The Peninsula Newspaper
Wednesday, 16 November 2011 01:06
There are enormous challenges imposed by the Arab revolutions, on the structure of authoritarianism, which cordoned off the area for decades and differed from one place to another in the quantity and degree and from country to country from t he Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf and relied on external support compared to the natural resources and insurance of sources of energy and oil supplies. The internal and external challenges ask us to intensify the researches and strategic, political, economic and social studies on the region and its variables so we could deal with the coming challenges without anxiety, fear and surprises.
(1) The website of Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reviewed the conditions in the region under successive Arab revolutions and changes in the region in an expanded and comprehensive report, quoting some academic seminars and reports of studies and research centers and global and regional newspapers. We will try to review the key content and different views. The report indicates that the events in the Arab world in 2011 will have the ability to create change that would be similar to what happened in Eastern Europe following the collapse of the Soviet Union and its systems of governance. It can be said with the optimism that the events in the region may be the start of the course ‘clash of civilizations’ as Huntington sees declining. The crowds that came out this year to protest in the capitals of the Arab countries and in Tehran in 2009 show significantly its problems in the field of human rights, political freedoms, transparency of governance and socio-economic problems. Their demands accumulate to get the program of work charged for many years and related to a great expense. Without straightening the international financial and economic institutions, industrial countries and oil and gas producing countries (particularly those in the Middle East) and without straightening itself there are doubts that ‘Arab spring’ could be exploited in the long course and it will see the same result similar to what is appearing today in eastern Europe after more than twenty years of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
(2) All the signs, numbers and statistics warn that the explosion is about to happen. The international reports indicated that before the outbreak of uprisings in the Arab world the basic economic data in the region was the worst in the world. The total real economic growth in the region in the eighties and nineties of the last century reached 3 percent compared to 4.5 percent in the developing economies. In the years from 1980 to 2010 the increase in gross domestic product per capita in the Middle East was 0.5 percent compared to 3 percent in developing economies. The expected growth has changed in 2011 after the events if we exclude oil and gas producing countries in the Gulf. Now the growth is expected at the rate of 3.6 percent only on average for the entire region in 2011, a decrease from the previous estimate by a third. The economic effects of the Arab spring in the short and medium terms are serious. The continuation of the Intifada will complicate the situation and the ability to face the political effects. Many areas such as construction, tourism and the financial sector in the long run are getting affected. In the short term, the temporary and new governments take into account the populist means such as food products, increase of wages in public sector and no hike in taxes in order to dampen the budget deficit, so the overall picture that we get is a picture of a continuous economic crisis. The International Monetary Fund estimated the financial requirements to meet the all problems faced by the region’s oil importing countries at $ 160bn for 2011 to 2013. The main goal of it is to bring about the economic stability in the maximum maturity even though the partial political, economic and social reforms. We should assume that the fear of demonstrations in the immediate term will at least affect the improvement of the transparency of the systems of governance and reduction of corruption. Without the close and binding supervision more than in the past by the international institutions there is doubt that the emergency assistance will prolong the days of credit.
(3) The common denominator in the revolutions is the protest against the tyranny of the central authority, suppression of individual rights and social and economic corruption as the report indicates. In a number of cases the rebels in succeeded in removing the rulers, but it is clear that their biggest success is in establishing a new base for preparing the political discourse in the Middle East, which is participated by every citizen, temporary central authority that will be replaced after the elections in different countries, civil society despite the difference in its sectors including media which encouraged the citizen to confront the authority. All of this raises many questions: How the achievements of the Arab spring will be preserved in terms of bringing the changes and reforms and approving the same in the long run? What is the relation of the similar procedures (from an external side at least) that occurred in Eastern Europe or Latin America, for example? What is the importance of the Western countries in these procedures in addition to their financial support? Can the Arab countries, especially energy importing countries bear the burden of debt? What is the link between political procedures and the changes, reforms and foreign policy? Is there a direct link between the need to create nearly 100 million work places in the near future and between the success of political reforms? Because of attachment of the economies of the developing Far East countries to the sources of energy of the Middle East can a three party economic partnership be created between the economies that import the energy in the Middle East and the Far East and between the economies that produce the energy in the Middle East, especially the countries of the Gulf?
(4) The larger task that must be carried out by Arab countries that have been knocked by the revolution lies in the thinking in the next day so that no ability should be given to the reactionary forces to attract the revolution to the back as pointed out by Dr. Abdel Moneim Saeed. With regard to the countries that are still struggling in the framework of skirmishes and frictions, there is chance that the existing power will take the initiative before the revolutionary forces not only in liberating the entire political process by launching the serious economic and social development and resistance to corruption. The Arab countries where this revolutionary process has not occurred yet, they first must know that this process will come unless they used the opportunity and all the political and social forces carried out the radical reforms, not the cosmetic ones. During the French Revolution in Europe, the conditions were almost identical in terms of political and social maturity, but the French people created a big massacre and disrupted the independence of the entire European continent over the two decades. With regard to the rest of the countries, especially Britain, it started its revolution in its own way, which was mixed with the political reform and the technological revolution by strengthening the civil society and economic progress at the same time.
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