A democracia árabe é uma possibilidade improvável.
À medida que os dias passam e as convulsões se traduzem em maior número de vítimas mortais, percebe-se que a democracia árabe não terá um parto fácil e, muito provavelmente, resultará em aborto. Se nas ruas e praças as multidões se parecem agregar com idênticos propósitos, existe um lastro cultural que é inegavelmente antidemocrático, segundo os padrões e valores das culturas com raízes europeias, que acabará por prevalecer depois de eliminados, exilados ou reconvertidos aqueles que hoje lutam convictamente pela democracia.
O perigo de a ditaduras bafientas e caducas se sucederem ditaduras fundadas nas interpretações mais sinistras dos versículos islâmicos é mais eminente que a emergência de sociedades moldadas no respeito da Declaração dos Direitos Humanos das Nações Unidas.
Um dos primeiros sintomas de que esses direitos continuarão a ser ignorados pelos novos poderes recai sobre o papel subalterno da mulher nas sociedades árabes, que poderá mesmo observar um retrocesso em sociedades onde agora se observavam passos significativos na emancipação da condição feminina.
O artigo publicado hoje no Washington Post - Are the Mideast revolutions bad for women's rights?* - é muito revelador das tendências observadas no meio do furacão revolucionário que varre o Norte de África e o Médio Oriente árabes.
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* On Friday, Egyptians again gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square, this time in a victory celebration, one week after their revolution unseated President Hosni Mubarak. Tunisians have also been sampling new freedoms of speech and press along a boulevard that is no longer a war zone. But even as the exultation lingers, women in both countries have launched new protests. They want to make sure that democracy does not erode their rights.
In Tunisia, several hundred women have already taken to the streets to voice their concern about what an Islamic revival, should it come, could mean for them. In Egypt, women's rights activists immediately mounted a petition drive when the committee named to draft a new constitution included not a single woman (although many noted female Egyptian lawyers could easily serve on that committee).
In both countries, there is popular support for a broader establishment of sharia, or Islamic law, developed from the Koran and religious writings. Of course, there is no single sharia; interpretations vary throughout the Middle East and are subject to change. Morocco, for example, sets the legal age of female marriage at 18, based on its more progressive version of sharia, whereas in Saudi Arabia girls as young as 8 are married to much older men, based on its version. As new leaders in the region grapple with how to blend some version of sharia with some version of democracy, women's rights will become a central element of the debate.
The laws affecting women in Tunisia, and to some extent in Egypt, are among the most progressive in the Middle East, so the potential for backsliding under Islamic pressure in those countries is real. And women in Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Iraq, where the spreading unrest has been met with government force, have also struggled for their rights and likewise have reason to be concerned if their governments fall or start handing out concessions.
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