Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Good afternoon, everybody, welcome to this discussion, and thanks for joining us this afternoon, participants, speakers and attendees, to this conversation on The Arab Spring: 10 Years On,” where we will discuss the political, economic and the social challenges that the Arab world is facing after this 10th of an anniversary of the Arab Spring. This is an event organised by Chatham House and Al Sharq Forum and I would like to thank them to – for trusting me with this important mission of chairing and moderating this session.
Today we have a splendid panel, we have a wonderful panel, in which we will analyse, we will discuss, we will foresee what might be the scenarios in this region. Beyond nostalgic ideas, beyond romanticism, beyond remembering what happened ten years ago, what we would like to do today is analysing, which is the situation, the current situation, of the region? What are the consequences, the challenges for reform, for democracy in the region, for change, but also the impact of the pandemic, of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region, and see how, also, the geopolitical shifts that are taking place in the region are affecting the peoples that inhabit the Arab world.
So, for that, I will not take long, and I will introduce our splendid panellists. We have today with us Wadah Khanfar, President of Al Sharq Forum. He was Former Director-General of the Al Jazeera Network. He’s one of the more, I would say, clear voices. I’ve never heard Wadah saying something which his not useful. I mean, every single word he says is always food for thought. So, it will be a pleasure to listen his analysis on the region. Then, we will have my dear friend, Kristina Kausch, Senior Resident Fellow of the German Marshall of the United States. She is one of the more critical, lucid voices of the Mediterranean and she has always been very well targeting and foreseeing the challenges that people are facing in the region. We will have, also, Tarek Mergerisi, for – Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, expert on European Union and Libyan Affairs, and particularly, one of the most interesting voices and experts on media, to whom we are calling on all those that will try to follow what’s going on and understanding what’s happening in media. And, also, we will have Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Associate Fellow of the Middle East and North Africa Programme of the Chatham House and, also, one of the main experts on Gulf States issues.
So, with no further – more further ado, I will give the floor to our panellists and, also, I will ask all the participants, please feel free to send your questions through the tool, or questions through the Q&A tool that we have. Please, contribute to this discussion, because the more ideas we can put up together, the better we can analyse, and we can be ready to get prepared to what’s going and what’s going to come for the region. So, please, Mr Wadah Khanfar, you’ve got the floor.
Wadah Khanfar
Thank you very much, and I appreciate your introduction and I hope to live up to that. The unfortunate situation we are in right now in the Arab world is not actually new. In my opinion, I would like to put forward the following thesis. The Arab State, as we have known it, since independence, did not really go through long periods of stability. So, we have that kind of, inherent fear in it. Maybe we don’t want to analyse that, but definitely, it is related to the lack of legitimacy most of the time and, of course, to the fact that it has failed to deliver to the population on both fronts, the domestic front and on the major issues related to the collective Arab identity and especially to the Palestinian issue.
So, there is that kind of, inherent problem between the state and the population, and that is not new. We know that, you know, tens of attempts to change states in the Arab world and to make it different. Most of them, all of them, actually, were relevant, through military coups. The only example of a peaceful attempt to create a new reality, based on democracy, was, actually, ten years ago, when we all watched people over Tahrir Square, and before that, the people of Tunisia demonstrating peacefully with the new slogans, neither pro-Arab nationalism, nor extreme religious slogans, but, actually, they were repeating slogans of equality, justice, freedom and dignity. So, that was something unique and we need to first start with it.
Now, during the last ten years, we have 70 million added to the population of the Arab world and the children who were ten-years-old at that time, today they are 20-years-old, and we expect in the year 2030 to have another 100 – or to have 120 million added to the Arab population. So, we have one of the highest population growth in the world, but, also, it is the highest youth unemployment in the world, at a rate of 36.5%, based on international grade organisation, 36.5%.
Now, the current generation that has reached the age of employment, have – has, at this stage, much worse chance of being employed than the generation of 2010/2011 that triggered the Arab Spring, because all indicators in 2010/2011 are much better than the current indicators, not only on unemployment and economic growth and freedom, but also, on the level of awareness. Because even the education level that we did enjoy, 2010, is actually deteriorating, especially the high education and the universities, because the state is not capable of sponsoring more people going to the higher education and the institutions themselves are decaying much worse than any other moment that we knew, since the high education in the Arab world started.
So, one of the major problems right now, also, for the people who are joining the Arab – I mean, the young people who are now becoming, opening their eyes to the reality that the public sector in the Arab world is the most important provider of jobs. Actually, it is the world’s largest provider of jobs in proportion to the total employment, or employers. So, basically, that public scale, as well, or the public sector, is shrinking because of the current economic crisis, which is not necessarily tied to corona, although corona has exaggerated it, but also tied to the corruption of the system, to the decay, to the civil strife, to this – to the, also, failed state. Most of – some of our countries now, we can easily classify them as failed states. So, the economic contraction starts this year, to 2020, actually, at 4.1% for the, you know, wealthy countries, but it is now up to 9.5% in countries like Iraq, that is producing oil, and it is up to 19.2% in Lebanon. So, if you add all this to the burden of the state that’s supposed to provide to the unemployed, then we are in front of a catastrophic situation.
Now, this is not only what is happening in the Arab world. In 20 – we were actually trying to criticise Mubarak and everyone else, because they had about 6,000 prisoners in jail because of political opinion. This is when 2011 happened. Today, we have much more than 60,000 in jail in Egypt. Most of them are those who have actually dreamt of democracy and the freedom ten years ago and the counter-revolutions, when it happened in the Arab world, they found themselves in jail. So, when you are in jail, basically, you are disillusions, you are defeated, but the new generation, looking back at their models for freedom and democracy, sometimes at their leaders, sometimes at their, even, fathers or brothers and so on and so forth, I don’t want to predict what kind of feelings the new generation is going to have, what kind of frustration might explode in a moment, which, in my opinion, is becoming very close at this stage.
So, what I would like to say, at the beginning of this conversation, we are in front of a situation in the Arab world where the stethoscope is not stated at all, but, also, it is extremely dangerous, not only in the Arab world, but also everywhere else, because you should not remember – you should not forget that the [inaudible – 13:10] up in the Arab world and the waves of refugees changed, actually, Europe, also, to a large extent, the rise of right-wing and the elected new right-wing governments in many Arab – European countries, and so on. So, there is a new dynamics going to emerge in this region, much worse than what we have seen in the 2010, and it might be even more relevant, because the fact that the peaceful demonstrations at the first phase of Arab Spring, up to the military intervention that happened in Syria and also in Libya, in my opinion, this, right now, seen as a naïve dream of that old generation, or ten years ago generation. So, I don’t see the new thinking is going to be towards that kind of peaceful demonstrations and peaceful slogans and I’m afraid of that, actually. And what is much more dangerous at this moment in time is the following.
Before, we had ideals, we have ideological foundations and parties and groups and movements that were raising slogans about what they would like to achieve in the future. Most of that has been demolished. So, the current reality in the Arab world does not have leaders at all. It means the opposition have been destroyed to an extent that we are in front of angry generation, disillusions, disillusion, defeated, but also, at the same time, doesn’t have kind of framework to operate within, or leaders to listen to, or ideals that you can structure and build as a paradigm for the future. And this is also, in my opinion, a recipe of chaos.
So, I would love to conclude by saying the Arab Spring started as a moment of awakening in the Arab world and it was a beautiful moment, no-one must regret. It was not a mistake. What happened afterward is the authoritarian regimes and the counter-revolutions that tried to suppress that hope, but is creating, right now, much worse than what, in any moment in our history, had, in this part of the world, and definitely, the duty of European countries, in particular, who are very close to us and they are witnessing what’s going to happen, and they’re going to be affected directly by it in any every form, is huge. The duty is not to keep silent on atrocities against people in this part of the world. We are in front of a reality which will spill over, definitely, to everyone around us.
We have a new administration, we hope that when democracy is prevailing, right, United States of America, we hope, as well, that a new American policy towards the region is going to force the creators to do something, at least to release some of those who are actually, not only in prison, but they are dying in prison, dying systematically, being killed, assassinated inside jails, while the rest of their families outside are witnessing atrocities against them to make them starve and to dehumanise them. This is not acceptable and all of us should work together, in order this risk over catastrophic explosion that I can see it about to happen. Thank you very much.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Thank you very much, Wadah, I mean, that was clear, and I think – I mean, realistic at the end, we cannot deny what’s going on in the region. You raised the issues of democracy of legitimacy, of youth unemployment, of the pandemic as a booster of problems, of the risk of buying a [inaudible – 17:30] of thinking that it means stability, when it is bringing exactly the opposite, which is much more stability and probably much more turmoil. And, also, this, I hear, that in a certain way, authoritarian is reinforcing itself in this new period, ten years after the Arab Spring. I have many questions, but I will now give the floor to Kristina and I will let you go with your initial interventions, so that we can engage in discussion later on, because we already have some questions getting in. So, please, Kristina, you’ve got the floor.
Kristina Kausch
Thank you very much, Lurdes, and thank you, Wadah, and, also, I’d like to extend my thanks, as always, to Chatham House and to the Sharq Forum for inviting me here. It’s always a very interesting forum. Actually, I would like to talk – to say a few words about what to expect from EU and US policies and, especially, support to Arab democracy in the post-Trump era. But before I do that, I have to say that – something about – you know, something resonated with me with – in Wadah’s intervention. Wadah, as you sp0ke, I felt a little bit in a time machine. Those of us who have been in this debate for a little longer might be reminded of the years running up to 2011, where exactly the points that you just raised, essentially around the message, look at the socioeconomic indicators and the status quo is not sustainable, this is not stability, stop your so-called stability-oriented policies, because this is not sustainable. And that is exact – these are exactly the kind of debates we had in the runup to 2011, the messages that were not heard by the policymakers and with the difference that now we are – have ten years of experience more, we have the experience of the Arab Spring, we have a much more – we have – as you were pointing out, the socioeconomic on – indicators and political indicators are much worse than before, and the international environment to do something about it is much more complicated. So, that’s just as a happy foreword.
So – and in that context, I think that when I look at European policies that were already oriented towards so-called stabilisation, meaning the preservation of the status quo in the – before 2011, of course, the European Union had a warm embrace, after some initial hiccups, in 2011, of uprisings, in line with its pledge for its commitment to democracy and human rights, but that enthusiastic embrace waned pretty quickly, as the Arab Spring, from a European perspective, turned sour, turned violent, conflict broke out in this kind of – because what the Arab Spring did was not only – it was not only an expression of people’s search for dignity, it was also an undoing of a longstanding balance of power, which, after a few years, led to the kind of disruptive opportunism that we have marking the fate of the region ever since, and to which the European Union has been really struggling to react. And I say react, because that’s, basically, been a, sort of, perpetual reaction to the disruptive opportunism of others.
So, the perception today is then and still today, remains we need the regional actors to negat – negotiate all the, sort of, larger things that are at stake, all the security, all the stability items that are on the table right now, and for that, that rank high in our priority, and for that, we’re not willing to sacrifice our bargaining power on behalf of democracy in human rights, for which we still care, but less than for our own stability. And that’s, of course – I mean, there’s lots of nuance, as always, the European Parliament has remained very vocal and clear eyed, especially on Egypt, only very recently, but EU Executive, the level has been very weak and low level, the criticism, and the member states, more often than not, have been obstructing EU policies and have not been helpful. Tarek, I’m sure, will have many examples ready when he talks about Libya later.
US p0licy, perhaps quite surprisingly, is a similar – has a similar stability premise, perhaps a little bit against common wisdom, Trump has – that Trump has erased the US democracy agenda, but he has done so in rhetoric, that’s for sure, by, sort of, explicitly embracing dictators and making it no secret that he doesn’t care about democracy and human rights, but he’s only erased that in rhetoric, and he – and not – but not in terms of funding and programming, thanks to Congress. So, perhaps there we have – there’s much more congeniality that, you know, like, Twitter might suggest. And – but now, Biden pledged to put democracy and human rights back on the agenda and, of course, in the region, he’s likely to distance himself from some notable Trump policies, most notably, of course, the Iran deal, but also, he’s pledged to change the tone in the relationship with Saudi Arabia. He’s pledged the end the direct support of the Yemen campaign and so on and so forth. But, otherwise, expect continuity with Obama era, where, as we know, Biden was eight years VP and, which, especially in Obama’s second term, was decidedly stability-oriented, stability in the status quo sense that Wadah just outlined.
And maybe point to the, in this context, to the Biden proposal of convening a Summit of Democracies, which, in some people’s views, you know, shows a new appetite for a Transatlan – for a broader Transatlantic agenda on democracy. But really, everything seems to point back to the fact that this is really more meant as a pushback against Chinese and Russian authoritarian challenge to consolidate the democracies in the West, rather than, you know, something that is necessarily geared toward a broader democracy promotion agenda in regions such as the Middle East and North Africa.
So, in terms of outlook, what can we expect? I think we should have very low expectations, both with regard to the Biden administration and with regard to what you can or will do. Both a navel gazing, both a grappling with challenges from within and otherwise, prioritising larger global agendas, and I think it is reasonable to expect, especially from Washington, a greater vocal support for human rights defenders, more diplomatic pressure also behind the scenes, and if we’re lucky, the EU will hop onto the bandwagon and onto that momentum. But, clearly, in both cases, the re – it has to be said, very clearly, that the priority of regional security over domestic developments will remain firm. As long as there’s a constant risk of regional escalation, neither the EU, nor the US, has a rationale to risk major geopolitical capital for the sake of democracy and human rights, or any sort of systemic upheavals in the region, especially after the experience of the last ten years.
And I would add, perhaps, a last point, that from the EU, we might even expect more securitisation, rather than less, to the degree it takes on responsibility for securing the neighbourhood as part of its own coming of age.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Thank you very much, Kristina. I think that it matters exactly what will happen, and this – your picture matches very well the one that Wadah has drawn, in the sense that we will have, or we can expect this continuity of the policies of external actors in the region and, also, this uselessness of looking elsewhere, but not looking at the real issues that are taking place and not, for example, giving explicit support to those that are really pushing for democracy and for human rights in the region. And that’s probably one of the issues that worries a lot – many of the people who [inaudible – 26:10] here. Also, this idea of securitisation would also be stronger in Europe, so we cannot expect a different paradigm for the region. I have some questions, but I will leave them for later and jump now to Kristian for his approach from the perspective of the Gulf countries. So, Kristian, thanks, you’ve got the floor.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
Well, thank you very much to the Sharq Forum and to Chatham House, as well, and it’s a pleasure to be with you. In terms of the Gulf, what we’ve seen, over the past ten years, has been the rise of individual Gulf states as assertive regional act [audio cuts out – 27:00] – possessing much of the ability to go it alone, to become much more directly involved in trying to steer the pace and direction of change post-Arab Spring in their policy responses, but also in fundamentally different ways, not all pulling in the same direction, thereby exacerbating many of the regional and geopolitical fault lines that have opened up. And I think the rise of the Gulf states, especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, a, sort of, mixture of the expansive policy intent, with the material capability to make change, is a major – has been a major feature over the past decade. And this is a policy that didn’t begin [audio cuts out – 28:00] ever since the 1990s, noticing, of course, the Arab Spring also happened towards the end of that extended oil boom, oil price boom period, when the Gulf states had accumulated enormous reserves of capital and had a great deal of, kind of, resources at their disposal.
So, in my view, therefore, the Gulf states had a greater impact on the Arab Spring after the fact, in there were, of course, significant protests in Bahrain in 2011. There were significant protests in Kuwait in 2012, as well, only partially linked to the Arab Spring. But we, first of all, began to see an externalisation of the root causes of discontent, searching for, kind of, an external blame, kind of, to attribute any domestic grievance and, of course, we then saw, initially, Iran being blamed for protests in Bahrain and the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, and then, also when protests began among Sunni populations, especially in Kuwait, we saw the Muslim brotherhood being, kind of, a – the, kind of, external transnational aggressor that’s trying to undermine, kind of, regional and national security.
So, we saw a sharpening of many of the regional, kind of, geopolitical fault lines that have continued to this day. We’ve seen outcomes [audio cuts out – 29:30], kind of, and it’s shaped by this much more fragmented Gulf policy, in the sense that they are in different directions. We saw Egypt become a microcosm of how, between 2012 and 2013, Qatari supported the Presidency of Mohamed Morsi, the democratically elected President of Egypt, and that was replaced almost overnight, literally, in July 2013, by continued high-level support from the UAE and from Saudi Arabia. We’ve also seen, as Tarek, I’m sure, will talk about, that polarisation in Libya and we also saw a heavy degree of involvement in the beginning in Syria, as well. And so, we’ve had the willingness and capability to go it alone in ways that, as we’ve seen in the Yemen campaign and the Yemen War since 2015, individual Gulf actors may possess the capacity to begin a campaign, they can’t necessarily then shape it and continue it through. And we now have this quagmire, which has created this humanitarian catastrophe, whereby the Saudis especially are in a quagmire that’s too deep for them to try to shape on their own.
What I would maybe point to for some shoots of hope, looking forward, is that the sense of regional adventurism that we saw up until 2018/2019 in the Gulf, to – appears to have declined over the past year and a half, partly, I think, because of a sheer unpredictability of the Trump administration and especially post the September 2019 attacks on Saudi oil facilities, the lack of a direct US or Trump response, has really focused minds in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi that they may be on their own in the region and no – can’t guarantee US backing or support for some of their policies, as, for example, was taken for granted, almost, in 2015, when they went into Yemen. If you remember, they went into Yemen the week that P5+1 negotiators were meeting in Switzerland to finalise the, what became the JCPOA. It was very much a Saudi-Emirati move to say, “Well, we don’t think you can just focus on Iran’s nuclear issue, without looking at all the other destabilising factor of Iran’s regional behaviour.”
Well, that regional adventurism has waned over the past 18 months because of the sheer unpredictability of the Trump administration and now, obviously, with Biden having come in, and having made it pretty clear that he will follow a different approach, especially vis-à-vis the Yemen war and, potentially, vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, as well, there is, at least, a sense regional states in the Gulf are moderating some of the, sort of, assertiveness that has been such a characteristic of the past decade. That could provide a, at least an opportunity, as we begin to try to look ahead to the next five or ten years, of eventual post-conflict reconstruction and recovery, because, of course, Gulf support might be, on development assistance and other support, might be very necessary in the next phase.
And I guess what I’d end by saying is that, just from the US perspective, and I’m sitting here in Houston, but following US politics very closely, and I think the Middle East will be a very low priority on the Biden administration’s to-do list, just because the pandemic and getting the pandemic under control will take up so much of the, at least the first year of the administration. And I think when the administration looks at its foreign policy and its Middle – policy towards the Middle East, I think it’s pretty clear that trying to re-engage in the JCPOA and to try to align all the stars with regional actors to any potential follow-on negotiations with Iran, that will be the main, kind of, aspect of Biden’s Middle East policy, also trying to end the war in Yemen, to figure out a resolution that can satisfy all parties. So, I think that will suck a lot of the oxygen into the – in that direction. So, with that, I’ll pass it back to Lurdes. Thank you.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Thank you very much, Kristian. Thank you very much for the – for also paying attention to this idea of the shifting relation between the US and the Gulf states and also this idea that the pandemic can be a, sort of, distraction. It can be a distraction, because on some of the, or most of the external actors will be much more prone to be inward looking and much more concerned about themselves, and it will be another excuse to look elsewhere and not pay attention to what’s going on, and also this idea that this is still a sort of intention of disengagement from the Middle East, from the side of the US. Thank you, and now I will pass the floor to Tarek Mergerisi, to have a look at the European Union, but also at Libya, specifically. Thank you, Tarek.
Tarek Mergerisi
Thank you very much, Lurdes, and then, thank you to Sharq Forum and Chatham House for inviting me to be here today. You know, before I quickly comment on what I had come here to say, as the introductory remarks, I just wanted to quickly comment on some ideas that were, kind of, spurred by the excellent introductory remarks from the other speakers today. And something that, kind of, struck me from the beginning, that is being approached from different sides here, is that, you know, when looking at the Arab Spring, or these events of ten years ago, we really must, kind of, strive to avoid conceptualisations of what happened that are static, you know, then, thinking that the Arab Spring or the reactions of others to it were events that have come and gone and that we can now analyse as historic events. You know, these are living dynamics, the grievances, which birthed them are still unaddressed and the drivers, which spurred them, are still alive and kicking and, you know, they’re still generating the currents, which have pushed such transformative change, you know, despite the people, the states and the interventions of other nations having, kind of, structurally changed to something far different than they were ten years ago. And I think that the recent protests in Lebanon and in Iraq and so on, are indicative of that and, you know, they’re just continuing expressions of the same steam of consciousness to change, you know, how – to change how the nations of the region, kind of, identify themselves, organise themselves and administrate themselves. But that was just a – the thought that came to me from listening to the excellent comments of others.
You know, to look back, the Arab Spring, it was, kind of, this – you know, the first revolution, or this kind of an event that took place in this hyperconnected, fully globalised, era that we’re living in now. And, you know, the developments of the Arab Spring, and they very quickly rippled across the Mediterranean and they posed a lot of new foreign policy questions of Europe, and, you know, I think what we saw first of all, is that Europeans were simply no longer really used to having to deal with foreign policy like this. Perhaps they had become a bit too reliant on the United States, on the PACs Americana, and these instincts had atrophied, and so, you know, it stimulated Europe to evolve. And in turn, how Europe then stood up to, kind of, answer these questions that were posed of it by the Arab Spring, intrinsically shaped the path of the Spring, in turn, and it’s shaped the story, over the last ten years. So, you know, in a sense, Europe’s re-emergent, more active foreign policymaking and the Arab Spring revolutions have, kind of, been feeding off and responding to one another since 2011.
And this weird, kind of, symbiosis is probably clearest in Libya than it is anywhere else, you know. In, back in 2011, following the, kind of, lack lustre responses to the revolutions in Tunis and then Egypt, as you know, as grave as they were, and as transformative as they were, Libya was the one Arab Spring state where Europe intervened, and not only did they intervene, they led that intervention. You know, even if they needed the Americas to also come in and lead from behind, to ensure it, that it was a success, but, you know, they were there cajoling the Americans from day one. This was something driven by Paris and by London, and, you know, there was a range of drivers for the intervention to take place. Some of them were, of course, you know, economic, some of them were based on the unilateral interests of these two states, but some of them were also humanitarian drivers.
But overall, the lesson, which really should’ve been learned from that first intervention, was that Europeans are actually a force for change when they’re united by a, kind of, common strategic goal. But it was a lesson that was never really learned or picked up upon and, in fact, it’s been taught again and again, repeatedly, from perhaps the opposite perspective, for most of the last ten years now, whereby Europeans remained involved in Libya, but not as a European Union, as France, as Italy, as the United Kingdom, as Germany. You know, European’s splintered, and it became, kind of, obsessed with ringfencing very tactical interests, you know, such as migration and such as security, oil and gas interests, and then, projecting their own visions of the region, of partnerships they would like to make, such as with Gulf actors, or even their, you know, their own limited ambitions for the region.
If we’re looking at, you know, a renewed Françafrique, or something along those lines, this was all projected onto Libya and, in turn, this only just fragmented Libya, or it exacerbated the fragmentation that was going on, as, you know, Europeans sponsored different groups and different political actors. You know, you had the Italians giving funding and support to militias in North Western Libya to prevent migration. You had France heavily behind a man who grew to become a renegade General that attacked the capital city. And you know, we can see how this sponsoring of different actors, for their own policy goals, it only really accelerated or aggravated Libya’s own conflict drivers, which were, in turn, making Europeans so insecure because of the migrants, the terrorists and all the other destabilising dynamics that Libya’s conflict seems to spring forth into the world.
And so, you know, here we still are, six/seven years down the line, where a disunited Europe and a disunited Libya are just exacerbating one another’s worst tendencies, whilst the other acts are – and whilst the other outside actors, you know, the Turks, and the Russians, and the Gulf states, are coming in and displacing European interests and Libyan interests with their own. And, you know, these dynamics, or the internationalisation of the Libyan conflict, is another phenomenon that’s, kind of, taken on a life of its own and it’s transformed Libya’s revolution from being about Libyan needs and wants, to about the insecurities and the interests of those who came into Libya in the first place. You know, today, Libya is not about Libya. Libya is a foundational part of an escalation between Turkey and Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean, which has to be resolved before Libya can be resolved. It’s also, you know, part of, potentially, a new stage for great power competition, as Russia sits and entrenches in key military sites, just a few hundred kilometres from Europe, much to the disquiet of the United States of America.
You know, I, probably unfortunately, don’t have a clean or a pithy way to sum up and encapsulate all of these different trends, but I suppose that’s, kind of, indicative of the messy reality of the Arab Spring. So, I’ll hand it back to you, Lurdes, and look forward to the discussion. Thank you.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Thank you very much, Tarek. I think that it is obvious that we cannot deny how much interconnected we are and how much our actions as Europeans have an impact in the Southern Mediterranean. How, also – and I think it’s very interesting what you mentioned about how Europeans project their own divisions. Instead of taking into account what our people want to become, they tend to present what they think they should want to become. And, also, this idea, also, of Libya becoming a playground for all the external actors to resolve their divisions over there, and at the end, the future of Libya is not entirely in the hands of the Libyans themselves.
I think that we have had a very complete visions of the region. Obviously, it’s a little gloomy picture, it’s quite pessimistic, but – and sometimes even sometimes a good news in the region seem to be, as we see in Spanish, we have an expression that says that something might be good because it’s “Food for today, but it’s starvation for tomorrow.” And I have the feeling that sometimes either good meals are not so good meals or will not become so good in the future. Anyway, I would like to launch a positive idea. I was reading, not so long ago, the results of the last Arab Barometer and, surprisingly enough, most of the respondents of this survey said that they still believe in democracy and they still trust democracy as their preferred model of governance. So, I think this is even relevant, taking into account how gloomy, how bad the picture and the situation is.
I will not carry on, just because we have had questions pouring in during your interventions. That means that you really went to the point. So, I will first give the floor to Mohamed Zuri, who wanted to pose the first question. Mohamed, you’ve got the floor. Okay, I will pass the question – I will give the floor to Sara Spencer-Barnard. She also wanted to make some questions.
Sara Spencer-Barnard
Thank you very much, and I think these were incredibly interesting, but also incredibly comprehensive, presentations by each of the speakers. I put a question in the ‘Chat’, in the initial intervention, so, it doesn’t necessarily reflect the elements of response, which did actually come from some of the other speakers. But – and I think other participants have also asked the – how would you assess and how does the - how do the recent protests in, for instance, Iraq, Lebanon, but also Sudan, as was pointed out by another participant, relate to the Arab Spring of ten years ago, and to this new generation, perhaps more disenfranchised, even, than their peers of ten years ago? Thank you.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Who wants to go first? Maybe Wadah, if you want?
Wadah Khanfar
Yes, thank you very much. I agree what – with what Tarek said, the Arab Spring is actually something that has started and it’s still ongoing. The events are inspiring people. So, we thought that the first phase of the Arab Spring actually hasn’t reduced new concepts, then, unfortunately, later on, there was the military phase, where chaos and also civil strife started. But also, when the people of Sudan and in Algeria, and even Lebanon and Iraq, started demonstrating, actually, we thought this is an extension of the same spirit of the first phase of the Arab Spring, because it did follow exactly the same pattern of demanding freedom, democracy, transparency, accountability and so on and so forth. So, yes, I would say that the Arab Spring is still ongoing and most of the issues that the Arab Spring actually introduced, which is to break the fear in the hearts of young people, is actually ongoing. The awareness, the fact that the state was, basically, that sacred tyrant that no-one should touch, has been broken. So, yes, that – what happened in Sudan and in Algeria, and in many other countries, actually, is definitely a continuity of the same spirit of the Arab Spring.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
In the same sense, I have a question by Rana Osman, who asked me to asked me to ask it on her behalf, saying that “In anticipation of another spark in Egypt, in particular, what can we learn from the Sudanese 2019 ongoing experiment?” So, relating to this idea of this, what Tarek said, this is a living issue.
Wadah Khanfar
I would say, you know, unfortunately, one of the major problems that we faced in the Arab Spring, that most of the civilian groups that demonstrated, mostly they did not have the experience or governance, because the authoritarian regimes, in the case of Sudan 30 years, basically, it did not allow that culture of exchanging proper power and the people – therefore, people did not really have that kind of experience. Now, military always is a problem in the Arab world. So, when military gets involved, basically, this is the most structured solid entity in our states and when they have power, most likely, they will never relinquish power and they will continue, and then they will centralise it, and then, they will put in jail the same people who allow them to take over. This happened in Egypt and happened in many places and I’m afraid that what’s happening in Sudan is not completed and it might not be, because of the current dynamics of the government and the people who have the power, the actual people who still have the power, either militias, in the case of the – of Sudan, and the military as – at the same time. So, basically, we still have a major problem how to break away from the control of military when a political system collapses. This is one of the issues that we need to discuss, and we need to find ways in order to evade in any other new country in the Arab world.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Let me give the floor now to another participant, William Patey, who has a question, also, on democracy.
Sir William Patey
Yes, thank you. I mean, it really follows on from Wadah’s point there. As a Former Ambassador in Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, what strikes me is that we often confuse democracy with the ballot box and sometimes the ballot box is not enough. And the absence of institutions, strong institutions, independent, whether it’s a strong judiciary, independent judiciary, a free press, even civil society organisations, sometimes makes democracy very fragile, unless they’re built up. Now, I wonder if the panellists have any ideas for how Europe, United States, could help build the foundation blocks of democracy? Perhaps not go immediately to another ballot, and which can be overturned, or counter-revolution can happen, but build up those institutions, so that over time, they have a strength of their own and they’re part of a democratic framework. ‘Cause when you think why democracies are stronger in Europe, it’s not just the ballot box, it’s the institutions, the independent institutions, that act as centres for people. How do you develop that in the Arab world, because I see a big absence of it?
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Thank you. Maybe Kristina, Kristian, I mean, any of you, please feel free to step in.
Kristina Kausch
Yeah, I’ll take that. Well, I mean, yes, you are absolutely right. Of course, the ballot box is not enough and, of course, you know, the support needs to come in, sort of, parallel strands and, you know, democratic long-term institution building is a very important strand of that. But I do think that development co-operation, both now and even in the runup to the Arab Spring, at least from the European Union, has reflected that. The problem is there’s a structure problem with that. If you have institution building programmes, on a bilateral basis, that is based on a partner – bilateral partnership with an authoritarian government. There is a clear ceiling to that, because, obviously, an authoritarian government will not reform itself away. So, the authoritarian government will always try to keep this at a, sort of, relatively superficial level, whereas perhaps the UN in this case, or the external partner, will try to make it more – make it deeper, make it more systematic, but on – systemic, yeah.
But the – we’ve always hit a brick wall at some point at this, so, on a – so, the way that has been – so, it’s not so much that there’s no awareness that this is necessary, or that there’s no willingness in co-operating with governments in the region on this. But if, you know, if the ruling elites in those places, who decide over these code of partnerships, have no – have resistances and no interest in systemic reform, then that’s where it stays.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Tarek, maybe you wanted to ask something, Kristian? Please go on.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
Yeah, can I just add, I would just add that, I mean, I [audio cuts out – 53:08] of course, representation, so, demands for greater representation were at the core of a lot of the demands, as well. But in terms of the – I mean, I would – regimes historically have been suspicious of external support for institution building and that’s a suspicion, I think, that will continue and will endure. But what we saw was interesting in Egypt in 2014/15, one of the ways that the UAE, for example, tried to strengthen areas [audio cuts out – 53:42] Murati, an Egyptian – so, there’s also institution building in different directions, in this way, to maybe strengthen the authoritarianism, rather than a move towards democracy. So, it’s not just the EU, or the US, or others, who are trying to strengthen institutions, it’s other actors, as well, and I think that’s something we should all bear in mind.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
If – maybe I could give the floor to Miss Trisha de Borchgrave. She also wanted to pose a question, which I think it’s very relevant in this context.
Trisha de Borchgrave
Yes, hello, can you hear me?
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Yes, perfectly well.
Trisha de Borchgrave
Good. Thank you very much, everybody. I am going to ask my question, which I think is relevant, but I just – on something like Libya, I mean, the more we read, the more it just seems like the most unbelievably intractable situation. And so, I wanted to get from, if I may, from Tarek, you know, the – Libya’s just making a lot of money out of, basically, illicit activities. I mean, it’s a huge profitmaking sector, shall we say. Some of these illicit activities are actually – they don’t even start for nefarious reasons, they start sometimes out of need, you know, trying to get people over the border, then it becomes a smuggling thing. You know, it’s need, as well as nefarious stuff going on. So, I wanted to ask you, particularly, in the last ten years, what have you seen in terms of any positive change with Libya? Where do you see anything that has – that is happening that is good?
And forgive me, that wasn’t actually – my first question was actually, I was going to direct it, perhaps, to Kristina at the German Marshall Fund, can we expect greater focus on the Middle East with Samantha Power’s appointment at USAID? I’m saying that because she really is a fighter. I know she has a lot on her plate, but she is – she stirs the pot, she is not afraid to confront, especially her President, she’s very wedded to humanitarian/development, she loves Africa, I know she’s had a huge impact in Europe, but she – and she loves the Middle East. And I think there is, at the back of mind somewhere, that they never quite – she could never quite reconcile Obama’s withdrawal, if you like, from Syria, and I’m just wondering whether any of you feel expectative, perhaps, and hopeful from her appointment? So, forgive me, two questions there, so one to Tarek and one to Kristina. Thank you so much.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Excellent question, thank you very much. Kristina, maybe you can go first?
Kristina Kausch
Yeah, thank you. I mean, Samantha Power’s great and I think the appointment of such a powerful person in this position is certainly encouraging. Whether that will amount to the Biden administration as a whole placing later – greater emphasis on the Middle East, is something that I find very doubtful, yes, and especially taking into account the constraining factors Kristian has mentioned previously, there’s corona and there’s many others. So, the Middle East beyond Iran, and especially democracy agenda, will rank very low, yeah. And aside from Samantha, there’s many other very enc – there’s been very many other very encouraging appointments of people who are very much in favour of democracy promotion, who – people who are very knowledgeable about the Middle East, and still, I still think it will rank low.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Tarek?
Tarek Mergerisi
Yeah, thank you, and I thank you for the thought-provoking question. I mean, it’s probably a bit easy to get lost in doom and gloom all the time, rather than focusing on what is indeed positive. But just, you know, a quick comment, first, on the kind of framing. I mean, yes, you’re right, there’s a lot of illicit business that runs through Libya. You know, the transportation of people, of weapons, even currency trades, the arbitrage on which would probably boggle all of our minds and the amount of billionaires created from the chaos, but this is a product of chaos. There is no more formal economy in Libya. It’s very difficult to operate a private business to ship products into the country, to be able to set your own prices without militias leaning on you, and, you know, this speaks to something bigger, in the fact that there is no force standing up for what we would consider normative behaviour, or stabilising trends in Libya. You know, we all speak of, kind of, the Trump administration coming in as the signal, or the symbol, that multilateralism was dead and that, you know, the, kind of, world is changing, but in my personal opinion, having watched what happened in Libya for the last ten years, Libya was the place where multilateralism died, where the kind of pretentions that we used to have, that we hold up international norms and ideals and so on, they were never fought for. I mean, the people who we would expect to fight for them were backing different sides of a war, were backing, in some cases, you know, a General who is trying to shove the revolutionary genie back in the box.
But I promise you good sides and I’ll try and go onto them, and that in spite of all the chaos, in spite of the state failure, and the prevalence of war and so on, you see a lot of, kind of, the best of human qualities still existing in Libya. You see a determination that after, you know, 11 years of war, you still have, you know, meetings between civil society groups, meetings between municipal governments, trying to figure out how to do their jobs better in this, you know, remarkably difficult circumstance and to deliver services. You see ingenuity, in terms of how to keep things running, this idea of, you know, a cash country figuring out digital payment systems, in order for people to still be able to buy groceries and to function and so on. You see young people trying to figure out new ways to work, even when they have no electricity. They’re launching a tech economy. So, we do see all of these, you know, these positive shoots. I think the bigger question is, are we going to cultivate them, or not? Thank you.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Thank you very much, Tarek. I will now give the floor to Richard Falk for a very, very, very relevant question, please. I don’t know if Mr Falk is here. Okay, then, I will use it anyway, because I think it’s a very relevant question. “What are the effects that you expect from the Arab-Israeli Normalisation Agreement, which have, in relation to Iran, and with respect to the Palestinian, a struggle for basic rights?” And I will add here, also, for the Sahelis, which also are collateral effect of these – a very direct collateral effect of this normalisation. So, I don’t, maybe, whether you can…?
Wadah Khanfar
Yes, I think this will add to the frustration and the unstability and the narrative that most of us in this region actually understand about our state. Our state has sacrificed its independence and legitimacy for the sake of implementing pressure that came from Trump and the administration. And you know, eventually, even if it was not pressure, the self-interested rulers, sometimes, who have thought that normalising what is right, without taking into consideration the Palestinian rights, or taking into consideration the collective arms, you know, security, or trying to introduce, even, to their population, some valid reasons why they should celebrate this kind of normalisation, without any achievement, it is a great failure. Basically, this is another reason where the legitimacy of our estate, most of the states, actually, in this region, is not established on the interest of its people. It is seen as a puppet of wisdom powers and in this case, of course, the American administration. And in my opinion, that some – normalisation is, basically, another reason why a lot of people are going to feel angry, because there is no doubt that the majority of the Arab world, the population of the Arab world, are not pro this particular normalisation, because, as I said, it is not a result of an agreement with us, or – in that achieves peace, not only in Palestine, but also in the surrounding region. And I think a lot of people are angry, not only, basically, amongst the grassroots, but even some people who are in power in some of the states surrounding Israel, they think that they have been, as well, sidelined, and the formula of the relationship between the Arab world and Israel has been broken by minority who had interest.
Now, when it comes to Iran, in my opinion, Iran is part of this region, again, and we should not, in this part of the world, become just another, you know, tool in the hand of any administration in the world, regarding Iran. We have our own problems with Iran, which we need to look at and we need to establish in our region a geopolitical centre that caters for our interest, rather than becoming an extension of someone’s else interest, be it Israel or the Americans, or whoever it is. Yes, I have a lot of problems with Iran, but eventually, this is a country in the region, will continue to be in the region and we have to develop with it some form of a relationship based on self-respect and based on, also, shared interests, which, in my opinion, without that, we will continue to have unstability and we will continue to have proxy wars and militias in our territories and then our land, and that will become another justification for continuous authoritarian rules, or ruling, of our land.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Thank you very much. I see Richard Falk is here with us. I don’t know if you want to add something to the question – to your question that I used?
Wadah Khanfar
So, the issue is again, normalisation has been introduced to Morocco as a reason, you know, or the price for the Sahara. Again, you know, you put the Moroccan Government in a situation where they have to accept that, in order to go ahead with their normalisation acceptance as the Sahara as part of Morocco. Now, there are two separate issues and they have been mixed. In my opinion, the majority of the Moroccan people will continue to support the Palestinian struggle and they will continue to be against normalisation, and unfortunately, the situation that we have found ourselves in, in Morocco in particular, and many other countries, Sudan as well, Sudan has been used, you know, the poverty of Sudan, and the, you know, the lack of resources of Sudan has been used as a tool to force them to normalise with Israel and to introduce to them this concept that if you are close to Israel, then the Americans are happy with you and everything’s going to be good. Nothing is going to be good and I don’t think any promise is going to be fulfilled, and in fact, this will, again, fragment the sociopolitical fabric of the society of Sudan and the society of Morocco and the rest of the Arab countries that have been normalising with Israel, because there is no consensus on one of the most important and, you know, sensitive issues to the people of this part of the world.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Thank you very much. I have, still, quite a few questions that I asked – some that I asked on the behalf of participants. So, what I will do is I will try to just – oh, yes, Kristina, please?
Kristina Kausch
Thank you, Lurdes. I just wanted to add on, onto this question, which I think is an important one. I think the Abraham Accords are a very good example of how geopolitical package deals are increasingly shaping the way that business is being made among regional powers. And I think that’s very worrisome, because that means that if you – if, as a regional power, you get a foot in a door in as many conflicts as possible, you increase your negotiating power and can achieve whatever you want to – as what you are – whatever you want to get and aspire for. For example, Western Sahara, you know, there has been, for a long – now for years and years, there was absolutely no chance for Morocco to get any – you know, to make any strides on that account and now, here’s a normalisation issue and [inaudible – 67:47], you know. So, I think that is – it was very reasonable by the remarks in the confirmation here, from Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, who said, “The Abraham Accords are good news, in terms of increasing the prospects for regional de-escalation,” yet, at the same time, you have a very – have to take a very hard look at what some of those states got for this, which is totally – which, in most cases, is entirely unrelated, you know. And this, kind of, horse trading, I think it’s very, very dangerous, for the very reason, going back to the beginning of the conversation, of the unsustainability of the status quo in a region where there’s grievances that are constantly being ignored.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Thank you very much. So, what I was saying is I will try to wrap up several questions in one, so that you can have a final turn and answer, if possible, these questions. We have a question from Dina Mufti, asking, “What do you see the prospects of youth unemployment for the next ten years?” if something is being done. At the same – formerly, Kieron O’Meara is asking “to what extent social media can play a role in the next decade as mobiliser, as it played a role in the Arab Spring?” And in the same way, Leah Handler asks, “Inspired by Lebanon and what has been going on last two – couple of years in the region, if there is a possibility to overthrow longstanding governments?” Also, we have a very interesting question from, sorry, I just lost my – yeah, from Anja Patullah, saying if “there are any specific governments or international or regional institutions who recognise the sustainability of the status quo and have specific policies designed to support democracies, such as in Tunisia, and to raise human rights as a bilateral concern?” as, Kristina, you were suggesting in your first intervention. Then, Michael Harvey ask a very interesting opportune question – relevant question, which is, “Do you see a role for global Britain in helping to resolve any Middle Eastern issues?” So, are we going to see a different British policy towards the Middle East? And then, finally, Yousef Mayim also asks me – says, I read, “I do not see the Arab Spring as a phenomenon to break from the globe. It was ignited in the region in 2011, but then, it continued with the Occupy Wall Street protest of the Indignados in Spain, Iceland, China.” So, the question is, “After a decade of the Arab Spring, democracy in the whole world is in decay and populism has not ended.” And that was also referring to Wadah in his first intervention. So, not sure if the new elected Biden administration will take bold strategies to empower democracy in the world. So, can we, collectively, on a global scale, strengthen democracy in Europe, US, Asia, and the Arab world?”
So, if you want to just have a final round, very short response, of trying to deal with some of the questions, it could be awesome. Kristian, if you want to start, maybe, but if there is any – maybe I suggest you to turn off your camera, because sometimes your sound is cutting off, so, maybe that could be because of the connection.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
Okay, thank you. Well, I’ll take the global Britain one, because I think it has an impact on the Gulf. I think a global Britain will try to look at the Gulf for ways to make that slogan into reality. I think they will try to utilise the historical links between Britain and the Gulf, but they will focus very much on business, commercial relationships, trade and investment, and so, perhaps moving even further away from some of the animating focus of the discussion so far on human rights, on institutionalisation, on potential moves towards democracy. This, kind of, global Britain will be even less focused, perhaps, on some of those issues, especially in relation to the Gulf.
And then, just building on the previous discussion about normalisation, I think we also must remember that the UAE-Israel Abraham Accord had a specific mention of a strategic agenda for the Middle East, which, kind of, puts geostrategy at the core of that agreement, and I think, again, we will see, over the next few months, a co-ordinate [audio cuts out – 72:34] messaging…
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
We’ve lost you.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
…vis-à-vis Iran in the way. That’s not necessarily with the Biden administration, moving forward, moving forward, and so, we still see very strong, kind of, geostrategic alignments taking place, even as Biden and others may want to move…
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
It seems we are losing you, Kristian, so, I will shift into Wadah.
Wadah Khanfar
Yes, I think, you know, to continue what, you know, has been said, in my opinion, the next few months we are going to see a repositioning of the geopolitical repositioning in the region. Turkey is going to reposition itself in the region and Saudi Arabia might do the same, Egypt is going to do the same. And it seems to me that the administration, the new administration, Biden administration, is going to introduce to the region, not necessarily by pressure, but the dynamics, the fact that Trump is not here and the fact that Trump is not giving green light to regimes, to do whatever they have done, is good news to us. So, yes, Biden, it might not be one of his major priorities to interfere in the Middle East in a way or another, but definitely, the absence of Trump is going to create, or to trigger, a new dynamics in the region. So, we may see some form of emerging relationships amongst the main actors in the region, and that could be positive, even on the level of human rights, because really, I wish to see more people going out of jail. I mean, it is enough that we have these thousands of great minds, actually, professionals, activists, good men and woman, sitting in jail, dying in jail. I mean, this is our major concern at this stage, which it should happen on a humanitarian level, but also on a political level, this will introduce some form of ease that might create less tension, although it seems to me that some of our regimes in this region are not learning lessons, are not learning history, and they think they can do exactly what everyone has failed to do, during the last few decades in the Middle East.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Thanks. Tarek, we have one minute left for you and Kristina.
Tarek Mergerisi
Okay, I’ll try to, very quickly, just build on the thought there. Too many people are sitting in jail and so on, it’s sparked a thought. So, look, the Arab Spring, at its core, is a rejection of the social contract of the Arab world, a realisation that it’s no longer fit for purpose, states cannot provide for their people, states cannot shape a framework for their aspirations to be realised, and in this way, it is a continuation of Occupy and other movements. But we get to the stage where it destroys and it tears down, but not to the stage where it creates something new, and part of that is because of the response from counter-revolutionary actors, from existing states, from Gulf actors who would like to roll this back. And the only aftereffect that will have is that the more they imprison, the more they knead this with military might, it just means that the destruction phase will be prolonged, but it doesn’t actually change why the revolution happened in the first place. So, it just means that we wait for longer for the satisfying conclusion to come out of it. And in a more dispersed world, perhaps social media can help us to have that discussion on positive change. Sorry, I’ve taken up the time, thank you.
Kristina Kausch
Also, trying to, you know, to end on a more optimistic note. On the question of whether – to which degree the Biden administration will lead a global promotion or, sort of, renewal of democracy, as I’ve said in my introductory remarks, I wouldn’t read too much into this Summit of Democracy is coming up and as we know, they are busy with other things. That said, the truth is that there is a realisation now, largely triggered, I think, through the run on the Capitol, in the US and beyond, also in Europe, that is new in quality, which is that, really, the big authoritarian powers are a threat to our democracies, and I think that is being felt in a different way now. And my hope is that, you know, that – if that, sort of, trickles down and, sort of, leads to a little bit of wider and deeper understanding of what damage China and Russia and the likes can do to our democracy and undermine them from within, that could also establish a new link between global authoritarianism and so, geopolitics and human rights, in the sense that there’s – if we don’t help to make, sort of, to make countries more sustainable, the weaker countries, the countries that where you – there are these grievances, that are, sort of, that are a potential target of external influence, then others will come in and make them weak, so they become a liability to our security. So, that is a slightly, you know – which smacks a little bit of I – you know, which is a bit cynical, perhaps, in the first place, but it could develop some positive dynamics in channelling the, sort of, Western motivation for – to actually go serious on democracy promotion for its own sake.
Lurdes Vidal i Bertran
Thank you very much. Thank you for all your brilliant input and for your questions and your participation, and please look out for next invitations, because this discussion is not over and this event, which were organised by Al Sharq Forum and Chatham House, will continue during the next weeks. Thank you very much to everybody and I hope you have a nice day. Thank you.
Kristina Kausch
Thanks to you.
