On Monday, January 16, 2012, the University of Michigan hosted a panel discussion about the "Arab Spring" and related developments in the Near East. It was hosted by Professor Gottfried Hagen, of the Department of Near Eastern Studies, and featured other six faculty members, all of whom were either permanent or visiting teaching faculty of the U of M. Professor Hagen noted that the MLK holiday was an appropriate time to discuss the Arab Spring, not only because of the obvious thematic links between some of the Arab demands for civil rights and Martin Luther King's struggle for the same, but also because of the dates of two of the initial events in the Arab Spring, which were self-immolations: one on January 14, 2011 in Tunisia, and one on January 17, 2011 in Egypt. Thus the Arab Spring is linked not only thematically, but chronologically with the MLK holiday.
The first speaker set the direction for the panel discussion by posing three questions, and giving three tentative answers. First, how should we think about the motivations, the driving forces, for the Arab Spring? He suggested that the main cause was a desire on the part of millions of citizens, to have dignity, and to be respected by their governments. Second, where does Islam come into the picture, especially in the light of Islamic political parties winning elections, especially in Egypt, but also in Tunisia? the first speaker proposes that most of the citizenry was not acting primarily from religious motives, but rather wanted democracy, secularism, and tolerance; a further explanation is needed, addressing why millions voted for Islamic parties, if their motives were not primarily religious: the speaker suggested that the Islamic parties had a reputation for being politically savvy, practical, and experienced, thus attracting non-religious voters. Third, what comes next? Will Egypt's military step aside and allow the creation of a civilian government? Will Hamas continue its links to Syria? Will Iraq ally itself more closely with the U.S. or with Iran? These are the open questions for the future.
The second speaker maintained that the Arab Spring needs to be seen as a cultural revolution, not only a political revolution. She saw a change in social structure, inasmuch as women were moving into visible leadership of a political and social movement. Ghada Kamal, the pharmacist whose painful public humiliation moved millions to tears, had become a symbol and a hero. In the field of religion, women carried, in some cases, imam-like authority. Some imams who had spoken against women taking such visible leadership roles had been removed from office by their congregations. Women leaders took a "photo op" to shake hands with male political leaders: a physical contact previously deemed inappropriate. Although this speaker saw the main social changes in the field of gender roles, she also saw changes in literature, and in high-profile images (newspaper photographs) which are changing the stereotypical image of what it means to be 'Arab' - both in the Arab world and the rest of the world - away from the stereotype of violence.
The third speaker focused on human rights in Egypt. One of the initiating events in the Egyptian version of the Arab Spring was the torture and execution of a blogger in Alexandria. Currently, most of the real power in Egypt is held by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (hereinafter SCAF). There is a tension, or paradox, in that SCAF is composed mainly of people appointed to power by Mubarak, and yet they are now supposed to create a new government in the anti-Mubarak democratic vein. What gives SCAF the power to rule Egypt? Three answers are possible: a mandate from Mubarak, a mandate from the people, or simply power. An election was held, which legitimized SCAF's power after the fact, but only for six months, during which time they were supposed to create a civilian government. But SCAF still exists, and is still in power, violating the six-month deadline. Egypt has gotten over one billion dollars in U.S. aid, mainly military aid, every year for thirty years. Is there a danger of Egypt falling into a purely military state? And will the U.S. have funded it? SCAF says that it is protecting the process of forming a civilian government - protecting that process from falling into Islamic hands. SCAF is using three strategies, or tactics, to quash opposition and keep itself in power: first, it uses both the civilian legal system and the military legal system, conducting thousands of trials and getting convictions; second, it is cracking down on human rights groups; third, it attacks peaceful demonstrations. SCAF receives significant funding from the Saudis, which indicates something both about the Saudis and about SCAF. The Arab Spring in Egypt can be seen as three constituencies: the SCAF, which wanted a new leader, but not a different type of government; the Islamic political parties, which saw the revolution as a path to power; and the secularists who led the revolution, but have had little input into the formation of a new government. Conclusion: the revolution has not been successful yet, but still could be. The current status, and one possible future outcome if the current status doesn't change, is that the SCAF turned the revolution into a military coup.
The fourth speaker (who also is a writer for the weekly Der Spiegel) focused on Syria, and why it is - in that speaker's opinion - that the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad can't make meaningful reforms. He promised reforms when he took office in the year 2000, but they never happened. President Bashar al-Assad is personally apolitical, not interested in ruling, and never really wanted to be president. He is an eye doctor, and his wife a British financier. But the structure of hereditary dictatorship - a family dynasty - pushed him into the presidency. He faces a dictator's dilemma: it is too late for meaningful peaceful reforms, even if he wants to grant them. Any such offer now would be too little, too late for the angry masses. The aristocracy behind him never wanted such reforms anyway, even if he might want them. The country has an old-style socialist economy, into which a few tiny bits of free market have recently crept. The press and media are government-controlled, with a very small amount of free expression recently introduced. But the government remains absolute, controlling by means of the military, and sometimes controlled by the military. The leadership class knows that it will get no mercy if they lose power: the masses will execute them. No peaceful outcome is now possible: it is a fight to the death. Syria's police state has ensured stability - at the price of civil rights and human rights - since it took power in 1971. Prior to that there had been an anarchic series of revolutions, overthrows, and coups. The security forces are loyal to the royal family; unlike Egypt or Tunisia, where the security forces are loyal to the state.
The fifth speaker focused on Israel, and posed the question whether the era of normalization was over. By 'normalization' she meant seeking some degree of regional cooperation, which had been at least partially achieved with Egypt and Turkey until now. Will Israel drop its continued efforts at normalization and seek instead new alliances with Greece and Cyprus? Will Israel return to a sort of 'siege mentality' regarding its Arab neighbor states? The answer depends on how the Israeli government reads the unfolding of the Arab Spring over the next few months.
The sixth speaker posed the question, "What was that? What was the Arab Spring?" - even if its consequences are still unfolding, we are justified in speaking of it in the past tense. The 'big picture' of the Arab world prior to the Arab Spring is one of authoritarian regimes with narrow elites. For example, 50% of Tunisia's economic elite were family members of the president. These were predatory elites: extortion schemes were common in Tunisia; small business owners were prey to 'protection rackets', paying fees to members of the royal family, lest their businesses be vandalized or destroyed by thugs working for the dynasty. In Egypt, Mubarak's family embezzled billions from the government. 50% of Egypt's workforce was employed by the public sector; protecting this bureaucratic class became one the chief missions of the government. Even the private sector wasn't so private; corruption infiltrated much of the economy: one needed a license to do any type of business, licenses purchases from an administration manipulated by the royal family. This was old-school crony socialism. If that characterized the pre-revolution regimes, who were the rebels? Three groups: first, young educated but unemployed people who discovered that lack of foreign investment caused their unemployment, and government corruption caused the lack of foreign investment; second, industrial workers, who discovered that they didn't matter to a government which neither respected them nor took care of them; third, state bureaucrats who had been cared for by the government, but over the last two or three years had been receiving less and less as the government's funding was reduced by the world-wide economic slowdown. If many of the revolutionaries were not religiously-driven, why were the Islamic political parties such big winners? Perhaps because they had been the opposition parties to Mubarak's government, or had been in exile, and as such were therefore thought to be not corrupt. A new Middle East could emerge from this Arab Spring: Arabs seeking more economic opportunity, and more Muslim 'fundamentalists' seeking political control. The revolution appears to have been started by those interested in personal liberty and individual freedom, but the post-revolutionary structures appear to be forming under the influence of Islamic parties.
Following the sixth speaker, there was a question-and-answer time with the audience and the panel. The first question posed was about how the Arab Spring might change U.S. foreign policy. Would there be new strategic alliances? Three variables come into play here: first, oil policy - the main consumers of Middle Eastern oil are Japan and Europe, not the U.S., but the U.S. takes an interest in its allies. Second, the security of Israel will need to be re-evaluated. Third, the U.S. has the containment of Iran as a major policy goal. In some ways, the Arab Spring is irrelevant to U.S. foreign policy, which is why the Obama administration didn't fully engage in the Arab Spring. The three variables listed above, which are central to U.S. policy in the Near East, were not greatly affected by the Arab Spring. Tunisia is somewhat irrelevant. Even Egypt is not a major source of oil, and while the Suez Canal is important, it did not appear to be threatened by any of the parties on either side of the Arab Spring. Egypt's stance toward Israel is not likely to change significantly, either, at least short-term. A new Syrian government wouldn't be too much different than the old one, concerning Israel.
A second question was about the extent to which human rights and democracy are key elements of U.S. foreign policy. How much of the talk about rights and democracy is merely talk?
Third, why was there not a massive eruption of protests from the Palestinians as part of the Arab Spring? The Palestinians are in a permanent state of protest anyway. The Arab Spring had a different set of issues, different conditions, and different motivations. The Arab Spring was an internal protest against a corrupt government. It was not about nation-building.
Fourth, what is the history of higher education in the region? Universities were built and supported by the regimes; but the universities formed the revolutionaries who would ultimately rebel against the regime. The highly-educated people with degrees are the ones who are unemployed; the unskilled labor force has little or no unemployment. The universities were corrupted by the government. Educated youth demand more from the future, having been taught to think on a grander scale.
When the event was over, several questions lingered in the mind of the audience: Why was the word 'sharia' never mentioned - not even once - especially in light of the loud and influential demands for sharia in Libya and Egypt, among other countries? Why were the Copts not mentioned - an important voice in the movement? The use of the words 'liberal' and 'conservative' seemed somewhat idiosyncratic: people protesting for less government and more individual freedom are generally called 'conservative' when they show up in American politics talking about 'small government' - why were they called 'liberals' by the panel at this event? The speakers consistently attempted to create a narrative in which millions of Arab voted for Islamic parties, while not really being interested in Islam; they are alleged to have voted this way for other reasons; but certainly there were also millions who voted precisely because they wanted, not a free state, but an Islamic state - a caliphate. In the reporting of the American media, there was a habitual transference of U.S. legal vocabulary into the situations in the Arab nations; after view horrid brutality toward women on video tape, an American reporter interviewed one of them: the letters across the bottom of the screen read 'alleged victim' - common sense would have omitted the word 'alleged' in this situation, but had this been in the U.S., and not in an Arab country, lawyers would have demanded the insertion of the word into the subtitle, and it is to be assumed that American media are simply so habituated to the U.S. environment that they inserted the subtitle without thinking.
Despite these questions, Professor Hagen's event was a good and informative discussion of the 'Arab Spring,' and in contrast the keynote speaker Michele Norris at U of M's MLK event earlier on the same day, well worth the time of those who attended.
