DADDY DEAREST:

On Arab Democracy (Avi Davis and Khaleel Mohammed, March 06, 2003, Arutz 7)

In June, 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser was sitting in the darkened studios of Cairo Radio, with a barely a candle to illuminate his script. His voice cracking, he delivered his political testament: "We expected the enemy to come from the east and the north, but instead he came from the west. I must accept full responsibility for this disaster that has befallen us and must now resign as your President." No sooner spoken than the hum of Israeli Mystere's could be heard in the skies above the city and the crack of anti-aircraft batteries filled the air. [...]

"All of a sudden," recounted Mahmoud Raid , an Egyptian journalist, "I found myself wading through multitudes of people clamoring for Nasser to stay." Within hours, messages of support arrived from the rest of Egypt and from the leaders of many other Middle Eastern countries - all of whom had ample reason to mock the presumed leader of the Arab world, yet all of whom urged him to remain. Many suspected that Nasser, in his usual theatrical style, had orchestrated the mass demonstration. But Eric Rouleau, the Middle East correspondent for Le Monde at the time, would have none of it: "People may have despised Nasser for leading them to disaster, but they also loved him as a father. And the Egyptians did not want to be left fatherless."

In focusing on the paternal relationship between Nasser and his people, Rouleau identified something significant about Arab political systems. Dictatorships thrive in the Arab world because strong men are admired and fill the authoritarian role in the popular imagination usually allocated to the father in traditional Arab society.

The Arab nuclear family is dominated by the father whose authority is total. Mothers and daughters play submissive roles within this structure and have little influence on the family's destiny. Sons are much desired, their role being largely to satisfy their father's sense of honor and secure his position in society. Absolute obedience is expected of them and severe punishment meted out for waywardness. From childhood then, Arabs become accustomed to a high level of absolute authority where challenge and questioning - the root of free and democratic society - is not encouraged. Instead, undivided respect and subservience is reserved for a single man.

If patriarchy were a bar to democracy there'd be none. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 6, 2003 10:14 PM