Guéhenno Argues Against Western Framing of Arab Spring

Writing in the International Herald Tribune, Jean Marie Guéhenno asserts that the ‘Arab revolutions are beginning to destroy the cliché of an Arab world incapable of democratic transformation.”  In place of this narrative, she states, a new one is building and that the source of the revolutions stems from a thirst for Western style freedoms “mobilized by Facebook and Twitter.”  She refutes these claims and states that the revolutions are “about justice and equity as much as it is about democracy, because societies in which millions of young men and women have no jobs… crave justice as much as democracy.”  Guéhenno states that we have seen protests that are not only against Arab dictators, but also against Arab “profiteers” who have been supported by the West for generations.  Thus, the revolutionaries are highly skeptical of Western interference and will most likely not seek to use the West as a model as was done in 1989. Consequently, the West “must abandon the illusion that the defining issue in the region is a battle between moderates and hardliners,” and begin to engage all parties including Islamist parties.  In conclusion: “The West has to accept that it is not the central player anymore. But it need not be an indifferent and passive spectator. Finding the balance between engagement and restraint will be the policy challenge of this new phase.”