In important remarks last week at the American University in Cairo, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a powerful case for the promotion of democracy and liberty throughout the Middle East. I would like to praise her for what she said, but also to urge her to think more deeply and honestly about some of the key issues she raises. The Cairo speech was all the more poignant because Rice alluded to the struggle for equality and freedom by African-Americans, something she speaks of with authority, given her family's experience in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the pivotal battle grounds in the American civil rights movement.

I have long studied and admired the American civil rights movement, and I personally take great inspiration from it for the current struggle by Arabs for freedom, democracy, dignity and equality. I was fortunate to experience first hand the climactic years of the American civil rights movement in the 1960s, when I was a high school and university student in the United States. I have written before about how the sentiments of ordinary Arabs today throughout the Middle East eerily mirror the sentiments of African-Americans in the 1950s and 60s.

In Birmingham, Memphis, Atlanta, Greensboro and many other places, African-Americans challenged an oppressive, racist political, economic and social order, braving arrest, beatings and death by standing up to the fire hoses, police dogs and many other indignities and dangers they faced. Individually and collectively, African-Americans refused to persist in their degradation and their dehumanizing subjugation, and peacefully challenged their country to give them their rights as citizens and human beings.

The condition of ordinary Arabs today is not exactly the same, but the sentiments that motivate Arabs to demand their humanity and their civic rights from their own governments very closely echo the driving spirit of the American civil rights movement: to brave death, in order to affirm life. In many countries, ordinary Arabs are mobilizing to confront their own governments, demanding a more equitable political and economic order. They also face immense dangers in challenging powerful Arab state police systems. Many have died, and been imprisoned and beaten up, but they persist with the struggle, because life under the prevailing inequities and abuse of power is uncomfortable, degrading and unacceptable.

In Cairo last week, Rice spelled out in impressive terms some of the specific criteria for democratic governance that the U.S. wants to promote in the Middle East. She specifically mentioned free and fair elections, and "governments that protect certain basic rights for all their citizens -- among these, the right to speak freely, to associate, to worship as you wish, to educate your children, boys and girls. And freedom from the midnight knock of the secret police."

She also was honest enough to admit two important points on American values and policies of the recent past. The first was that "the United States was born half free and half slave. And it was only in my lifetime that my government guaranteed the right to vote for all of its people. There was a time, not long ago, after all, when liberty was threatened by slavery. The moral worth of my ancestors, it was thought, should be valued by the demand of the market, not by the dignity of their souls. This practice was sustained through violence. But the crime of human slavery could not withstand the power of human liberty."

The second point was about America's mistaken policy of supporting Arab autocrats for so many years. She said: "For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East -- and we achieved neither. Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people. Today, liberty is threatened by undemocratic governments. Some believe this is a permanent fact of history. But there are others who know better. These impatient patriots can be found in Baghdad and Beirut, in Riyadh and in Ramallah, in Amman and in Tehran and right here in Cairo."

But here is an awkwardness that Rice and her government must confront and resolve. For in the same Baghdad, Beirut, Riyadh, Ramallah, Amman, Tehran and Cairo, and many other cities and towns throughout the Middle East, there is serious doubt about three crucial aspects of America's new policy of promoting freedom and democracy. They doubts are about American motives, consistency and longevity.

The first doubt is whether Washington is motivated by a genuine appreciation of the Arab quest for human dignity and freedom, or a more expedient need to ring emotional rhetorical bells that can camouflage the terrifying sound of trouble, and even failure, in Iraq and other traumatized lands that have been visited by American storms, armies, furies and confusions.

The second doubt is about whether the United States will promote democracy, equality and freedom consistently throughout the Middle East -- including, for example, in Palestine, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE and Israel -- or only in selected countries where the process is somehow easier or politically less contentious.

The third doubt is about whether the United States will persist over the long haul, hand-in-hand with Arab democrats and freedom lovers, or only pursue these values as long as they serve current U.S foreign policy interests.

Linked to this is a deeply complex and troubling issue of responsibility for one's actions. I for one am delighted that the U.S. now admits its mistake over 60 years in feeding Arab autocrats; but I am troubled by the idea that Washington feels it can simply admit culpability and error, and expect us who have suffered the deep traumas of the cumulative impact of those 60 years of mistaken policy to change our attitudes to the U.S. as instantaneously and miraculously as the U.S. says it is changing its attitude to our human condition and rights.

Six decades of American-supported Arab autocracy, along with assorted parallel crimes by Israel, the Soviet Union and other culprits, have left deep scars, powerful distortions and a great deal of political deviance and violence in our societies. America may change its policies overnight, but our Arab societies will have a long, hard road to returning to normalcy. Six decades of errant governance have left us today riddled with killers and kidnappers, criminals and corrupt officials, beheading rooms, bomb-makers, child soldiers, massive per urban belts of unemployed men and women, hundreds of billions of dollars spirited abroad, and thousands of active and potential teenage suicide bombers.

We will get out of this mess, though, in the same manner that African-Americans vanquished their two centuries of inhuman suffering -- by demanding and agitating for our human and civil rights, by writing and applying laws that promote equality, by challenging oppression, confronting killers and racists, respecting the consent of the governed and the rights of majorities and minorities alike, speaking the truth as we know it, and not being afraid to stand up to the police dogs or the police states. Arabs and Americans can gradually erase the debilitating consequences of 6 decades of mistaken policies by adopting a combination of consistency, perseverance, and equal treatment of all countries and peoples.

On a slightly more personal note, when Condoleezza Rice was developing her talents as an accomplished classical pianist and scholar in the 1960s, I traveled the more pedestrian road of newspaper journalism and enjoying the great rock music of my generation. As I ponder her important words today on promoting Arab democratic freedoms, I tap my feet in anticipation of better days. I and millions of other Arabs look forward eagerly to a possible exciting era of Arabs and Americans working together for a new age of universal liberty, equality and human dignity, inspired again and again by the incredible heroism and ultimate triumph of the American civil rights movement, and in particular by the events of April 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama. African-Americans there who sang gospel hymns in the face of the police dogs, fire hoses, jail wardens and church bombers gave the world a master lesson about the power of persistence and consistency in the struggle for human decency and universal values. Rice is right to invoke that lesson in addressing the challenge of freedom in Arab lands.

Yet I also remember the prophetic rock music of my time. As I listen to Rice's moving rhetoric, I recall the words that Pete Townshend of the rock band The Who wrote in 1969, reflecting on what he saw as the unfulfilled promise of the youth 'revolution' of the 1960s:

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again.
 

Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.
 

Released: 29 June 2005