In choosing “the protester” as their Person of the Year, Time Magazine had in mind anti-corruption crusaders in India and the “Occupy” movements in North America and Europe, but above all the young men and women who surged into the squares of Tunis, Cairo, Damascus, Sana’a and Benghazi; protesters who gave a whole new meaning to the term “Arab street”. Long used to denote a sullen, inchoate, unfocused rage, it now came to mean a yearning for democracy, for a political form long identified with the western world alone.
What will happen, in 2012 and beyond, to the quest for democracy in the countries of the Arab world? Will it be further deepened by the establishment of representative government, a free press and an independent judiciary? Or will it be aborted by new forms of authoritarianism or a return to older tribal rivalries?
A transition to democratic consolidation will depend in part on the models the protesters seek to uphold. Rather than looking west, Arab democrats should study the experience of the newer democracies that lie to their east. Consider India, where every general election (there have been 15 thus far) represents the largest expression of the democratic franchise in human history; where the military is kept firmly away from politics; and where people of all faiths have equal rights under the constitution and in law.