The Arab world has entered the second decade of the 21st
century facing seven acute problems.
First, the Arab countries no longer constitute a
recognizable “world”.
اضافة اعلان
Although Arabic remains the prevalent language in the region
extending from Morocco’s shores on the Atlantic to Bahrain’s on the Gulf, other
key unifying factors have been severely diluted. There is no common political
rhetoric, let alone objectives. There is minuscule economic cooperation, let
alone integration. There is extreme difficulty in the movement of humans and
goods. And there has been an acute weakening of the traditional seats of
cultural production and dissemination in Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria that has
neither been addressed nor seriously replaced elsewhere.
Second, Arab civil space has been emptied. Most of the Arab
media are state controlled. The lion’s share of the private sector in most Arab
countries is in the hands of a small number of merchant families. Most Arab
universities, labor unions, and professional syndicates have long ceased to be
crucibles of their countries’ political scenes.
Third, destinations differ. Most Gulf states are reaping the
benefits of four decades of immense wealth, with a significant majority of
their youth now much more comfortable interacting with the most advanced parts
of the world economically and technologically than with the rest of the Arab
world.
Most Maghreb societies have abandoned the Arabization drive
of the 1960s and 1970s and now sustain a cultural milieu in which a mix of
Islamism and Europeanism is far more potent than Arabism. The result is that
they are increasingly more linked to the north (Europe) and the south
(Sub-Saharan Africa) than they are to the Arab Mashreq.
The eastern Mediterranean and the Levant have passed through
two painful decades that have exacted tremendous costs on their demographics,
religious composition, availability of human talent, and, crucially, on their
social cohesion. Those who can, leave; those who cannot, struggle to survive.
Fourth, interests clash. There are now countries in the Arab
world that are weaving new security arrangements, primarily with the Western
powers and/or Israel, that other Arab countries consider to be damaging to
their interests. On the other hand, there are also Arab countries that see in
Iran a strategic ally at a time when other Arab countries consider it to be the
most significant threat they face. These divisions transcend the clash of
values we see among member states of the European Union and social
constituencies in the US, and give rise to conflicting national security
doctrines.
Fifth, questions from the past that have tormented the
present will still haunt the future. After 150 years of development experiences
within different frames of reference, the Arab world remains divided, and
bewildered, by the role of religion – Islam and Christianity – in political
legitimacy, legislation, shaping of society, and national identity.
Sixth, there is muted anger. The conditions that gave rise
to the Arab uprisings a decade ago have not been resolved across most of the
Arab world. A few Arab countries have advanced the kind of economic reforms
that can gradually make their social contracts more sustainable. But in most of
the rest, extractive political economies, lingering inequalities, lack of
genuine representation, and oppressiveness fester and create angst under the
surface.
Seventh, the Arabs’ place in the world has regressed
considerably over the past four decades. Until the mid-1970s, the Arab world as
a whole was developmentally comparable to most of East Asia, Latin America, and
several countries in southeast Europe. Now, almost the entirety of the Arab
world has lost parity with all these regions.
These challenges continue to simmer while the Arab world
faces three immediate decisions.
The first concerns the future of the nation state. The state
has collapsed in some Arab countries. In others, the foundations upon which the
state was built have been changing, typically with sectarianism eroding
nationalism. In yet other Arab countries, especially the small Gulf states that
have achieved tremendous developmental success, social composition and dynamics
increasingly fly in the face of their fundamental principles. In some of these
countries, citizens constitute tiny slivers of their populations.
The vast majority of the young citizens of these societies
have grown up in milieus in which Arabness has become a diluted societal
component. The result is that in at least half of the Arab world, the state
needs rejuvenation, or often resuscitation, and in the rest, the society is no
longer truly Arab. These situations remind us of the mediaeval Arab historian
Ibn Khaldoun’s view that Arab societies can either embrace the limited
collectivism of family and community, in which specific constituencies might
thrive but the state collapses, or adopt the harder, but state-sustaining,
wider collectivism of the nation. The more Arab societies shirk making that
decision, the more they will find themselves entrapped in the first situation.
The second decision is about fragmentation versus unity.
Arab nationalism, the last political project to seriously call for and attempt
a form of Arab unity, ended defeated and, in the view of some, defamed. But the
notion of closer Arab cooperation, integration, and orchestration of foreign
policy is much older than almost all other major political-integration projects
in the world today, most notably the European Union.
Today, ideas about serious Arab political integration and
orchestration of action in foreign affairs might sound laughable. However,
looked at from a perspective that includes the sweep of centuries, those who
identify as Arabs – who believe that Arabic, Arabness, and Arab history and
culture have formed their psyche – must confront the reality that divisions,
diverse directions, and fragmentation are bringing the idea of a collective
Arab polity close to atrophy.
This brings us to the third decision, which is about
self-respect versus self-delusion. The Arab world, over the past quarter of a
century, lost close to 30 million people to violent death, immigration, or
permanent displacement. This is a human tragedy comparable to the devastation
of Europe during World War II. However, unlike Europe in the late 1940s and
1950s, glaring lessons have not been learned and there have been no “never agains”.
The more the Arab elites refuse to reflect seriously on such lessons, the
higher the likelihood that further human tragedies will materialize.
Like every country or region discussed in this series, the
Arab world today is undergoing a transition. However, in the case of the Arab
world, that transition seems to be through purgatory. Some constituencies in
the Arab world are finding their way to reincarnation and to creating for
themselves new chances at redemption. Perhaps, in time, they might find their
way to states of bliss. The majority, however, are walking on a straight path
where colossal mistakes accumulated over decades have brought them close to
extended torment.
An immediate awakening, firm will, serious discipline, and
correct decisions could be their saving grace.
The writer is an Egyptian author, commentator, TV presenter
and documentary producer who specializes in regional politics and political
economy affairs.
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