Dr Lina Khatib
Well, good evening, everyone, and welcome to this. I promise you it will be a very interesting event on Citizenship and Discontent in the Middle East. For those of you who don’t know me, my name’s Lina Khatib. I’m the Head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme here at Chatham House, and this is one of those panels in which I happen to actually know all the panellists, which is great, because then I can ask them annoying questions and, you know, they, kind of, can’t do much about it. This event is being livestreamed and, of course, it’s on the record. So, feel free to tweet. The hashtag is #CHEvents, and this event is being held in partnership with the Century Foundation, and we’re here to celebrate the launch of a book out of a project led by the person immediately to my left, and as I said, a dear friend, Thanassis Cambanis, who’s the Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation, and who can, I guess, tell us more about the project.
Obviously, today’s event is very timely, because we talk a lot about conflict in the Middle East at the high level, but very often what’s missing in the debate is the citizens, and how things look like, from the perspective of people from the bottom up. So, that’s one of the things we’re going to talk about today, and joining me on this really amazing panel is also Karl Sharro, in the middle, who is an Architect, but, for a lot of people, mainly known as the Satirist, the man behind Karl reMarks. If anyone is on Twitter and hasn’t yet followed Karl reMarks on Twitter, where have you been living? Just do it right now. If I don’t read his tweets on a daily basis, I feel – I get withdrawal symptoms. I don’t drink coffee, but I do read your satirical tweets every day. But he’s an Architect by profession, and I imagine today we’re going to get – I don’t know which side is dominating, but I assume the more serious, the more serious side of the conversation. And last but not least, it’s an absolute pleasure to welcome Maria Fantappie, who’s a Senior Advisor with the International Crisis Group, and who works on Kurdish issues, youth issues, amongst many other things.
If you have a phone and you want to tweet, make sure it is on silent, please, especially that the event is being livestreamed, and so put your phones on silent mode. And without further ado, I’m going to now let Thanassis introduce the project.
Thanassis Cambanis
Thank you so much, Lina, for hosting us here at Chatham House, it’s a real honour and it’s great to be on your stage. The Century Foundation is a 100-year-old thinktank based in New York, and this project is something we’ve been working on, for the last two years, which grew out of a concern that a lot of us had with the, sort of, epic failures of governance and of human dignity in the Middle East and North Africa, and our starting point was twofold. One, we were really tired of perspectives that tried to essentialise the region, either essentialise Arabs or essentialising Islam, as somehow being the driving force in what the political outcomes in the Middle East were. And the other thing we were really tired of was, people looking at questions of rights and pluralism, inclusion, minorities, majorities and citizenship, as if there were some kind of particular pathology to the Arab world or the Middle East that distinguished it from the rest of the world. We wanted to, as a starting point, ask questions about rights and inclusion and pluralism in an international context, and with the, sort of, starting assumption that what happens in the Middle East is part of what’s happening in the world, and we can see – we convened about 20 multidisciplinary experts, and over the course of two years, produced a raft of research, which you can read for free on our website, the Century Foundation, tcf.org, or you can order the book, if you’re so inclined, and judging by this demographic, I think you all, like me, would prefer the paper book.
What we ended up with, we began with a lot of arguments about secularism and rights and how to, sort of, how to protect different communities, religious minorities, LGBTQ people, you know, and feminist concerns, all kinds of identity-based communities in the region, how to protect or extend their rights without erasing their particular identities. And what was – one of the first things we really came up against is, there’s a really pernicious and toxic and widespread tendency to try to protect communities on a communal basis. So, to say, you know, the Yazidis in Iraq must be protected as Yazidis, the Christians in Egypt are treated as second class citizens, there needs to be some provision for Christians. And what that leads to is a sort of poisonous minority-majority racket where rights are defined communally, often based on identity or religious identity, and there’s no way out of that downward spiral that leads to extending widespread rights, universal rights, and the other thing that came out of this work is, a focus on the question of citizenship. In my view, certainly, I don’t know if I speak for all the people who worked on this research, the quality of citizenship and the quality of rights has been eroding worldwide.
There’s a crisis, a global crisis, and when we started this project we could say that the Arab world was on the leading edge of this crisis. Today, in the era of Trump and Brexit and nativism on the rise in Western Europe and Eastern Europe, authoritarianism, it’s no longer clear that MENA is the leading edge. I think we have a much clearer sense of sharing a joint concern with eroded citizenship and eroded rights, and the problem of how do we promote and argue for extending universal rights, in an era in which expediency and power politics have made it very popular, even among traditionally liberal and human rights oriented Governments to erode the quality of citizenship?
I’ll talk about one last thing before passing onto Karl and moving into what I’m sure will be a probing and sharp Q&A from Lina. I spent a couple of years, travelling back and forth to Iraq during the course of this project, to ask the question of what does it look like to try and put together an inclusive identity in a society that’s been driven by violence and identity-based murderous violence for at least the span of one whole generation?
So, we had this very detailed sense of what it looks like for societies to come apart, and what it looks like for sectarian and other very visceral identities to Trump, the more complicated political identities that societies depend on, and I wanted to know whether we could identify a real-time example of the reverse process. And I spent quite a bit of time looking at different parts of the country, and I ended up focusing on the city of Samarra, where there was a real unique confluence of events, where we had a Shia militia led by Muqtada al-Sadr, who had himself recently made a turn towards, at least rhetorically, embracing the idea of secularism and Iraqi nationalist patriotism, and his militia was ruling an almost entirely Sunni city with this mandate to be non-sectarian and not predatory. So, you know, this is not – this is by no means a universal, nationwide experiment, and nor is it one that’s being – you know, it applies to half a million people in a country whose population is approaching 40 million people. So I don’t want to overstate its importance, but over the course of two years, I was able to observe what happens when you have this confluence of a top-down order to rebuild and reorient identity, and at the same time a bottom-up, fear-driven desire to move past a period of killing and identity-based killing.
So, what I was able to document in Samarra was this creation of a, kind of, let’s say, a unified patronage, you know, let’s say, a Kumbaya patronage politics, where people were invited to come in and steal a piece of the pie in harmony and set aside their sectarian identity, not kill each other, steal together, and, also, crucially, to have security without sectarian violence being the whip that keeps people in line, and this has actually come to pass. So, in a very qualified sense, it’s a success story, and I put it forward at this point as a hypothesis, or a question, rather than as a model, right? This isn’t the way forward for every sectarian – every case of sectarian violence in the region, but it is a very ripe possibility of one way that you can move past decades of identity-based violence and move into some kind of unified identity that also changes the way society is controlled. And I’ll leave it at that, and happy to take whatever questions this invites.
Dr Lina Khatib
Great. Karl, over to you.
Karl Sharro
Thank you for your generous introduction. Thanassis had already asked me to cut the paper from 20,000 words to 10,000 words, and today, he wants me to cut it down to seven minutes. What’s next, do you want me to turn it into a tweet? But seriously, the thinking in my mind when I started writing this, and if there’s anyone here familiar with my work, I – my main, kind of, preoccupation as one of the leading WENA Scholars in the world, Western Europe and North America, is how can I blame the West for what’s happening in the Middle East? Which, kind of, it started as joke, but ultimately, where it led is, in thinking in the question of citizenship and the impasse that citizenship faces in the Middle East today, and this is something I’ve experienced myself, living, being born and living in the region, any kind of all these frustrated attempts at political revival, of political alternatives to sectarianism and fragmentation. The question is, where does this impasse come from?
And I started to think about it more and reflecting, again, on my experience in the West, and trying to understand what are the philosophical dimensions, the intellectual dimensions, the cultural dimensions behind this impasse, and generally, I felt – and I came, you know, to Britain around 2002, I felt there’s a, kind of, a convergence, and I don’t want to overplay it. It’s – Lebanon and Britain are two different contexts, but there are similarities in how the rise of culturist categories of analysis, identity-based movements, the notion that difference, the recognition of difference, rather than an old-school recognition of universalism are all phenomena that are happening in parallel in both country – contexts. Now, they manifest themselves in different ways, but I think what they end up doing is forming a kind of an impasse in the political imagination, and particularly in the secular political imagination.
Now, this is not a completely dead road. We still see very inspiring movements from, you know, Jordan to Lebanon to Egypt to Iraq, in which the slogans of secularism, as a kind of a spearhead in challenging sectarian arrangements, tried to manifest themselves through protests, through civil initiatives, through other forms of doing politics. But, inevitably, I think the failure comes from this failure of the political imagination, and I think this has very serious historic roots that emanate from things like the cultural turn, the shift within academia away, and a, kind of, a rejection of the idea that there’s any notion of a universality, all-encompassing universality that means things like people have equal rights, in a universal field. That means that we can look at politics as a way of organising interests, social struggle, aspirations, ideologies, rather than looking at the cultural dimension. So, this kind of academic shift, I think, and this is probably the claim I’m getting the most flak from is, I think this shift has now acquired almost a popular dimension, right? So, it’s almost like a zeitgeist. Whenever you want to think about politics in universalist terms innovatively, the structure of the world that we live in is encouraging fragmentary, divisive, culturist readings.
Now, some of the kind of proponents of this model argue that there are intersections between the struggle of different people, and that in itself is an alternative to the old way of doing things. You know, the liberal or the Marxist or the nationalist, whatever models we had in the past, that, kind of, claim to be universal, but the alternative is that the intersection of the interest between those multiplicity of groups, and I find really interesting is this, again, happens in the Middle East and happens in the West as well. So, my claim, and I’m happy for you to interrogate it is, we are moving towards more of a, kind of, a universal rejection of the very concept of universalism, the legacy of the enlightenment, the notion that we can define very broad ways of organising society that are inclusive by virtue of the universality, rather than accommodating differences through paying lip service or, kind of, cultural promotions of this fragmentation. Maybe in the discussion I’ll give more examples, but that then – what took me – what that takes me to is whatever attempts we are seeing towards a restoration, in my mind, of what is a healthier model of doing politics, a way of reviving a stalled transition to modernity, modernity in its political and social forms in the West, is going to come up against these intellectual barriers that, by now, we’re in the third or fourth decade, probably, of this transition that, again, starts from the universities. But my claim has become taking a much stronger hold within society, both with the Middle East and in the West, is forming a, kind of, a block for what I called the political imagination.
So, the purpose of the report, which, at length, I looked at different examples and ultimately, kind of, trying to emphasise this argument, is if we want to move beyond this, and to echo some of the things that Thanassis, and obviously we’ve had long debates about that, we have to go beyond this framework of recognition of minorities. We have to understand that different groups have different challenges. This is certainly not a call to ignore the different problems, the different problems have, the different context, but the claim is that we can restore that through a much broader philosophical and political framework because innovatively, and that’s the last point that I’m going to end up in, and, again, it’s something that I observe in a place like Lebanon, where the claim is that sectarianism is a primordial thing over there, and always be like that. In fact, it’s a – it’s an, and I mentioned this, it’s an antecedent of phenomena that are now manifesting themselves in the West. It’s a way of organising society and politics around those groups, and in organising it in this confessional arrangement, it’s a self-reproducing form, right? It’s a form that, kind of, gives itself legitimacy and longevity through this process of recognising group, organising, their interaction and preventing the, kind of, the natural evolution from – of broader current within society. But the argument is that all is not lost, and the more we tend to try to resolve those issues by nurturing these differences is, we’re actually being self-defeating.
So, ultimately, what I was trying to write is a call of arms. How do we reconceive of universality today, while taking all of these legitimate critiques that come from a more cultural perspective, over the past few decades? Thank you.
Dr Lina Khatib
Thank you so much, and last, but not least, Maria.
Maria Fantappie
Yes, thank you, and I want to, actually, link my points, also, to what you just said about how we can actually join forces in moving for a, sort of, change, because the research that I have led with my co-author, Cale Salih, started exactly in this way, in a, sort of, a synergy that we find – found, as young female professional, being – working in big institutions, and, actually, doing fieldwork in Iraqi Kurdistan, the North division of Iraq, with young Kurds. What these two profile of people have in common one would say? According to common rationality, nothing, of course, if we apply these divisive and fragmented categories that put us one against the other, but in reality, we found that we had a lot in common, because we, as young professional women, we also felt that we were part of a generation, which was raised and educated to a value of diversity. We thought that we have the possibility, actually, to see in our professional future equal rights for males and females, diversity in the institution where they’re going to work on, while we were facing, in our professional lives, a lot of obstacles. We were seeing that the society was, actually, even with the #MeToo Movement, moving very fast, but institutions, even international institutions, the UN, others, I mean, were moving very slowly to actually be receptive of that change.
So, we found that young Kurds had, sort of, the same problem, because they had nurtured an idea of citizenship and national identity, which was actually going very much beyond the simple concept of I want a nation that is for my own Kurdish people. They wanted something more. They wanted, also, a new type of relationship with their leadership. They want their leadership to recognise them as citizens, and not just as Kurds, but at the same time, they found a, sort of, an institutional blockage in front of them. They had no avenues of political participations, or participation to the political scene that could channel these ideas. The political scene was dominated by a generation that was claiming, also rightfully, to be the one who led the national struggle, and the Kurdish national struggle against the older regime of – against the regime of Saddam Hussein, so they had the legitimacy to be there, and they had also brought this institution of Iraqi Kurdistan into place, from 1990s up until today.
But, somehow, by all this had also led them to promote a, sort of, form of nationalism that was just an explanation and that didn’t integrate this component of citizenship. So, no matter, however, how much there was this new generation in Iraqi Kurds, and this is new generation in Iraqi Kurdistan who calls for this and who actually has a genuine intention of seeing this aspiration reflected at the top leader level, there is, sort of, a disconnection between what this generation wants and what the institution in Kurdistan actually can receive and absorb. So, it’s a, sort of, a situation where this society and the leadership are, sort of, un-synced, and there is no channel of communication between the two, and this is the situation which, of course, in certain case, leads to conflict. In other case, leads to – I mean, conflict, uprising, popular – I mean, mobilisation of the street against the leadership. In other case, it leads to fragmentation of the society, because when you have a leadership, as in the case of Kurdistan, that can – that is – that has the resources to actually redistribute to the society, then you have, also, part of the society who has, and even part of those young Kurds who actually want to see a new leadership into place, that they compromise and they adapt with the system, and they become dependent on them.
So, they’re, sort of, neutered in their aspiration to see change, and they – and, of course, the [inaudible – 23:34] system who has a very divisive effect on the society. So, all this reflection and all this reflection on how actually, societies are bringing a new form of political culture, new national identities, new wave of – new way of defining what it means to be part of that nation, what it means to be part – but – and the gap between that and what the leadership can absorb, it has been really an essential part of our reflection in this paper on Kurdish nationalists that, again, it has been a very interesting case study because in a situation, in a case study like Kurdistan, where you have a nation, but you don’t have a state, the relationship between leadership and society and that type of social contract is defining, also, what type of nation and project you have for your future.
Dr Lina Khatib
Thank you so much, and on that note, I want to circle back to you, Thanassis, as the leader of this project, and you said something –of course, you’re going to have to say something provocative. You said something that, kind of, you know, alerted me, which is how people got together to steal together, as one way of overcoming the identity division. So, here I’m thinking, “Of course, you were talking about Iraq,” I’m thinking about, naturally, Lebanon, as a compressive case, considering that I’m British-Lebanese, and I very much grew up in this system of stealing together. That has continued to manifest itself over the years with catastrophic results. So, my question is, aren’t we really talking here about short-term, kind of, success that might eventually lead to what Maria was talking about, which relates, also, to the work that my colleague standing at the back there, Renad Mansour, who works on in his work in the Iraq Initiative here at Chatham House, which is the gap between the elites and the citizen? Are we not creating a new problem for the future?
Thanassis Cambanis
So, the – we’re talking about two different sometimes conflicting levels, right? One is governance and the other is identity or narrative, and I think the level on which I’m trying to find some possibility, in the political imagination is, on the level of narrative, where we have, for the – in the main, all across the region, we have stories that are completely exclusionary, right? So, you have Arab nationalism, a story about Arab nationalism that has no room for non-Arabs in it, and you have Arabs who will say, “Well, you know, Arab nationalism is completely welcoming to a Kurd,” and a Kurd would say, “Well, I don’t hear myself in this story.” So, what was interesting about these experiments is the extent to which – not to which they’re stealing together, which is, as you correctly point out, it’s an expedient, short-term, you know, it’s a co-existence framework, which can shift the second the incentives change. And Lebanon is an example where they don’t even steal together, they steal in parallel, and this is – it’s a different story, right?
The Lebanese story is one in which each community runs itself. It’s the millet system in the modern age. What we’re looking for is something different, something where we hear some other story, whether it’s Iraqi nationalism, whether it’s socialism, communism, social democracy. We saw this briefly during the uprisings where there was bread, freedom and social justice as a slogan that was vague enough, but mobilising enough that people from different identity groups and backgrounds could see themselves as part of it.
The other thing that keeps coming up as a third rail is all the different taboo identities. So, you’re allowed to be a liberal, let’s say, but you’re not allowed to be gay. You’re allowed to be a Christian, but you’re not allowed to be, you know, a Yazidi, and there’s a whole host of these kinds of rights claims that are policed out even by people who are supposedly on the side of universal rights. And this comes up a lot when you have the practical question of governing, how to run things, ‘cause this is where it matters, is where you say, “Okay, do I have standing to be part of a Government, or be, you know, get a patronage job, or make decisions, or cast a vote, or be a candidate in your movement?” and that is where we see these groups policed out of existence. And I do think that stealing together can be a prelude to having a shared identity, but only if it is in the context of self-consciously and affirmatively crafting a new shared identity, and it’s very rare that anyone does that in the region.
Dr Lina Khatib
Okay, I’m sure people will have some questions about that. Maria, I’m just interested, you talked about the perspective of you and others, as you put it, young female Researchers feeling, perhaps, a connection with the people you were studying, but I’m just interested that they feel the same affinity towards you.
Maria Fantappie
Now actually, quoting one of the interview we had in the bazar of Sulaymaniyah, which is this town at the border between Iraq and Iran, one of these younger boy was working there as a seller. He told us, “Yeah, I mean, we are not like you, who are lib – like, you are, you know, privileged, and you could, of course, go to, I mean, to educate that we are here, and we’re going to just” – so, of course, there is not that sense of – I mean, from the other side, they think there is, on the contrary, they see any foreign Researcher as a, sort of, a privileged actor that is observing them. But I think that to – what – where there was an empathy, it was a moment where they felt that we were listening to them, because I think that, especially in a situation where you don’t have avenue for a political participation, or you don’t have any more so many good free media, like in the case of Kurdistan now, I think to be here and also discuss this issue, it’s something that already opens up for an empathy. And we, actually, once we published this paper, we got a lot of very good feedback, because I think that what is frustrating, for many of these young people, it’s to feel almost invisible, and that’s in it to be just dependent on others, and not be able to further – I mean, to actually shape their future in the way they want.
This is why, also, one other takeaway of this paper is that what we understood is that many of the young Kurds who migrated, during the refugee crisis from Iraqi Kurdistan to Europe, they didn’t do it for economic reason. But it was really a way in which they could, like, see themselves, you know, getting out from this system of claiming independence that was starting from the top at the level of the leadership, but was trickling down from the family structures themselves, and, like, shaping their own future somewhere else.
Dr Lina Khatib
And you mentioned something very important now in your answer, which is the importance of feeling they’re being listened to. This is missed, including Karl, in what you said about, for example, people in the West, if we can talk broadly, when they use stale categories like sectarianism as just a feature of the Middle East that has always been there and will always be there. This is an example of not listening, because if they were to listen, they would see that the situation is not so simple, but I think sometimes simple categories, especially in policy debate, kind of, tend to dominate. But on that note you also mentioned, kind of, what is happening in the West, again broadly speaking, today. I’m wondering, are you detecting any sense of, kind of, self-reflection going on in the West? Recognition that, oh, God, maybe these things that we thought only happen out there are also happening here, or not?
Karl Sharro
I think, to be honest, 2016 was the turning point, right? And I think a lot of people had to, kind of, pull a very, you know, hard handbrake after 2016, because I’m still, you know, not convinced with a lot of the simplistic narratives for, you know, things like Brexit or the election of Trump, but I think there’s a recognition that identity and identity-based politics is, kind of, spreading in movement, right? And it’s spreading, whereas it had started from the left, it’s spreading to the right, and in a way, it’s almost like a parody. It was the right, kind of, appropriating the tools of identity, which, you know, for a lot on the left, it was a, kind of, moment of awkwardness that we’d promoted these ideas for a long time, and now they’ve been appropriated, caricaturised, all those sorts of things. But I think, then again, looking at what’s really interesting, because I’m not really interested in the West, I’m interested in the Middle East, I’m using it as a comparative, is to then try to reflect, you know, we often, ourselves, fall into this trap, and a lot of the Scholars are trying to understand sectarianism as, almost, like a primordial thing over there. But, also, to be aware, and this is, I find, very interesting in the last 20 years, when I started, kind of, meeting more and more people that come study in the West, and to my mind, get brainwashed in the culturalist logic, intentionally being provocative, that they go back to Lebanon, right? They left arguing their sectarianism, and they come back, right, and in this, kind of, like, you know, recognition of difference, promoting politics that recognise difference, and I’m like, “Well, the natural conclusion of that, then you should celebrate sectarianism, and each one of you should go back to their sect and we should say, ‘You know, we Maronites, we deserve to be special. We Shiites, we deserve”– which is, by the way, what they’re doing, and this is the kind of point.
I’m trying to say, over here, is what happened since the end of the war, it’s no longer about a life and death scenario and daily fighting and all that kind of thing. You start to get all these weird insecurities about, you know, our culture is being changed, you know, and we’re not like the Shiites, we’re not like the Sunnis, and you start to get all these things. And then there’s echoes of, again, how group demands are formulated in the West. So, there’s definitely, I think, to my mind, a more, kind of, ironically, universal malaise that drives this, and – but, ultimately, there must be political answers to it.
Dr Lina Khatib
Yeah, thank you so much. I mean, I asked the question hoping, maybe, some glimmer of light, but I got the opposite, but it’s very important. So, on that note, now is the time for audience questions. Please introduce yourself. If you’re a Chatham House Member, tell us your other stuff that you do in life, other than being a Chatham House Member. Let’s see, we have the gentleman there. Yes, but wait for the microphone, please, ‘cause this is being livestreamed. It’s just behind you.
Raymond Hervey Jolliffe, 5th Baron Hylton
Lord Hylton, independent, House of Lords. I think one of your speakers touched on a very important concept, and that is…
Dr Lina Khatib
Can you introduce yourself, please? Sorry, is the microphone on? It is on. Oh, okay. Okay, sorry, sorry.
Raymond Hervey Jolliffe, 5th Baron Hylton
Hello? Is that better? A very important concept, namely political imagination, and if you look where there have been wars since, shall we say, 1945, it’s usually over the breakup of empire, where people, for some – for a variety of reasons, are unable to imagine themselves as citizens of a new entity, who want to live together harmoniously. I leave you with that thought.
Dr Lina Khatib
Thank you. It’s a very good thought, and we are going to move to this side of the room, please, with the microphone. Yeah, there, just, again, behind you. There’s two people carrying microphones, so…
Dr Katerina Dalacoura
Hi, my name is Katerina Dalacoura from London School of Economics. If we imagine that in the future there is an overcoming of sectarian, collectivist, ethnic, particular risk to identities, could this be in the shape of national identity? Of course, there’s a lot of association between nationalism and exclusive – an exclusive exclusionary identity and bad things we associate with nationalism, but could we see in the Middle East, in reaction to what is going on at the moment, an enlightened version of nationalism that could be the answer to many of the problems of the region? I’m not talking about citizenship rights and duties, but more capturing the imagination again. So, Iraqi nationalism, even Lebanese nationalism, even in that context, Turkish-Kurdish nationalism. That’s the question.
Dr Lina Khatib
Okay, thank you so much. I could take one more, before turning to the panel. Yes, please, in the middle.
Member
Thank you, I’m [inaudible – 38:16], British-Iranian Business Association. In 1979, the Iranians went to a referendum voting for Islamic Republic, not knowing what it is. In 2016, the British people went for Brexit, not knowing what it is. Now, the political system are…
Dr Lina Khatib
Are you suggesting Brexit…?
Member
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. The political system in UK is far ahead of Iran. So, what was the cause of it? Mass politics. Now, if you look from Founders of US constitution, from Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson to Taft, William Taft, 909 President. All of them talk about danger of mass politics, and we have safeguards for that, and in 1930s, we didn’t have the safeguards, but after the World War II, we put the safeguards. Then again, the safeguards went off after 1992 collapse of Soviet Unions, and that’s the biggest danger we have now, that our democracy has no safeguards.
Dr Lina Khatib
Thank you so much. Well, we have three very, very sharp, to-the-point points that each deserve a new book, Thanassis. So, I’m going to leave it open to you guys. Who would like to start? Yeah.
Thanassis Cambanis
Okay, I’ll start with Katerina’s question, which I like a lot. You know, nationalism is a terrible antidote to fragmentation, because if you look at the last century, whether you look at national socialism in the 30s, in Europe, whether you look at white nationalism today, it is a dangerous, often murderous ideology. In the Middle East, it’s most relevant incarnations are Ba’athism and Arab nationalism. Again, not happy examples of collective identity building and community building. Another assumption that’s related to this, I brought to this research the assumption that both – that nationalism could be a potential haven, and also that the state is good, right? Strengthening the state is the antidote to all this terrible entropy and misgovernance. Lebanon, cannibalised state, the answer is a better state. You know, Iraq, the state destroyed by first Saddam and then by the US invasion, but then, when I talk to people, a lot of Iraqis, for example, and a lot of Lebanese will say, “As much as we detest the misrule that we’re under today, the last thing we want is a hyper-empowered state that can then become predatory and do to us what Saddam did, or, you know, imagine Lebanon, with everything that’s wrong with it plus a powerful state that could oppress us. That would be far worse.”
And so, you know, to me, of course, this is – this leaves, you know, no obvious good choice, but the, you know, the hypothesis is that ideas evolve, and that you can evoke today a national consciousness in Iraq, for example, that would be something that speaks to Kurds and Arabs, Christians, Muslims, other religions and the non-religious. Now, mind you, almost no-one speaks this way, and this is one of the interesting absences in the region. When you look for people who are openly secular, or genuinely inclusive, or who would – who will support rights that they themselves don’t benefit from, very few and far between, but there are avatars of this, kind of, universal identity building, and sometimes real people. I mean, we had Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh ran for President in Egypt, former Deputy Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood. He partnered up with a secular communist woman and designed this movement, which a lot of people didn’t believe that he meant it, but he did, he meant it. He evolved. He changed and he had an idea of Egyptian patriotism and identity that was open to secular people, LGBTQ people, ex-brothers, Salafis, religious people, non-religious people.
So, there are examples like this. They’re always – they always have, I think, problematic sides to them, and usually, it’s a form of chauvinism, or, in the case of, like, Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq, a form of internal authoritarianism. So, where, in Iraq, there’s this movement being created, where there is room for all these identities, but on Muqtada’s terms by his prerogative. So, he decides, “You know, I woke up today, and I changed my mind, and this is our new inclusive identity. You’re welcome to it, and no further discussion.” So, I think that’s what’s on the table, and when and if someone in power evokes these things, that’s when we’ll see what develops, and I’ll bet you we’ll have cases, in the next ten or 20 years, where inclusive nationalist ideologies are used to rile up massacres and abuses of power, and that will further sully these ideas of inclusion and community building.
Dr Lina Khatib
I think Karl wants to disagree.
Karl Sharro
I really want to disagree with Thanassis. So, I think it’s…
Thanassis Cambanis
You’ve been waiting all evening.
Karl Sharro
Yeah, exactly, waiting for my opportunity. I think it’s a great question, you know, and I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this in Chatham House. As an old Marxist, I should be against nationalism, but I think…
Thanassis Cambanis
Do you mean former, or aging?
Karl Sharro
Aging, clearly. I think nationalism – let’s put it in the spirit. I mean, Thanassis was very sneaky, because the two examples he gave you of white – nationalism is white nationalism and Nazis, right? There’s lots of nationalisms that are not about that. There’s Germany in 1848, right? There’s the old Republican idea, there’s the idea that comes out of the enlightenment, and entrained in terms of the people wrestling control of their destiny from Monarchs, and from the church, and from inherited authority. That idea, we shouldn’t kick it, and, in fact, I think the problem with versions of it like Ba’athism is they were never complete nationalisms in the sense that Syria or Iraq is a definite entity, is a final entity, right? They were always steppingstones to some, sorry for saying this, shitty fantasy of a pan-Arab unity that’s going to, kind of, subjugate the entire world. They were essentially, you know, quasi-fascist dystopias that manifested themselves, you know, in different ways, and, kind of, allowed those types of characters to come to power. But the aspiration towards a form of nationalism that is positive, that’s inclusive, gives a lot of alternatives for all sorts of things that we’re seeing, sectarian fragmentation, and the, kind of, the ISIS vision, which is, kind of, supranational in so many respects, is the emphasis of the idea of a multinational, multicultural state like Iraq, which had various religions, various sects, various nationalities. It hasn’t had a happy history, but that happy history isn’t always internally – for an internal reason, you know? There’s colonialism, there’s Western intervention, there are all sorts of things, right?
So, I’m very positive about that, and I think, ultimately, it is a vehicle that can be inclusive, can be functioning, and more importantly, turning to you, sir, in a very short sentence, we shouldn’t be afraid of most mass politics. We shouldn’t be afraid of democracy. The problem with the world today is, we tend to feel these things, and we think that elite checks and balances are actually a control. No, the faith in democracy is actually a much better guaranteer of the success of a society, to my mind, and I’ll leave it at that note.
Dr Lina Khatib
Maria.
Maria Fantappie
Well, I will just end, probably, on the note of the political imagination, because I think it’s a very beautiful concept that you brought into the discussion, and I think that – I mean, there is a desperate need for political imagination. I just sometimes think that we don’t have the structure for that political imagination to grow, and here, we come back with this issue of the institutional impasse in where we are, and the enormous obstacles that we, with our managerial, we – of structuring our, even, day-to-day work, we put our limits to – I mean, we create our own obstacles that prevents us from actually see broader, and actually develop that vision. So, I will just think that our reflection of, probably, the topic of the next book, Thanassis, should be how can we overcome this obstacle, and, like, this political imagination, it is present. There are visionary in these words, there is visionaries, but how can that vision actually then shape the future, and how can we overcome that obstacle that prevents this from happening today?
Dr Lina Khatib
Great. Another round of questions, and we have two that I can – three, okay. So, let’s take those three, starting with our dear friend, Mehrdad, at the front. Please introduce yourself to the crowd.
Mehrdad Khonsari
My name is Mehrdad Khonsari. I’m Chatham House Member and Iranian Centre for Policy Studies. My question is, in terms of your study, in terms of what you’re coming out with, something that I’m working on is – has to do with two specific terms: consensus building, national reconciliation, and, of course, the peaceful nature of promoting change. For example, in my own country, Iran, we have great divisions, and one of the things, I think, the majority of people want change, but people are afraid that at what cost will that change have to come? Iran, nobody wants another Syria or Iraq in Iran, as much as they want change. So, emphasis is on consensus building, but consensus building and national reconciliation for the promotion of major change. In other words, not the retention of the status quo, or, like, in South Africa, for example, national reconciliation was conducted not to retain the Apartheid system. So, where does this come in into your study?
Dr Lina Khatib
Okay, thank you, and we’ve got someone, yes, in red there, thanks.
Marielle Philameni
And thank you for your speeches. I’m Marielle Philameni, I come from Spain. I’m in leadership and some public affairs, and I would like to ask for the two last points that you make. You asked – you tell us about the faith in democracy, but do you think that democracy can be extrapolated to tribal societies, such as the one in Libya, for example?
Dr Lina Khatib
Okay and final question of the night, there, front row.
Kirwan Jamal Tahir
Yeah, thank you. My name is Kirwan Jamal Tahir. I’m Kurdistan Regional Government High Representative to the United Kingdom. Although I have agreed here, but I am a new generation. So, I had the opportunity in Kurdistan region to be part of the political, you know, involved politically, and I’m Representative now, and, like what you said, which I disagree with you that Kurdistan region and young people are not involved in politics and daily base governance in Kurdistan, and they are not privileged of education. In Kurdistan region, there is 30 universities, two American universities, and British colleges are open in Kurdistan region, and everyone have the opportunity to access the high education, and education is free in Kurdistan region. Of the evolvement in Government, in institutions, in Parliament, for the young people, the ratio is really high. If you look at our Parliament, you see how many, you know, young people are participating, and the women as well. The percentage are 30% of the women are part of their political engagement in Kurdistan region.
The topic of identity is really important, and I think this is a core matter in the Middle East, and I wrote a piece last month about the identity in the Middle East, because Middle East have identity problem, and they attached their Arab identity to the Middle East. Middle East are not only Arab nation, there’s other nations lives in the Middle East. Israel is part of the Middle East; Turkey is part of the Middle East. So, we have the nations of Turk, Arab, Persia and Kurd. Kurd is a nation in the Middle East. They’re – and the denial and unrecognition of the identity of the Middle East, not only for the last few decade, but century ago, led to their ongoing conflict up until our today. And my final point on the citizenship, yes, in Iraq and Kurdistan region, we have a citizenship conflict matter, but not with Kurdistan region.
Over the few – last few decade, we have a prob – citizenship problem with the Iraqi Government, because we wanted to be an equal citizen in Iraq. So, as a Kurd, we have both citizenship problem, as well as identity problem, but if we prioritise, then, the identity problem, it’ll become less. Thank you.
Dr Lina Khatib
Okay, thank you. I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you each one minute to just give very quick answers to the questions. Maria, we’re going to move this way, starting with you. One minute, please, ‘cause we’re almost – if you have anything.
Maria Fantappie
Well, yes, I mean, I think that our paper is not just about the young generation, it’s about all components of the society, even older, that had a vision, a different vision for how to move forward. They propose a new pact with the leadership. So, it’s not just about young people, and again, here, I think this is a global challenge that – one that we don’t want. It’s not about – when we’re talking about pushing, or, like, supporting diversity at the leadership level, it’s – I think that we should be very careful not to have a quantitative approach and saying, “Okay, how many young people you have?” or, “How many women you have?” It is really about bringing a new culture, and that is the tallest challenge that we have.
Dr Lina Khatib
Thank you. Karl.
Karl Sharro
I’m going to take the point about can democracy work in a tribal society? I think you put it – and it’s actually quite interesting, because I encourage you to read my essay, because I talk about at length, and it’s one of the things that I notice, actually. Like, everyone on the political spectrum today agrees on that, that doesn’t work, right? So, the left says the East is different to the West, and this is particularly comes across from post-colonial theory. Things like, you know, universal enlightenment ideas, democ – representative democracy, all these things, they’re not suitable, and people parrot that, you know? They’re like, “Oh, representative democracy isn’t necessarily good for these societies,” and then just, kind of, justify, in the process of doing that, all sorts of authoritarian Governments, right?
The right then turns and says, “No, but these people are so backward, democracy is not suitable for them,” and I think, really, that people are asking that question because they themselves don’t have faith in democracy, and, ultimately, for me, the proper panacea for this, the proper peer for this is to restore the sense of faith in democracy, but I’ll end on one single point. Whenever I say that in a public forum, someone will come over to me and say, “How can you say you have complete faith in democracy? You’re a fascist,” and I’m like, “What’s – how?” and this is the, kind of, we have such a degraded understanding of what democracy is today, and it broadly reflects a, kind of, institutionalised elitist lack of confidence in everything that democracy represents that makes those sentiments possible. Thank you.
Dr Lina Khatib
Thank you. Thanassis.
Thanassis Cambanis
Two quick points. One is, I think, in good faith, if you explore what actually happens in every society, including Arab societies in the Middle East, you find there is no essentialist brake on what’s possible. So, it’s a – I mean, I don’t think you meant it this way, but the core of the question is offensive and wrong in its essence, okay? Any type of people can be any type of Government or society. A tribal area can be democratic, an enlightened, rich, Western area can be fascist, and so on and so forth. Everything is possible, and in the Arab world today, you can find examples of almost every type of self-organising and self-identity, and I think that needs to be a new starting point for all conversations about policy and politics in the Middle East, because otherwise, we end up in these often racist, often essentialist, often, I think, you know, problematic frameworks for talking about what’s possible.
And, Mehrdad, I think your question is great, because in the region we’re hostage often to self-interested elites and oppressive systems that threaten après nous le déluge. If you don’t – if you try to change the system, there will be chaos. You know, do you want Libya or do you want the mullahs? Do you want Syria, or do you want, you know, prosperous Sisi’s Egypt? And these are bullshit binaries, right? We know, in fact, that there are other alternatives. Karl mentioned democracy a lot. I find it helpful to mention universal rights a lot, because maybe, you know, the idea of reorganising as a democracy feels too radical as a first step. Great. Are you going to be opposed to universal rights, however? And if you force these oppressive leaders to say, “Well, we’re against your rights,” I think that’s a much harder position for them to take than it is for them to say, “Well, you know, we all love democracy, but it’s very hard to implement right now.” You say, “Great, how about take the first step, extend universal rights, and then we can argue about the governing process?” And I think we can force, or try to force, leaderships, and also advocacy groups, by the way, can buy into these limiting frameworks to step out of it and say that it’s not about, you know, change – reform or chaos, but about more rights for more people.
Dr Lina Khatib
Thank you, and I also want to say thank you, because the three of you, in your last answers, each gave, kind of, a tip for things that we can practically do to make things better. So, at least we managed to end it on a positive note, one way or another. So, please join me in thanking this really wonderful panel [applause].
