of course economic reform tends to create as many new problems as it solves (think of the widespread unrest in China, which is a far more stable regime). Tolerating Baywatch reruns on satellite TV, and the internet, is for the mullahs like Nixon going to China; they can get away with it, and even benefit politically.
I don't know. It all seems grim.
January 22, 2006 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course, we heard the #1 arab voice, bin laden, last week. He brought up the alleged Bush plan to bomb al-jazeera (also mentioned in Lynch interview), our incorrect perception of the channel and asked Bush to apologize for U.S. actions.
So, should we just call the voices view the bin laden view?
January 23, 2006 7:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson ties the rise of the nation to the sort of imagined, shared community that develops through newspapers -- people read newspapers and come to see themselves as participants in a polity that is larger than they would otherwise experience. Pan-Arab nationalism is not exactly a new thing, but one wonders whether Al Jazeera and its competitors will change Arabs' understanding of their nation. As we've seen in Iraq, the present Arab nation-states often do not have a whole lot of legitimacy.
January 23, 2006 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
You raise an interesting point about the use of media to create a political community. During the wave of pan-arabism in the fifties and sixties, Naser effectively used radio (a new medium then) to give voice to Arab nationalism. At the time it was a political project driven by authoritarian national leaders like Nasser who wanted an actual united Arab state. Radio enhanced Nasser's legitimacy. Today, if I read Lynch correctly, the new media compounds the problem of legitimacy Arab regimes experience by placing them under scrutiny and giving voice to resistance and opposition. The new media may deconstruct what political community has existed and put public loyalties in play across the region by creating a new public sphere in which to contest ideas. But, it does not seem to have resurrected pan-arabism as a political project which requires institutions as well as identity. It would appear to be the Islamists who have understood the importance of social institutions (perhaps over identity) as the road to power.
January 29, 2006 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink