TRADITIONS AND POLITICS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

In trying to understand conducts of governments and practices of political authorities in the Arab World, most analysts resort to religious tracts and history books in search for the roots of political behavior, rarely thinking of examining local culture, assuming that politics is too lofty a craft to be contaminated by folk believes and practices, which is, according to the elitist, literate mode of thinking, the domain of lower, impoverished, powerless classes.

If an analyst were ever to think of looking for a connecting thread between culture and politics, most likely he would go to high, literary culture, never thinking of turning to oral culture, which, for him, does not even deserve the name “culture”, whether you spell it with capital C or lower case c. Until quite recently, the great majority of the masses in the Arab World were illiterate, having very little contact with written books and written literature, and it was an indirect contact for that, through public readings in mosques and cafes. Furthermore, most of such written material was mostly theoretical and imaginary with very little bearing on the daily life and actual practices of the people. Despite that, researchers still insist on writing the socio-political history of the Arabs depending solely on the written heritage.

I do not mean to underestimate the importance of official written history, religion and literature in tracing the development and workings of political institutions in the Arab World. I am only trying to point to another direction for research in this area, a fertile field of study which has not yet been explored. I want to give some examples to show to what extent political legitimacy and political behavior are colored by traditional values and customs.

Take, for example, the relationship between ruler and ruled. This relationship is not governed by a social contract with clearly stated and mutually binding legal codes and constitutional precepts so much as by vague mutual obligations couched in familial and paternal expressions. The ruler is like a patriarch and the people are his children. This is aptly expressed by one of the princess when the three Saudi reformists were released from jail at the inauguration of king Abdullah. The prince justified their release by saying that they were children who erred against their father and their father forgives them. This is a relic from an earlier stage of political development, the tribal, pre-state stage when members of the whole tribe were conceived to be, according to tribal ideology, all related to each other as descendants from an ancient common ancestor.

As a matter of fact, the whole nation is seen as one big family with all its citizens as brothers and sisters to one another. The legal aspects of their relationships and obligations to each other are submerged in familial terms and tinged with familial coloring. For example, as members of one family, citizens should ideally strive to settle their disputes peacefully and discretely through moderators and mediation and not through legal courts, which could lead to public exposure and embarrassment.

Arab culture dreads public exposure because it could lead to embarrassment and bring shame and also because it could reveal one’s vices and weaknesses to one’s enemies. Of course, it is very important that you should not commit vices or do wrong, but what is even more important is that if you must do so you should do it discretely without being discovered and exposed because any blemish to your character would reflect on other members of your family and group, just like a good deed by one member of the group would augment the good reputation of the whole group. There are still traces of the idea expressed by Emile Durkhiem that in traditional societies, organized according to the principle of mechanical solidarity, committing a crime is not viewed as a breach of a legal code but as an offense against collective consciousness and public sentiment.

Just like you should not reveal your moral weakness and vices, also you should not reveal your physical and material weaknesses. You should always appear to the outside world as a person of substantial means and strength. That is why you should walk in the streets wearing expensive clothes, even if you have to do it on an empty stomach, because people could see what you are wearing but not what you have eaten.

The concept of as-sitir is an important concept in traditional Arab culture which is hard to translate into English. When you pray to Allah to grant you as-sitir, you are hoping that you live your life honorably and decently without ever being exposed to public shame or embarrassment. The wearing of hijaab and modest attire by women, especially young and unmarried girls, is related to the concept of as-sitir, because it protects them from seduction and illicit sexual encounters which could bring great shame and ruin the family reputation. This is also the reason people in the Gulf countries build around their houses high thick fences, so no one can see or hear what goes inside. Building codes prohibit the construction of a window through which one can see the inside of the neighboring house.

Until recently, families in Gulf countries, especially in Saudi Arabia, avoided public exposures and shunned public places. For example, Riyadh is a very modern capital in many respects, yet there is a dearth of public parks or movie houses. It is only within the last few years that families there started to venture to go dine in restaurants and hotels.

So far, we have been talking about social customs and traditional values. But such customs and values have their impact on political conduct as well. This impact is revealed by the discourse of political authorities when they talk to their people and address the issue of the relation between ruler and ruled. It is also reflected in the perception of the public media by Arab governments. For them, the media should always be laudatory, never critical. Any criticism could convey the wrong message to the outside world, a message that the house is divided and, by implication, weak. Any complaint or objection to the performance of the government should be communicated to the ruler in his majlis or submitted in a written letter addressed discretely to the proper channels without broadcasting such objection or complaint to the outside world. The oft-repeated cliché is that we should not expose our laundry to outsiders. A nation, like a family, should appear strong and united with its people showing due respect and obedience to their ruler, like members of a family to a patriarch.

Strictly speaking, a good citizen, just like a well-behaved member of a family, is obligated to obey his ruler. But he has no real legal rights in turn. It is out of the goodness of a benevolent patriarch that he is protected and taken care of. Any outward criticism of ruler or government on the part of a citizen is conceived as parallel to showing disobedience and disrespect to a family authority figure. Criticism is viewed as a challenge to the legitimacy and authority of the government.

This fudging of the political and merging it with the social relieves the government from elaborating viable and efficient political institutions with clearly defined responsibilities and legally accountable apparatus. But this leaves the citizen perplexed. He is a citizen of a modern state, living in an impersonal crowded urban setting, yet he is supposed to operate and run his daily business according to rural, traditional, small community, face-to-face principles. To deal with such challenges, which are compounded by institutional inefficiency, he is forced to reduce all legal and administrative problems he faces to the level of personal issues. He attaches himself as the clientele of an influential figure with wide network and good connections who would be his patron, or waastah, to look after him, further his interests and help him get what actually should be his right as a citizen.

To the few educated elite, appeal to such traditional values may seem as outmoded and unacceptable ways to run a modern state, but governments appeal to them knowing that they sell very well with the great majority of the general public and semi-literate masses, not to mention the fact that many policy makers and people in the government are themselves people with traditional thinking and little education who sincerely believe in the efficacy and merits of such methods.

In conclusion, I should remind the reader of my original purpose in writing this article, which is to show the extent to which traditional customs and values color and influence political behavior. Although, traditions are certainly not the sole motivating force shaping or directing political action, yet, I feel it is important to recognize and gauge the extent of their influence, especially by policy makers and people in the government. Such awareness, I feel, would help the ruling elite to transcend this archaic discourse and outmoded ways of thinking and acting and transform them or replace them with more efficient and up to date methods.