unfinished opinion / analysis

Advocating Citizen-Level Engagement in the Middle East

Event Summaries and Analysis from: "Passing a Flaming Torch: Mideast Issues & the Next President,” a lecture by Rami Khouri (Feb 20 2008, Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies) and “Religious Freedom and Democratization in the Middle East: Links and Challenges” (Feb 22 2008, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Project on Middle East Democracy).

Diana Greenwald
February 25, 2008

Long before Americans were counting delegates on news tickers while nodding off to sleep each night, foreign policy analysts and regional experts in Washington began brainstorming how U.S. policy in the Middle East might take shape post-Bush and, eventually, “post-Iraq.” Washington has been abuzz with lectures, roundtables, newspaper editorials, strategy sessions, track-two dialogues and the like on how the U.S. might play a constructive role in the region – whether through official government bureaucracies such as the State Department and USAID or through private and independent non-profit organizations and foundations.

I attended two such events last week – a lecture by Rami Khouri at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies on February 20 titled "Passing a Flaming Torch: Mideast Issues & the Next President,” and a panel discussion on religious freedom and democratic development, jointly organized by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) on February 22. In the context of those discussions, summarized below, and the many challenges facing the region – strategic (i.e. terrorist movements, oil prices), humanitarian (i.e. the plight of Gazans, Iraqis) and existential (i.e. the fate of the Lebanese state) – it is hard to know what to do next. Here, I suggest renewed investment in strategies of “citizen-to-citizen diplomacy” that may serve as a useful starting point to reverse the trends of violence, extremism, and political apathy/acquiescence/detachment that are taking root in the broader Middle East. With an estimated one third of the region’s population between the ages of 10 and 24, the potential impact of these trends on the region’s youth is all the more disquieting.

With a new administration taking office in 2009, it is this author’s hope that the White House, U.S. government agencies, policymakers, NGO and business leaders, and individual American citizens will continue to take interest in the frustrated, disenfranchised, and politically apathetic youth in the Middle East through programs that promote civic advocacy and leadership, conflict resolution and peacebuilding, and entrepreneurship and innovation. Discussion of how these programs might work follow the summaries of the two events below. Please note that much of the speakers’ remarks are paraphrased.

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Rami Khouri, political columnist and editor-at-large for the Daily Star newspaper and director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, identified ten themes characterizing recent social and political development in the Middle East that will continue to pose challenges for the next US administration, regional governments, and the international community. In introducing these themes, Khouri emphasized that there is a great degree of overlap between them and they cannot be assessed in isolation from one another:

1. Demographic changes and polarization – Specifically, the region has seen increasing polarization of urban populations along socioeconomic lines. These divisions are leading to urban “hopelessness” among the poorer classes. Khouri noted that similar conditions of severe domestic inequity preceded the rise of the region’s Islamist movements in the late 1970s. A timely article on the risk of rising inflation in the region recently appeared in the New York Times, to substantiate Khouri’s point about these socioeconomic tensions.

2. “Perpetual autocracy” – Whether in the region’s kingdoms or republics, autocratic leaders are turning to new strategies to legitimize their rule – many are relying on modernizing economic reforms to generate investment and provide jobs, however they are never quite able to “catch up” to their growing populations. The central government also seems to be shrinking in some countries however, Khouri stated, “where it does have control, it has more.” Unfortunately, there are no signs of credible transitions to democratic rule in the region right now, Khouri noted.

3. Reconfiguration of state power and authority – There has been a redefinition of multiple centers of political authority within and across traditional state boundaries, including tribal authorities and centers of religious leadership. People in the Middle East, Khouri explained, “are defining their own legitimate authorities” that do not always fit within the single, sovereign state system. This condition of multiple authorities within single sovereign states (i.e. the Hariri-led ruling coalition vs. the pro-Syria-Hizbollah-Aounist faction in Lebanon; the Hamas-led government in Gaza vs. Abu Mazen’s government in the West Bank, etc.) has often been exacerbated by U.S. and international involvement in the region. According to Khouri, this condition of multiple authorities within states is not sustainable, yet it appears that some form of national unity government will have to emerge out of these situations.

4. New balances between "state" and "sub-state" and sectarian identities – Related to the previous point, there are many new types of states, proto-states, and even semi-“city-states,” such as Dubai and Doha, Khouri explained. Sub-state identities (sectarian, tribal, etc.) are coexisting with these state-defined identities.

5. Increasing reliance on violence – Perhaps the most troubling trend that Khouri noted, violence has become a chronic, pervasive, 'normal' and accepted mean of political expression to a startling new degree. He points out that some of the recent violence in Beirut has not been due to governments or organized militias, but just troublesome youth and gangs that are not politically organized, but are committing acts of violence because, in Khouri’s words, they look at Hizbollah, the U.S., Israel, Syria, etc. and determine that “everyone else is doing it.” Violent conflict, while it has always occurred, now pervades the region. How, Khouri asked, can the U.S. address this trend with some 140,000 troops stationed in Iraq?

6. New context of self-assertion, defiance & resistance – Khouri points out that citizens of the Middle East are more actively fighting and resisting what they view as their oppressors, whether that is the Arab security state, Israel, the U.S. or another wielder of power. This challenge to authority is more insistent and open than it was before, and young citizens are fighting over the same issues that faced the generation before them: citizenship, inequity, occupation, repression, lack of accountability and the rule of law, etc. States have limited military capacity, or political will, to address this.

7. Continued centrality of the Arab-Israeli conflict – Khouri points out that with a long-termed, unresolved refugee situation and lack of an organized Palestinian state, this problem will not go away. Examples from Lebanon this summer such as the battles in Nahr al-Bared between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam demonstrate how these refugee camps can be turned into breeding grounds for radicalization by groups who use them for this purpose.

8. New regional security balance – A new regional security architecture, "post-Iraq," will need to be defined. The current arrangement, whereby four non-Arab states are defining and controlling the security balance – the U.S., Iran, Turkey and Israel – is not sustainable, according to Khouri. There must be a shared security arrangement that is defined by regional participants and stakeholders, or else actors such as Hizbollah and Hamas will expectedly “step in to fill the vacuum.”

9. Need to assess and fight terrorism more effectively – The root causes of terror need to be more effectively researched and the U.S.-led war on terror needs to be declared a failure and its strategies reassessed, says Khouri. The U.S. needs to think about using its power in the world in a way that creates more “win-win” scenarios that acknowledge the interests of other actors, including the U.S’s adversaries, and potential shared interests between them.

10. The nexus of sovereignty / legitimacy / security / identity – Khouri’s final observation synthesized the nine points above. He concluded by remarking that most people in the region desire dignity and normalcy but do not feel they live in “sovereign states,” thus they are anxious to engage in self-defining identification and legitimization of their sources of authority. They are worried about their collective and individual security.

Khouri’s “flaming torch” analogy seems to be an apt one to describe the political climate the next American administration will inherit (and Khouri did point out that this is not only the U.S.’s problem by any means, but that a U.S. presidential election marks a convenient turning point) – a dangerous mix of plurality of power centers, polarization of the population along socioeconomic lines, disenchantment of the youth, and an increasing willingness to turn to violence as a means of resistance.

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At the event hosted by the Wilson Center and POMED, moderated by Andrew Albertson (Executive Director, POMED), Thomas Melia (Deputy Executive Director, Freedom House), Joe Stork (Deputy Director, Middle East and North Africa Division, Human Rights Watch), and Thomas Farr (Visiting Associate Professor and Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, Georgetown University; former Director, U.S. Department of State Office of International Religious Freedom) each treated the issue of religious freedom and its relationship to democratic development and consolidation in the region and, more specifically, how the protection of religious freedoms might figure into U.S. democracy promotion and assistance efforts in the region.

Mr. Melia framed his remarks with the general observation that democracy assistance programs often leave out the traditionally “conservative,” religiously devout populations in the broader Middle East which, he stated, is a serious omission. Melia asked: how can we “make the sale” to an undecided, practicing Muslim that their interests are best advanced through a democratic political system?

Melia spoke about several challenges to engaging with religious and traditionally conservative populations, including the common fear in the region of “U.S.-style” democracy as a kind of socially progressive, “extreme” system of political freedoms to the point where traditional family values are perceived as threatened. Additionally, the U.S. government, Melia pointed out, “trips up” over this issue because of its desire to leave out entirely the question of religion when discussing democracy and political systems. Logically, the U.S. does not want to be involved in a discussion of the “correct” application of shari’a law, for example, or to be debating with Muslims on which interpretation of their religion and its texts they will be implementing. However, he implied, the alternative of completely ignoring the fundamental and important role that religion plays in many peoples’ lives in the region is a mistake.

Melia also pointed out the importance of examining the U.S.’s own path to democracy and how we have achieved a high degree of religious freedom in our own country as a way of knowing our own “story” before engaging in other regions.

Mr. Stork spoke of many of the inherent challenges and tensions in the question of religious freedom. He pointed out that the abridgement of freedom to practice and manifest religious belief –which is a more accurate characterization of what freedoms we are referring to when we say “religious freedoms” – is indeed a problem, but also bespeaks the larger, more complex challenge of the politicization of religion and the appropriation of religion and religious ideology by states, opposition movements, and other political actors.

The U.S. has sometimes been forced to take on issues of religious interpretation, something which Melia had earlier implied need not be part of our engagement strategy (i.e. instead of discussing which form of Islamic law and getting into doctrinal debates with Muslims, which is not our place, we should merely insure that the institutions and systems are in place that protect the right of citizens to debate these issues). The ambivalence that characterizes both Islamic political movements and the international response to such movements was exemplified by the ascendance in Algeria of the Islamic Salvation Front in the early 1990s. In dialogues with influential religious leaders in Egypt, Stork pointed out that Human Rights Watch had found a number of sympathetic voices among the religious establishment that were promoting tolerant views on issues such as the legal definition of “apostasy,” for example, that fell in line with international standards for the protection of human and minority rights (see, for example, this recent release by Human Rights Watch welcoming an Egyptian Administrative Court decision to allow Christian converts to Islam to “re-convert” back to Christianity, in spite of government policy that does not recognize these reconversions from Islam on individuals’ national identity cards.) Although, Stork stated, the final question is always what level of responsibility we expect from the state in enforcing these standards.

Thomas Farr concluded the panel by remarking that the “religious freedom deficit” is not only a humanitarian concern, but also a strategic one, for the United States. Farr pointed out that there seems to be an emerging consensus that a dearth of democracy leads to an absence of a certain level of human rights, which often includes an absence of religious freedom, so the existence of a democratic political system does indeed play a role in the level of religious freedom. However, according to Farr, this is an insufficient explanation. Cases like Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq and even Indonesia show high levels of democratic development and civil liberties, but low levels of religious freedom. An emerging issue that we have unfortunately avoided, Farr pointed out, is that there is a problem with religious freedom and Islam, although both secular and theocratic regimes in the Middle East use and manipulate religion for political goals.

The problem with the American strategy up until now, Farr said, is that we have been largely on the defensive – responding to instances of religious persecution instead of attacking the very structures of persecution. We should, he says, be looking for opportunities to advance religious freedom as part of the advancement of democracy, keeping in mind that “if you don’t work out the balance between religion and state” and ensure that Muslims can debate issues of religion freely in a public space, you cannot hope for democracy.

Finally, returning to Thomas Melia’s opening question of why we do not engage with more conservative, traditionally religious voices in the region, Farr pointed out that all of the major foreign policy schools – liberal internationalist, neoconservative, realist – have a convergence of views on this point: they are averse to religion, and specifically Islam, being a part of the foreign policy question. Our “democracy dollars” have, in large part, avoided engagement with the religious establishment and have been attempting, without success, to “build civil societies and democracies as if religion was not the major driver” of self and collective identification in many parts of the world.

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Where do we go from here? Given the dangerous trends identified by Rami Khouri, the paradoxes discussed by the panelists around issues of religious freedom and democracy, and the unpredictability of the current conflicts in Iraq, Israel and Gaza, and Lebanon, the best prescription for U.S. policy can be nothing but tentative.

To characterize it broadly, for now, the U.S. strategy must be an intense, non-ideological investment in the region’s promising youth and emerging civil society leaders. Two questions seem to follow from this suggested strategy:

1. Criteria for “engagement” – who are we willing to allow into the circle?
2. Type of “engagement” – what form of engagement and by whom?

Criteria for engagement – There is a need to allow more individuals in the region to be a part of the critical dialogue on the region’s future development. Much discussion has been given, at the institutional level, as to whether or not the U.S. and U.S. institutions should interact with Islamist parties and religious establishments and political movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Hamas in Palestine. It is important to keep in mind that the strategy promoted here is dealing primarily with youth, who may find themselves politically unaffiliated or apathetic, and not political parties or leaders of political parties. Or they may feel strongly, for instance, that a religiously conservative party such as the MB is less threatening than an authoritarian and corrupt party such as the NDP under Mubarak. The “lowest bar” we could set as a criterion for engagement, it seems, is that all actors who come to the table must reject violence.

Beyond nonviolence, what are the other criteria we could insist on? There is, it seems, certainly a necessity to tailor our level of engagement to depend on our strategic interests at the time – ranging from dialogue with the “other,” to lending capacity-building assistance, to developing and acting on our shared objectives. The political “moderates” – religious and secular – should be the primary targets for the highest-level of engagement. Those who, while still nonviolent, tend toward fundamentalist views (i.e. religious – those who advocate a literal interpretation of religious law and/or hold very traditional views of the role or women, religious minorities, etc. – or nationalist – “extreme nationalism” is more tricky to define: those whose nationalist identity defines all political views and affiliations and/or advocate for secession, new state boundaries, etc.) may be kept at arms-length by being included in a roundtable or dialogue initiative that also brings more moderate voices to the table.

Type of engagement – As stated earlier, the best forms of engagement are programs that promote civic advocacy and leadership, conflict resolution and peacebuilding, and entrepreneurship and innovation. These programs have a history of being best implemented by non-governmental institutions and foundations in the U.S. without partisan allegiances or political agendas. The programs should clearly not be packaged as wholesale “democracy” promotion for many reasons, not the least of which the fact that those actors whom we are primarily including in the process – a generation of politically-alienated youth who do not whole-heartedly identify with their state, monarchy or republic, nor with the various opposition movements or leaders available to them, secular or religious, violent or non-violent – are likely not motivated to achieve change through procedural or institutional avenues such as legal or judicial reform. Then, of course, there are the hard lessons we have learned from past efforts in Iraq and elsewhere to “wipe the slate clean” and parachute in a democratic system that make a strong case for not relying on such outcomes.

Thus, this policy cannot attempt to forcibly export ready-made democratic institutions or cultural norms, however, it also cannot adopt the traditional realist framework that, as Khouri aptly described in Cold War-era lingo, mercilessly divides all states as either “[military] targets” or “markets.” It is in our strategic – not just moral – interest to find out what is going on inside these countries. For example, what are university students in Syria, Palestine, or Egypt thinking and saying about the regional political landscape? What are their opinions on what the role of the international community should be, their thoughts on religion and the protection of minority rights, and their views on the Arab-Israeli conflict? If we are, indeed, still in a “war of ideas,” it should not be one in which we are hoping to sell secularism, progressive liberalism, or U.S.-style democracy, but one in which we demonstrate that, at the most basic level, American citizens want citizens of the broader Middle East to command their own political reality, based on the goals we all share of living in dignity, peace, and security. Let us not, therefore, think of it as a war but, instead, as an exchange of ‘best practices’ toward achieving these goals and an acknowledgement that the domestic political realities in the Middle East will only be transformed through the sustained involvement of its own citizens in the process. A diverse group of voices should be included in this discussion, so that we come as close as possible to representing a microcosm of the regional landscape, with its multitude of political and religious power centers.

A policy that relies on empowering the region’s young, emerging leaders may take a long time to bear fruit, however it is the only certain way to redefine the U.S.’s commitment to the region in the eyes of those who are most susceptible to be tempted toward violent or extremist means. While these programs do require personnel, resources, training, and time, they are far cheaper, less invasive, and less risky than military occupations. This strategy is talking to one person at a time – it is a micro-level effort. It is not an imperialist imposition of a superior political system or way of life: it is a constantly open and free dialogue. Finally, it is a strategy that is not based on military might or the threat of sanctions, but on the hope (to inadvertently borrow a much-worn presidential campaign slogan) that by showing we are interested enough to talk to the next generation of leaders in the region, we will gain their respect and trust.