Following news of Napoleon's spectacular victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, England's Prime Minister Pitt the Younger was reported to have said to his cabinet: "Fold up the map of Europe, we need it no longer." With one bold stroke Napoleon had checked the forces of his adversaries Austria and Russia, and all of Europe was sitting at his feet waiting to be conquered.

Today, one is inclined to say the same about the Arab world. The map of the Arab world is being redrawn as we speak, and one could speculate that in a few years time the Arab world as we once knew it will be no more.

Following America's messy and bloody intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq, it would appear as if the other Arab-Muslim countries in the region that stretches from the Mediterranean to Central Asia are falling over themselves to accommodate Washington's demands for reform and democratization. Qatar and the smaller Arab states have at least tried to stay ahead of things by allowing for internal reform long before Bush's 'Crusade' for democracy.

However developments in Egypt, Syria, Iran and Lebanon all point to the same conclusion: Faced with the unpleasant prospect of having democracy delivered by carpet-bombing and cruise missiles, the leaders of the Arab world have seen the writing on the wall and know that the game is up.

Perhaps the most surprising change of all has come from Saudi Arabia, which has allowed municipal elections to take place (albeit without the participation of Women). This, in the same country whose rulers once claimed that 'democracy is un-Islamic' and that the only constitution that Muslims need is the Quran.

'Wind of freedom'

President Bush Jr is already celebrating this uncertain victory by proclaiming that a 'wind of freedom' is blowing across the Arab world, paraphrasing MacMillan's famous 'wind of change' speech on the tide of anti-colonialism that eventually liberated Africa from the clutches of imperial rule in the 1960s. However here ends the similarities: For while a 'wind of change' is indeed blowing across the Arab world, one is forced to ask the obvious question of where this wind is blowing from.

The 'wind of change' that blew across the African continent in the 1960s was, without doubt, an uprising that was organic and local. It carried with it the voice of the African peoples themselves: From Franz Fanon to Patrice Lumumba, from Mehdi ben Barka to Felix Moumie, from Gammel Abdel Nasser to Jomo Kenyata and Kwame Nkrumah Africa and the Arab world produced a generation of nationalist leaders who were proud of their past, confident of themselves and looking forward to the future.

It was for this simple reason the pride and confidence of the new generation of Southern leaders that so many of them (like Lumumba, Moumie and Barka) met their untimely ends at the hands of the secret police and intelligence agencies of the West, in many cases the CIA.

In their place the ex-colonial powers installed a motley crew of sycophants, cronies and toadies who served the interests of neo-liberalism right to the end: Marcos and Soeharto in Asia; Mobutu and co. in Africa and the whole array of parasitic rulers we now see sitting on the thrones of the Arab world. If the 'wind of change' that blew across Africa in the 1960s was a local one, President Bush's 'wind of freedom' that is blowing across the Arab world today is certainly one that is being fanned by the United States.

If the earlier generation of Southern leaders proved to be the nemesis to the interests of the old colonial order and was ultimately the victims of the CIA, the new generation of cronies and puppets that are being installed at the behest of Washington are being helped into office by the CIA. The contrast is so obvious that it pains the eye to bear witness to it.

Faced with this reality, we return to the essential question: What is to be done?

Imported democracy

For a start we need to recognise that the 'liberation' and 'democratisation' of the Arab-Muslim states is nothing more than a colossal exercise in duplicity and double-speak. Despite the lip-service paid to the values of democracy and liberty, we are no closer to witnessing the genuine growth of organic democracy in any of the countries that have come under Washington's long shadow.

The elections in Afghanistan and Iraq have hardly altered the reality on the ground in either country (for indeed the Taliban is acknowledged to exist in Afghanistan still, and are even being courted by the West). All that has happened is the opening up of political space so that new actors and contenders for the political prize can come to the fore and engage in the bargaining process with their Western counterparts and allies.

All over the world the hegemonisation of Washington's 'War on Terror' discourse (which is the parallel text to this discourse on democratization) has also opened up new avenues and opportunities for Southern leaders who wish to dance to Washington's tune.

The victory of Thailand's Thaksin Shinawatra and Washington's decision to grant Thailand the dubious status of a 'major non-Nato ally' is a case in point: Nowhere in Thailand today can we see the real advances of democracy being made. Instead the country is being held hostage by a clique of powerful businessmen and politicians whose interests happily coincide with that of global capital.

Will this be the ultimate fate of the Arab states as well? Already the leaders of the Arab world know that they are confronted with stark and difficult choices: Reform and adapt, or else allow yourselves to be lumped into the 'Axis of Evil' and blasted to smithereens. The Arab world is indeed being modernised, reformed and in a skewered sense of the word democratised and liberated as well.

But will this reform and liberalisation end up liberating the hearts and minds of the Arab peoples themselves? Or will it merely end up with the opening up of the economies and societies of the Arab world to external interests and the predatory demands of global capital? In the new Arab world that is being created by Bush's war machine what and where will be the place for the ordinary man and woman in the street?

The first condition that has to be met when dealing with the developments in the Arab world today is understanding that war and the exercise of power and violence are not means to bring about genuine democratic change. Democracy cannot be imported from abroad, as the failed reform programmes that ended up bankrupting the economies of the former East European soviet-bloc countries would testify.

For democracy to flourish it has to come from within, and has to mirror the aspirations of the people themselves. It is for this reason that so many Arab intellectuals and activists are wary of the 'wind of change' that is blowing through the Arab world. The 'wind' is coming from Bush Jr himself, and not surprisingly, it stinks.

DR FARISH A NOOR is presently Visiting Chair of Asian Studies at Sciences-Po Paris, France. He is the author of Islam Embedded: The Historical Development of the Malaysian Islamic Party PAS (MSRI, Kuala Lumpur, 2004) and The Other Malaysia: Writings on Malaysia's Subaltern History (Silverfish, 2002). He can be contacted at farishahmadnoor@yahoo.co.uk .