The journey from an Arab capital located in Asia to one located in Africa is often arduous and indirect requiring an overnight transit or a change of airlines, often somewhere in Europe an indication not so much of the geographical magnitude of the Arab world as of the fragility of the links connecting one part of it to another. It must be admitted that, in spite of all those years since the birth of a national Arab state, and in spite of the many nationalist slogans asserting our need for unity and integration, the Arab world has failed to translate such principles into mechanisms of communication sufficiently effective or direct to draw together the disparate parties or bridge the distances separating them.

Such thoughts surged through my mind as I got off one plane and prepared to get on another on my way to Tunis, where I would participate in a symposium on Thoughts on Arab Reform and Modernisation vis-à-vis Current Challenges . That it took me more than a whole day of flying and waiting for flights to finally arrive at my destination gave me the chance to reach the conclusion that many Arab issues really require a second party. The international community, for one such, must be called on to put an end to Israeli aggression. External aid must be sought to push development ahead, foreign experience could help provide answers to our chronic problems while the verdicts of international courts could resolve suspended border issues that plague relations between several pairs of contending Arab states. Even with respect to the question of reform, which occupies centre stage at present, a second party had to make available (one could say slip in ) a comprehensive plan for reform (drawn up by Arab experts, it is true, but still put forth by the White House) in order for action to be taken; not only did Washington slip in the plan, it had to actively exercise pressure before we went into the present frenzy issuing statements, holding seminars and generally engaging with the issue at hand.

Aside from the existence of an American plan, and whether we accept or reject it, in truth the Arab world is in dire need of reform. To paraphrase Brecht, now that conditions have become such, they cannot remain such. This part of the world remains, after all, the cradle of ancient civilisations home to those heavenly creeds that enlightened human thought. Yet it has entered such a vicious circle of moral and material disintegration, it managed to accumulate enough defeats to replace the numerous spiritual and mental triumphs with which it was once associated; if only for the sake of future generations of Arabs, such intellectual and political backwardness can no longer be abided.

There is a general feeling shared by the ruling elites and ordinary citizens alike, that it is time to look for the means to open up possibilities for political participation, resuscitate economic development and enhance the status of woman in public life.

But reform in the Arab world is in fact an old, ongoing process, for even the earliest pioneers of renaissance, like Jamaluddin Al-Afghani, Sheikh Mohamed Abdou, Abdur-Raham Al-Kawakbi and Khairu-Din At-Tunisi, were referred to as reformers. Generations of thinkers, writers and men of religion who followed in their footsteps upheld the same principles without achieving much in way of reform. Some of these bids failed due to their excessive idealism and sometimes their divorce from reality. More decisively, however, they failed because the challenges posed to the Arab world were too intractable to be confronted by individual activists; they required, rather, a collective effort supported by regimes. Perhaps the first obstacle in the way of reform has been the deplorable spread of illiteracy and the stalling of education among Arab peoples something that led to a kind of dissociation between the vast majority of a people and its representative intelligentsia, the latter bearing the banners of reform without any genuine understanding of the needs of the people they represent. Even after the development of educational programmes under the rubric of the national Arab state, these programmes remained for the most part dissociated from any one country s realistic needs at any one point in time. Another obstacle is constituted by poverty and the absence of facilities in many countries. For centuries the Arab world has been subject to a kind of secret feudal framework under which the division of wealth remains illogical. The next major obstacle is the absence of democracy in many countries even those whose regimes pretend to be democratic. Such absence turns authority into the exclusive property of a certain class of people who tend to by and large reject either participation or critique, adopting lame development policies that can only lead to greater failure.

The call for reform put forth by Washington on behalf of the nation s intellectuals and leaders was not driven solely by humanistic intentions. Yet its essential principles relied on facts and figures quoted in the Arab Human Development Reports of 2002 and 2003, which were drafted by a team of Arab experts. The American initiative thus takes its cue from an Arab diagnosis of the crisis, and focuses on what Arabs regard as the essential problem the lack of freedoms suffered by Arab citizens. The lack of political freedom, for one example of an ultimately much wider problem, prevents effective participation in the process of governance and the building of a community of knowledge, halting the expansion of economic opportunities and restricting the scope of the role of woman.

Yet the American initiative, the way President Bush attempted to elaborate it, at least, ignored the most important point stressed by the Human Development Report the negative impact the Arab-Israeli conflict has made on Arab development. In fact the Report considered the existence of Israel the principal reason behind the failure of reform and development efforts, whereas the Americans believe that reconciliation with Israel the forging of normal relations with it within the framework of what is called the Greater Middle East would be the natural consequence of successful reform policies.

This underlines perhaps the most important Arab critique of the initiative in question, for the reason the initiative was not welcomed is not, in my view, that it came from outside the Arab world, nor even that it was drafted without prior consultation with Arab governments; rather, it is not welcome because it ignores the Arabs greatest issue and the one to which Arab policy over the last half century is due. The initiative, in addition, arrives quite late long after the deterioration of conditions in Palestine and Iraq, at a time when the majority of Arabs have come to see Washington as the direct cause of all this. How is it possible, in the context of reform, to embrace the advice of the party that remains largely responsible for the collapse. Even if such advise is helpful, how can Arabs, in a context like the present one, trust the intentions of the advisor?

Nor does the initiative arrive in normal circumstances. The circumstances in which it arrives are in fact highly volatile, and made all the more so by the recent deterioration of Arab-American relations. Arabs are by and large convinced that American foreign policy is consciously and premeditatedly biased in favour of Israel, and that it is driven by Zionist thinking, which dictates its priorities. Nor is Washington s perspective on the Arabs any less deformed in its turn: it believes the region to be under the control of a group of extremists who oppose all Western values. And in such absence of trust, it is well nigh impossible to rationally discuss any initiative, whatever its kind.

It was perhaps due to this that an atmosphere of caution dominated the proceedings in Tunis, with attitudes of acceptance and rejection closely juxtaposed. No one rejected reform, for all agree that it is long overdue, but how might reform be undertaken in practical terms?

At the start of the symposium, the Tunisian minister of culture and youth Abdul-Baqi Al-Hermasi s opening address delineated those internal obstacles that prevent Arab intellects from pursuing the crisis beyond a certain point the failure to uphold a critical perspective, the predominance of thought patterns hankering back to the past even when the discourse employs new terms and operates under the cover of modern frameworks, the tendency towards ideological thinking which reads not reality but the thinker s own image of reality. Interestingly Al-Hermasi, a sociologist, failing to pay attention to external factors, directed his critique almost wholly at an Arab entity that has proved incapable of forging new modes of thought that employ a critical methodology in dealing with issues at hand. The way out, according to Al-Hermasi, is the search for a conciliatory connection between (political, present-day) reality and (timeless) culture.

In the wake of the opening address, speakers put forth on various aspects of the question, followed by discussions that attempted to trace the manifestations of reform as a modern phenomenon, and illuminate the orientation of its new champions.

And it must be admitted, in this context, that Arabs have a tendency to employ equivocal expressions bearing more than one meaning and having more than one implication. In as much as a crisis exists, understanding and attempting to interpret such expressions are themselves aspects of the crisis. Since their initial clashes with Western colonialism, Arabs have been aware that they are in the throes of a chronic state of backwardness the only way out is lucidity, without which it would be impossible to morally or materially understand or, better still, break through this spiritual and cultural cul-de-sac. Such a confrontation was given a variety of names at different times, much like multiple masks superimposed over each other; once one of them is removed another one emerges.

Arab renaissance and its setbacks

Early on many intellectuals held onto the term Arab renaissance the expression of a burning desire to rid ourselves of the chains of the past. Such chains took many forms: undesired traditions and conventions; mistaken and retrograde understanding of the edicts of religion; lack of planning, passivity and the tendency to hold foreign forces responsible for the consequences of our own failures. And even though most Arab countries were under occupation at the time when the concept of renaissance emerged, the earliest pioneers of renaissance believed that such aims as cultural renewal, political modernisation and the building of a national unity based on historical criteria, a single dream and a destiny to be shared by all were as important as liberation. Yet the paucity of the concept became apparent directly after liberation from foreign powers and the institution of national governments. The tendency of the nascent regimes to intensify surveillance, placing an iron grip on the movement of a public just relieved of the brunt of colonialism, was thought to be the means to creating a national state out of a country exhausted and drained of its wealth by colonialism. The consequence was that national governance became even more oppressive than the regimes operating under occupation. The new national authorities turned the dream of a national state into a painfully different reality. Gradually the regimes in question fell prey to their own stumbling suspicions, day by day turning into despotic entities servicing a single autocrat whose own lack of confidence led to ever increasing brutality. The national state was thus unable to champion the dream of renaissance in any adequate way.

So renaissance was replaced by a more modest term Arab development . At the time the concept of development was promising and beautiful. It seemed to be a sufficient cure for those illnesses that renaissance failed to treat. Development implied resurrecting society and improving its amenities through sharing the responsibilities in question with the people. It also implied entering the industrial age and taking a backward society to the edge of modernity, improving the spiritual and cultural constitution of the Arab human being and achieving social equality among people. Yet the 1960s the heyday of development ended with the Arabs worst military and moral defeat before the West s regional instrument and implement of power, Israel. Collapse and lack of confidence followed on defeat, with Arabs doubting themselves and their abilities, giving in to regressive tendencies and falling back on their own internal backwardness. Nor was the defeat an abrupt event; it was rather a logical consequence of the accumulation of errors through the years policies that kept peoples away from participation in building their societies and fed the growing fear of and lack of trust in their governments among those peoples.

Once proclaimed, the death of the concept of development was a grievous blow, for it took place in the wake of a defeat that left Arabs dazed for a long time. Yet we still held onto the last remnants of hope, forging a new and even more modest phrasing the modernisation of the Arab state . The object in this case was the attempt to draw together a scattered national ego and resurrect what were by now undermined achievements, trying to modernise them once again. The defeat had revealed the depth of the rift separating the Arab world from the age in which it lives, for it had implications at the political level, revealing the national regimes backwardness. Even at the epistemological level, it revealed the extent to which Arabs were lagging behind in their understanding of contemporary technology. Therefore the modernisation discourse began as an attempt to fill up the gap, or at least bridge it in a way that allows Arabs to re-establish contact with the rest of the world.

Sadly the consequences of Arab-Arab differences the spread of civil wars on the one hand and inter-Arab conflict on the other were far harsher and more destructive than generally expected. Such differences were also sufficient for aborting the modernisation project and the regress of the national state in favour of a newly resurrected tribe a primitive order of operation whose orientation was closed in on itself and centred on self and family alone. It was strange indeed that, at this moment in history, the Arab world should have regressed in this way, turning from the aspiring modern states of the turn of the 20th century to a series of tribes hidden and alert below the many coloured banners of contention, upholding only the slogan of the unimpeachable sacred ego of the autocrat. Saddam Hussein s attempt to occupy Kuwait and remove it from the world map was perhaps the most obvious example of this tendency, for it was the turbulent tribal spirit of that regime that convinced the despot of the possibility of eliminating an Arab state with its own history, official and internationally recognised existence and legitimate sovereign regime simply because the tribe-regime in question was overtaken by a whim of violence and self-favour.

Arab disintegration

On 2 August 1990 the project of modernising the Arab state thus died of a heart attack, leaving the Arab world in an unprecedented state of stumbling disintegration. Enlightening the Arab mind emerged by way of the latest fashion as an immediate antidote, an attempt to understand what happened and why, and to work towards preventing its happening again. Yet, limited as it already was, the concept was besieged by forces of darkness which surrounded it on every side, restricting its scope of operation.

For one relevant party the Arab citizen, despairing of the impotence of the presence, escaped to the distant past taking along all that he could in the way of mind and matter as if the project of renaissance that began at the turn of the last century was coming full circle. For instead of removing the chains that bound us to a backward past it contributed further to the Arab movement towards it and the tendency to hold onto the chains as if they were the only remaining life raft, for no other options remained available.

Darkness overwhelmed the concept enlightening the Arab mind while it was still in its cradle. And now we have the most modest of all the terms to have emerged since the earliest glimmers of hope Arab reform . For no hope remains regarding how to approach the crumbling Arab house except the attempt to restore and refurbish it in order to go back to living there. [The present situation] requires forging a new Arab thought that employs critical thinking as a methodology for dealing with reality, heritage and society. For critical thinking gives way to questioning and interrogation, research and adventure. It is a self-critical process that does not shy away from critiquing the self with the object of transcending it. Thus the diagnosis of Al-Hermasi.

The goals of reform

For what is it that the Arabs are seeking out of the project of Arab reform? Doubtless we do no seek much, for in itself the expression implies a bare minimum of achievement. And whether it comes from outside through a US plan or from within by the agency of regimes concerned about their interests, it does not offer much.

Arab reform at the present time means:

1) That the Arab world should become a safe place to live, rather than expelling its citizens in immense migratory waves that invariably take them almost to their death.

2) That exceptional laws, verdicts and courts should be abolished, along with everything that has a bearing on individual freedom apart from existing laws. Every human being should have the right to a just trial and a humane prison in case of being sentenced to imprisonment. His family or friends should have access to information about his whereabouts if he ends up disappearing without prior warning.

3) That the institutions of civil society should be given a chance to breathe. Perhaps their work could bring the virtues of the Arab human being to the fore, after such virtues were tarnished by the brutality and suspicions of Arab regimes. For laying siege to such institutions drives people straight underground, usually and understandably with the object of abolishing the regimes that suffocate them.

4) That political forces refrain from intervening in any kind of election, for until now some Arab regimes interfere with every election taking place within their borders, from cooperative elections to syndicate, party and even sports club elections. Many regimes do not rest content with abolishing head of state elections altogether, but interfere with the single-candidate opinion polls that are held in their stead.

5) That Arab authorities should purify themselves somewhat, putting an end to the corruption that lives and grows in their bureaucracies, questioning responsible parties about the waste of money and curtailing its representatives absolute power.

Is it possible to demand more of the Arab order of government? Can we really call for sanctioning democracy as a political right? Or the division of power? Or the instigation of principles according to which power can be effectively and consistently alternated? Or the protection of human rights, which rights are asserted in many verses of the Holy Quran? Is it possible to ask such regimes to ensure that all are equal before the law? Or stand up to the daily humiliations perpetrated by Israel against them and us? I believe that such demands will in the end prove far greater than those implied by Arab reform .

Finally, by way of conclusion, I want to pose the question of whether or not the Arabs long experience in inter-Arab cooperation really establishes that reform and development must take place individually within each state before they crystallise into a collective movement. It may be that such a movement can only occur at a later stage when each individual country, according to its specific needs and circumstances, undertakes enough reform to make a wider collective horizon possible.