The Guardian: The Arab world needs democracy, and an improved dictatorship is not the solution

London – “Al-Quds Al-Arabi”: The Guardian newspaper has declared that an improved dictatorship is not the solution to the real problems. She pointed out in her editorial that this week revealed the hardening of Arab regimes with the opposition, but that they are less interested in its causes.

This will create problems in the years to come as these countries attempt to recover from the effects of the Corona outbreak. She added that the Tunisian president’s control of power is a test of the human rights and democracy agenda announced by President Biden.

Wars have impoverished the centers of Arab civilization. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia noted this week that poverty now affects 88% of the population in Syria and 83% in Yemen. Even countries considered rich have been affected by leadership failure and Covid-19. Lebanese leaders are calling on the world to provide aid after the Lebanese currency loses its purchasing value and the population suffers from a shortage of food, fuel and medicine. The Arab world is a diverse place, and the latest United Nations survey shows it is divided between the wealthy Gulf monarchies and a number of middle-income countries with populations greater than their oil sources, in axes of war from which the population suffers, as in Iraq, from poverty, and finally from poor countries.

The wealthy Gulf states are forging ahead, using their financial and military influence to expand their influence, with disastrous effects. The United Nations says the Arab world is home to more than 6 million refugees and 11 million internally displaced people. There is no coordination to deal with the huge social challenges, including growing poverty, growing unemployment and gender inequalities. Food insecurity has spread dismally, and the United Nations is hoping for new prospects for peace in Libya. But COVID-19 clouds are looming on the horizon, and the Arab world has more people living in slums or slums than Latin America or the Caribbean, without enough hospital beds and half of the doctors that it should have for 10,000 citizens.

Dictatorships have responded to the crisis with, for example, the Egyptian money transfer system, which has helped a million people. As for the United Arab Emirates, they allowed those with young children to take care of them without affecting their government salary. The United Nations estimates that Arab countries spent $ 95 billion to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, but that’s a small amount compared to the $ 19 trillion in global spending last year. The economic system based on high levels of imports relative to dollars in oil and tourism has not changed. This produced an external debt and inequalities which led to the rebellion of the population. There is a need for change, but it is the dictatorships that have brought the Arab countries to this situation. Governments are still in the hands of a hereditary elite who still question the compatibility between Islam and democracy. The population loses confidence in the institutions through which it can neither influence nor govern. Protesters expressed their anger last year at their governments in Iraq, Lebanon and Algeria and demanded regime change. In 2019, uprisings toppled two regimes in Sudan and Algeria, where the number of regimes revolving since 2011 has reached 6.

Arab regimes believe they can dispel threats by controlling governance. This only delays the day of the accounts. Although the process of peaceful transition to a social and economic system is not difficult. Therefore, democracy is necessary for the Arab world and to improve the system of governance and accountability. It offers a secure participatory governance mechanism, and there is no alternative. The paradoxical idea of ​​an improved dictatorship is not the solution.