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North Africa and the Near and Middle East

At this moment we need to give the Egyptians the benefit of the doubt because the process is still developing. We should try to get groups from the United Kingdom and other Western European Union countries reflecting faith forums and diverse groups, including leading British Muslims, to go to Egypt, taking with them Jews and Christians to show diversity and tolerance and how we work together. We also need to talk to countries such as Turkey, where an Islamist-influenced political party, the AK party, is in power in a secular state and where religious minorities are treated with tolerance in Turkish society. I think that we should try to use our influence. When the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Erdogan, went to Cairo to give advice, he seems to have been very strongly welcomed. Interestingly, there were large demonstrations in the streets when he arrived, but when he left, having made it clear that he wanted Egypt to remain a secular state rather than adopt an Islamist constitution, even though he was an Islamist, the demonstrations were much more muted. The message he sent the Muslim Brotherhood was not the message it wanted to hear. He said that he wanted a Prime Minister from an Islamist political party, but in a secular state. That was very important, and he should be praised for trying to show that the Turkish model is not just one in which Islamist parties can come to power and that democracy means leaders, after coming to power, having respect for women and minorities rather than imposing an intolerant form of society that does not respect diversity. I would like to consider the revolutions that have been called the Arab spring. Had they taken place in summer, I suspect that we would refer to the Arab summer, but I am not sure that we would talk of the Arab winter. Nevertheless, the issues are now much more complicated than they appeared to be at the start of the year. We are in a situation in which we can be guided by history, which the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border mentioned in his contribution. Those of us who have studied the history of the 19th century will know that the revolutionary processes that took place in that century and at the end of the 18th century were not easy, were in some cases bloody and often led to years or even decades of turmoil. I suspect that what we are seeing in north Africa and the middle east and what we will see in the Gulf states could be such a period. It is only 20 years since the transformation of central and eastern Europe after communism was lifted. The political formations that have taken power in some of those countries have at times been difficult to cope with and some very unpleasant organisations have since come out from under the stone. We have seen political parties that are overtly homophobic, racist and authoritarian, and some that are associated with admiration for the Waffen SS have been elected to Parliaments in countries such as Latvia, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland, yet all those countries have come through the process. They still face difficulties, but because of the European Union they have been able to become democratic, pluralistic countries in which there have been changes of power. Parties that were in power have lost it and oppositions have won power and then lost elections. That is what democracy means. Just because elections are beginning in Egypt does not mean that that country is already a democracy. Similarly, although there has been an election in Tunisia, it is not yet a democracy. Democracy will be entrenched only when parties that win elections are thrown out of office and when there is respect for diversity, the rule of law and minorities. Some of these countries will have to learn that respect. We have seen the great difficulties in Iraq when the parties that fought the last election came to a standstill and there was no possibility of Mr Maliki and Mr Allawi agreeing on who should be Prime Minister. It took the Iraqis almost as long as the Belgians to form a Government because there was no tradition or understanding of how Government and opposition work within a pluralistic political culture. Ba'athism had destroyed that political culture. If the revolution comes to Syria and the Ba'athist regime there is forced to leave or is overthrown, there will be an almighty, complicated mess to deal with. It will be extremely hard to achieve stability and a pluralistic society, given the diversity in Syria that has been mentioned, and we will need to be patient. We should not expect these countries rapidly to become models of democracy of the sort we have in this country and elsewhere in the EU.