Many observers regarded 1999 as a year of progress for democracy in the Arab world. There is reason to doubt, however, whether any meaningful change has really occurred.
Democracy is spreading everywhere except in the Arab world. Arab elections are an immense masquerade. Corrupt dictatorships seek to stifle freedom of thought and to control the flow of information.
The program of carefully controlled reform-from-above that King Mohamed VI began almost a decade ago may now have reached an impasse amid signs of growing disaffection.
