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How Not to Encourage Democracy in the Middle East
By Alex Roberts Dec 3, 2003
Last month, the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA), a London-based Saudi dissident
group, called for national protests over the Saudi government's refusal to implement political reforms. As a result, hundreds of Saudi citizens took to the streets of Riyadh on two separate occasions in
October—rare occurrences in the deeply conservative Kingdom.
MIRA's protests drew much sympathetic attention from the Western media. For example, the
Associated Press reported that hundreds had gathered in Riyadh to demand more freedom and democratic reforms. A lengthy article in the New York Times described MIRA's commitment to
promoting ``freedom of expression and freedom of assembly" in Saudi Arabia.
Should we be optimistic? Are liberal Saudis challenging the House of Saud's conservative Islamist
government? Alas, no. The Western media's portrayal of a liberal David fighting a Wahhabi Goliath is mistaken and misleading.
What almost all reports fail to mention is that MIRA has only one ultimate goal: a more Islamic, more conservative Saudi Arabia.
The group's ``commitment to democracy" is temporary and purely tactical. Its members believe that democratic reforms in Saudi Arabia would erode the ruling family's autocratic power and provide
MIRA with an ``in," a foothold from which to pursue its radically conservative political agenda.
Rest assured, if MIRA ever came to power, establishing a meaningful democracy in Saudi Arabia
would be the last thing on the group's agenda.
MIRA's stated commitment to ``freedom of expression" and liberalism should also be taken with more than a grain of salt. As Mamoun Fandy describes in Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent,
the group selectively uses liberal rhetoric to garner support in the West and to destabilize the ``insufficiently Islamic" Saudi regime. Indeed, upon consulting MIRA's website (www.yaislah.org),
one finds that the group views religious freedom as a terrible affront to Islam, whose values, according to MIRA, ``have no room for subjectivity."
Still, the Associated Press article of October 14, without qualification, calls MIRA a ``champion of a liberal, moderate system of government." The article represents MIRA as being of the same ilk as 50
Saudi women arrested in 1990 for protesting the national ban on women's driving. What does MIRA actually think about those protests? According to their website, MIRA believes they were part of a
``secularist scheme" that seeks to ``destroy what is left of Islam in Arabia" and to ``complete the westernisation project there."
More disturbingly, MIRA has been linked to al-Qaeda. In 1996, MIRA's president and founder, Saad al-Fagih, purchased a satellite phone later used by al-Qaeda in planning the attack on the U.S.
embassy in Nairobi. Also, according to The New Republic, Mr. al-Fagih's close associate, Mohammed al-Masari, admits having collaborated with bin Ladin in the past.
MIRA's writings are clearly sympathetic to militant Jihadism. An essay by MIRA entitled ``Options are Limited" states that, ``no matter how much those flatterers try to pick and choose half quotes and
misrepresented dictums, the truth remains that Islam… really calls on its followers to overcome opponents and reach the whole world with its universal message… No one who aims at turning this
confrontation into a peaceful dialogue shall succeed." Another essay states that ``Bin Ladin is a good warrior, faithful to his cause … Muslims look upon the U.S. from various angles and each glance is
enough to precipitate strategic hatred"—in other words, al-Qaeda is Islam's ambassador to the world.
If MIRA were to ``reform" Saudi Arabia, the West could expect more anti-Americanism and extremist violence.
Despite all of this, the BBC still reprints the PR pieces from MIRA's website and ignores the pro-Jihad ones.
While Agence France-Presse accurately identified MIRA as a conservative Islamist group, most of
the reporting on MIRA and the Riyadh protests seriously misinformed the public. In place of news stories that reflected the true range of MIRA's stated political objectives, readers received a
romanticized, superficial, and inaccurate portrayal of MIRA as a progressive underdog fighting for liberal democracy.
We need better, less reluctant reporting on MIRA and on the Islamic Diaspora's political movements
in general.
The stakes on these issues are quite high. A growing number of Muslims and Arabs are actively seeking true liberal democratic reform in the Middle East. With these movements come unique
prospects for cultivating solid Islam-West relationships based on shared political values and common interests. However, such opportunities could be squandered if genuine liberal Muslim voices are lost
in a sea of misinformation and duplicitous rhetoric.
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