---

North Africa and the Middle East

As we look at these events around the world, we must reflect on whether there are historical parallels and past occasions when similar things have happened. At the moment, everyone is talking about the events in central and eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union, in the late 1980s, but there are other parallels, such as what happened in the revolutions of 1848. We could also draw parallels with the student protests of 1968. The important thing about this revolutionary process is that it has been widely broadcast through new technologies that did not exist in those eras. As a result, as we have clearly seen, the regimes have tried to stop such technology, close down the internet and prevent people inside and outside from accessing messages on Facebook, on Twitter and online. That is another argument for retaining BBC World Service shortwave radio broadcasts at key times, and the Foreign Affairs Committee is engaged in that debate with Ministers. The other difference from 1989 is that while these events are happening in a multitude of Arab Muslim countries, there is no Gorbachev figure. There is no restraining hand on Erich Honecker. There is no one to persuade and to deal with the situation faced by Jaruzelski in Poland. Of course, we had Ceausescu in 1989, and perhaps the closest parallel with Saif Gaddafi is Nicu Ceausescu. I do not know whether the Ceausescu family's fate will befall the Gaddafi family, but there is nevertheless a clear parallel: a family regime that uses the state as its own private bank. Unfortunately, the Libyan regime is not the only one for which that is the case. We have heard reports from Tunisia, and there have been accusations about the Mubarak family in Egypt. I read on the web just a few hours ago that there is a ““kleptocracy”” in Bahrain. The public can now access information in ways that they could not in the past. The United Nations Arab human development report that was published about a decade ago highlighted the lack of publications and limited number of books per head of population in the Arab world compared with other parts of the world. However, such availability is not as necessary when a generation of young people can access new technologies. There has therefore been an acceleration of change, especially among the young populations of north Africa and Arabia who, in huge numbers, are unemployed. This social and global phenomenon will continue for decades. The hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) said that not everything that happens in such revolutionary situations is pleasant. Some very unpleasant things came out from underneath the stones in 1989 and 1990: growing anti-Semitism, racism and nationalism. We may well find that one of the consequences of the removal of military authoritarian regimes will be that people lose not only their fear, but their inhibition about saying things that are difficult and unpleasant. We have already heard comments about what the Iranian Government might be up to. I worry that those people who want to gain political power by attacking other minorities will do so in ways that lead to tensions and conflicts between Sunni and Shi'a. We have seen the terrible carnage caused by that conflict in Iraq. We were right—I stand by my opinion—about the removal of the Saddam regime, but none of us estimated quite what terrible crimes would be carried out as a consequence of lifting that repression. That problem is still not resolved in Iraq. Egypt is at the beginning of the process, so what will happen there? There will be a presidential election and a new constitution, and then, as in central and eastern Europe, we will probably see a multitude of small political parties—or individuals and groups calling themselves political parties. Some 22 years ago, I was working in the Labour party's international department. My job was to go to central and eastern Europe, where I met people who said, ““We are the true new social democratic party.”” I met groups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia as was, Russia and elsewhere who all said that they were the true inheritors of the social democratic tradition. People from the Conservative party were also involved in a similar way, because the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) was in Prague just a few weeks after me in late 1989. We all discovered that most of the people who claimed to represent the new political forces did not do so at all. The process will take time, and we will need dedicated and well-funded democracy-building exercises throughout the Arab world. The Westminster Foundation for Democracy has been mentioned. I chaired its board until 2005. At that time, its total budget from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was £4.1 million, which was peanuts, but since then it has been cut. I understand that it will receive an additional £500,000, which is welcome, but that will still leave its budget below what it was a few years ago. International democracy foundations need to work together. Our Government, our European partners, the National Democratic Institute in the US, and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Germany, for example, need to work in a co-ordinated way because governance, democracy and institution building will take time. It would be useful if people from central and eastern Europe could make a contribution because many of them went through such a process 10, 15 or 20 years ago. Finally, if, potentially, Gaddafi regains control of Libya, we will face the most immediate, appalling crisis. It will be perceived as a major setback. It will send a clear signal, which may already have been picked up in Bahrain, that regimes can keep power if they are repressive and brutal because the international community will either make grandiose statements, as many Europeans have done—I am not critical of our Government on these matters, as we are doing the right thing and are on the right side—or prevaricate, as unfortunately the Americans have done. Let us hope that the Security Council adopts a robust resolution today and then does the right thing.