Tragicocomedia

This is a very exciting time to be alive. I imagine all times are exciting to be alive in their own way, but the events that are unfolding in the Middle East are a rare happening. Not since the fall of communism in Eastern Europe has anything on this scale, and with such a potentially positive outcome taken place. Of course, far too many people have already died in the protests and revolutions sweeping across north Africa and into the heart of the Middle East, and any number of deaths, especially of peaceful protesters, is unacceptable. However, what is wonderful is that this time the people look like succeeding in bringing down the old regimes and taking their destiny into their hands.

For far too long much of the Middle East has been economically stagnant, socially backward and technologically retarded. Outside of the high-flying, modernised economies of the oil rich and less populous UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the bulk of the people in Egypt, Yemen, Oman, Syria, Jordan, Libya, Iran, Tunisia and Algeria have been denied development opportunities. In all but a few states they have also been denied access to information, freedom of expression and the right to elect their own leaders under a system of universal suffrage. In fact, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2010 lists ZERO full democracies in the region. It’s a disgrace. Badly led by dictators or sham “democracies”, dominated by narrow political and religious ideologies, strategic pawns of the West, the status quo has been tolerated to varying degrees in accordance with their stance on Israel and Palestine, Iran, Iraq and WMD. These people deserve to have the chance to modernise, to read what they like, to say what they like, to do and to go where they like and to give a shit about what they like – simple freedoms we take for granted in the West. That they may at last take these things for themselves is nothing short of magnificent.

Yes, revolutions are violent and destabilising, yes they can have negative consequences, yes they don’t always succeed, but the fact that the people, en masse, have risen up to express themselves and show their contempt for the way they have been for so long mistreated fills me with hope that at last the long-awaited seismic shift the Middle East needed so badly has happened. It seems now to be inexorable. From the western perspective, the principal concerns have not been freedom and democracy, nor human rights, but merely the ability of these states to contain the spread of terrorism, islamic extremism, WMD and to agree to non-aggression with Israel. It is a disgrace how long this situation has been allowed to continue under the guise of stability. When the vast bulk of Egypt’s 80 million people are dirt poor and ruled by a military dictatorship, that is not stability, it is slavery. Democracy has its own problems and is no stranger to corruption, but for Egypt to move forward it must now take its chances with popularly elected governments.

Right now, the situation in Libya is extremely tense. As I write this, reports are coming in of the airforce being used to bomb protesters. Alongside this are reports of pilots and diplomats defecting, of army commanders siding with the people, of mercenaries using mortars and other heavy weapons on protesters, of buildings burning in Tripoli, of the people celebrating driving the mercenaries out of Bhengazi and the defection of  a crack military division, of the borders being abandoned and opened and Egyptian medical aid waiting to enter. It is a confused and confusing situation, with few journalists on the ground to report and lines of communication cut. Nonetheless the reports all point in one direction: The downfall of Gaddafi’s regime. It couldn’t come a moment too soon.

First Tunisia, then Egypt, now, fingers crossed, Libya. Rarely has such regional change been witnessed outside of a more widespread conflict such as the world wars. The collapse of communism across Eastern Europe is the closest parallel, yet that was facilitated by the withdrawal of the Soviet armies and a significant change in policy and outlook at the heart of the Soviet Empire. Here, in the Middle East, the process has gotten underway with nothing more than the utter despair and frustration of people kept back and held down for so long.

Perhaps, if this tidal wave of democracy succeeds and sweeps on through Yemen, Oman, Jordan and Syria, then the Middle East, once one of the leading lights of the world technologically and intellectually, will have a chance to move forward and be great again. Seeing the determination of the people – not led by religion or factionalism, but simply crying out in the loudest, the bravest voices for freedom and dignity – I feel great confidence that they can succeed. This is not a time for the West to intervene, but the West must take a role in helping these countries to construct their democracies when the time is right. There is much advice and technical assistance that they will require, and the developed world must do everything to help these people take and shape their destiny, in a non-exploitative manner. This is not a time for cutting business deals, it is a time for altruism.

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The dazzling skyline of Dubai is a powerful symbol of modernity. It is vibrant, first class hub of investment, trade and development. The United Arab Emirates boasts an economy which has sensibly avoided being a one-trick pony; recognising the long-term, strategic limitations of its energy resources, it has invested massively in its construction and financial sectors. The UAE has spared little in creating a positive environment to attract skilled workers, including strong investment in its domestic tertiary education sector.

However, when it comes to the clearest indicator of real innovation – patent filings – Israel is the only state in the region keeping pace with the front-runners of the developed world. The Middle East is far behind the pace. The 2008 report of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), based on 2006 statistics – the only currently available figures from this body, show an alarmingly low number of patent filings across the region.

In 2006, no less than 408, 674 patents were filed through patent offices in Japan, and just over 400,000 in South Korea. During the same period the total number of patents filed by Middle Eastern economies, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the UAE, but not including Israel, amounted to just over 2000; 1377 of which came from Egypt alone. Israel managed an impressive 7496 applications, almost all of which came from Israeli residents. Of these applications, the total number of patents granted in Israel in the year 2006 exceeds the total number of applications for the eleven other economies listed above.

Clearly, there are other factors that must be taken into account: –  the devastation of the Iraqi economy after long years of sanctions and war; the political isolation of Iran; the political turmoil in Lebanon and so on. Yet, irrespective of this, low levels of investment in the tertiary education sector and a lack of co-ordination between institutional research and industry, have resulted in what can only be described as a woeful record of technological innovation.

Take Syria, for example. The nation has a solid educational base – its primary and secondary system is based on the French model and, though monitored ideologically by the Baath Party, it’s tertiary sector is not exactly substandard. In 2006, however, on a per capita basis, Syria filed a mere 6 patents for every million citizens, whilst South Korea filed no less than 2591. It goes without saying that one cannot reasonably compare these two economies, but the gap is so vast as to be breath-taking.

In Egypt there are sound institutions and a swag of universities, yet they are overcrowded and underfunded. The real problem, however, and this is something that could be said to apply across the region, is that they do not foster an environment conducive to new research or innovation. Research is conducted primarily as a prerequisite to an academic career and posting. After this, however, the research output of Egyptian universities, and regional universities in general, is very poor in relation to faculty staff numbers. This shortfall in new ideas is then compounded by the absence of strong links between innovation and industry. Egypt’s innovators need an environment that offers them more incentives for new research and innovation, and which links these new ideas with industrial entrepreneurs.

Aside from the economic advantages of encouraging home-grown innovation, an expansion of the range of brands and products emerging from the Middle East can only help to improve perceptions of the region globally. Currently, aside from assorted financial services and highly reputable airlines, very few products and services that are notably Middle Eastern in origin are available in the West. The advantages in terms of positive reception and increased understanding can be seen by changing attitudes towards China, India and Korea, though positive gains can also be tempered by resentment. Clearly such a scale of output is unthinkable for most Middle Eastern economies. Yet if they can’t punch far above their weight, they must aim at least to punch according to their weight. R & D is languishing across most of the region and those with ideas and talent are looking elsewhere to get their ideas off the ground.

Egypt in particular has an impressive manpower resource which could be harnessed to more innovative local industries. Across the entire region there is a strong, intellectual tradition which, as has been proven in all successful developing countries, significantly shortens the journey towards prosperity. Of course, it goes without saying that responsible, green development is the better path to take, but this is by no means a barrier to more rapid development. Either way, the Middle East needs to learn not so much to work harder, but to work considerably smarter.

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Like many other observers, I have been mesmerised by the events unfolding in Tunisia, Egypt and beyond. As a strong advocate of accountable, liberal democracy, it is especially gratifying to see the grass-roots nature of the unrest that has emerged so suddenly, and, it would seem, to the surprise of many. These revolutions and protests are neither politically nor religiously driven, but are rather the spontaneous response of a broad spectrum of the population expressing their discontent. What has made such a popular upwelling of outspokenness possible, in a region where politics have been dominated for so long by religious or political cliques?

These recent events themselves may seem sudden, yet the causes are firmly rooted in the longue durée. The discontent itself is nothing new; what is new is its widespread and open expression. There are several important factors in all this: access to information, the price and availability of food, low wages and unemployment. The impact of improved access to information cannot be underestimated via Mobile phones, Satellite TV, The Internet, Al-Jazeera, Facebook and Twitter in particular. As the spread of technology has progressed in the region, so has public awareness of the geopolitical context in which the Middle Eastern states have been so narrowly aligned. The people of the region have become cognisant of the complexities of global politics, their relative backwardness economically and socially, the scale of their problems compared to those in developed countries, their lack of political freedom, and also the misleadingly narrow nature of their own leaders’ rhetoric. Greater understanding of their internal situation has emerged in parallel with a more sophisticated understanding of life outside the region.

Al-Jazeera has arguably had the biggest impact in all this. An Arab voice and thus a trusted voice, the news network has been operating since 1996, providing a service that was practically non-existent in the region; open discussion of Middle Eastern affairs and politics. For a region dominated by monarchies, dictatorships and oligarchies, in which little real political debate has been allowed to take place, the cumulative effect of witnessing such open discussion from different political perspectives is only now coming to fruition.

We cannot underestimate the power of such a thing. During the June 2009 Iranian elections, televised debates were allowed between the presidential candidates, with each candidate facing the others once. The surprising openness of the political discussion has been cited as pivotal in mobilising the public’s willingness to take to the streets when it became clear in the aftermath of the election that there were many inconsistencies; that the elections had, in effect, been rigged. The open and often very frank, even libellous statements made during the debates inspired thousands of Iranians to discuss their situation more openly on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Socrates famously said that true wisdom is knowing you know nothing. In the Middle East now people at least know how much they don’t know. As they learn more and more about the reality of their situation, economically and politically, they will come increasingly to resent what has been held back from them for so long: the truth. This growing anger at having been duped for so long has now reached a tipping point. It is a remarkable tipping point; a 100% bona fide popular revolution over simple, basic everyday grievances; freedom, food and inequality.

Whilst access to information has spread awareness and discontent, and fuelled a great desire for change and reform, there is little question that the most important mobilising factor is food. The price of food globally has risen dramatically in the last five years. From 2006 onwards there has been a sharp spike in the cost of cereals in particular, driven by droughts and poor harvests in Canada, Australia and other significant grain-producers, and the increased demand for food from the growing Asian middle class. Another important factor has been the use of food-producing land for biofuels and other cash crops. The political consequences have been widespread. There have been riots in Bangladesh, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Senegal, and Yemen to name a few. Many other countries have been forced to ban or reduce exports, and protests have been widespread, even in developed economies such as Italy where strikes and protests followed a 40% increase in the price of pasta in 2007.

The situation in Egypt was particularly dire. The riots in Mahalla in 2008 occurred after the price of food soared by 40%. The government was forced to hand out bonuses to workers, also protesting their low wages, and to massively subsidise the price of wheat, in effect, creating a sort of bread dole. The long queues to collect this vital ration often result in scuffles and occasional violence. The problem is further compounded when we consider the Egyptian dependence on bread. The country is the largest per capita consumer of bread in the world, largely owing to an inability to access or afford alternative foodstuffs. Each Egyptian consumes on average 400 grams of bread per day, which is nearly triple that of some developed nations, for example, France, which consumes on average 130g per day.

It has been said that any society is only three meals from revolution and anxiety over food is perhaps the most potent form of anxiety. The Middle East is a net importer of food and is not currently, nor will it be able to produce enough food to feed its populations. Eighteen out of twenty-two Arab states are classified as water poor by the United Nations. The population of the region is set to double by 2030. Where is the food going to come from? What will the consequences be when drought inevitably returns to Australia, when Canada’s harvest fails again, when a burning Russia again ceases all exports? What will happen when China and India have tapped the last of their aquifers? Even now China is gripped with a terrible drought – the impending need to import food will ensure further spikes in the price of food in the very near future. There is immense potential for further development of agricultural land in Africa, and improved agricultural methods, particularly water retention and the use of drought resistant, GM seeds will take up some of the slack in the future. But while food availability and affordability remain uncertain across the Middle East, no political or religious ideology, no secret police, no martial law will trump the popular demand for bread.

In the longer term there is little certainty that democracy will improve the lives of people in countries like Egypt, beyond giving them a better chance to make the bed they lie in. If a more open consumerist economy emerges, replete with a new middle class, this may only lead to further price increases and the more extreme marginalisation of the poor. One can only hope that, in a best case scenario, wealth distribution is conducted on a far more even footing than it has been in recent decades.

Another significant long term factor in the Middle East is unemployment, and especially youth unemployment. Throughout Africa and the Middle East, unemployment amongst 15-24 year olds averages 25%. In Egypt the figure is 34% whilst it Tunisia it is 31%. These are significant statistics in themselves, but when you consider that across the Middle East two thirds of the population is below the age of 25, the vast scale of the problem becomes truly apparent. In parallel with this development, educational opportunities have expanded significantly; tertiary enrolments in Egypt have double from 14% to 28% in the last twenty years. This means, in effect, that there is a huge cohort of young people, right across the Middle East, many of whom have university educations, but remain unemployed, whilst being aware of and connected to the sort employment and income opportunities throughout the developed world.

Rarely has there been a situation more ripe for potent popular revolution, and there isn’t much that can stop the process now it is underway. It will be several years before the full impact of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions are seen, but as protests increase in Iran, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Jordan, there is little question that popular political expression has gained an inexorable momentum. There will be pauses, disappointments and no doubt many tragic incidents, but right across the Middle East the people have at last begun to empower themselves. They know more than ever now, that for too long they have been held hostage by bullies. For too long they have been pawns in a game that positioned them on account of their attitude to Israel. Does a hungry Egyptian really care whether his government is for or against peace with Israel? For or against an independent Palestinian state? In many cases yes, but they have far more pressing priorities and these must be dealt with first. Their personal needs are far more urgent than the ideological, religious, strategic, or tactical prerogatives of their non-representative governments. The people are speaking and they will continue to speak and nothing and no one is going to stop them now.

Long live the revolution! Long live the people!

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