..freedom vs peace..

'Western' models not working

2011/08/18

THERE is no doubt that the sparks that set off the riots in London and the Arab Spring are distinct. The London riots were ignited by police killing a black man while the immediate trigger for the outbreak of protests in the Middle-East was the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia.

While the revolts in the Middle East were directed at their ageing leaders and ineffectual governments, the riots in London were seen as class warfare. Some commentators, therefore, were quick to point out that England is not the Middle East.

But what took place in the streets of London, Birmingham, and Liverpool is a sign of the corrosion taking place in Western democracies. When the new Arab revolt erupted, Western powers were singing praises of the disaffected youth. The young activists were seen as a beacon of hope struggling against "sultanistic" dictatorships.

What they fail to tell the Arab youths is a simple truth: regime change will not necessarily bring about political stability and prosperity.

While Western governments, the United States in particular, are pushing for market liberalisation, the financial crisis that is gripping the European Union and the US is symptomatic of a market failure that was set in motion by former US president Ronald Reagan's and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher's market orthodoxies.

As such, some of the violence in London can be traced to the austerity programmes that the United Kingdom instituted. Cash-strapped Western governments are also cutting social services, everything from libraries and daycare centres to transit and snow removal.

The US has bucked the kind of violence that erupted in London but it is only a matter of time before Americans realise that unemployment is not a temporary phenomenon but a more permanent one.

The Arabs and their youth should be wary of embracing the Western liberal democratic model as a market economy and democracy are not a sure fit.

Economically, the oil shocks of 1973 to 1974 and 1979 to 1980 brought down the curtain on that fortunate, early postwar combination of high growth, low inflation and low unemployment in North America and Europe.

Although economists differ on the origins of the slowdown, virtually all econometric analyses confirm the view of the man on the street: Western economies took a turn for the worse around 1973 to 1974, and are still reeling from the financial meltdown in 2008.

Recovery is, therefore, a slow and uncertain process. In recent years, Europe had high unemployment; the US endured sharply reduced rates of real wage growth and, now, unemployment.

What more, as the massacre in Norway illustrates, Europe is shying away from multiculturalism and is becoming less tolerant.

Increased mobility and growing individuation eroded family and community ties in the West and, as the London riots demonstrate, the trend towards declining respect for authority continued in Western society.

Facing an altered electoral marketplace, leaders everywhere call for less government, less bureaucracy, less regulation and less public spending.

Should the rest of the developing world, the Middle East included, continue to trot down the same developmental path as the West, the twin problem of market and government failure will continue to haunt humanity.

DR AZEEM FAZWAN AHMAD FAROUKSenior lecturer and chairman of Political Science SectionSchool of Social SciencesUniversiti Sains Malaysia Penang