Cancer of the status quo

The Carnegie Endowment for Middle East Peace hosted two panels on Tuesday for the release of their new study Arab Horizons: Pitfalls and Pathways to Renewal. The report was the second major installment within the Arab Horizons project launched by Carnegie 3 years ago. William Burns, president of Carnegie, introduced the report and discussed the history of the Arab Horizons project, saying, “the object was straightforward, if ambitious: to look beyond the tumult around us, to the long-term trajectory of the region, its people and its place in the world. What we wanted to offer was an updated picture of the human and political landscapes of the region, building less on pronouncements and prescriptions from Washington, and more on the perspectives from Carnegie’s network across the Arab world.”

“The Arab regional order is collapsing: politically, economically, socially even. We don’t have answers to any of these questions, but… lets go back to first principles and try to provide a road map for leaders, policy makers, activists and citizens.”

– Perry Cammack

The first report, Arab Fractures, Burns described as an updated assessment of the Middle East, “by the region, for the region, for all those with a stake in its future.” The latest installment, Pitfalls and Pathways to Renewal, offered a set of principles and recommendations, “to address the stark diagnosis” in the first report.

Burns acknowledged Jamal Kashoggi as one of the project’s partners and addressed his abduction and murder as indicative of the lack of tolerance for “stubborn, independent journalists, unafraid to speak truth to power” within the current social contract of the Arab world. “It’s a region where authoritarians feel the wind in their sails, and it is a time where democracies around the world, including my own, are adrift and losing their way.” Burns lamented ailing institutions and the increasing politics of fear, but, “all of this reminds us of the urgent task of rewriting the social contract in the Arab world.” Social contract was the buzzword of the day throughout a discussion which was at turns hopeful for the talents of the Arab people and scathingly critical of the leadership from their governments.

The first discussion featured Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights 2014-2018 and former Jordanian Ambassador to the US, and moderator Marwan Muasher, vice president for studies at Carnegie and former Jordanian foreign minister. Reminiscing with each another, Zeid laughed over past tensions between two career civil servants who shared a vision for the future of their country, but at times disagreed on how to get there. He shared with the crowd how after his retirement from the civil service he and Marwan sat down over ceviche in New York to chat, and Marwan took the opportunity to ask him, “How many of my instructions as foreign minister do you think you actually implemented as the ambassador?” “For you, my friend” Hussein replied, “maybe 70%.”

Hussein communicated through anecdotes, walking through pivotal moments and realizations in his career which shaped his outlook on the region and the world. Again and again his stories homed in on key policy grievances in the Middle East: lack of commitment to individual rights and free thought. This problem is symptomatic of an incomplete transition from tribal to modern states and a stubborn unwillingness by Arab politicians to call a spade a spade or confront their failures.

The second panel featured Marwan Muasher again, along with Perry Cammack, a fellow in the Middle East program at Carnegie, both contributors to the report, along with Rabah Azreki, chief economist for the Middle East and North African Region at the World Bank and Hala Aldosari, a researcher and scholar on human rights and women’s health at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. Elise Labott, CNN’s global affairs correspondent, moderated.

“The Arab world has two choices and two choices only: either the headache of change or the cancer of the status quo”

 – Marwan Muasher

Discussion reverted repeatedly to stagnation and change, locked in conflict. The oil economy has long sustained rentier states, headed by leaders who resisted change as a matter of principal. As oil prices drop, the social bargains they supported are buckling, explaining the events Muasher described as the last kick of authoritarianism in the region. It all led neatly to one pressing need: to renew the social contract in the Arab world in a way that puts citizens first.

The West errs in seeing each new generation of the old guard as reformers. Symbolic gestures along the lines of Saudi Arabia allowing women the right to drive, even while imprisoning Saudi activists who advocated those reforms, are evidence of an empty promise designed to stall the will of the people, not further it. The idea that change in the Middle East needs to be led by authoritarian reformers is false. In fact the people have been leading.

As the discussion swayed between hope and fear for the near future of the Arab world, a central narrative emerged: the Arab world desperately needs change, the people know this, and yet as change hurtles towards them at frightening speed, the current political leaders cling desperately and futilely to the status quo. A diverse wealth of human capital promises to hold the keys to that change if their leaders will only invest in them and hand them the reins. What remains to be seen is if change will be given or taken.