Arab awakening: What next?

“When you jump for joy,” said the Polish poet Stanislaw Lec, “beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.” As Arab dictatorships crumble like sandcastles in a storm, the joy is almost unconfined. Decades of repression are vanishing as people who once bent to violence and humiliation rise up in pride against their masters. But the startling changes in countries classified as “stable but undemocratic” have shaken more than arrogant autocrats. They have struck at the heart of the nations’ economic and political futures. And their effects are felt not only in the region, but in the West and beyond, casting doubt on entrenched political alliances and a fragile global economic recovery. “What we are witnessing is an historic watershed,” German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle told a recent meeting on international security. “Nothing will be as it was before.” He added: “The people who are demonstrating in the streets of Cairo are not demanding freedom or jobs, they want both at the same time. Both belong together. People want to decide themselves how to live their lives. They want the opportunity to shape a better future.” From Egypt’s 80 million people to much smaller (6 million) Libya and tiny (1.2 million) Bahrain, those who win the battle for democracy will also have to deal with the debris of a political and economic earthquake. Few would welcome a rerun of the early 1990s, when the former Soviet Union collapsed. As communism died, cheers turned to tears: millions were trampled in a stampede for the spoils, and democracy became a bitter joke. “Human beings everywhere are very similar,” says George Birnbaum, an American political consultant and former chief of staff to Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu. “They strive for hope. Young people in the Middle East had no hope for the future. Now they must have a reason to look ahead.” The challenges, however, are formidable. “The Arab countries need to create 100 million jobs in the next five years,” says Birnbaum. “Democracy by itself won’t solve the problem.” Arab countries have young and restless populations whose leaders sucked the oxygen out of their aspirations through corruption and mismanagement, stifling hope for decent jobs, advancement and better living standards. Even the vast profits of oil-producing states have failed to produce economies that laid a foundation for the future. While Arab autocrats luxuriated in national wealth, their countries’ per capita incomes fell behind those of all other developing regions for three decades. “The main economic problems in the region remain infrastructure and absorptive capacity,” said Jordan’s Prince El Hassan bin Talal in a 2008 address, pointing out that while oil producers splashed out millions on development projects, they imported foreign labour and failed to train their own skilled workers or develop multi-layered oil industries. “Middle Eastern economic growth has been coming more from oil revenue, real estate investment, housing, tourism and foreign assistance than from productive activity,” he said. Although the protests bring hope for a better future, they have also compounded the economic problems inherited from despotic governments. In Tunisia, and in the Arab world’s most populous country, Egypt, money has fled along with the wealthy elites. Investors have put projects on hold, and billions of dollars have been lost from the lucrative tourist trade. Egypt also faces a potential food crisis in the next six months, when subsidized stocks run out and the new government must buy at spiking world prices. Other Arab countries will also cope with escalating food costs when they can least afford it. Some in the West are worried enough to call for a new Marshall Plan — America’s massive economic program that rebuilt a decimated Europe after World War II. Policy-makers in Washington and European capitals are puzzling over rescue plans, from creating new free trade zones and lowering trade barriers to sponsoring clean energy projects and pumping money into small community businesses, as well as offering government grants. Most agree it should be done soon, before the euphoria of freedom turns to frustration. But the West itself is in trouble, heavily in debt from the global recession. Budget control, not benevolence, is the order of the day in domestic politics. The instability in Arab countries has sparked an alarming rise in global oil prices that affects not only transport but the agriculture industry’s ability to grow and distribute food. That means higher-priced food for rich and poor, as well as job cuts from the other industries and businesses that are dependent on oil — and a ripple effect through the markets and the worldwide economy. This week, oil prices hit a two-year high, crossing the $100-a-barrel threshold for the first time since 2008. It’s $20 higher than a price set by the Saudi government to allow for comfortable profits, and a growing global economy. But the shocks felt across the world are geopolitical as well as economic. “Arab wealth and Arab public opinion might soon converge — with astounding implications for the region,” writes Rami Khouri, editor-at-large of Beirut’s Daily Star. “But especially for Iran, Israel, Turkey and the United States and other major Western powers.” That’s just what some world leaders fear, after decades of making deals with rulers whose word was law and who could sign off without public consultation. Because of that, Israel’s recognition by Egypt and Jordan was possible, preventing potentially catastrophic wars in the Middle East. So were Arab alliances with the U.S. in the “war on terror.” So was the acquiescence of Middle Eastern countries on the invasion of Iraq, as well as unanimous opposition to Iran, and the crucial matter of oil price fixing. The Arab countries benefited from these decisions, but the wealthy rulers much more than their citizens. In addition to money, they gained international legitimacy, state-of-the-art weapons, billions in military and development aid, and Western backing for their own vital interests. In that scenario democracy was a bit player, and the powerful sat in the director’s chair. The U.S., without a nod to irony, trumpeted its dedication to freedom and democracy, while turning a blind eye to its Arab allies’ repressive regimes. State Department human rights reports on torture, detention, censorship and fraudulent elections were routinely tut-tutted, and business continued as usual. But the U.S.’s first concern, then as now, was maintaining “stability,” which included providing cover for Israel in a hostile neighbourhood. One in which the hostility came mainly from the Arab street. Now the buffer zone of “reliable” rulers is shrinking, and Western diplomats are walking on tiptoe as they survey the damage to policies that were once articles of faith. The fear of Islamists coming to power or militants filling a power vacuum are coming to the fore. And, some say, keeping the U.S. from a clearer vision of what is transpiring. “We could be witnessing the most important moment in Arab political history in our lifetimes,” says Joel Hirst of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “Unfortunately, the news comes as a mixed blessing for the United States. For too long our policy on the Arab world has been fraught with inconsistencies . . . it has caused a significant credibility problem with the ‘Arab street.’ ” Along with oil security, that of Israel is top of the list of American anxieties as the future of the Middle East looks increasingly uncertain. For more than half a century, Washington’s policy has focused on maintaining peace in the region and supporting Israel’s right to exist on its own terms. “I think there is every reason to believe that the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty will hold,” says Daniel Levy of the New America Foundation, a former adviser to Israel’s Mideast peace negotiations. And, he added, Israel’s main concern is “more about a shift in the region leading to regimes (especially Egypt) no longer indulging certain current core Israeli policies.” At issue, Levy says, are Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, the closure of Gaza and the “farcical” nature of the peace process to date: “This could become the main difference — that Arab public opinion now matters.” How much it matters will be played out in the coming weeks and months. Washington is under pressure from Israel, which sees itself as increasingly isolated and vulnerable, to continue its unconditional support. And from advisers who say it is time to push Israel to freeze its settlements and make a peace deal that will remove one of the bitterest grievances in the Mideast, one which has been allowed to mask the deeper ills those countries have avoided addressing. The realignment of the region will also affect another leading American concern, the containment of Iran. “Washington sees the various local and national conflicts in the Middle East as part of a battle for regional hegemony between the U.S. and Iran,” said Stephen Kinzer in Newsweek. “If this is true, the U.S. is losing.” Kinzer, author of Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America’s Future, says in an essay that Washington has bet the house on “sclerotic allies” who have lost the confidence of their citizens, while Iran won payoffs by supporting destructive, but popularly acclaimed, forces such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Palestinian group Hamas and Shiite factions in Iraq. “Never has it been clearer that the U.S. needs to assess its long-term Middle East strategy,” Kinzer says. “It needs new approaches and new partners. Listening more closely to Turkey, the closest ally in the Muslim Middle East, would be a good start.” But change in Washington and other Western capitals may only come at a gradual pace, as the enormity of the shift sinks in. Hardened mindsets and long-established policies may be the last to crack. Meanwhile, the fires of change are blazing across the Arab world. When the smoke clears, the landscape may be almost unrecognizable.