In a turbulent angle of this planet, specifically in the Arab world, a simple but bitter question stands: Why do some countries slip into chaos, although they are trying to be a “democracy”, while others maintain stability, without claiming that? The answer, apparently, does not lie in the ballot box, but rather in the depth of the state itself. In countries that have known major political transformations – from Baghdad to Beirut, from Damascus to Sanaa, and from the city of Sidi Bou Zaid to the West Tripoli – the problem was not only to overthrow the regimes, but in the absence of anything based on it after the fall. These peoples were freed from the individual rule, but they collided with the fact that the state institutions that were either disassembled, or were not present from the original. What was followed by this was not the “spring”, but a series of bloody seasons, in which sectarian, ethnic and militia loyalties were scattered, weapons replacing the state, the slogan in the program, and belonging to citizenship. The bureaucracy disappeared, the army breaks down, Parliament has become formal, and the justice institutions have turned into conflict tools not fair tools. The problem is no longer the delay in democracy, but rather the collapse of the idea of the state itself. And the result? Streets filled with slogans, ballot boxes over the rubble of the homeland, and electoral promises that do not stand up to the first bullet. On the opposite side of the scene, the Arab Gulf states appear as a clear and even shocking exception. They are not complete democracies according to what is described by the “West”, and are not presented as perfect electoral models, but they succeeded in what the “liberal” regimes were unable to: build a state. Gulf regimes realized that legitimacy is not only acquired from voting, but also from providing security, societal stability, and development. She worked to strengthen their administrative apparatus, protect their sovereign institutions, and follow an foreign policy that moves away from adventures, and is close to calm and wisdom, and that these countries did not try their luck in tampering with internal cohesion or exporting ideology, as they won stability. Road networks, infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and development projects have become a daily language, not postponed plans. Despite all Western criticism of the limited political freedoms, these systems were able to provide their peoples rarely in the Arab and Western world: existing states, and a life that is viable. The bitter truth that many evade is that democracy does not necessarily mean the existence of a successful state, just as its absence does not necessarily mean chaos. There is a vast difference between freedom and escape, between change and collapse. And when the state has strong institutions, an active administrative apparatus, and legal channels to absorb tensions, it is better able to overcome crises, without exploding from the inside. The corner stone here is not the form of the system, but its effectiveness. It is not the science that is fluttering over the buildings, but whether these buildings are able to provide services, protect a society, and preserve the dignity of the citizen. In a time teeming with collapses and interventions, we thank God for the grace of the Arabian Gulf, and some countries seem to discover the difficult equation: no complete democracy, nor absolute repression, but a realistic balance, protecting the state from the explosion, and gives peoples an opportunity for life. At the end of the end, success is not measured by the number of elections, but rather the number of times the state was able to pass a storm, without breaking.
