Spirit of Jamal Khashoggi can spark second Arab Spring
Wadah Khanfar - a close friend of Mr Khashoggi argues that his legacy could be a second Arab Spring.
Tuesday 2 April 2019 06:46, UK
It is six months to the day since journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
The death of the outspoken critic of the Riyadh regime was met with international outcry, and there remain concerns about the Saudi response.
But, Wadah Khanfar - a close friend of Mr Khashoggi and a former director general of Al Jazeera - says even in death the celebrated writer is haunting the dictators he often criticised and shaping a second Arab uprising.
Six months have passed since famed Saudi journalist, Washington Post columnist and my close friend Jamal Khashoggi was murdered.
His assassination was a cynical attempt to silence the growing call for democracy and freedom in the Arab world, but it has had the opposite effect. Half-a-year on from his death, those who fly the flag for democracy are more emboldened than ever, despite the atmosphere of fear and intimidation that the counter-revolutionary forces have created.
Waves of protest sweeping across Algeria and Sudan suggest a second manifestation of the Arab Spring is well underway in the Middle East. They bear a similar resemblance to the first wave witnessed in 2011.
But it feels more mature in its approach and realistic in its aspirations. The new faces of the revolution have learnt from the mistakes that have gone before. They are aware of the dangers that the militarisation of peaceful protests pose to the effectiveness of the movement.
Despite the different context behind this new round of protests, the same underlying motive that drove the first wave in 2010-11 now drives the second. Social, political and economic conditions are deteriorating. In fact, they have only worsened since then and show no signs of abating.
Instead of tackling this social and political collapse, the state silences dissident voices that raise them. Worse still, not only freedom of speech, these regimes now criminalise the freedom to be silent.
They see it as a form of passive opposition. This has increasingly led to intellectuals and journalists across the region being imprisoned and tortured. So prevalent is the fear of uprising through dialogue and free thought within these dictatorial regimes.
Jamal's brutal murder by the Saudi government is a case in point.
It wasn't only Jamal's criticism of the regime's policies that led to his gruesome killing, but his refusal to shower unconditional praise on the Saudi's counter-revolutionary agenda.
The persistent protests of once silent societies have deepened these regimes paranoia. Instead of listening to the demands of the people, Arab dictators have further invested in the means of repression, heavily cracking down on any form of opposition.
According to Human Rights Watch, since the 2013 coup, the Sisi regime in Egypt have arrested at least 60,000 people, while forcibly disappearing thousands more. This level of mob rule and brutality is unprecedented, even during Egypt's darkest days of military rule.
Bereft of any clear vision for the future, these regimes have instead engaged in the complete obliteration of public and private debate. There is no longer room for even the suggestion of an alternative vision for the future. The result has been the intensification of brutality that far exceeds that of the pre-Arab Spring years.
No longer do the leaders in the Arab world bother to pretend as if they are undertaking any form of reform or measures of 'authoritarian upgrading' in order to appeal to the international community or its institutions. This flagrant disregard for laws and norms has, in return, hollowed out the legitimacy of political institutions across the Middle East.
We are indeed reaching a crisis point. People's trust in the traditional institution of political participation has vanished almost entirely, and with it, any ill-conceived notion from the international community about the ability of these regimes to bring stability to their countries.
Arab dictators are suffering from a feeling of 'authoritarian illusion'; detached from the principles of democracy and protected by generations of longevity and permanence of their premiership.
But with every action comes an equal and opposite reaction. This second wave of the Arab uprisings was a direct response to the abuse of power within these political offices.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika's quest for a fifth term in presidency in Algeria, Omar al Bashir's attempt to change the constitution in Sudan in December; both were the political spark that lit the fuse of the powder kegs on which their nations sit.
This is something that Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el Sisi should take note of when pushing for constitutional changes that will allow him to remain in power until 2034.
The root of these political abuses, the militarisation and personalisation of power, were where Jamal directed his criticism at the heart of the Saudi regime and beyond. He recognised the inherent injustice and limited scope for progression in a system that denied people the freedom of individual thought.
Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) was the name of the initiative that Jamal was keenly working on before murderers took his life. Likewise, the title of his last piece that appeared posthumously was "What the Arab world needs most is free expression".
This name and title well epitomised Jamal's struggle, ideals and spirit. They also illustrate how much Jamal's tragic fate was intertwined with that of the Arab Spring. His murder was meant to scare the people and silence the critics.
Yet the reverse has happened. The spirit of Jamal is now haunting the Arab dictators and shaping this second phase of Arab uprising.