Ikhwanomics

AnUntold Catastrophe

The Sudanese humanitarian crisis is down to a failure of leadership

Sanctioning Iran How eective will the new round of UN sanctions be?

Issue 1570 • February 2012

Established in London 1980

Ikhwanomics The Muslim Brotherhood's plan for Egypt's economic recovery

Download this magazine to your mobile.

Use your smartphone to scan this code.

TM1570_01_Cover.indd 1

02

9 770261 087126 The Majalla

Issue 1570

05/03/2012 14:13

TM1570_02-03_Ad.indd 2

22/02/2012 15:19

TM1570_02-03_Ad.indd 3

22/02/2012 15:19

Credits

Established in 1987 by Prince Ahmad Bin Salman Bin Abdel Aziz Al-Majalla Established in 1980 by Hisham and Ali Hafez Chief Executive Officer Dr Azzam Al-Dakhil Editor-in-Chief Adel Al-Toraifi Editorial Secretary Jan Singfield Managing Editor Azeddine Senegri Senior Editor Maryam Ishani Editors Michael Whiting Amy Assad Designer Matt Dettmar Submissions To submit articles or opinion, please email: enquiries@majalla.com Subscriptions To subscribe to the mobile edition please download from the iTunes App Store Also available at www.issuu.com/majalla Disclaimer The views expressed in this magazine are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of The Majalla and its editorial team.

Al Majalla © 2012 HH Saudi Research and Marketing (UK) Limited.

All rights reserved. Neither this publication nor any part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of HH Saudi Research and Marketing (UK) Limited.

Advertising sana.nafia@alkhaleejiah.com Tel: +44 (0)20 7404 6950 Fax: +44 (0)20 7404 6963 Mobile: +44 (0)7825 888788 Arab Press House 182-184 High Holborn London WC1V 7AP

London Office Address HH Saudi Research & Marketing (UK) Limited Arab Press House 82-184 High Holborn London WC1V 7AP DDI: +44 (0)20 7539 2335/2337 Tel: +44 (0)20 7821 818 Fax: +(0)20 7831 2310

4

TM1570_04_Credits.indd 4

22/02/2012 17:53

TM1570_05_Ad.indd 5

22/02/2012 15:20

Editorial

Editorial

I

t has already been one year since an astonishing wave of popular protest swept across North Africa and the Middle East. The so called Arab Spring brought the ouster of presidents, constitutional reforms, clashes between armies and civilians and economic confusion. One major outcome of the Arab Spring has been the ascent to government of political Islam, particularly in Tunisia and Egypt. Stephen Glain, a regular contributor to The Majalla, addresses the challenges that lay ahead for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. In particular, he questions whether Islamist ideology is compatible with a pragmatic economic policy.

The developing story of 2012 has been the increasingly hostile war of words between Iran and the US. Political and military analyst at the Hudson Institute, Richard Weitz, casts his eye over the latest round of sanctions imposed by the US on Iran and suggests the likely consequences for Iran’s controversial nuclear program.

As the crisis in Syria continues unabated, the Arab League gives an increasingly good impression of an inadequate organization—seemingly unable to provide solutions for such a major regional player as Syria. James Denselow examines how the Arab League can alter this growing perception of incompetence and build on its potential to be a relevant multi-national platform.

A ground-breaking new exhibition on Islam takes center stage at the British Museum this month. Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam has been highly praised for its evocation of Islam’s most sacred pilgrimage. Juliet Highet met with the exhibition’s curator, Venetia Porter, to discuss how the Museum brought the atmosphere of the fifth pillar of Islam to London.

Amidst the incredible events of the past year, the humanitarian crisis blighting Sudan and South Sudan is often overlooked. Jonathan Faull exposes an increasingly desperate situation, which has been exacerbated by stalled negotiations to distribute oil revenue.

All these articles—and more—are available at www.majalla. com/eng. Feel free to visit us online and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

6

TM1570_06-07_Editorial.indd 6

05/03/2012 11:35

Contributors Stephen Glain A freelance journalist and author based in Paris, he joined the Wall Street Journal in 1991 where he remained as a foreign correspondent for the next decade, covering Asia and the Middle East, from bases in Seoul, Tokyo, Tel Aviv and Amman. Mr Glain is also a former Middle East correspondent for Newsweek and author of the book Dreaming of Damascus: Arab Voices in a Region of Turmoil (John Murray, UK).

The updated US edition, published under the title Mullahs, Merchants and Militants: The Economic Collapse of the Arab World (St. Martin’s Press), was named the best book of 2004 by online magazine The Globalist. His most recent book is State versus Defense, on the militarization of US foreign policy.

Richard Weitz Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at Hudson Institute. His current research includes regional security developments relating to Europe, Eurasia, and East Asia as well as U.S. foreign, defense, and homeland security policies. Dr. Weitz is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where he contributes to various defense projects.

Juliet Highet A writer, photographer, editor and curator, Juliet Highet specializes in Middle Eastern heritage and contemporary culture. Ms. Highet is currently working on her second book, Design Oman, having published her first book, FRANKINCENSE: Oman’s Gift to the World, in 2006.

James Deneslow A writer on Middle East geopolitical and security issues based at Kings College London. He currently writes on Syrian, Lebanese and Iraqi politics. He was a contributing author to the book An Iraq of its Regions. Visit his website at jamesdenselow.com

Jonathan Faull Jonathan Faull is an independent policy and political analyst based in Washington DC. He holds degrees in political theory, economics and public policy from the University of Cape Town and Harvard University. A native of South Africa, Jonathan has worked as a political analyst, political strategist, journalist, good governance advocate and development practitioner on three continents.

Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_06-07_Editorial.indd 7

7

05/03/2012 14:10

Contents

40

Cover Story Ikhwanonomics: The Muslim Brotherhood has a plan for Egypt’s economic recovery

A League Apart: Can the Arab League 14 Politics finally live up to its potential?

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– A Judicial Coup: The case of Hakan Fidan has shed new light on domestic politics in Turkey ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Love Me, Love Me Not: Why Iran might lose its South American friends

Condition An Untold Catastrophe: 28 Human The humanitarian crisis in Sudan

32

le Nabil Al-Arabi, Secretary General 36 Profi of the Arab League of Nations Up and Coming: Saudi Arabia’s 46 Wealth stock market

Choice The Decline of the West and the 50 Editor’s World Disorder

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The Vision of a new Arab President

Arts Reviewing Hajj: Journey to the Heart 54 The of Islam at the British Museum, London

and South Sudan is down to a failure of leadership ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The Complicity of Cairo’s Press: A new dawn was heralded following the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, but has anything changed for Egypt’s fourth estate?

Critics Cinema After 9/11: Extremely Loud 60 The & Incredibly Close

Candid Conversations A Question of Interpretation: Shirin Ebadi: “Democracy means the government considers the rights of minorities.”

Final Word Does China Truly Support 62 The Bashar Al Assad?

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Dancing on the Heads of Snakes

8

TM1570_08-09_Contents.indd 8

06/03/2012 12:35

Sanctioning Iran How effective will the new round of UN sanctions be?

12

Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_08-09_Contents.indd 9

Sanctioning Iran is the only credible option readily available to those concerned about Tehran’s potential nuclear ambitions

9

06/03/2012 12:35

TM1570_10-11_Ad.indd 10

23/02/2012 16:06

TM1570_10-11_Ad.indd 11

23/02/2012 16:06

Politics

Sanctioning Iran

How effective will the new round of UN sanctions be?

Frustrated negotiations and the likely ineffectiveness of a limited military strike mean that sanctioning Iran is the only credible option readily available to those concerned about Tehran’s potential nuclear ambitions.

Richard Weitz foreign military threats. Other Iranian leaders might seek nuclear weapons for offensive purposes—to intimidate neighbors, affirm Iran’s regional primacy, and provide a shield against United States military intervention while Tehran uses proxy non-state actors such as Hezbollah to expand its regional influence in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, and elsewhere.

In contrast, other Iranian leaders are thought to fear that pursuing a nuclear weapons capacity more visibly could increase foreign sanctions and other international punishments at a time when Iran will hold parliamentary elections, an opportune occasion for a renewal of mass protests against the regime.

Iran’s nuclear activities also suffer from design-related technical flaws, inadequate quality control, and deliberate foreign sabotage through cyber attacks and the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. Finally, the Iranian government may be proceeding slowly in order to keep its nuclear intentions ambigu-

ous pending a decision to actually seek nuclear capacity and avoid alarming the international community even further, which could galvanize stronger sanctions or even a military response.

One advantage of having the UN Security Council adopt sanctions against Iran is that member states can cite them to legitimize applying even harsher sanctions against Tehran. Various governments, especially the United States and within the European Union, have indeed supplemented these UN-mandated sanctions with their own national or multinational sanctions.

But these supplementary sanctions have provoked tensions within the international community. Russia, China, and other governments refuse to accept their legitimacy.

These governments cannot veto these sanctions—as Beijing and Moscow can with proposed UN measures—but their businesses are often sanctioned by them despite the lack of consent to these measures. Western governments do not want

Photo © Getty Images

T

he United Nations and its individual members have adopted a series of increasingly severe economic and other sanctions aimed at impeding Tehran’s ability to acquire the technologies, equipment, and other materials needed for its nuclear program. Despite the sanctions, the Iranian government continues to make progress toward a nuclear weapons capability and remains securely in power despite internal discontent. Nonetheless, the sanctions will continue in the absence of a superior alternative.

Evidence exists that the sanctions are having some effects on Tehran’s behaviour. More and more foreign businesses are ceasing to engage in commerce with Iran for fear of running afoul of international sanctions that would impede their access to more lucrative Western markets.

Foreign governments like India are having trouble paying for their purchases due to Iran’s exclusion from most international banking networks. Furthermore, countries such as China are demanding hefty discounts for any future purchases.

After having ignored the sanctions for years, Iranian leaders have been denouncing them more vehemently and even threatening self-defeating military actions, such as closing the Gulf to oil shipments.

At the same time, Iranian representatives have appeared more eager to resume nuclear negotiations to avert additional sanctions. Most importantly, Iran’s nuclear program is proceeding more slowly than that of previous nuclear-capable states.

The historically slow pace of Iran’s nuclear program could be due to Tehran’s having not yet committed to pursuing nuclear weapons, or to divisions within the Iranian elite on this question.

Some Iranian leaders might want nuclear weapons for defense reasons—to deter

12

TM1570_12-13_Politics 1.indd 12

05/03/2012 13:29

to allow other foreign firms to ‘backfill’ for Western companies forced to end their business ties with Iran.

In any case, neither supplementary nor UN sanctions have had much effect in impeding Tehran’s nuclear activities.

Although there have been periodic slowdowns in the pace of Iran’s expanding enrichment capacity, its nuclear weapons capabilities continue to improve.

Sanctioning Iran is still considered the most effective policy option readily available to those concerned about Tehran’s potential nuclear ambitions. Efforts at negotiation run into the problem that many influential Iranians are deeply committed to making progress in developing nuclear technologies. In addition, past Western diplomatic initiatives have been stymied by the Iranian elite, where divisions are so deep that anyone who proposes major Iranian concessions is denounced as a traitor.

At the same time, Iran’s nuclear program has progressed sufficiently far that a limited military strike—such as the earlier Israeli air strikes against Iraq and Syria—would probably prove insufficient. A Desert Storm-type air campaign would result in Iran’s resuming its program, with even greater effort, as soon as the bombing ended. The only plausible military option would be an Iraq-in-2003style massive invasion and military occupation of all of Iran, which would allow the occupiers to track down and destroy all of Iran’s nuclear assets. Obviously, few people have the stomach to pursue that option.

So the sanctions will continue in the hopes that they at least will delay Iran’s nuclear march, weaken Iran’s nuclear potential, and contribute to a change in the regime’s policies or the regime itself. Raising the costs Tehran pays for developing nuclear technologies with potential military applications also helps discourage other governments from pursuing nuclear weapons. Richard Weitz is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at Hudson Institute. His current research includes regional security developments relating to Europe, Eurasia, and East Asia as well as U.S. foreign, defense, and homeland security policies. Dr. Weitz is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where he contributes to various defense projects.

Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_12-13_Politics 1.indd 13

Turning the Screws

The US maintains a comprehensive and ever-growing list of sanctions against Iran.

Since diplomatic relations were broken in 1979, neither state has maintained formal bilateral ties or an embassy in the other’s capital, with US interests represented by the Swiss embassy in Tehran and Iranian interests represented by the Pakistani embassy in Washington, D.C. The US added Iran to its list of state sponsors of terrorism in 1984, making it ineligible to receive American arms or foreign aid, except for emergency medical and humanitarian aid. Legislation also forbids American representatives at international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank from voting in favor of extending development loans to Iran.

Given the American unease about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, it has unsurprisingly sanctioned Russian and Chinese firms accused of transferring technology thought to be useful in missile and nuclear research since the early 1990s.

Recent American sanctions have also targeted senior Iranian officials and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), both the organization and its senior members. Their accounts in the US have been frozen, and companies owned by the IRGC have been the targets of US sanctions. Many figures accused of human rights abuses following the controversial 2009 presidential election have also been barred from entering the US. The economic sanctions the US has sought to impose on Iran have proven to be the most controversial, going far above and beyond those imposed by the UN and American allies like the EU. These have been so stringent as to lead some observers to argue that the measures are tantamount to ‘economic warfare’.

While American firms were able to buy Iranian oil provided it was sold outside the American market, virtually all American-Iranian trade was banned by President Clinton in 1995 following Congressional pressure, tightening earlier restrictions imposed by President Reagan.

Amongst the most controversial aspects of American attempts to isolate Iran have been the unilateral, ‘extraterritorial’ sanctions imposed by Congress, which target non-American firms that trade with Iran. Since 1996, American lawmakers have sought to exclude companies that trade with Iran from doing business in America, provoking rows with Americans allies such as the EU. To date, these measures have focused largely on Iran’s critical oil and gas sectors. Companies that invest in Iranian oil and gas projects, supply it with equipment, or trade in refined petroleum products (including gasoline) have all been targeted by legislation aimed to force them to cut ties to Iran.

The most recent round of sanctions targets the Central Bank of Iran (CBI). Iranian banks had previously been excluded from the US financial system and forced to conduct transactions indirectly, though American pressure led many international banks to pull out of Iran. Like the sanctions on Iranian oil and gas, the new sanctions are extra-territorial, and seek to exclude any company dealing with the CBI from doing business in the US. The aim once more is to squeeze Iranian oil exports by targeting transactions that are processed by the CBI.

13

05/03/2012 13:29

Politics

A League Apart

Can the Arab League finally live up to its potential?

After playing a prominent role in the Libyan revolution and taking the lead in scrutinizing events in Syria, many observers are seeing the Arab League in a new light and asking whether the organization can become a more effective forum for multilateral decision making in the wake of the Arab Spring.

James Deneslow

M

ultilateral bodies such as the Arab League have faced tough questions about their effectiveness in recent years. Chatham House Director Dr. Robin Niblett emphasized that “the nation state is being empowered, not disempowered … in terms of global governance we also have a world where power is shifting to the south and the east. This is a critical challenge to the current multilateral system.” Institutionally, the majority of global multilateral agencies are crying out for reform with the UN and its Security Council (UNSC) looking increasingly outdated, yet there are signs of changes in the role and importance of regional multinational organizations such as the Arab League.

Chris Doyle, Director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu), once described the League as “seen by many as an irrelevant talking shop, reflecting only the whims of its rulers and not its peoples, merely intent on maintaining the post-colonial status quo … even Arab leaders are often dismissive of it.”

However, the Arab Spring has—perhaps inevitably—led to changes in the remit and scope of the League as an international actor. The League’s stated purpose is to strengthen ties among member states, coordinate their policies, and promote their common interests. Yet as member countries experience revolution (Tunisia), partial revolution (Egypt, Yemen), and civil war (Libya, Syria), the common interests of the twenty-two Arab states have changed. Although the Arab Spring is far from over—far, even, from being fully understood—it is clear that priorities throughout the region are in transition and democratic structures (or at least perceived popular accountability) have resulted in a very different organization.

There is therefore significant potential for an emboldened, empowered, and increasingly legitimate Arab League acting as a mouthpiece through which Arab states can address the main challenges facing the region and its people.

The Syrian Test The secretive nature of the Syrian regime was always going to make it difficult for the Arab League monitors. NATO’s involvement in Libya, which would eventually lead to the fall of Qadhafi, was partially sanctioned by the diplomatic support of the Arab League which argued that Libya’s “serious crimes and great violations” against its people had stripped the regime of legitimacy. This has been followed by a highly-involved approach to the far more complex situation in Syria where the League, for the first time in its history, played an interventionist role by sending monitors into the country. Syria will be a critical test of the League’s credibility and effectiveness.

At an emergency session of the League in October, in response to the continued Syrian crackdown, divisions were laid bare as Algeria, Yemen and Lebanon came out against the Saudi-led effort to suspend Syrian membership. Unlike Libya, an Arab state with few friends and a substantial geographical distance from the region’s main flashpoints, Syria represents a far more complicated and difficult scenario for the League to handle.

The country has long claimed to be the vanguard of Arabism and is deeply connected to the politics of Lebanon, Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Assad regime’s survival is important both to its main regional allies, Iran and Hezbollah, and to countries like Algeria and Yemen that are concerned with the

precedent the League’s attempt at regime change could set. Meanwhile the Arab states that consider that Assad’s time is up are being led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and include other GCC members such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

In November, the League decided to suspend Syria’s membership and 19 of the League’s 22 members nations approved a catalogue of sanctions, including cutting off transactions with the Syrian central bank and halting Arab government funding for projects in Syria. While the suspension was a surprise to many (it is only the third nation in the League’s history to be suspended) its decision to send in monitors on 26 December was unprecedented in the history of the organization and reflected both its more activist approach and the respect (or concern) that the Syrian regime accorded it. The arrival of the monitors was described by the League as a “last chance” for Syria. Yet the effectiveness of the mission was questioned from the start. While some claimed the presence of the observers clad in high-vis jackets prevented the killings of civilians, the US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, pointed out that “in the days since the Arab League monitoring mission has been on the ground, an estimated 400 additional people have been killed, an average of 40 a day, a rate much higher than was the case even before their deployment.”

The secretive nature of the Syrian regime was always going to make it difficult for the Arab League monitors. It had already killed some 5,000 of its own citizens prior to the arrival of observation teams and was clearly more concerned with containing the protests than keeping promises to the Arab League. It is worth remembering the WikiLeaks cables that

14

TM1570_14-17_Politics 2.indd 14

06/03/2012 12:37

Photo © Getty Images

showed how US officials working in the country saw Syrian officials “lie at every level.” Maura Connelly, US charge d’affaires in Damascus, wrote in 2005 that the Syrian government officials “persist in a lie even in the face of evidence to the contrary. They are not embarrassed to be caught in a lie.” In this case the “lie” was the Syrian acceptance of the Arab peace plan which demanded all Syrian armed forces withdrawn from protest areas, sought the release of all the country’s political prisoners, and permitted Arab monitors—and the international and Arab press—to roam the country unhindered. The observers were never truly allowed to see the full picture of events in Syria. During their mission they played a game of hide and seek with the authorities, with videos and images released showing the regime’s attempts to conceal armored vehicles and sniper posts. Often the regime announced that troops were being withdrawn from cities only for them to re-enter shortly afterwards. Although there were prisoner releases and an increase in the number of international journalists allowed into the Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_14-17_Politics 2.indd 15

country, it is hard to give much significance to these small successes given the hugely increased death toll.

Another reason for the failure of the Arab League mission was the very real threats to the monitors themselves. The League denounced an attack in January by a pro-regime mob that targeted the monitors’ convoy in Lattakia and wounded eleven people, League representatives declared that the Syrian government had not adhered to the terms of the protocol, which included the protection of its members. In addition, the BBC reported that outside a hotel used by the delegation were “Arab League vehicles with windows smashed and plastered with stickers of Mr. Assad, the bumpers caved in and tyres let down.”

An Algerian member of the mission, Anwar Malek, resigned because he felt he was serving the regime by his continued participation. Malek described the league mission as a “farce”—claiming to have seen the skinned corpses of torture victims and dead children, in addition to having witnessed people being shot right in front of him.

The professionalism of the mission has also been criticized, with experts claiming that General Mohammed Al-Dabi, head of the mission and a former head of military intelligence in Sudan, was compromised by his own human rights record.

Dabi sparked outcry when he described seeing “nothing frightening” during a visit to Homs, during a period in which protestors in the city reported shelling, sniper fire and targeted killings by security forces.

Others questioned whether the objectives of the mission were realistic, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based opposition campaigning group, criticized the League for “throwing a lifeline” to the regime by allowing it to play for time.

Yet in presenting its first interim report, the League’s observer mission revealed that the Syrian regime had failed to honor a promise to end the violence and admitted that the Syrian army had not withdrawn from the center of all restive towns and cities. Eventually, despite initially extending its mission for another month, the withdrawal of GCC support forced the League to suspend its mission at the 15

06/03/2012 12:37

TM1570_16_Ad.indd 16

23/02/2012 16:04

end of January. The BBC’s Jim Muir described this suspension of the mission as a signal “that regional efforts to halt the carnage have failed and the only alternative is to internationalize the crisis.”

New Thinking for a New Era There are two distinct tracks to the Syrian crisis at present. On one hand, you have events on the ground characterized by gradually expanding levels and localities of violence. The deaths of over 5,000 people have created a ‘momentum of martyrdom’ that has escalated since the regime’s heavy-handed arrests of graffiti drawing children back in March 2011. The takeover of the center of cities such as Homs and Hama and suburbs of Damascus—albeit temporarily and in a manner which has been bloodily contested—as well as the establishment of a loose network of opposition groups and the emergence of the Free Syria Army, all serve as evidence of how protest first turned into an insurrection, which is now evolving into a civil war.

Parallel to events in Syria are the mechanisms of international statecraft.

There are several fundamentals to this; the reality is that the Western powers have no appetite for intervention on the scale of Libya (no-fly zones and aerial bombardment) and certainly not Iraq (full-scale invasion and prolonged occupation). So while they seek international sanctions on Syria there is no chance of Western militaries halting the actions of the Syrian state. Even the attempts of the Europeans to coordinate energy sanctions have been inconsistent, with a wide gulf between rhetoric and reality. Meanwhile, Russia and China—both countries close to the regime in Damascus—have prevented resolutions going through the UN that could threaten their traditional interests in the country.

Against the backdrop of a bloody gridlock on the ground and diplomatic impotency in the UN are the actions of the emboldened Arab League. At the start of February, Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Al-Araby called on the UNSC to take “rapid and decisive action … [to] not let the Syrian people down in its plight.”

The Arab plan, which envisages President Bashar Al-Assad transferring power to his Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_14-17_Politics 2.indd 17

Death of the Arab League If the Arab League is to establish a new relevance in international and regional politics, it has many challenges to overcome and a backlog of crises to deal with. Aside from the Israel-Palestine issue, there are many other long-simmering problems that might benefit from collective Arab action, but which have thus far been neglected.

Obvious examples include the dispute between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iran over the Gulf islands claimed by both states but occupied by Iran, the Greater and Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa, in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Arab League has backed the UAE’s position (that the islands are part of the Ras Al-Khaimah emirate) on the dispute since Iran occupied the islands, and every time the dispute has flared up since. Nonetheless, Iran refuses to discuss the matter and pressure from the GCC alone has yet to achieve anything.

Another lingering issue that requires resolution is the ongoing dispute between two members of the League, Morocco and Algeria, over Western Sahara. Although notionally a dispute over independence for the territory, both states have clashed over its future for decades, and UN mediation has failed to resolve the issue.

This excludes well-known failures of Arab League attempts to resolve disputes in the past. The 1991 Gulf crisis required American intervention to resolve, even though an Arab coalition took part in the final offensive against Iraq, and the organization had no role or involvement in the disputes running up to the 2003 invasion.

Some observers point to the intervention in Libya in 2011 as a success for the Arab League, given the role of the organization in sanctioning and encouraging NATO operations against Qadhafi. Only Jordan, the UAE, and Qatar took part in the operation itself, which could never have taken place without NATO, and the US in particular.

The League also has a history of fractious internal politics. Egypt’s suspension in the wake of the Camp David Accords lasted for a decade. How long will Syria’s time in the wilderness last?

These two key Arab states, Egypt and Syria, are also currently dealing with serious internal problems. Without these states being fully engaged with the Arab League, in both its institutions and activities, it is difficult to imagine the organization functioning as well as it will need to address major issues. Even if they do reassume their old roles at some point, the danger of fragmentation is ever-present within the League, and the next crisis could be one that splits it down the middle.

deputy and forming a national unity government within two months, has been rejected by Syria, and Russian intransigence has ensured that a UN role remains a nonstarter. Indeed, UN expert and founder of Independent Diplomat, Carne Ross, admitted the Russians will not budge on refusing action at the UNSC, saying “Lavrov is stubborn and totally untrusting of allied intentions. I suspect no UNSC action until Assad falls.”

Although the monitoring mission could not end violence in Syria, it has created a momentum that could lead to the Arab League being considered as part of any potential resolution to the continued bloodshed. So what can the League do? Chris Doyle commented that “the question remains whether the Arab League has the unity and the determination to pressure the Syrian regime to implement what it has agreed.” The Guardian’s Ian Black has

written about “a new sense of energy about the Arab League” and that the League “matters more than ever before.” In order not to lose this momentum of a pioneering monitoring mission, the League should spearhead continued pressure on Syria (and its guardian, Russia), as well as pushing for the discussion of more innovative solutions—perhaps in concert with Turkey, including exploring the idea of creating humanitarian corridors and a safe haven in the country. The next months will be a crucial test of whether the Arab states truly have a league of their own. James Deneslow is a writer on Middle East geopolitical and security issues based at Kings College London. He currently writes on Syrian, Lebanese and Iraqi politics. He was a contributing author to the book 'An Iraq of its Regions'. Visit his website at jamesdenselow.com

17

06/03/2012 12:37

TM1570_18-19_Ad.indd 18

23/02/2012 16:05

TM1570_18-19_Ad.indd 19

23/02/2012 16:05

Politics

A Judicial Coup

The case of Hakan Fidan has shed new light on domestic politics in Turkey The slow-burn reform efforts of the past seven years in Turkey have culminated in an astonishing confrontation between the police and intelligence services. Could the delicate truce between the AKP and state institutions finally be over?

Nicholas Birch es of convenience that the government had contracted with various parts of the state as part of its push to overthrow the old regime appear to be breaking down.

When it came to power in 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government had only the police—traditionally sympathetic to its conservative Muslim politics—as a potential ally. The rest of the state—the army, the courts, and MIT—was deeply suspicious of it.

More than that, they tried to bring it down. Secret documents that began to be leaked in 2006 make it clear that there were military plots to overthrow the government in 2003 and 2004. In 2008, a top prosecutor tried to close the AKP down.

Gradually, the government—bolstered by success in the polls—began to change the balance of power in its favor. MIT was taken out of the hands of the military. Widely criticized as a pillar of hu-

man rights abuses during the 1990s, the State Security Courts (DGM), with their military judges, were closed down in 2004.

A year later, the government introduced new Special Authority Courts (OYM), identical in pretty much every way to the old DGM, except that they didn’t have a military contingent.

One of the new ‘super-prosecutors’ attached to the OYM immediately began investigating two military officers who had been caught red-handed throwing a grenade into a Kurdish bookshop.

“It was the first shot in the war for control between the old elite and the new one,” says Orhan Gazi Ertekin, a judge and prominent commentator.

The government backed special prosecutors in a massive investigation into alleged coup plots in 2007. They used a new,vaguely-worded anti-terror law that its own supporters had criticized

Photo © Getty Images

T

he signs have been growing over the last month that Turkey’s quiet revolution may have begun to eat its own children, as the government hastily amended a law to prevent courts questioning close allies of Prime Minister Erdogan in the country’s national intelligence agency (MIT).

Parliament voted the amendment through on 16 February, just over a week after prosecutors had issued a summons for MIT chief, Hakan Fidan, to give evidence as a suspect in a long-running terrorism investigation.

Prosecutors said they wanted to talk to Fidan, an appointee and close confidant of the prime minister, about MIT’s infiltration of a group linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) a group that has waged a 30-year war against Turkey.

The Turkish police and the courts have been doing politics for years. But the police report they were acting on concentrated on discussions senior MIT officials held with the PKK about a possible ceasefire. It lead to suspicions that the summons was part of a plot to sabotage a peace process that hard-liners believe has offered too many concessions to Kurds.

Cengiz Candar, a prominent political analyst, calls the summons a “judicial coup” against government-sponsored talks with the PKK that lasted from 2008 to 2011.

“It is laughable,” he says. “Is the government supposed to get permission from the courts before it makes policy decisions? Both the police and the courts have started doing politics.”

In fact, the Turkish police and the courts have been doing politics for years. All that the Fidan affair shows is that the marriag-

20

TM1570_20-22_Politics 3.indd 20

05/03/2012 12:29

TM1570_21_Ad.indd 21

05/03/2012 12:30

Politics

when they passed it in 2006. Nearly five years on, over a hundred people— including several former four-star generals—are on trial in a high-security court outside Istanbul.

The government and its supporters continue to describe the investigation as an attempt to cleanse Turkey of the people who had turned the country into little more than a mafia state in the 1990s. For a while, there was reason to believe them: many of the people arrested were gangsters and shady intelligence types known for the brutal role they had played when trying to quell the Kurdish rebellion. They were protected at the time by the omerta of the old regime.

From the start, however, there were questions about the way investigations were being conducted. Journalist Rusen Cakir describes the pro-government media, the police and the courts as working together “like judge, jury and executioner,” the police leaking incriminating evidence to the media, and the prosecutors then arresting and charging those incriminated.

Things began to get out of control: people who clearly had no relation whatsoever with organized crime were hauled in for questioning. A second investigation led by another group of special prosecutors has led to the arrest of at least one thousand Kurds accused of being linked to the PKK. A Kurdish party puts the number of arrests at 6,000.

“Prosecutors’ indictments have become the political texts of the new regime,” Orhan Gazi Ertekin says. “The judiciary is playing the role that the army used to play, framing political action.”

And all this time, AKP chiefs have come out with a tired cliché that Turkish politicians have repeated for decades.

“The judiciary is independent. We cannot get involved.”

That independence did not stop the prosecutor who summoned Hakan Fidan from being removed from the case.

But it remains to be seen whether the AKP will move to correct the legal and structural imbalances that have allowed the courts and the police to become so powerful.

Columnist Kursat Bumin says the time has come for a thorough rewriting of

In the Shadow of the ‘Deep State’?

The military of Turkey has traditionally seen itself as the guardian of the country’s secular constitution and traditions since the foundation of the modern Republic of Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s. In the past it had no qualms about overthrowing civilian governments it has seen as undermining the foundations established by the modern republic’s founder, Mustapha Kemal Atatürk, still revered by Turks today as the father of the nation.

Between 1960 and 2000 there was almost one coup d’état a decade in Turkey, as the military’s officer corps sought to stamp out instability and threats the national doctrine of secularism. Each time, a new government would be installed, the constitution would be amended or replaced, and new elections would be held when the military thought the country was ready to return to civilian rule. This has led to accusations that Turkey has been dominated by a ‘deep state’, a shadowy collection of officials and military officers who have conspired to keep the country moving in their preferred direction.

The first coup, in 1960, led to the overthrow of the elected government and its replacement with a military junta under General Cemal Gürsel. The former prime minister, president, and several cabinet ministers were seized and tried on charges of treason and undermining the constitution, and the ministers of finance and foreign affairs were executed. A new constitution was promulgated and the country returned to civilian rule in late 1961, but only after the formation of a ‘National Security Council’ dominated by senior military officers, which would become a center of the military’s political power.

Subsequent coups were less bloody. In 1971 and 1980 it was enough for the generals to threaten the government for the politicians to stand down and hand over power, after economic problems, political paralysis and escalating violence from left and right wing factions raised fears that the country was becoming ungovernable. In the case of 1971, a military backed regime amended the constitution to strengthen the powers of the state. In 1980, National Security Council simply announced on television that a coup had taken place, then dissolved parliament and banned all political parties. The 1961 constitution was replaced with a new one before new elections were held in 1983.

The last, in 1997, was the most restrained, leading one Turkish commentator to label it 'the first post-modern coup'. The military did not take power as it had in the past, but instead the National Security Council drew up a memorandum reaffirming the secular character of the Turkish state. The Prime Minister, the Islamist Necmettin Erbakan, was forced to sign it before he ‘resigned’.

In 2007, the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) nominated Abdullah Gül for the presidency, prompting the army to issue a statement ahead of the election warning that it was ready to intervene if the secular constitution was threatened.

Nonetheless, Gül became president, and the AKP is still in power in Turkey. Together with some political reforms, especially of the National Security Council, some have claimed that this shows that the power of the ‘deep state’ has been definitively broken.

criminal procedure rules, which define the authority of special courts. He calls the founding of the Special Authority Courts a “typical piece of oriental cunning…. [that] needs to be scrapped.”

Interviewed in the daily Radikal on 17 February, government spokesman Huseyin Celik said the AKP had no immediate plans to get rid of the courts.

Having benefited so much from the status quo, it seems that the government is content for the moment with piecemeal reform.

Nicholas Birch lived in Istanbul, Turkey, from 2002 to 2009, working as a freelancer. His work from Turkey, Iraq, Iran and the Caucasus appeared in a whole range of publications, including the Washington Post, Time Magazine, The Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement. Birch was a stringer for the Wall Street Journal and The London Times until the end of 2009. Based in London, and continuing to work as a freelancer, Birch is in the early stages of writing his first book, a travel book investigating Turkey's troubled relationship with its past.

22

TM1570_20-22_Politics 3.indd 22

05/03/2012 12:29

TM1570_23_Ad.indd 23

05/03/2012 12:30

Politics

Love Me, Love Me Not

Why Iran might lose its South American friends At a time of growing pressure on Iran and increased international isolation, Tehran must make the most of what diplomatic goodwill it can still lay claim to. Unfortunately for the Iranian government, its influence in South America seems to be on the wane.

Nima Khorrami Assl

R

ecent remarks by President Ahmadinejad’s top advisor and close ally, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, have shed some light on yet another setback for Iran at a time of increasing diplomatic and economic isolation. In a highly publicized interview, Mr. Javanfekr, a controversial figure in Iranian politics, has bluntly criticized Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, accusing her of “destroying years of good relations and striking against everything that [former Brazilian President] Lula accomplished.”

Given the special bond between Ahmadinejad and Javanfekr, his remarks should be considered as the official view of the President’s office—if not the regime, for which it would have been undiplomatic to stage such an attack on the Brazilian leader. Mr. Ahmadinejad was keen to have a photo opportunity with his Brazilian counterpart while touring Latin America, but Brasília (unlike in 2009) simply refused to host him. Needless to say, this has angered the President’s inner circle—not least because standing next to the female leader of a flourishing democracy would have boosted the President’s standing domestically and internationally.

Brazilian officials might have decided that wherever their national interests allow, cooperation with the United States could serve their UN Security Council ambitions. The whole Brazil-Iran fuss began in 2003, when Petrobras obtained exploration and drilling rights in the Caspian Sea in a $34 million agreement. However, it was in early 2009 when political affection between the two countries caught the world’s attention. Fairing strongly through the 2008 global financial storm, confident of its rising global power, soaring popularity at home, and relatively free of domestic political strains as he was in his last year at

the office, President Silva, in line with his outward looking foreign policy agenda, which had already strengthened Brazil’s foothold in Africa, and Brazil’s foreign policy principle of South-South approach to globalization and development, sought to increase Brazil’s presence and influence in the Middle East.

To be sure, Brazil’s newly articulated regional strategy was not limited to Iran. This is evident in the Brazilian-backed Mercosur free trade agreement with Israel, the offer of free trade agreement to Jordan, as well as the decision to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. Yet, Iran was prioritized for a number of reasons.

Registered as the seventh-largest uranium reserve in the world and in possession of indigenous enrichment technology that it had mastered before joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1997, Brazil has been trying to become a global supplier of nuclear fuel. Silva saw a profitable market in Iran’s nuclear industry. Moreover, based on its own experience in the 1960s when US attempts to constrain its civil nuclear development led Brasília to establish a secret nuclear program in the 1970s, Brazil was—and still is—sceptical of Western sanctions, seeing them as a prelude to war and a major incentive for Tehran to obtain a nuclear deterrent.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Brazil saw a rare opportunity in Iran’s standoff with the West to make a broader argument about the non-proliferation regime that, according to Brazilian officials, has become a politically-driven tool in the hands of the United States to selectively lay down the law on weaker states.

For its part, the Iranian regime was thrilled to receive such positive attention from Brasília. Tehran has traditionally used its trade policy as a way of discour-

aging some countries from cooperating with sanctions or aligning themselves too closely with the anti-Iran camp. As such, it wasted no time in opening up its market to various Brazilian businesses and trade volume between the two countries increased substantially reaching $2.1 billion in 2010.

Following Brasília’s announcement in early 2009 that it had begun uranium enrichment on an industrial scale, Tehran was hopeful to expand nuclear cooperation with Brazil. Iran was also keen to establish ties between Brazilian and Iranian banks, so as to gain indirect access to the US financial system.

It was in this context of warming relations that Brazilian and Iranian presidents exchanged official visits in 2009 and the Tehran Declaration was signed. This new activism had two broad objectives: to present Brazil as a mediator and enabler to justify its calls for a permanent UN Security Council seat, and to diversify Brazil’s trade relations and seek new partners for the Brazilian economy.

Since the election of the new President, however, diplomatic and trade relations between Iran and Brazil have followed a downward trajectory. In a sense, this should not come as a surprise. As someone who has been tortured herself, President Rousseff had made it crystal clear that she would “distance herself from Lula’s more exotic foreign policy initiatives,” and that would “influence Brazil’s diplomatic partnership with Iran.”

There are two other factors at play: Brazil’s own decision to build nuclearpowered submarines and a general shift in Brazil’s foreign policy orientation.

On 16 July 2011, plans for a Brazilian nuclear-powered submarine that had been postponed since the 1970s were reintroduced in a public ceremony attended

24

TM1570_24-25_Politics 4.indd 24

05/03/2012 12:31

and gas deposits has made it dependent on American high-technology firms.

Watching the recent Indo-American rapprochement, Brazilian officials might have decided that wherever their national interests allow, cooperation with the United States could serve their UN Security Council ambitions better than mediation on issues that are of paramount strategic importance to the US government. Surely, business friendly government of Brazil can help Washington in Latin America and Africa in return for US backing of its UNSC bid.

During the final years of Mr. Silva, Brazil experienced a steep learning curve in the region, realizing that it has neither the administrative structure nor the trained and experienced diplomats to handle the religious, ideological, and political complexities prevalent in the Middle East. The new administration has therefore set its eyes on Africa, especially the Portuguesespeaking nations, while reducing its Middle East agenda to trade only. Brazil hopes that its experience in biofuels and food

security will offer alternative solutions to Middle Eastern countries, while continuing to sell its coffee, sugar, and meat—all of which are in high demand in the region. Over the medium term though, Brazil could make a political comeback in the region through a partnership with Turkey.

Ankara has been seeking to increase its presence in Africa since 2005. As a relative newcomer, however, Turkey is likely to rely on Brasília’s soft power in order to achieve its goals in certain parts of continent. Cooperation in Africa, in turn, might pave the way for the emergence of a Turku-Brazilian partnership in the Middle East and North Africa. Nima Khorrami Assl is a Beijing-based writer and researcher specializing in policy and analysis on geo-economics and security development in the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Mr. Assl has carried out a number of projects for both governmental and private clients in the Middle East and has published op-eds in “The Guardian,” Open Democracy, and Defence IQ.

Photo © Getty Images

by the Brazilian President and the Defense Minister. Brazil’s recent disinterest in Iran and its nuclear program could thus arise from its desire to deflect excessive attention on—and speculation about—its program, and Brasília’s end-goal in building nuclear submarines.

Negative reactions to Brazil’s rather short-lived adventurism in the Middle East, on the other hand, seem to have convinced Brasília to reduce its role in the region and instead devote all its energy to its neighbours and to Africa, especially that Brazil is self-sufficient in oil. Brazil’s cozying up with Iran, its support for Tehran Declaration, and its pro-Palestinian stance angered Washington and Israel.

The further Silva went in his Iran-Middle East initiative, the more problems he created for Brazilian businesses, which are heavily integrated with the West. Not only did Washington not appreciate the nuclear deal with Iran, but it also threatened to restrict Brazil’s access to US financial and technological sectors at a time when Brazil’s new discovery of underwater oil

Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_24-25_Politics 4.indd 25

25

05/03/2012 12:31

TM1570_26-27_Ad.indd 26

05/03/2012 12:31

TM1570_26-27_Ad.indd 27

05/03/2012 12:31

Human Condition

An Untold Catastrophe

The humanitarian crisis in Sudan and South Sudan is down to a failure of leadership With the world distracted by regional events in Egypt, Syria, and Iran, a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Sudan and South Sudan. The scale of this tragedy is astounding, and it could soon outstrip anything seen in the MENA region since the end of the second Sudanese civil war in 2005.

Jonathan Faull

S

Photo © Getty Images

udan and South Sudan are faltering: war, famine, environmental degradation, and the involuntary movement of hundreds of thousands of people have the potential to exact a dire toll on the lives of millions people.

That this unfolding cataclysm is entirely man-made—and entirely avoidable— points to a profound failure of leadership at home and abroad.

The numbers are staggering: in Sudan, the United Nations now estimates that 4.3 million citizens, or 14 percent of the country, are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance; in the South as many as 21 percent of the population (or 1.7 million people) is at serious risk.

Following six years of relative peace, and unprecedented developmental dividends, conflict exploded along the poorly demarcated border between Sudan and South Sudan in the period preceding and immediately after the secession of the South in July 2011. In May 2011, militia activity in the disputed oil-rich Abyei region, escalated into a full-scale military occupation by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) that displaced an estimated 110,000 Dinka Ngok people to the South. A month later the SAF attacked launched an assault on the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army North (SPLM-N) in the neighboring state of South Kordofan. This ongoing conflict

has now internally displaced 300,000 people and forced tens of thousands into southern exile. In September, the front against the SPLM-N expanded to include the Blue Nile state, where over 50 percent of the population has now been affected by conflict, with 66,000 internally displaced and a further 87,000 people who have fled to Ethiopia and South Sudan.

The destabilization of Libya to the North has robbed Darfuri rebels of a safe haven, forcing columns of heavilyarmed Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) militia to return to the Sudan, breathing new life into that conflict.

Nearly two million Darfuri citizens are now considered internally displaced; 700,000 newly or secondarily displaced through the course of 2011.

In South Sudan, conflict only tangentially related to animosity with the north has unleashed terrifying violence across large swathes of the country, undermining the limited security apparatus of the new state and the UN’s peacekeeping capacity. In Jonglei and Warrup states, cattle raiding between the Dinka, Nuer, and Murle groups has escalated into large-scale paramilitary activity, killing thousands and forcing 150,000 from their homes. Cattle-rustling is a entrenched custom in some communities (bestowing honor on young men), but the abuse and arming of ethnic militia as proxy armies through the years of civil war—together with increased competition for resources, climate change and overgrazing—has conspired to encourage a lethal cocktail of massacres and repri-

28

TM1570_28-29_Human Condition 1.indd 28

05/03/2012 12:31

sals. Nuer and Dinka elders now claim to have raised an army of 30,000 from affected communities in Sudan and Ethiopia to exact revenge, following an attack by 8,000 Murle in December.

Notwithstanding the colossal challenge posed by this violence, South Sudan is also struggling to meet the needs of the estimated 190,000 of refugees from Abyei, Blue Nile and South Kordofan, as well as the challenges posed by over 300,000 returnees (South Sudanese resident in the north), many of whom have only cursory ties to their ‘new’ country. Khartoum recently announced that the remaining 700,000 South Sudanese living in the north—nearly 9 percent of the South’s current population—will be considered foreigners from April 2012. Their return en masse would trigger unthinkable social destabilization.

But it is the collateral damage of conflict that has the potential to fuel an even greater humanitarian disaster: famine.

To the north, displacement and conflict has resulted in a 40 percent reduction in cultivation in Blue Nile, and 50 percent in South Kordofan, leaving potentially half a million people in food insecurity. Heavy rain, displacement, ongoing conflict, a 25 per cent decline in cereal cultivation, and an outbreak of a serious cattle virus, will mean that three million South Sudanese will require emergency food aid through the course of 2012.

Already the UN is reporting sharp increases in incidences of malnutrition and malaria, and a million citizens suffering from severe food insecurity.

The challenge in the north is being made worse by the government’s continued antipathy towards international NGO’s and their refusal to allow aid corridors into conflict-affected areas. Some groups, and increasingly the American government, are now accusing Khartoum of using starvation as a weapon— a war crime—and deliberately destabilizing already vulnerable populations.

Food inflation in both countries is rampant, ranging from 19 percent in the north to 65 percent in the South, squeezing the livelihoods of all Sudanese people, and pushing many new households into poverty.

Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_28-29_Human Condition 1.indd 29

Life in the Sudanese Camps Over four million people have been displaced by conflict in Darfur. Most of them now live in one of the 200 camps scattered throughout the region. Violence and insecurity continue to be part of daily life in Darfur, hindering food and relief aid to tens of thousands of people and forcing more into the already-packed refugee camps. Amnesty International reported that violence against women—including rape—remains widespread, particularly in Darfur’s camps for internally displaced persons. The UN estimates over 1.8 million people have been forced to flee their homes and relocate in camps in Darfur, and more than 200,000 have fled across the border into eastern Chad.

Abu Shouk Camp is one of the biggest camps for displaced persons in North Darfur, with more than 80,000 occupants. Here, each person receives only 22 Sudanese pounds (about $8) per month to cover their expenses. According to a recent report by the Sudan Social Development Organization (SUDO), the occupants are no longer receiving provisions from the World Food Program, so they need to buy goods from merchants with this small stipend. As a result, dire poverty has spread in the camps and people have had to take up work.

Many of the households have lost fathers and brothers, forcing the women to work in marginalised low–paid roles, such as cleaners, domestic servants or day laborers. They earn 4-5 SDG per day. This amount is not enough, and the situation has led to the sexual exploitation of women and girls. There are no specialized doctors, so the health conditions for IDP’s are poor and medical care is lacking.

Kerinding II is a camp in West Darfur established by the NGO Islamic Relief in 2004 and is now home to around 10,000 people. Here a family of about six people may share one shelter that is twelve square meters. Some people had been sleeping on the ground for about a year before mats were distributed. Islamic Relief reports that the number of security incidents within the camps has increased.

“The challenge in the north is being made worse by the government’s continued antipathy towards international NGOs” In the face of such dire need, one might expect great leaders to rise above the fray to place the livelihoods of their most vulnerable citizens above all else.

Instead, in a region blighted by generations of war, abduction, displacement, the razing of crops and homesteads, and deeply etched animosities, a culture of point-scoring and fratricidal leadership may still escalate the precariousness of millions of poor and conflict-affected people.

The recent announcement on the part of the Juba regime to freeze oil extraction in reaction to allegations of theft on the part of Khartoum may push both countries over the edge. South Sudan derives 98 percent of their foreign currency earnings from oil, raising the prospect of economic suicide. Protracted negotiations to finalize a deal on oil revenues have re-

peatedly failed, with both governments to blame, seemingly intent on holding hands and diving into the abyss together.

In doing so, they could snuff out the lights of up to six million Sudanese livelihoods in an overwhelmingly manmade and entirely avoidable catastrophe. This should be a stain on the world’s moral conscience. Jonathan Faull is an independent policy and political analyst based in Washington DC. He holds degrees in political theory, economics and public policy from the University of Cape Town and Harvard University. A native of South Africa, Jonathan has worked as a political analyst, political strategist, journalist, good governance advocate and development practitioner on three continents.

29

05/03/2012 12:31

Human Condition

The Complicity of Cairo’s Press A new dawn was heralded following the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, but has anything changed for Egypt’s fourth estate?

Freedom of the press is frequently cited as a just cause for popular protest and an ideal cherished by those attempting to speak truth to power. Egypt’s revolution demanded no less, but are Cairo’s newspapers and media outlets any better off under the Military Council?

Jonathan Faull

A

The picture was taken during a clash in downtown Cairo. One of the policemen was stamping on the young woman’s chest, while two of the others were tearing away her black abaya to reveal a turquoise blue bra. It would be a humiliating indignity anywhere in the world, but especially so in such a devoutly religious society as Egypt.

State influence on the Egyptian press is nothing new. As editions of the newspaper hit the stands in on the morning of

18 December, Egyptians near a vendor on Tahrir Square stood and stared slackjawed at the damning front-page photo.

Was this really their venerated military assaulting a woman in such a way? The newspaper responsible for the front page was Al-Tahrir, a post-revolution publication established by veteran Egyptian editor Ibrahim Eissa, a dissident journalist who has written for numerous publications that have been closed down by government censors over the years. As well

Photo © Getty Images

few days before Christmas last year, and just after another wave of deadly rioting had erupted in Cairo following the first round of parliamentary elections, an Egyptian newspaper ran a front page that was as impressive as anything produced recently by a major Western publication.

Behind a stark red, two-inch high headline shouting ‘Liars!’ was an enormous photo showing Egyptian military police assaulting a helpless girl.

30

TM1570_30-31_Human Condition 2.indd 30

05/03/2012 12:32

as grabbing attention, the power of the story lay in the challenge that was thrown down to Egypt’s most powerful institution: the military.

According to Sarah El-Sirgany, deputy editor at the English language newspaper Daily News Egypt, the military has “always been the number one red line” in Egypt. Before the revolution, any negative articles about the army were unthinkable. But all that changed after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, said Sirgany, when the Military Council came to power and journalists could not conceivably write about Egyptian politics without referencing the army.

Even so, for Al-Tahrir to brand the military ‘liars’ on its front page was a bold move.

But as far as some journalists were concerned, it marked anything but a sea change in terms of what journalists could and could not talk about. Shahira Amin, a long-time presenter on state channel Nile TV, said that when she tried to make a program about the girl with the blue bra, it was vetoed by her boss. “She said it was not the right time to talk about human rights,” said Amin, who resigned during last year’s revolution in protest at her station’s lackluster coverage of the events. She later re-joined the station, saying it was better to be a voice of protest inside the organization rather than outside.

Amin told The Majalla that the media in Egypt has “undergone a revolution of its own” since the fall of Hosni Mubarak. She cited individual examples like that of Yosri Fouda, a popular TV host who decided to suspend his own show back in October, after military censors ordered an episode off the air.

Yet Amin conceded that much of the state-run media was still in thrall to the government, saying that the widely-read state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram—effectively Egypt’s newspaper of record— was a “mouthpiece of the regime.”

Al-Ahram became the butt of jokes when, following the toppling of Mubarak, it ran a front page headline declaring that the people had brought down the regime. The splash came after successive articles that sought to undermine the protest movement and Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_30-31_Human Condition 2.indd 31

link it to a nefarious foreign agenda.

In February, it seemed the newspaper was back to its old ways, claiming on its front page that “American funding aims to spread anarchy in Egypt.” The article was used a quote from Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation, Faiza Abul Naga, and came in the runup to the trial of 16 American NGO workers and dozens of others on charges of misusing foreign funds.

State influence on the Egyptian press is nothing new. Sarah El-Sirgany recalls the days during the regime of Hosni Mubarak, when Daily News Egypt could expect up to two calls a month from the censor’s office over offending articles. But according to journalist Lina Al-Wardani, self-censorship is just as big a problem as direct government intervention, with reporters avoiding any potentially touchy subjects which could land them in the interrogation chamber. She added, “The state media and some of the privately-owned media have moved their loyalties from Hosni Mubarak to the Military Coun-

ly monitored, a quirk resulting from the government’s control over the main printing presses, as well as what Sirgany calls “old-fashioned thinking.”

Some believe that Egypt’s press has benefited greatly since the fall of Hosni Mubarak last year. Professor Sami Tayie, from the Faculty of Mass Communication at Cairo University, said that if anything, reporters now have too much freedom. “I think sometimes editors now just publish rumors,” he said.

“They print stories which only serve the agendas of their newspapers and are working according to private interests.”

Yet according to El-Sirgany, any notions of greater press freedoms in the wake of Egypt’s uprising are just an illusion. Journalists, she said, are locked in an “Orwellian” contract with their new military overlords, where they are allowed to “say a few things, but only if it doesn’t cross any red lines.” She added, “In my opinion, we Egyptian journalists failed miserably after the revolution. We had a window of opportunity and we could have created a

“The newspaper responsible for the front page was Al-Tahrir, a post-revolution publication established by veteran Egyptian editor Ibrahim Eissa, a dissident journalist who has written for numerous publications that have been closed down by government censors over the years” cil. If you look at the front pages, instead of ‘Hosni Mubarak said this or that’, now it is ‘Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi said this or that’.”

Al-Wardani works for Al-Ahram Online, the English-language, webonly sister paper of Al-Ahram. The two publications operate under completely different editorial codes—a consequence of the liberties that the Egyptian government grants to online English-language news operations. It is a policy rooted in the knowledge that the vast majority of Egyptians will not be able to read English-language news.

Even so, the print editions of English language newspapers still remain tight-

new reality in terms of press freedom and redefined what we can and can’t talk about.

“You can sense things are moving, with the election coverage and the direction of the opinions which were allowed. But if you compare that to the space given to the opinion promoted by the state, you find these daring voices are in the minority.” Alastair Beach is a freelance reporter based in Cairo who has worked for a variety of publications, including “The Independent,” “Sunday Telegraph” and “Spectator.” He was previously based in Syria.

31

05/03/2012 12:32

Candid Conversations

A Question of Interpretation Shirin Ebadi: “Democracy means the government considers the rights of minorities”

Human rights lawyer and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, spoke with The Majalla on the relationship between religion and politics, the role of women in the Arab Spring, Iran’s controversial nuclear campaign and the continuing Syrian crisis. On the subject of upcoming legislative elections in Iran, the exiled activist gave little away, preferring not to be drawn on moves to boycott the polls by reformist candidates. In a wide-ranging interview, Ebadi stresses that as well as making a clear distinction between religion and politics, people ought to be at liberty to interpret their faith in a way that does not infringe their civil rights.

“In the last 23 years, from the day I was stripped of my judgeship to the years of doing battle in the revolutionary courts of Tehran, I had repeated one refrain: an interpretation of Islam that is in harmony with equality and democracy is an authentic expression of faith. It is not religion that binds women, but the selective dictates of those who wish them cloistered.

That belief, along with the conviction that change in Iran must come peacefully and from within, has underpinned my work."

In the context of this quote from your book Iran Awakening, in what light do you view the nascent supremacy of political Islam in North Africa?

I hope people of the Middle East have learned a lesson from Iran’s fate. A revolution

is not all about toppling a dictator. Fulfilling a revolution’s democratic promises and the institutionalization of democracy are the main causes of a revolution. It's probably too early to tell what the result will be.

At this point we see the Islamic parties winning elections in North Africa. I believe no sects or religious ideologies should be mixed with politics. Those who gain power must be aware that they should listen to the people and their demands, which may change in the future. However, if an administration is based on religion, people cannot voice their various demands.

Within such a system, religion—including Islam—is turned into a tool to serve one’s own benefit; people in power can justify their violence under the name of religion. They are committed to a certain interpretation of a

religion that guarantees their power. I believe the first condition of achieving a democratic system is to build principles of government free of all religious interpretations.

Islamists have won elections in Egypt and Tunisia. However, electoral success cannot be considered a permit for the majority that won the election to impose their beliefs on minorities. Democracy does not mean the government of the majority. Democracy means the government considers the rights of minorities.

What do you think of the role of women activists in Arab Spring?

Women are one half of a society and without their participation no social change can take place. Women adopted roles of activists and no significant event could have happened without their participation and without their agreement. But I find it painful that women always play major roles in progress in Islamic countries, but they do not achieve their rights. I refer to the Iranian Revolution, when women stood shoulder to shoulder with men.

Women were arrested, killed and imprisoned.

However, after the revolution, many discriminative laws were ratified against women and violated their human rights.

Photo © Getty Images

Do you fear for the infringement of women’s rights under newly conservative governments, or is an Islamist regime preferable to the thuggery displayed during the beating of women protesters who demonstrated against the SCAF in Egypt?

We have tried to offer various interpretations of Islam before ratifying laws in Iran.

32

TM1570_32-33_Candid Conversations.indd 32

05/03/2012 12:32

Although the Iranian government has refused to hear other voices, we can suggest that the North African countries consider various angles of one subject. For instance, Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri’s interpretation of Islam is thoroughly different from what the government formally practices. There have been severe disputes over rights of the Baha’i, and their case can be a good example. At the time that the government refused to grant rights of education to the Baha’i, the moderate Montazeri issued a verdict and announced that the Baha’i of Iran are entitled to civil and human rights.

My point here is that apart from separating religion from government, we must offer various interpretations of Islam.

People should be able to choose among available interpretations according to their time and situation.

Such cultural approaches can help Muslims to be aware of their rights and realize that not everything that a government does under the name of Islam is Islamic and they do not own keys to heaven.

The violent crisis in Syria is growing worse by the day; given your non-violent principles you must be alarmed by what is happening there. How might the toppling of the Assad regime affect Iran?

When people abandon a dictatorship and their country becomes democratic, they have influence on other countries as well.

Everything is chained together in this world and turned into a global village. Building democracy in the region will definitely affect the process of democracy in Iran.

Among the countries in the region, Syria enjoys a special position for Iranians. Not only is Syria a friend of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but it also is a puppet of the Iranian government. We often hear Iranian officials describing the Syrian government and the Lebanese Hezbollah as two red lines in the country’s foreign policy.

Iran supports Bashar Assad’s administration financially and the allotted budget is used to suppress people’s protests. YouTube videos show Syrian people burning the flag of Iran and chanting slogans against Iran. Iran is supporting Syria at a time that even the Arab League has turned its back on the country and told Assad to stop the ongoing massacre.

Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_32-33_Candid Conversations.indd 33

If Assad is toppled, and if a democratically elected government takes power in the country, that democratic government will not be willing to be the puppet of any other country. Iran will lose one of its closest allies in the region.

Has your position changed regarding the pursuit of nuclear power in Iran? Beyond notions of national pride, is it not a national right?

Iran insists that its nuclear program is a civilian one, aimed at generating electricity for peaceful purposes. I cannot comment on how true this claim is. Policy-making within the Iranian government has always happened behind closed doors and away from citizens’ observation. As a result, I cannot comment on the credibility of such a claim.

However, I believe that even if it is a peaceful program, it is still unnecessary. Iran enjoys high solar and wind energy potential, which are both cheaper than nuclear energy. Iran could build green energy plants with a lower cost. The launch of Bushehr Nuclear Plant seems to be the latest nuclear achievement of Iran.

However, I find it dangerous because Iran is located on the Alpide belt—the second most seismic region in the world.

If a strong earthquake happens in southern Iran, we will face something worse than the Fukushima nuclear disaster. At this point, I raise this question: While countries that already have nuclear plants,

namely Germany, decide to shut them down for good for environmental reasons; how come we decide to initiate our own nuclear plant under the same circumstances?

This year’s legislative elections have been dismissed as illegitimate by reformist candidates. Is it wise for opponents of the establishment to play a calculated risk and boycott the polls—thereby withdrawing from the system?

I personally have not voted in any election since the parliamentary election in the year 2000 and I will not vote at this election either. But there is always a future and people should, peacefully, urge governments to include their demands.

33

05/03/2012 12:32

TM1570_34-35_Ad.indd 34

05/03/2012 12:32

TM1570_34-35_Ad.indd 35

05/03/2012 12:32

Profile

Al-Arabi and the Arab League Nabil Al-Arabi, Secretary General of the Arab League

Nabil Al-Arabi was elevated to the position of secretary general of the Arab League in May 2011. Thanks to the crisis in Syria, the forces that put him there, could ensure that his career concludes with a failure.

N

abil Al-Arabi was poised to crown a long career as an international lawyer and civil servant in Egypt’s foreign ministry after he accepted the position of foreign minister in the first post-Mubarak cabinet in 2011. Three months later, he became the secretary general of the League of Arab States. Now, thanks to the crisis in Syria, the forces that elevated him to this position could ensure that his career concludes with a failure.

Born in 1935 in Cairo, Al-Arabi began his training as a lawyer in the early 1950s, graduating from Cairo University in 1955 and entering the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the following year. He continued his education in America, graduating with a master’s degree in International Law from New York University in 1969, and completed a doctorate at the same institution in 1971. He would later go on to serve as the Egyptian Ambassador to India, in between working as a legal advisor in the Ministry.

Al-Arabi was part of the negotiations of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, after which he was chosen to represent Egypt at the UN. He also became a judge in the International Court of Arbitration, stepping down in 2006, and at the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

Al-Arabi’s involvement with the Arab Spring began in earnest with his membership of the ‘Council of the Wise,’ a group of 30 or so senior academics, technocrats, businessmen, and lawyers who attempted to mediate between the occupiers of Tahrir Square and Mubarak’s government.

Reportedly, he was the choice of many of the revolutionaries for foreign minister; he eventually replaced the widely-disliked Ahmed Aboul Gheit when the cabinet was purged of figures judged to be too close to Mubarak in March of 2011.

“Thanks to the crisis in Syria, the forces that elevated him to this position could ensure that his career concludes with a failure” Al-Arabi had previously called for the reform of Egypt’s government in February 2011, citing a need for increased transparency, more independence for the judiciary, and the separation of powers between different branches of the government.

His criticisms of Israeli positions have given him a certain level of popularity, though he has been firm in his assertions that the peace treaty he helped negotiate in the 1970s should remain in force. Instead, he has criticized Israel for not living up to its obligations in its dealings with the Palestinians, and has rejected objections to Hamas’ involvement in government in Gaza.

A string of popular measures followed Al-Arabi’s appointment as foreign minister.

First, he announced that the new Egyp-

tian government would reverse Mubarak’s Gaza policy and open the border crossing at Rafah, and declared his intention to visit the territory. Next, an agreement was brokered in Cairo in April between the two leading Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, who had split bloodily after the Battle of Gaza in 2007, following Hamas’ victory in the 2006 election. He also suggested re-opening diplomatic relations with Iran after a two-decade absence.

However, only three months into AlArabi’s tenure as foreign minister, the head of the Arab League, Amr Mousa, resigned from his post in order to stand as a candidate in Egypt’s presidential election.

Arabi’s selection surprised some observers after last-minute diplomatic wrangling left

36

TM1570_36-37_Profile.indd 36

05/03/2012 12:32

him the only candidate for the job, following the withdrawal of Qatar’s nominee.

He now faces a challenge that has the potential to overshadow all his previous accomplishments: trying to chart a new path for the League in the midst of the Syria crisis. Pushed by member-states keen to shed

Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_36-37_Profile.indd 37

the image of the organization as an ineffectual club for autocrats, he reportedly desires to establish it as a relevant force in a new era, while dealing with the Arab Spring’s latest—and potentially greatest—crisis.

Even for a man who helped negotiate peace between Israel and Egypt, this could

be an impossible mission. In that situation, both Israel and Egypt, pushed by the US, sought an amicable agreement. Al-Arabi now finds himself in a ‘no-win’ scenario: he is trapped between a paranoid Syrian regime that sees any calls for reform as a foreign conspiracy to undermine it, and an opposition who see attempts to mediate a peaceful resolution as a sell-out that leaves Assad in charge. Demands from some Arab League members, such as Qatar, for forceful measures to stop the violence have not made his task any easier.

In such a situation, a diplomatic solution seems impossible—a galling blow to a man accustomed to negotiation, and who has spent his life in the worlds of diplomacy and arbitration.

As the Syrian tragedy unfolds, Al-Arabi finds himself buffeted by forces he cannot control, but only time will tell if he is able to maintain his grip. Despite his decades as a diplomat, it is his actions now and the near future that will determine his legacy and how he will be judged by history. 37

05/03/2012 12:32

TM1570_38-39_Ad copy.indd 38

05/03/2012 12:33

TM1570_38-39_Ad copy.indd 39

05/03/2012 12:33

Wealth of Nations

Ikhwanomics

The Muslim Brotherhood has a plan for Egypt’s economic recovery The Ikhwan’s economic manifesto to overhaul Egypt’s collapsing economy charts a pragmatic course between state-run economics on the left and crony capitalism on the right. But given the scope of the economic challenges before it, arguably the biggest thing the world has to fear from an Islamist-run Egypt is that its leaders don’t have the answers, either.

Stephen Glain

I

n early February, a senior official of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood warned that without a global effort to save Egypt’s troubled economy, the largely peaceful revolution that toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak could return, specter-like, as a calamitous “hunger revolution.”

“The democratic transition in Egypt is hanging in the balance,” Khairat ElShater—who is touted in the Egyptian press as the next Prime Minister—told The Washington Post. “We strongly advise the Americans and the Europeans to support Egypt during this critical period as compensation for the many years they supported a brutal dictatorship.”

Given the decades-long estrangement between Washington and the Ikhwan, as the Brotherhood is known in Arabic, Shater’s remarks were remarkably bold.

Half a century ago, both sides connived in concert against their mutual enemy, Gamal Abdel Nasser—a tactical alliance that ended with Nasser’s death in 1970 and the Ikhwan’s rejection of the Egyptian-Israeli peace accord nine years later. During the Mubarak years, Brotherhood members condemned the US for supporting a corrupt and pernicious regime at the expense of the Egyptian people, and contact between the two sides was highly restricted, if not prohibited outright, by Washington.

With Mubarak’s ousting, argued Shater, and with the Brotherhood emerging from recent free elections in control of half the parliament, Washington has been caught on the wrong side of seismic change in the heart of the Arab world. Even now, he complained, the Obama administration’s outreach to the new Egypt is “nothing

more than slogans.” Without a clear US endorsement, it will be all but impossible to lure badly-needed foreign investment back to the country. Egypt is facing an economic crisis, he said, “and if there is a collapse, the interests of everyone in the region will be impacted.”

The implication of Shater’s comments was twofold: they hint at a willingness among Brotherhood leaders to preserve the secular quality of Mubarak’s economic and foreign policies on the basis of mutual respect, and suggest that the Egyptian economy may be in even worse shape than was generally assumed given revelations that economic data under the old regime had been cooked or obscured.

Weeks before Shater’s interview, the Brotherhood announced it would recognize Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, along with industrial zones operated jointly between the two sides. It also assured tour operators that it would not support legislation, popular among ultraconservative Islamists, that would outlaw the sale of liquor and make it a crime for women to sport immodest swimwear on the nation’s beaches. Ikhwan leaders had declared they were not opposed to privatization and they acknowledged the need to reform public welfare systems as well as the government’s vast and budget-busting web of subsidies.

Perhaps most significantly, after Cairo’s military-led government rejected an offer of $3 billion in emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund, Ikhwan members met with an IMF delegation in January to discuss a slightly larger bailout plan. Asked how Ikhwanists (of all people)

Photo © Getty Images

40

TM1570_40-44_Wealth of Nations 1.indd 40

05/03/2012 12:33

Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_40-44_Wealth of Nations 1.indd 41

41

05/03/2012 12:33

Wealth of Nations

could negotiate for such loans despite Muslim strictures against usury, a Brotherhood economist said there would be no conflict so long as the funds were obtained “as a last resort” and were made available on fair terms.

Needless to say, supping with the IMF, treating with Zionists, lifting subsidies, and tolerating bikinis and booze goes down much easier with neoliberal economists in Washington than they do with ordinary Egyptians. Small wonder that many liberal activists, as well as disaffected exIkhwanists, see little difference between the Brotherhood in power and the regime it replaced. “The Muslim Brotherhood wants a free market with less corruption,” says Ibrahim Eissa, a liberal activist and publisher. “Beyond that, institutionally there’s been no real change.”

The Ikhwan’s refusal so far to redeem its critics’ worst fears about an Islamist takeover follows a similar evolution in Tunisia, where the moderate Islamist Ennahda Party won some 40 percent of the national legislature in recent elections. Like the Brotherhood, Ennahda is officially opposed to radical interpretations of the faith and favors free markets along with a strong social safety net. Both groups are courting favor with wealthy patrons in the Persian Gulf, many of whom are fearful of the democratic process that brought these parties to power but are compelled to peddle their influence nonetheless. “The Gulf states are following all of this very closely,” said a Western diplomat in Cairo.

“For them, the only thing worse than getting involved in politics of this sort is not getting involved at all.”

Skeptics who suggest that the Ikhwan’s embrace of secular-minded policies is a means to the strategic end of establishing a hard-line Islamist state overlook the symmetry between the economic traditions of the old Islamic empires— free trade, low taxes, a light regulatory hand—and modern neoliberalism. The prophet was, after all, a merchant with a mercantile sensibility. Not for nothing—as Brotherhood members are quick to point out—did Ronald Reagan suggest that the philosophies of Ibn Khaldun, a 14th century Islamic scholar, anticipated the Laffer Curve six hundred years before than modern economics.

“Over the last twelve months, Egypt has halved its foreign reserves to less than $18 billion, or about four months’ worth of imports” “They are pro-market and they want to attract investment from the Gulf,” said political commentator Osama Harb about the Ikhwan leaders. “They know they won’t save the economy by banning alcohol. They will be as moderate as the Egyptian people.”

By default if nothing else, the Brotherhood may soon find itself shouldering Egypt’s post-revolutionary burdens on its own. For much of the last year, it has worked with the military junta that has been running the country since Mubarak’s ouster to ease the transition to civilian rule.

But the junta may soon be forced to dissolve itself for its inability to address both a distressed economy and a near-breakdown in law enforcement, particularly after the deadly riots that followed a soccer match early this month in Port Said.

Should the junta fold, Egypt’s problems would be almost exclusively a Brotherhood problem given its dominant grip on parliament. (Wisely, they have reached out to form a coalition with liberal groups,

no doubt to share the blame should the economy continue to degrade; just as wisely, the liberals prefer to remain in opposition.) The country is facing a currency devaluation due to an ill-fated decision by the generals to defend the Egyptian pound amid fears of political and economic breakdown. Over the last twelve months, the country has halved its foreign reserves to less than $18 billion, or about four month’s worth of imports. Though down from peak levels, the country still suffers a net outflow of foreign investment. Inflation, currently at about 10 percent, is expected to rise significantly in the event of a devaluation. The property market is flat and tourist arrivals, an important source of hard currency, remain at record lows.

To make matters worse, a cheaper Egyptian pound is not likely to do the country’s exporters much good. For one thing, longterm forecasts for the euro are nearly as grim as those for the pound, which means Egyptian products will enjoy little in the way of comparative advantage in their

42

TM1570_40-44_Wealth of Nations 1.indd 42

05/03/2012 12:33

TM1570_43_Ad.indd 43

05/03/2012 12:34

Wealth of Nations

largest export market. And while Egypt’s industrial base doubled in size over the last decade—in part a result of the previous regime’s aggressive, if corrupt, privatization program—the Mubarak regime did little to encourage manufacturers to produce more value-added goods.

“Tourism, construction, and agriculture constitute a significant portion of total employment in this country,” said Wael Ziada, head of research at EFG-Hermes, an Egyptian investment bank. “That said, with a large trade deficit, devaluation will equal inflation with no dividends and there may be political unrest.”

Unless the Egyptian government can stem the country’s chronic capital flight, an IMF official told The Majalla, international lenders will have a hard time delivering the kind of massive cash bailout the economy needs. “We can’t just administer a facility of $2 billion a month,” said the official, referring to Egypt’s average monthly rate of foreign exchange losses.

“They have to come up with a plan.”

Hints that the economy’s vital signs have been manipulated over the years have only added to investor anxieties. Economists and analysts suspect Mubarak advisers understated the size of the workingage population and perhaps even its rate of growth, for example, which implies the outlook for unemployment is worse that was previously thought. Illiteracy rates, according to aid workers, are almost certainly higher than the official 30 percent level; declining farm output, which has been dwindling steadily over the years, is believed to be deepening at a rate that is obscured by earlier estimates.

Given the scope of the economic challenges before it, perhaps the biggest thing the world has to fear from an Islamist-run Egypt is that its leaders don’t have the answers, either. The consequences of failure are rendered graphically by the number of Egypt’s impoverished and working poor who line up each day at state-managed bakeries to buy subsidized bread.

From their dimly-lit kitchens, bakers working double shifts produce thousands of flatbread loaves with discounted flour made available by the government. Often, however, there aren’t enough loaves to go around because some bakers sell their flour allotment on the black market.

“Everything depends on the black market,” says the manager of a governmentrun bakery in Cairo’s Zahret Ghamra district, a litter-strewn and congested market for cheap imported goods. “If the other bakeries are skimping, more people come and buy from us.”

Owing to the country’s inefficient supply chains and heavy reliance on imported agricultural products, the price of food rises about 40 percent faster than the overall inflation rate. As prices rise, so does black market demand for such discounted commodities as heating oil and sugar, a convergence of factors that could lead to shortages of staple goods. Petroleum, another heavily subsidized product in Egypt, is already in short supply and many filling stations are rationing sales of gasoline.

for ambitious infrastructure development, including building new international airports, seaports and a state-of-the-art national railway. The country’s ample natural gas reserves would be leveraged to heat all homes and work places.

Such projects would be underwritten through a mix of private and public investment. Islamic banking, which promotes equity stakes as the principal means of finance as opposed to loans, would be introduced wherever possible to limit debt. Similarly, loss-making state enterprises may be stabilized through venture capital-like schemes rather than sold outright to foreign investors, which Egyptians have come to regard as a particularly painful manner of divestment.

As manifestos go, the Brotherhood’s economic recovery plan is at least as

“Unless the Egyptian government can stem the country’s chronic capital flight, international lenders will have a hard time delivering the kind of massive cash bailout the economy needs” Brotherhood leaders have spent years mulling over ways to restructure the Egyptian economy—largely while passing the time in Mubarak’s jails—and in January they unveiled a plan for a complete overhaul. It includes, among other things, writing a constitution based on the US model that guarantees investor rights and the transparency of public institutions. It would promote a low, graduated tax rate and it would outlaw monopolies in fidelity with a Koranic admonition, “He who brings commodities to the market is good, but he who practices monopolies is evil.” It would also reform wasteful fuel subsidies, which it reckons would generate an estimated 65 billion pounds in revenue annually.

As part of an urban re-development program, the Brotherhood would relocate residents from the densely populated Nile Delta to make way for vast swaths of arable farmland, an initiative it says will create 6.5 million agriculture-related jobs.

The Suez Canal would be modernized to enhance remittances and Egypt’s tourist destinations would be upgraded to compete with the world’s great natural and man-made attractions. The plan also calls

thoughtful as those trotted out by their secular counterparts in developed countries. (Witness the inanity that stands for policy debate among Republican Party presidential hopefuls in America.) By promoting the virtues of the free market while minding its perils, the Ikhwan appears to be charting the only course remaining between state-run economics on the left and crony capitalism on the right, both of which have proven unworkable. Stephen Glain is a freelance journalist and author based in Paris, he joined the Wall Street Journal in 1991 where he remained as a foreign correspondent for the next decade, covering Asia and the Middle East, from bases in Seoul, Tokyo, Tel Aviv and Amman. Mr Glain is also a former Middle East correspondent for Newsweek and author of the book Dreaming of Damascus: Arab Voices in a Region of Turmoil (John Murray, UK). The updated US edition, published under the title Mullahs, Merchants and Militants: The Economic Collapse of the Arab World (St. Martin’s Press), was named the best book of 2004 by online magazine The Globalist. His most recent book is State versus Defense, on the militarization of US foreign policy.

44

TM1570_40-44_Wealth of Nations 1.indd 44

05/03/2012 13:42

TM1570_45_Ad.indd 45

05/03/2012 12:34

Wealth of Nations

Up and Coming Saudi Arabia’s stock market

Saudi Arabia’s stock exchange gained nearly $12 billion in market capitalization during the first weeks of January, offsetting combined losses in all other Arab stock exchanges, and maintaining the region’s market capitalization at $879 billion. Building on the momentum, Saudi Arabia now wants to open the exchange to direct foreign investment for the first time.

Paula Mejia

T

in market capitalization during the first weeks of January. So significant was this increase that it offset the losses in all other Arab stock exchanges and maintained the region’s combined market capitalization unchanged at $879 billion.

The Saudi Stock Exchange is the largest securities exchange in the Middle East. It is unlikely that the global economic situation will improve in the near future, to say nothing about the stability of transitioning governments in the Middle East and North Africa. If the stock markets of the Arab world have been unable to surmount these pres-

sures until now, it appears that Saudi Arabia’s stock exchange is their lingering hope.

Saudi Arabia is currently implementing important reforms to its stock exchange in order to build on the current momentum.

Specifically, the Kingdom has announced plans to allow foreign companies to list securities on the Tadawal, effectively taking the Saudi stock exchange a step closer to opening to full foreign investment for the first time. As a recent report in The Financial Times explained, “Foreign companies whose securities are listed on other regulated exchanges will be permitted to apply

Photo © Getty Images

he last year has been difficult for Gulf stock markets. The pressure of uprisings in the Middle East, as well as Europe’s worsening debt crisis, have taken a heavy toll.

Dubai in particular has demonstrated the weakened state of stock markets in the region; its benchmark index plummeted to a six-year low in 2011.

Yet despite these pressures, and forecasts that in 2012 Arab stock markets (bar Saudi Arabia) will continue their downward trend, Saudi Arabia’s market, the Tadawal, gained nearly $12 billion

46

TM1570_46-47_Wealth of Nations 2.indd 46

23/02/2012 15:33

for listing in Saudi Arabia, as long as the rules in the foreign jurisdiction are at least equivalent to those of the kingdom.”

The Tadawal is worth $341 billion. To date, shares trading has been closed to foreign investors, although foreign companies are able to buy shares through complicated swap agreements. And while Tadawal CEO Abdullah Al-Suwelimy has said there is not a timeline in place for opening the market further, the forthcoming changes will potentially create a number of economic opportunities for the country and the region as a whole.

After all, the Saudi Stock Exchange (SSE) is the largest securities exchange in the Middle East, with more than twice the market capitalization than the runner up, the Kuwaiti Stock Exchange. Despite the SSE’s current success, since its inception it has had to face a number of challenges in part surmounted through the small-butgradual opening of the system.

The SSE has its origins in the 1984 creation of a ministerial committee intended to regulate Saudi Arabia’s securities market. However, it was not until 2003 that the first significant step was made towards a formal stock exchange, when the Kingdom formed the stock exchange’s regulator, the Saudi Capital Markets Authority (CMA). Between 2003 and 2007 the market grew quickly. At the end of this period the stock exchange was one of the largest amongst emerging-market stock exchanges. However, with the onset of the global financial crisis, the Tadawal experienced a sharp fall and is still recovering its losses.

It was during this phase that the stock exchange was converted from a mutually owned organization into a joint-stock company. In order to curb losses in investments held in the region, the CMA implemented measures to encourage more foreign investment in Saudi securities markets. It was in this context that the CMA released the then-new investment rules allowing nonresident foreign investors to enter swap agreements with Saudi intermediaries, in effect creating an indirect form of ownership of Saudi Arabian securities.

Saudi Arabia’s current decision to allow foreign companies to list securities in the Arab world’s biggest bourse may build on the earlier successes of the CMA’s reforms. By allowing foreigners to directly Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_46-47_Wealth of Nations 2.indd 47

The Tadawul The Tadawul has over 150 publically traded companies. It is a small market compared to the world’s powerhouses: the London Stock Exchange lists over 1,300 public companies, and the New York Stock Exchange lists more than 3,000.

Insurance firms form the bulk of companies listed on the Tadawul. Insurance is traditionally a weak market in the region, partially because of interpretations of Islam that discourage the sale of insurance, and partially due to a lack of regulation of the industry. Growth is expected in this market following the weakening of US and EU insurance; this is bolstered by an increase in government regulation over the last decade.

Other industries represented on the exchange include financial services, petrochemicals, agriculture, tourism, and construction and real estate.

Although joint stock companies were introduced in the Kingdom in the 1930s— more than a century after the concept was introduced in many European countries and the US—Saudi companies were mainly regulated informally using Shari’a principles until 1982. This was a major disincentive to foreign investment in Saudi companies. Growth in the Tadawul was sparked in the 1980s with the adoption of a new company law and the establishment of a regulatory ministerial committee.

Most analysts conclude that Iranian naval forces would be unable to oppose such a force for long before being destroyed or driven off. While they might be able to do some damage to American forces and temporarily disrupt shipping, the US Navy has been preparing for a clash with Iran with this in mind. It is unknown what new American tactics—like the use of armed drones—might bring to the fight in addition to its existing aerial supremacy.

“The pressure of uprisings in the Middle East as well as Europe’s worsening debt crisis have taken a heavy toll” participate in the stock exchange, the Kingdom is creating conditions to help the region’s equity markets lure investors and boost trading volumes.

For example, the Saudi Stock Exchange is not currently included in the MSCI’s indices covering emerging markets—a tool used by fund managers to benchmark their performance. “MSCI indices are tracked by funds that oversee about $3 trillion in assets, so getting promoted to emerging market from frontier can increase investment. An inclusion at the index provider may also pave the way for an upgrade to emerging market status,” according to a recent article in Bloomberg. If this occurs, issuers throughout the Gulf could list in Saudi Arabia and attract liquidity and valuations, setting the stage for Saudi Arabia to become a regional exchange.

Moreover, the new rules will allow companies with extensive Saudi business to tap the country’s capital markets through dual listings. According to Ali Khan, Londonbased head of Middle East and North

Africa equities sales at the Royal Bank of Scotland, this “would prove an interesting dynamic for investors and provide companies with an additional source of funding”.

Speaking with Bloomberg, Khan went on to say, “It appears the CMA will continue to introduce a series of measures to gradually open up the markets, which would reinforce the Tadawul’s importance in the region.” Indeed if Saudi Arabia manages the reform of its stock exchange with care, it could prove incredibly opportunistic for its future growth, and position as an economic powerhouse in the region. Paula Mejia is a contributing writer for The Majalla based in Tunisia. As a freelance journalist and consultant for the African Development Bank, her work has focused on economic and social challenges in Africa, with a special focus on Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya.

She is a graduate of the London School of Economics, L'Institut D'Etudes Politiques de Paris and the University of Chicago.

47

23/02/2012 15:33

TM1570_48-49_Ad.indd 48

24/02/2012 11:22

TM1570_48-49_Ad.indd 49

24/02/2012 11:22

Editor's Choice

The Decline of the West and the World Disorder Amir Taheri

As the dust settles on 2011, the landscape of 2012 is becoming clearer. With a little distance from the tumult of the Arab Spring it is possible to ask explicit questions concerning just what is going on in the region.

The application of democracy in the Middle East has never before been so assiduously undertaken. Yet paradoxically there has never before been so much debate over the relative health of supposed democratic powerhouses in the West. Writing in Asharq Al-Awsat Abdul Rahman AlRashed has considered the daunting task entrusted to Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, namely to nurture the burgeoning democracy in Tunisia. Marzouki’s first task will be to convince his electorate that democratic rule won’t solve all the country’s problems overnight.

Curiously, the apparent victory of democratic values in North Africa has renewed perennial speculation as to the health of ‘Western civilization’. Amir Taheri, also in Asharq Al-Awsat, engages in this debate and draws some startling conclusions.

W

ith the West in terminal decline what is to become of the world order? The question is making the rounds in intellectual circles around the globe.

The other day, a Chinese analyst told the BBC that Europe had become “a museum for tourists from emerging nations.”

In New Delhi, speculation about India’s global leadership is hot at dinner tables.

In Tehran, official news agencies publish reports about the “imminent end of the American Great Satan” almost every day.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad peppers his talks with an “America is finished” wave of a hand.

In Europe and the United States talk of the “dying West” has bred a whole industry, known as “declinism.”

European and American television channels air talk-shows with declinist stars some of whom advise the West to bow out with good grace while others counsel a quest for a side-chair at the table of the future. Tomes with such titles as The Post-American World and The End of the West adorn the shelves of bookshops in Western capitals.

When it comes to building a new world order, however, declinists have few original ideas. They talk of a “multipolar system” in which India and Brazil become permanent members of the United Nations’ Security Council.

Before we examine the declinists’ “solutions” let us have a look at the premise of their theory.

A Western invention, the concept of decline has a long history. Thucydides saw its seeds in the Peloponnesian wars while Tacitus thought that the West peaked with Augustus. In the 19th century, Schopenhauer saw a West in decline. However, old declinists offered less comical arguments

than their current imitators (one IndoAmerican declinist asserts that because there are more mobile phones in India than the United States the latter is in decline and the former in the ascendancy).

Is the West really in decline?

If we take the West as a way of life, that is to say a version of civilization based on capitalism, democracy and the rule of law, the term would apply to many countries outside Europe and North America, notably Japan, India and Brazil. In that sense, even Russia and China have embarked on a long trek to Westernization.

As a way of life, “the West” now has no rivals outside North Korea. The other recluse, Burma, is trying to take the Western path while in Iran we have a Westernized society alongside a Soviet-style regime using a religious jargon.

As a model, therefore, far from being in decline, the West is at an historic peak of popularity.

It is in that sense that despots and dictators of all shades regard “the West” as enemy and pray for its decline and fall.

Even if we limit “the West” to its geographical dimension, the European Union and North America, the declinist theory could be challenged.

The two regions account for 10 percent of the world’s population but claim almost 60 percent of the global economy. They have 90 percent of new patents and more than 80 percent of scientific and technological innovations. Although cultural production is booming in many parts of the world, and this is certainly good news, the West’s literary and artistic scenes offer no evidence of decline.

Even in these days of economic slowdown, this “West” still maintains a modest rate of growth. To be sure, many countries of this “West” have large debts, at times

50

TM1570_50-52_Editor's Choice.indd 50

23/02/2012 15:31

Photo © Getty Images

approaching 100 percent of gross domestic product. One reason for this, however, may be that people are willing, indeed keen, to lend to this “West” even at historically low interest rates. In contrast, despite usurious interest rates, Iran, for example, is unable to attract foreign investment.

When it comes to demography, the old “West” is not doing badly either. It does not suffer from the exploding birth-rates of “developing nations” but is not caught in demographic dead-end created by one-child policy in China and forced sterilization in India.

Unlike Russia, the “West” does not face the threat of demographic meltdown.

Put to other tests, the old “West” would again appear in good shape. It is a space virtually free of prisoners of conscience while, by any yardsticks, it performs better than international averages in areas of social justice and equal opportunities.

Although the condition of women in the West is far from perfect, the fact remains that, here, there is no gender apartheid.

What about the “solutions” that declinists offer for a non-existent problem?

Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_48-50_Editor's Choice.indd 51

Talk of “multipolarism” makes as much sense in politics as in geometry. By definition, you cannot have more than two poles, standing at opposite points.

One could have a world order based on a single center of power, as was the case in the Congress of Vienna and, later, the Berlin Conference. In both cases, a handful of European powers claimed global domination and tried to divide the world among themselves.

One could also imagine a world in which several medium powers compete and eventually go to war over regional and/or global ambitions. This was the situation between the two world wars when the United States was in an isolationist mood while Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, militarist Japan and Imperialist Britain and France fought to protect or enlarge spheres of influence.

During the Cold War, there was a bipolar world order with the United States and the USSR heading rival blocs.

What we now have is an absence of global leadership, not a decline of the West.

Under President Barack Obama, the United States is trying to take the backseat wherever possible. This is partly prompted by the fact that Obama’s core supporters confuse a leadership role for the United States with Imperialism. Also, many Americans, perhaps a majority, are tired of a decade of war in distant places, in the name of global leadership. Even the strongest team needs the breathing space that halftime provides.

The question is how long the halftime lasts? If it lasts too long we could be heading for world disorder generating wars until a new global balance of power emerges. This article was printed in Asharq Al-Awsat Amir Taheri is a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat and has published 11 books in 20 languages.

Taheri's latest book "The Persian Night" is published by Encounter Books in London and New York..

51

22/02/2012 17:47

Editor's Choice

The Vision of a new Arab President Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed enough. Of course, we are all aware that if an elected state controls the media and the economy, it will likely transform into a tyrannical regime. The problem lies in public awareness and its ability to manage the delicate balance between the forces of society.

Enlightenment is both the problem and the solution. An effective media apparatus and a free economy both need a conscious society to flourish. The tools of freedom are less successful in culturally undeveloped societies—such as the Arab communities—and they themselves can turn into despotic authorities that in fact curb civil liberties. Without granting immunity to freedom, democracy becomes meaningless and would most likely turn into a dictatorship of the ignorant majority.

This is Egypt’s current problem and Tunisia’s to a lesser extent. Lawmakers and representatives of the state are calling for more restrictions. The media, on the other hand, supposedly the voice of freedom, is pursuing those who violate already existing restrictions. Due to these difficult early beginnings, an intellectual in a “newly democratic” Arab community

may reach a moment where he in fact laments the former tyrannical regime. This is a conclusion reached by Marzouki himself, who is one of the most prominent Arab advocates of democracy. According to Marzouki, “what is even worse is that such a debate will remind people that they only protested against tyranny when they lost hope in its ability to achieve their aspirations for development and social justice. They might protest again tomorrow against democracy for the same reason.”

The solution is largely cultural; elections alone will not suffice. Yet it seems that some intellectuals, not only the masses, are ignorant of the meaning of democracy, which means that the battle ahead of us is a long one. This article was printed in Asharq Al-Awsat Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed is the General Manager of Al-Arabiya television. Mr Al-Rashed is the former Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper and Al-Majalla magazine. He is a regular writer for Asharq Al-Awsat.

Photo © Getty Images

M

oncef Marzouki, the new President of Tunisia and an Arab intellectual who came to power without ever really expecting this to happen, wrote a few days ago about good governance, roughly eight weeks after assuming the presidency. He addressed the problem of democracy in the Arab world, concluding that the theory of good governance can never be consecrated without a commensurately mature society.

This brings us back to the never-ending argument over whether a culture of democracy should be the starting point, or whether a democratic ruler alone is the horse to lead the nation towards democracy.

Marzouki believes that one of the main problems for Arabs when it comes to democracy is that it is an imported system, since the Arabs failed throughout their history to invent or apply a similar system.

Accordingly, we must attempt to “resettle” Western democracy and plant it in the Arab soil. Marzouki argues: “The problem is that for most Arabs, the resettlement of democracy simply means applying a readymade recipe comprising of its four main ingredients; individual freedom, public freedoms, an independent judiciary and free elections. Through this mechanism some people expect to have a stable political system that ensures good governance.”

Now Marzouki, with his two contradictory characters—the intellectual critic and president—can view his world from the top. Is it possible that the ballot box can reflect the peoples’ desires? Is the state, as he advocates it, capable of achieving social justice? Is the freedom of expression in mass media and parliament capable of meeting the demands of the majority?

It is remarkable that only two months after becoming the President of Tunisia, Marzouki seems to be despairing. He believes that the elected state does not have all the tools of power to foster democracy, for it is not in control of the media, the market, the army or the intelligence services. Accordingly, democracy through its three branches— legislative, judicial and executive—is still not

52

TM1570_48-50_Editor's Choice.indd 52

22/02/2012 17:47

TM1570_53_Ad.indd 53

01/03/2012 09:56

The Arts

Hajj: Journeys to Britain Reviewing Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam at the British Museum, London Venetia Porter, curator of The British Museum’s Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam speaks exclusively to The Majalla about this ground-breaking exhibition.

Juliet Highet Walking around the exhibition for the first time, one is intensely conscious of the inward, contemplative atmosphere evoked of the Hajj and also of the solemn respect of other viewers. The venue is the old British Library with its glorious domed ceiling, and one approaches the main part of it by circumambulation of a long corridor with subdued lighting, gently resonating, evocative sounds and large photographs of pilgrims approaching their goal on one side.

Speaking to The Majalla, Venetia Porter curator of Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam, and also Curator of Islamic and Modern Middle Eastern Art at the British Museum says, “It was vital to convey the atmosphere of this profoundly spiritual journey – the Fifth Pillar of Islam.

It’s difficult to do this with a collection of objects—so we included the sounds that evoke pilgrims arriving in Mecca: the Talbiya and their words not only on arrival, but when they see the Ka’ba for the first time and say, ‘I am here, I am here, God.’” The first ever major exhibition dedicated to the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca central to the Muslim faith, is now on at the British Museum until 15th April 2012.

But no doubt visitors from all over the UK and the globe will travel to experience this event, just as Muslim pilgrims aim to journey to Mecca to perform Hajj at least once in their lives. Three key strands emerge in the exhibition. The first theme is the journey on the major routes across time from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Second, Mecca itself, its origins and importance as the destination of

Hajj. Lastly, the experience of Hajj today is evoked, with its associated rituals and what they mean to the pilgrim.

Reem Al-Faisal, a Hajj photographer whose work is on display in the exhibition, recently wrote, “It is difficult to capture the Hajj in text or visually since the Hajj is larger than any possible description. No book or photograph can ever give the Hajj its due. Even those who perform the Hajj can never fully comprehend it.”

It helps that the exhibition, mounted in partnership with King Abdulaziz Public Library in Riyadh, consists of a wealth of objects, including historic pieces as well as new contemporary art. It has been brought together from different key collections, including the British Museum and the British Library, the Khalili collection, and from sources in Saudi Arabia.

Director of the British Museum Neil MacGregor explains the importance of these objects, whose impact is enriched by images, films and sounds: “These help to tell the story of that spiritual journey and to convey the intensity of their collective but also very private act of faith.” So what is

“It was vital to convey the atmosphere of this profoundly spiritual journey – the Fifth Pillar of Islamˮ

54

TM1570_54-56_The Arts.indd 54

23/02/2012 17:11

the relevance of this exhibition to the rest of the world? “Hajj is one of the Five Pillars of Islam,” writes MacGregor, “But it is the only one that non-Muslims can neither observe nor take part in.” He adds “It is important therefore to find other ways to explore that experience and to understand what it means to Muslims now, and what it has meant through the centuries.’’

Porter comments on the significance of the inclusion of the photography, painting and sculpture of contemporary artists, which she says “personalise the history, allowing us to glimpse the experience through individuals, deepen our understanding and see how art has been used in the service of Islam.”

She states, “We are at a time when unfortunately Islam gets bad press—all most people know is what they hear in the news.

Of course there are militant aspects of it, but basically that’s in the minority, though it casts a pall on the way that people think about Islam. This show should enhance understanding and respect. Hajj is so important to Muslims that if you begin to understand it, then you will deepen your understanding of Islam. I hope that’s what it will do.”

One of the contemporary art works on display depicts a road sign on the way to Mecca, with one route for ‘Muslims Only,’ the other for ‘Non-Muslims,’ who have not been permitted into Mecca or Medina since the beginning of the Islamic era. Commenting on whether non-Muslims can really understand what happens at Hajj or enter into its experience Porter says, “Well, we can’t go, and we should be respectful about that—if they feel more comfortable just being surrounded by fellow Muslims, I think that’s fair enough. It would become touristic and hugely distracting otherwise.”

Porter immersed herself for two and a half years in preparing this exhibition.

“It took me a long time to study and understand the incredibly complex rituals, each of which has a very particular meaning and resonance. So we have included afilm intended to introduce the viewer to the set of rituals,” she says. The film invites everyone to see the steps of the pilgrim’s progress through Medina and then Mecca and beyond over the course of several days.

Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_54-56_The Arts.indd 55

In addition to sounds conveying atmosphere, the experience is heightened by old films and posters, quotes on the walls from pilgrims, their poignant stories about their long, arduous journeys.

At last they see the Ka’ba covered in fabulous textiles—magnificent examples of which we, the modern pilgrims, now

admire. Voices and films of UK Muslims who have performed Hajj both in the past and today also contribute to the atmospheric experience.

“On average 15,000 pilgrims from the UK go on Hajj every year, and we needed to hear their story,” Porter adds.

“You hear their voices talking about the 55

23/02/2012 17:11

The Arts

fact that all their lives they’ve faced Mecca in their prayers, but nothing prepares them for actually being there—the experience that they are surrounded by other Muslims and everybody is the same—rich or poor, from China or Africa.”

This is not just an exhibition about the past. In playing up the contemporary experience of Hajj, the exhibition is very current. Porter says, “When you compare the writings of early pilgrims with those of today, it is clear that although the method of travelling and Mecca itself may have changed over time, the act of pilgrimage—that need to touch the holy place—is the same. The reactions to seeing the Ka’ba for the first time have not changed at all. It’s an experience in which every year more and more people make that journey.”

Indeed, the inclusion of new contemporary art is fundamental to the ‘now factor’ of the exhibition. Porter adds, “We chose to show works about the Ka’ba, because I wanted to keep things very focused, which they are. They are also very black and white, which was accidental. I wanted a few key works, six in all, which illustrate vital points.”

Among these contemporary pieces is the dramatic and dynamic Black Cube 11 by Algerian-born Kadar Attia. Another artist, Shadia Alam, was born in Mecca. Her family have been involved with the care of the sanctuary and the Hajj for generations. She creates a glittering, radiant sculpture she calls A Stone from Heaven, which she describes as “a stone touched and kissed by millions through the ages, believed to enhance memory and learning ability.” In the British Museum’s Great Court is a mesmerising sculptural installation by British artist Idris Khan entitled Seven Times, with prayers sand-blasted into 144 steel blocks. The ritual of circling the Ka’ba inspired this work. “If you have ever watched footage of people walking round the Ka’ba seven times and stopping, it’s a truly beautiful thing,” he says.

A leading figure in the Black Muslim movement in America, Malcolm X, went on the Hajj in 1964. When

“Well, we can’t go, and we should be respectful about that—if they feel more comfortable just being surrounded by fellow Muslims, I think that’s fair enough” asked what had impressed him most about the experience, he replied, “The brotherhood, the people of all races, colours, from all over the world coming together as one. It has proved to me the powers of the one God.” Ayman Yossri celebrates this spirit of Muslim unity in a manipulated photograph of a line of pilgrims in white apparently crossing a desert, a scene taken from a film about Malcolm X, which Yossri has entitled We Were All Brothers.

One of the stars in the Hajj exhibition is a magnificent embroidered Egyptian Mahmal, a covered litter borne by a camel, whose annual arrival in a

splendid procession in Mecca was a major event. The physical reality of performing Hajj has obviously changed over the centuries. In the past, the journey was often extremely arduous. Some pilgrims did not even expect to return, carrying their shrouds with them, and thoughtfully divorcing their wives before departure.

Dangers on the journey were manifold and pilgrims came against Bedouin banditry, plague, flash flooding, and the searing heat of summer.

Today every pilgrim flies to Saudi Arabia, and is transported to Medina in an air-conditioned coach, which inevitably must alter the experience of the pilgrim from that of the past. But as Venetia Porter comments, “Nowadays, people say that discomfort comes from being surrounded by millions of people, which is taxing in July or August. Even though it’s so much easier today, the spiritual experience doesn’t seem to change.”

She adds, “Every single object in the show, whether it was a Thomas Cook ship ticket or the contemporary art, is pulling you into the focus of the Hajj. Some of the modern works are intended to make you contemplate what you will take away from it. In Idris Khan’s work You & Only, there is a series of stamped words, like ‘What do I do now?’”

One photograph is of a tent camp at night by Reem Al-Faisal, who, when performing the rituals says she “slowly discovered the rhythm of the universe.” In the stark simplicity of black and white, she records pilgrims quietly seated by themselves, or in small groups. The impression of the image is tranquil and meditative.

Above the pilgrims are bright stars shining in the night sky. She says, “Even though the Hajj is a collective event, it is also a very personal one, for each of us finds the Hajj we came looking for.” A writer, photographer, editor and curator, Juliet Highet specializes in Middle Eastern heritage and contemporary culture. Ms. Highet is currently working on her second book, Design Oman, having published her first book, FRANKINCENSE: Oman’s Gift to the World, in 2006.

56

TM1570_54-56_The Arts.indd 56

23/02/2012 17:11

TM1570_57_Ad.indd 57

01/03/2012 09:57

TM1570_58-59_Ad.indd 58

22/02/2012 15:21

TM1570_58-59_Ad.indd 59

22/02/2012 15:21

The Critics

Qat, Guns and Jihad Yemen: Dancing on the Heads of Snakes

by Victoria Clark Yale University Press 2010 Victoria Clark’s scrapbook history of Yemen is an excellent resource for those trying to understand where the country’s future lies. The serious problems afflicting the poorest Arab country are laid bare and dissected, but the author’s intimate understanding of Yemen allows for a compelling read beyond the grave facts.

Yemen: Dancing on the Heads of Snakes is the kind of book that keeps you awake at night. Its British author, Sana’a-born Victoria Clark, essentially presents to her readers a mathematics problem unsolvable by a western mind. Far from prompting one to give up, however, this unsolvable problem taunts anyone with an inquisitive mind to take a nosedive

into the fascinating social and political landscape, with its rich but troubled history, that is Yemen.

Cinema after 9/11 Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close stands alongside several excellent films that deal with the terrorist attacks of 11 September, 2001. But the new fim adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel concerns itself much more with America as a whole, than with the events of 9/11.

Nicholas Blincoe How’s this for a trick question: which European actor received an Oscar nomination in 2012 for an entirely silent performance in a film that was also nominated for a best picture award?

The answer is Max von Sydow for his role as the grandfather in Stephen Daldry’s film Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (Jean Dujardin, nominated for the almost silent film The Artist utters a single line at the end of that picture).

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is an adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel of the same name, even down to that cute, curly ‘&’ in place of an ‘and’. The film follows the attempts of eleven-year-old Oskar Schell to prolong the memory-glow of his father, Thomas, following his death in the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Von Sydow’s grandfather is silent because a terrible event has rendered him mute. The event, however, is not the al-Qaeda attack that killed Thomas and devastated Oskar, but the long-ago fire bombing of Dresden in Germany during the Second World War.

At once extraordinarily complex yet tragically primitive, Yemen is a country that has had to fight for its survival at every step in its history. In 2012, no one can say where it is in fact headed. The sorry state of Yemen today reflects its often violent and divisive tribal past, the fierce ideological battles perpetually acted out on its soil, bloody attempts at unification and secession, the rise of jihadism, and Yemen’s desperate lack of resources.

Written chronologically as part travelogue, part history book, Clark weaves together the story of the Yemeni people—a patchwork of tribes and regions—through her personal encounters with government officials, wanted criminals, retired jihadists, friends, and academics, all resting on historical facts that bring her readers up to the present day.

In scrapbook-like form, anecdotes, popular jokes and poetry provide the reader with a little respite from the gravity of the moment.

Clark’s command of her subject allows her to write in a serious but fluid style that acts to invite readers from all backgrounds to delve into her world of Yemen.

There was a question Americans often voiced after the attacks of 9-11: namely, “Why do they hate us so much?” It is a dangerous question, in part, because it supposes the victims were in some way to blame for the attack and, in part, because by using the language of ‘us’ and ‘them’ it already assumed that a war is underway. There is nothing like believing a war has started for creating the conditions for a far more terrible conflict. Nevertheless, filmmakers attempted to answer this very question.

These films include Stephen Gaghan's Syriana (2005), Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs (2007), Gavin Hood's Rendition (2007), Michael Winterbottom's A Mighty Heart (2007), and Oliver Stone’s account of the Bush presidency W (2008). In each, important people react forcibly and decisively to terrorism or its threat, only to wonder if their initial response was deeply flawed – if, in fact, they had repeated mistakes of the past to make a bad situation even worse. These films conclude with the thought, if they hate us, perhaps it is because we continually do bad things, though only out of an excess of innocence. It is a deeply convoluted answer, though telling in its way. It maintains the innocence of the victims, while suggesting that in their innocence Americans are doomed to repeat the mistakes of their fathers.

At first sight, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is yet another 9-11 film about the dangers of naively repeating the mistakes of previous generations; in this case, the mistakes of grandfather Schell. Oskar is the supreme innocent: his innocence is actually a medical condition. Oskar is borderline autistic, capable of focussing on details but unable to grasp the bigger picture.

Will he turn out like his grandfather, so damaged by a previous war that he was entirely absent from the life of Thomas, Oskar’s father? Well, no. Oskar belatedly realises that Thomas was

60

TM1570_60-61_The Critics.indd 60

22/02/2012 15:49

Beginning with the Ottoman conquest in 1538, Clark tracks the many failed attempts by foreign powers, i.e. Britain and Egypt, to rule over Yemen. Notoriously impossible to subjugate for any length of time, thanks to “its ferociously hostile northern tribes and equally repellent terrain,” Clark surmises at the beginning of her book that “the region had nothing whatsoever to recommend it except its strategic position at the lower opening to the Red Sea and its proximity to Islam’s Holy Places.”

Clark argues that Yemen’s Zaydi (Muslim) highland tribes have had an evident role in the country’s failure to thrive as a modern nation state, largely due to the nature of the now defunct imamate, in which each imam, or ruler—who was selected from a pool of direct descendants of the Prophet Mohammed—relied on the support of armed tribes to stay in power.

Consequently, “an imam had to be expert at dividing and ruling, at watching for rivals and plotting in an atmosphere of permanent and chronic insecurity and suspicion.”

Foreign governments primarily interested in Yemen for its strategic significance in the decade prior to 9/11 nourished this environment with their offerings of weapons in exchange for tribal cooperation, a practice that continues to this day, both among Yemenis themselves and now largely from world powers seeking to contain the spread of jihadism.

It is in this dysfunctional system, in which the notions of power, justice and the rule of law specific to a working state apparatus have had no place, that Yemen continues to operate.

The 33-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh perpetuated this system and robbed the country of any chance to thrive. Saleh overlooked the fact that “large sections of Yemen’s population… would not describe themselves as tribespeople,” and this, coupled with Yemen’s litany of problems—less than one percent of Yemen’s land is arable, over half of Yemen’s 23 million citizens chew Qat daily, nearly half of the population is illiterate,

such a good father precisely because Schell was so bad. Thomas went to extraordinary lengths to help Oskar overcome the fears caused by his autism.

The title, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, does not refer primarily to the destruction of the World Trade towers but, more generally, to the city itself as experienced by a boy who feels the smallest tremor as a cacophonic blow. After the death of Thomas, Oskar’s fears are raised to an unbearable pitch, but by following a treasure hunt that Thomas appears to have devised from beyond the grave, Oskar finally conquers these fears and averts the fate of his damaged grandfather.

Despite the Oscar nomination, Daldry’s film has been criticised as too sentimental, too pretentious or, simply, too Oscar-orientated to be taken seriously. It is a beautiful film, powerfully acted by a very fine cast. It is, also, a three handkerchief weepie: you will cry at the death of Thomas, at Oskar’s frustration with his quest, and at the resolution between Oskar and his mother Linda (Sandra Bullock).

But it is flawed. The story is so laden with symbolism that, even as you are weeping, you will be trying to decode the message of innocence and guilt and, especially, of the relationship between the New World and the Old, innocent America and guilty Europe. If the film has a message, it is that America must overcome the deep psychological scars caused by the

Issue 1570 • February 2012

TM1570_60-61_The Critics.indd 61

the country’s scarce water and oil resources are fast running out, and it ranks as the poorest Arab country—has unquestionably held the country back.

Though Clark provides little in way of solutions, she strongly recommends that global stakeholders start to take responsibility for their actions in Yemen, particularly those that reinforce corruption and state-sponsored violence. In other words, distribute aid wisely and supply weapons cautiously.

A person’s journey to grasp Yemen’s past with view to projecting its future will certainly be characterized by a labyrinth of pathways that appear to lead to nowhere.

Yet, we all know that they must lead somewhere. As we approach a period in which Yemen’s longest serving leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh, is no longer at its helm, the question we are all asking is where?

This book may or may not provide a clear answer, but it will without a doubt act as a vital conduit for the richer and deeper understanding needed to get there.

cruelties of the Europe they escaped.

Oskar’s innocence is a kind of hard-won innocence, in that he is finally liberated from fear. In this sense, he is like everyone who regards America as new land created out of a desire for freedom. At this level, it is not a 9-11 film at all, but simply an inward-looking celebration of America.

If future generations want to understand the lives and motivations of the people who planned the attacks, there is Antonia Bird's brilliant drama The Hamburg Cell (2004) or even Chris Morris’s black comedy Four Lions (2010). Paul Greengrass’s United 93 (2006) takes us inside the terrifying experience of the hijacking. The documentaries Fahrenheit 911 (2004) and Standard Operating Procedure (2008), from Michael Moore and Errol Morris, respectively, show just why the concept of a ‘war on terror’ was so compromised and, in its own way, barbaric.

It is now more than a decade after 9-11 and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close may very well be the last word on the subject. Does it teach us something new? In 2003, US Secretary of State for Defense, Donald Rumsfeld condemned France and Germany for their refusal to join the invasion of Iraq as Old Europe. This is a film of a novel from that period and it does show a belief in the ever-new and the ever-innocent galvanised America, and how it has determined its relationship to the rest of the world.

61

22/02/2012 15:49

Final Word

Does China truly support Bashar Al-Assad?

Adel Al-Toraifi

T

he Chinese veto of the Arab bloc’s draft initiative at the UN Security Council has cast a pall over Chinese relations with some Arab states, particularly in the Gulf. China is one of the three largest importers of Gulf oil and one of the five biggest exporters to the Middle East and North Africa. Moreover, China’s voting record at the Security Council has been mostly sympathetic to draft resolutions from the Arab bloc. So why did China vote in Syria’s favor?

To begin with, let us clarify China’s position.

First, although China is Syria’s third most important trading partner, the volume of trade between them—about $2.2 billion in 2010— is nothing compared with the commercial exchange between China and the Gulf States, which exceeds more than $90 billion per year.

The issue for China is not about trade or business considerations. Second, China does not necessarily oppose change in Syria, so long as this does not take place via the UN Security Council or Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

In his op-ed “Why Beijing Votes With Moscow” (published by the New York Times on 7 February 2012), Professor Minxin Pei noted that the real reason that China utilized its veto was to stand with Russia against what both consider to be European and US autocracy in deciding the fate of some regimes.

Pei writes, “Since it returned to the United Nations in 1971, China has been sparing in its use of the veto in the Security Council.

It often chose to abstain in votes it did not support. Whenever it did use its veto—it has done so eight times—the issues were usually of importance to Chinese national interests.”

Chinese interests are served by opposing US and European designs on regime change in the Middle East. Everybody from Professor Steve Chang of the University of Nottingham to veteran Newsweek writer Melinda Liu agree that China is indifferent to whether Al-Assad survives or leaves power.

Rather, China is concerned about granting

the West carte blanche regarding governments and countries that while not directly important to Chinese interests, may have an indirect impact on Chinese interests in Asia.

An anonymous op-ed on 9 February in People’s Daily, a newspaper associated with the ruling Communist Party in China outlined the issue in frank terms: “Though China has a less direct stake in Syria than Russia, the collapse of Syria will result in the West further controlling the Middle East, and Iran taking direct strategic pressure from the West. If war broke out in Iran, China would have to rely more on Russia for energy, bringing in new uncertainty to the Sino-Russian strategic partnership.”

Does this mean China will continue supporting Assad? Not necessarily. They do not want to see the Assad regime fall followed by war in Iran, because this would threaten China’s oil imports.

Therefore, it would be best if the Gulf States understood this message and work to reassure China, and provide additional safeguards to soften China’s position against UN action on Syria. Remember that despite China’s reservations about intervention in Libya, Beijing refrained from voting against that resolution. However, what China is most concerned about is the US and Europeans exceeding any ceasefire, as they did in Libya to topple the Qadhafi regime.

There is much evidence that it is within the capability of the Gulf States to contribute to reassuring China. Let us begin by looking at the issue of Iran. China took a favorable position on the European and American sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran and Iranian oil exports. Proof of this can be seen in China reducing its dependence on Iranian oil in anticipation of international action against the Iranian nuclear project, and this represents a positive shift from China that we must focus on China is one of the biggest consumers of Iranian oil, buying around 20 percent

of Iran’s total exports. However, since January Beijing has reduced their purchase of Iranian oil by around 285,000 barrels per day—or just over half of the total daily amount it imported in 2011. Beijing has purchased most of the surplus in its oil supply over the past few months from Saudi Arabia. This perhaps explains the importance of the visit paid by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to Saudi Arabia and his meeting with Saudi monarch King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz. Following the end of his tour of the Gulf, the Chinese Premier announced that “any extreme acts across the Strait of Hormuz, under whatever circumstances they are taken, are against the common interests and aspirations of the people across the world,” in reference to the Iranian threats to close the strait.

The Chinese have little interest in the survival of the Assad regime, but want to ensure that regime change does not occur through the use of external force. The Russian and Chinese positions have their respective justifications and reasons and should not be confused with one another. While the Russians want a price to topple the Assad regime, the Chinese are more concerned about the methods and consequences of change. It is significant that China is considering appointing a Middle East envoy to monitor the issue, whilst Beijing also announced it has met a delegation from the Syrian opposition.

In his latest book, On China, Henry Kissinger writes that Chinese policies have never been confrontational, but rather diplomatic, intelligent, and cautious. He argues that China is concerned about maintaining development and granting security and freedom to foreign markets. It prefers to let others lead when political problems occur, and does not act unless a direct interest is at stake.

Most likely, after China’s interests have been secured and its leadership reassured, Beijing will not involve itself in the fight over Syria’s future.

62

TM1570_62_Final Word.indd 62

23/02/2012 11:29

TM1570_IBC_Ad.indd 63

24/02/2012 13:07

TM1570_OBC_Ad.indd 64

24/02/2012 13:07