Oil provides the basis for economic growth. Oil resources are spread unevenly so that some countries benefit disproportionately, but economic growth in one country tends to benefit its neighbours. In the Middle East, where a common language and similar customs facilitate labour mobility and trade, it ought to be straightforward for oil-based economic growth to provide general regional benefit. Judging by past and current performance, this expectation will not be met. In most countries oil wealth will prlilbably not liberate the economic energies of relatively young populations, but will instead act as a palliative - a way for the ruling group to avoid facing up to real problems that confront them.
Middle Eastern oil is set to be an important factor in the global economy for decades ahead unless demand drops. There are three ways that might happen: alternative sources of oil, conservation and non-oil sources of energy. There are modest prospects for conservation and alternative energy sources, thanks to anxiety about the environmental effects of continuing to rely on fossil fuels. And there are some prospects of new oil sources, not least in sub-Saharan Africa. However, China and India will provide comfortably enough demand to match supply as they continue to grow towards their anticipated positions as the world's largest and third largest economies respectively by 2020. A great wealth of natural resources allows a ruling elite to avoid making the kind of sacrifices - or at least, moderation of its appetites that are required for legitimacy among the people. Historically, the need to get taxes approved is one big reason why undemocratic forms of government had to become democratic. When a government can finance itself from oil and buy off troublemakers without taxation, it may calculate it has not much need for the active consent of the governed.
Throughout
the region, deficiencies in democracy and respect for human rights are
all too evident. In many countries, these deficiencies go along with corruption,
inefficiency, extravagance, incompetence and favouritism.
In the Middle
East, with the obvious exception of Israel, virtually all governments refer
to Islam for legitimacy. The difficulty is that Islam is very demanding
about how the faithful should be governed. It generates standards that,
if not formally democratic, nonetheless derive from respect for the worth
and dignity of individuals and from a deep sense of fairness - values that
are themselves at the heart of democracy at its best. These values lead,
for example, to cherishing the idea that the leader should live in a modest
style, as ordinary people do, an ideal embodied in the life of the Prophet.
When and where government is corrupt, extravagant, blind to the welfare
of the people and oppressive, it risks a religious rejection of the government's
claim to legitimacy. By claiming a legitimacy based on faith, governments
risk facing religiously inspired opposition. Ruling groups' strategies
for dealing with the dilemma fall into two categories. They can maintain
themselves by stasis, as with the monarchies or Egypt and Algeria during
the civil war, conceding as little reform as possible. But by blunting
reform, they risk revolution. Other governments keep their balance by permanent
forward momentum Iran, Iraq under Saddam ttIussein, Libya and Syria. They
take one risk after another in confrontations with enemies at home and
abroad, because they will not survive by opting for a quiet life.
 |
As
the Arab world sought independence from European colonial rule, some Arab
thinkers and politicians envisaged a larger goal than independent statehood;
a vision of pan-Arab unity. For a century and a half from the time of Napoleon
Bonaparte's defeat of the Mamluks in Egypt in 1798, the Middle East was
confronted, challenged and, by many measures, bested by Europe. One answer
to the overriding question of how the Arab world should respond to the
challenge of western European power came in the form of anti-colonialism.
But to be against colonial domination could not, neither in logic nor in
political reality, be a matter only of opposing the existing dominant foreign
power. It had to be also a statement - a political programme, in fact -
of the better future that would be obtained through overthrowing colonial
power. Despite some nostalgia for a different empire, by and large the
anti-colonial movements did not seek a return to Ottoman rule; instead,
they sought independence - a new state. As movements for independence got
going however, the pre-existing unity of the region began to influence
political ideas and programmes. Though there are many differences among
Arabs in different parts of the region - inevitably in such large and relatively
thinly populated areas there is also much that is shared in terms of language
and culture, not least religion, history and experience. It is easy to
exaggerate how much is shared; not all Arabs are Muslims, for example,
and there are several different forms of Arabic, some of which are barely
mutually comprehensible. There are also sharp rivalries and different interests
among the Arab elites and, as everywhere, deep cleavages of class and sharp
distinctions between urban and rural dwellers. Nonetheless, Arabs in different
parts of the Middle East have mutual connections that are much stronger
and more real than those to be found among, for example, Europeans in different
parts of Europe. Moreover, advocates of Arab unity argued that, on top
of everything else they shared, the Arab world also had a common enemy
- the West.
 |
