Kuwait City: Prime Minister of United Kingdom David Cameron has warned that reforms and change of governments across the Middle East countries are serious threats for democracy.
He said this during his long-planned trip to the Gulf. During a speech to the Kuwaiti parliament, he signaled a significant move from what he has previously called his “messianic” push to bolster trade towards political change.
“Yes, ours is a partnership based on a shared economic future as we need our economies to grow and diversify in this challenging globalised world,” Mr Cameron said.
“But crucially, far from running counter to these vital interests of prosperity and security, I believe that political and economic reform in the Arab world is essential, not just in advancing these vital shared interests but as a long-term guarantor of the stability needed for both our societies to flourish.” He declined to name any countries where the UK had been wrong to support repressive regimes.
Cameron said, Western countries should understand that provision of basic rights in the region is in their own interests. “For decades, some have argued that stability required highly controlling regimes and that reform and openness would put that stability at risk,” he said.
“So, the argument went, countries like Britain faced a choice between our interests and our values. And to be honest, we should acknowledge that sometimes we have made such calculations in the past. But I say that is a false choice. As recent events have confirmed, denying people their basic rights does not preserve stability, rather the reverse.
“Our interests lie in upholding our values – in insisting on the right to peaceful protest, in freedom of speech and the internet, in freedom of assembly and the rule of law.”
He rejected the so-called “Arab exception” – the argument that Arab or Muslim countries “can’t do democracy”. He said: “For me, that’s a prejudice that borders on racism.”
Cameron said the Middle East was at the “epicentre of momentous change” and again condemned the “appalling violence” that Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has unleashed against his own people, while praising the bravery of the protesters seeking to assert their rights. “History is sweeping through your neighbourhood,” he said. “Not as a result of force and violence, but by people seeking their rights, and in the vast majority of cases doing so peacefully and bravely.”
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