Gamil Mattar* sees promising new developments in the Arab world that, if steered in the right direction, can deliver the dream of stability to our region I believe that the era of Arab adversity is nearing an end. I am strengthened in this belief by a considerable degree of optimism derived from the fact that conditions in most Arab countries, as well as in the world and in the fields of petroleum production and international trade, in particular, simply cannot withstand more upheaval in the Middle East. Over the past few years, many of the already intricate problems of the region have become more intrinsically intertwined. There are many reasons for this, one of the foremost being that these problems have surfaced simultaneously and converged with others to create a sort of snowball effect. For us in the region, solutions to problems at home are sometimes rendered even more intractable because they are connected to problems or crises beyond our borders and outside of our control. A second salient reason is that the patience of the people of the region has run out. But, instead of giving up hope they have either latched on to powers more supreme than the worldly powers that have appointed themselves as governments and political leaderships, or they have turned to refuges below the level of the state to protect them from the excesses of ruling establishments whose greatest fear is to lose their raison d'être as their subjected peoples vanish through emigration, detachment from society or reversion to the simplicity and security of primitive organic affiliations. The Arabs, like the peoples of Latin America and Southeast Asia, embarked on processes of democratic transition in recent decades. The experiences of these peoples have varied considerably. In Chile, Malaysia, Brazil and Mexico, for example, they have achieved encouraging results, allowing them to concentrate more fully on solving some difficult non-political problems such as those that arose as the result of policies adopted upon the advice of, or forced upon them by, international monetary agencies during the 1980s and 1990s. Elsewhere -- in Bolivia, Venezuela, Russia and Georgia, for example -- they realised that they could not maintain the accelerated pace with which their democratisation processes had begun and that they needed pause to restore social balances and build a sound economy. But if democratisation was put on temporary hold in these countries, compensation came in the form of a healthier economy, greater social justice and a revival of national prestige. A third group of peoples, or, more accurately, governments, balked. They made some tentative gestures towards democratisation but never really put an effort into changing their styles of life and dusting off the generations of inherited dirt and grime in order to allow their potential to grow and develop. As a result, their problems continued to mount, worsen and grow more obdurate. Many countries of different political and ideological outlooks fall into this category. Among them are quite a few Arab countries, Pakistan, Burma, Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries. In many cases, the short-lived stab at democratisation yielded negative consequences for which governments were unprepared and unequipped to handle, while the positive results proved partial or encumbered with restrictions. In other words, the process of political reform took the same turn as economic reform had taken. In both cases, governments were not armed with the foresight, will and, perhaps, conviction needed to counter the detrimental effects of reform and to shore up and safeguard its positive effects. Meanwhile, the international standing of Arab countries continued to deteriorate. They were reproached abroad for not pushing political reform energetically enough or for not taking it seriously at all, and the Arabs, in general, were tagged as inextricably steeped in backwardness and resistant to participating in the progress of modern civilisation. Yet, a more important cause for their declining standing, in my opinion, is their lack of sufficient resolve in capitalising on their strengths in the service of their foreign policies. Not least of these strengths are their geo-strategic position at the juncture between Western powers and emerging Asian powers such as China, India and Russia. In addition, they have failed to draw on their enormous store room of talent and expertise they have in their various think tanks and political and scientific research centres in the processes of foreign policy design. Exactly why they have let these assets go to waste is a subject of controversy. Some analysts subscribe to the commonly held view that many Arab leaders believe that an assertive foreign policy is too risky an endeavour in this age of relentless pressure exerted upon them by Western powers and the US in particular. Others believe that Israel has become, through the aegis of the US and due to its special role in US foreign policy, the prime determinant of the entire network of policies on Middle Eastern issues. I would suggest that the situation is a little more subtle, that Israel is in a unique position to turn certain Arab foreign policies to its advantage in the region and the world and to obstruct other Arab foreign policies. A third facet of the Arabs' dilemma resides in the extent to which waves of migration of peoples and their ideas and troubles have come to dominate the political and economic life of many Arab countries, both recipients and exporters of migrants. The toll these mounting waves of migration are taking is readily apparent. Migration is nothing new in the Gulf. Asian peoples have been flocking there for work for a long time. What is new is the sudden rise in oil wealth that is drawing increasing numbers of people from those parts, along with their own mounting social and political problems. For the densely populated countries, migration to the West in particular carries with it the repressed anger and frustration of widespread unemployment, rampant corruption, incompetent government and institutionalised repression. Migration so heavily laden with need and discontent that it cannot help but remind Western recipient nations of the Vietnamese boat people and offer living testimony to the neglect and abuse meted out by Arab governments on their own people. The economic returns from the remittances of labour abroad may be considerable but they fall far short of compensating for the moral and political losses accruing from the tarnished image of Arab countries, as well as from the declining morale and sense of national commitment among their own peoples. As the foregoing suggests, the Arab state continues to abandon its role as the protector of its people and shepherd of its social, educational and physical welfare. Even so, the grip of a monolithic neo- liberalism continues to compel these countries to sell off their public sector assets without discriminating between one asset and the next or one private sector purchaser and the next. This tendency has set into motion a frenzied race on the part of some Arab countries and many foreign countries to buy up assets and shunt aside the local private sector in the selling country, while with every sale abroad the selling country forfeits a little more of its national sovereignty. It would be no exaggeration to say that for some Arab countries, tightening domestic security is the way the psychologically affected compensate themselves for their weakness abroad and for their obvious inability to perform their social and economic duties. The above mentioned problems are dire indeed, but therein reside the four cornerstones to Arab salvation. The first is to admit the magnitude of the Arab dilemma and to select the most competent political and administrative leaders to steer the way out of the fog. The second is to jettison the seat-of- the-pants and mono-dimensional foreign policy approach that takes its cue solely from the "one great power". There are other powers out there now, some newly emerging, and there are sources of autonomous strength we can draw on. We simply need to identify them and determine the best way to deploy them. The third cornerstone entails emerging from the "ghetto" into which the Arabs have confined themselves or been confined by foreign powers. In this we can draw inspiration from our not too distant past and develop a comprehensive programme for the revival of the national education system and for a system of professional training that will meet the demands of domestic labour and, thereby, regulate the flow of migrant labour and check the brain drain. The fourth and perhaps most important cornerstone involves taking a new and serious look at the question of the war against terrorism. This war, in the way it has been fought up to now, has caused and intensified deep rifts between Arab peoples and their governments, in large part because of the latter's almost knee-jerk recourse to harsh and overbearing security measures as they chorus the chant of the war against terrorism. It is my belief that the only way to restore stability in these countries is for the state to be resurrected in its revered position as an enlightened leader, educator and protector of its people, and for balance to be restored between the state's performance of its security and socio-economic and foreign policy functions. But there is a fifth cornerstone that is rarely touched upon, even though it will provide the inroad to establishing the four cornerstones mentioned above and will simultaneously prove to the international community that we have the right to participate in the formulation of international decisions and in shaping the future of our region. We must prepare thoroughly for the forthcoming Arab summit on economy and development scheduled for next autumn in the hope of turning the summit into a turning point similar to that spearheaded by Chinese President Ding Tsao Ping 30 years ago, and into a campaign similar to that proclaimed by Vladimir Putin against rampant corruption and economic decay, or into a project for unification such as that set into motion by the fathers of modern Europe in the 1950s, or, at the very least, into living ideas such as those propounded by the pioneers of Arab integration and the torchbearers of Arab progress. * The writer is director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
