Speeches

Democracy is Spreading Across' the Middle East

Elizabeth L. Cheney, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
Remarks to Foreign Policy Association Annual Dinner

New York, NY
June 14, 2005

Thank you very much, Mary, for that kind introduction. Thank you also to Gonzalo de las Heras, your wonderful chairman. It is a real pleasure to be here with you tonight. And it is a special honor to be the recipient of the Foreign Policy Association Medal.

For 87 years the FPA has been educating New Yorkers, Americans and citizens of the world about the most critical foreign policy issues we face. I am honored to join the list of distinguished speakers hosted by the FPA.

I am also really pleased to share this honor tonight with two women who are role models for little girls all around the world – Jeanette Wagner and Anne-Marie Slaughter.

We are living through historic times – for the world and for US foreign policy. From Ukraine to Afghanistan to Iraq to Georgia to Lebanon, we are seeing the expansion of freedom. We are privileged to be living in a moment characterized by inspiring images of people shaking off fear in vibrant revolutions of orange and rose and tulip and purple and cedar.

Since September 11, we have known that supporting these forces of freedom – and defeating tyranny and terror-- is the duty and calling of our generation and of those who will come after.

That morning we saw America’s vulnerability. And since then we have seen its deepest source. As President Bush said in his second inaugural address, "For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny, prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder, violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat. There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment and expose the pretensions of tyrants and renew the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom."

For sixty years before September 11, we believed that we had to choose either freedom or stability, either democracy or security. We believed, in the case of the Arab world, that we could either uphold our principles or advance our policies. We were wrong. By purchasing stability at the price of liberty, we achieved neither.

We now know that the survival of liberty in our own land depends upon the spread of freedom across the globe. America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. It is our policy to seek and support democratic movements in every nation and culture.

And these movements are gaining ground. Last December, millions of Afghans, men and women, once oppressed by the Taliban walked miles, forded streams and stood in the snow just to cast a ballot for their first vote as free people.

The Palestinian people also cast their ballots in December for a new President and a new chance to build a peaceful and democratic nation.

In January, millions of Iraqis defied terrorist threats and delivered a clarion call for freedom. Individual Iraqis risked their lives. One policeman threw his body on a suicide bomber to preserve the right of his fellow citizens to vote. In Basra, in southern Iraq, a 90 year old man came out of the voting station leaning on the shoulder of one of his grandsons to proclaim that day as the day of his birth in a new Iraq.

In February, Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated and the Lebanese people rose up – one million of them marched in Beirut—to call for an end to Syria’s murderous occupation of their country. They are now in the midst of their first truly free elections in decades.

This year Saudi Arabia conducted the first municipal elections in the kingdom in forty years – an important and historic step. Equally important was the assurance provided by Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister that women should be able to vote in the next Saudi elections. And let’s hope when they go to cast those ballots, they are allowed to drive themselves to the polls.

Last month witnessed an historic announcement by President Mubarak that the Egyptian constitution should be amended to allow for multiparty presidential elections. As the Egyptian Government works to implement that promise, we call on them to allow international observers, to protect freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, to guarantee opposition candidates equal access to the media, and to guard against a repeat of the violent incidents that marred the constitutional referendum on May 25th.

The images of democratic progress – and its setbacks-- careen around the globe now in seconds. We all watched the Ukrainians gathered night after night demanding an end to election abuses and the right to choose their own leader. We’ve been inspired by images beamed out of Afghanistan and Iraq and Lebanon.

The day before we watched the Iraqi people vote, and hold their purple ink-stained fingers in the air to proclaim victory, the Iraqi election commission held a press conference. If you had been watching that afternoon you would have seen the election commissioner hold up two ballots. The first, with two boxes – one for No, one for Yes and with the yes box marked – was, he said, the ballot Saddam Hussein used. The second with over a hundred choices was the ballot of a new free Iraq. This simple act fundamentally changed the playing field for every other Arab leader contemplating elections. The world is watching and will no longer look the other way as governments conduct sham elections that offer their people false choices.

These images have many things in common, but one of the most important is they speak to the lifting of fear. A few months ago, Lebanese citizens would reduce their voices to whispers if they spoke at all about the Syrian intelligence forces oppressing their country. The assassination of Rafik Hariri stirred this brave and proud people to rise up in peaceful revolt. The Lebanese want their liberty, and they have a memory of a rich parliamentary life, of a decent balance of power that gave all the communities of this small but creative land a stake in their country.

In the face of this storm, the Syrian occupiers and their soldiers and secret services had no choice but to begin to dismantle their apparatus of terror. Lebanon is no longer a satellite country. Syria must now complete its obligations under UN resolution 1559 and remove all its intelligence forces from Lebanon.

And in Syria itself, people are conquering their fear in an attempt to reclaim the political life of their country and to revitalize it. Writers and human rights activists – Arabs and Kurds alike—have stepped forth to assert their right to a political life free of terror’s reach, free of the "visitors of dawn," free of arbitrary arrest and detention.

Syrians, long in the grip of tyranny, can see the world around them. To their east a new Iraq is being born, free of tyranny and one-man rule. To their west a valiant Lebanese population braved police rule to secure liberty. There is no iron law that could consign a population as enlightened and steeped in the currents of the world as Syria’s to authoritarian rule.

We are living through a dramatic shift in the political landscape of the Middle East, but this moment of transformation is fragile and freedom has committed enemies, particularly the Government of Iran which is the world’s leading sponsor of terror. Yet even the unelected leaders in Iran must see that the world around them is changing. They must know that the energy of reform is building and it will one day inspire Iran’s citizens to demand their liberty and their rights. America will stand with the Iranian people.

Freedom’s enemies are also fighting today in places like Iraq and Lebanon. They are fighting with everything they have because they know the triumph of freedom will signal their end. And at every turn, their terrorist acts are being met with brave resistance.

On June 2, in Beirut a young and talented journalist, Samir Kassir, was murdered as he turned on the ignition of his car. It was a reminder of tyranny’s reach and terror’s ways. Beirut and the world beyond grieved for him. His colleagues paid tribute by silently raising their pens in the air – in a defiant assertion that they will not be silenced by terror.

As brave men and women struggle to build a better future for their countries, America is standing with them. Through our diplomacy, we are urging leaders to listen to their people’s call for reform. We are making clear that the quality and nature of our relationships will be affected by the extent to which leaders respect the rights and freedoms of their citizens.

In addition to the traditional assistance programs underway in many countries across the region, we have provided close to $300 million over the last three years through the Middle East Partnership Initiative, to support economic, political and educational reform and the empowerment of women. These funds are supporting over 140 programs in 14 countries. These projects include: 

• training Lebanese election observers, and polling organizations 

• teaching Yemeni and Moroccan women to read 

• training political parties in Egypt

• empowering women by providing campaign skills training, and business internships.

• providing over 2 million childrens’ books, translated into Arabic, for 4th and 5th graders in Lebanon, Bahrain, and Jordan.

• funding Freedom House’s first ever study of Women’s Freedom in the Arab World.

• building networks among womens’ activist across the region who are working for women’s emancipation.

• training for journalists and new independent media outlets in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia.

• training members of parliament in Oman, Yemen and Morocco 

• funding English language training scholarships for thousands of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds across the region

• and funding projects to provide micro-enterprise lending and support reform of the region’s financial systems.

In addition to our bilateral efforts, we are also working multilaterally, with our G-8 partners and partners in the region to create the Forum for the Future, an unprecedented international venue to amplify and support the voices of reform that are redefining the region. With the G-8, we are supporting entrepreneurship training centers, civil society projects, and a region-wide education initiative.

This is a small sample of the kinds of new and innovative projects and partners America is supporting in the Broader Middle East.

Some have drawn comparisons between this moment in the Arab world – the spread of freedom and the lifting of fear—and the springtime of freedom in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. There are many similarities and more than a few differences. I want to say a few words about what I believe is the most direct parallel between these two moments.

The spark of freedom in countries under Soviet domination was lit and nurtured by Poland’s Solidarity movement --a movement of courageous freedom fighters, willing to risk everything to confront a totalitarian regime so they could control their own destiny and live in freedom. In the Broader Middle East today, it is the women who are playing this role.

Democracy is spreading across the region, and the single most important factor in this drive for liberty is the courage and activism of women.

In Morocco last year, women’s groups called for—and won-- changes to the centuries old moudawana or family code. Morocco’s family code, like many across the Arab world, denied equal protections to women in areas like citizenship, child custody, marriage and divorce. The women of Morocco mobilized more than a million of their fellow citizens to petition for changes to the code. The new family code is now in place, and demonstrates to the world that Islamic values and human rights go hand in hand.

In Iraq, 87 women have been elected to the new Iraqi parliament – 32%, among the highest of any national legislature in the world. Iraqi women like Raja Kuzai and Zeinab al-Suwaij fought and successful defeated resolution 137 which would have imposed Shari’a as the only source of law in the new Iraq.

In Jordan brave women – including Queen Rania—are fighting to end the horrific practice of honor killings. And ensure laws imposing criminal penalties for murder are applied to these cases.

In Egypt, a country that has led the region on many issues of women’s emancipation, women are in the forefront of today’s call for democracy. On May 25, the day of the constitutional referendum, a number of women oppositionists were beaten and humiliated by thugs. One woman showed tremendous bravery and personal courage – and stunned her attackers—by marching straight back into the mob that had beaten her to identify her attackers for the police.

Qatar has led the way to women’s political participation in the Gulf. It was the first Gulf country seven years ago to allow women to run for office and vote.

And, in Kuwait, a brave leader named Rola Dashti, led the movement to secure the right of Kuwait’s women to vote. She spoke out to the men leading her country. She reminded them that women are Kuwaiti too.

She met with the student union at Kuwait University to encourage them to join her movement. The young men leading the student union agreed and brought hundreds of their members to Rola’s rallies. They joined the women sitting in the gallery of Kuwait’s parliament the day of the historic vote. And the morning after the vote – having tasted the power of democracy—they called Rola to say, "That was fantastic…what issue are we going to tackle next?"

The slogan of the Kuwaiti women is one leaders of every country in the Arab world and across the globe should remember – Half a democracy is not a democracy.

Women are on the front lines of the battle of ideas – and they are also the battlefield itself. It is over the issues of women’s emancipation, women’s equality, women’s role in society that the fight has been joined. Women have the most to gain by the defeat of extremist ideology and the most to lose by its domination. Their strength, courage and sense of purpose should give inspiration to us all.

I am the mother of three daughters and one baby boy. Like all parents everywhere I want all my children to grow up knowing that they can be anything they want to be – if they are willing to work hard enough. It would never occur to my daughters as they run around a soccer field or round third base in softball or compete with the boys in their classes in any number of ways that they are anything less than equal. I suspect most days they believe they are actually superior. I think we all wish that every little girl and boy around the world could grow up with this same sense of limitless opportunity.

Our enemies are offering a vision of the world in which women are no better than slaves or chattel; in which fathers and brothers can murder their female relatives for violating the family honor; in which little girls can’t go to school, and can be forced to marry at 9 or 10 or 11. The women of the Broader Middle East will not stand for this and are fighting to turn their nations’ faces toward the future. America is proud and honored to stand with them.

Finally, let me say a word about the notion that democracy can’t take hold in the Arab world, the argument that this is the imposition of America’s values. The idea that the Arab world is not ready for democracy is racist and we should reject it. Democracy and science and the emancipation of women are mankind’s inheritance. Any person anywhere given the choice between being awakened in the middle of the night by a knock on the door from the secret police, or living in freedom will choose freedom. Every time.

And yes, America is fighting for these values. And we are doing it with every tool we have—through our armed forces, through our diplomacy and through our assistance programs. And we are paying dearly – the highest price any nation can pay in the lives of our brave servicemen and women. Their sacrifice has brought liberation to over 50 million people in the last three years. We pay this price because the survival of our own freedom depends upon it. Free nations do not harbor terrorists who slaughter innocents in the name of evil.

At the end of the day, we all – every one of us-- want to live in freedom. Not because we are American or Iraqi or Afghan or Egyptian or Saudi or Kuwaiti or Iranian. We want to live in freedom because we are human beings and it is our birthright.

Thank you.