The Arab Spring has met its Cassandra. While countless analysts and observers gushed that an era of democracy was at hand, John Bradley sat down to write a book that defies almost every assumption underlying the conventional wisdom about the Arab Spring.
Bradley believes that his worst fears have already been realised. In his view, the liberal vanguard of the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt has been overwhelmed by the Islamists, who have begun radically reordering their societies for the worse. (Bradley calls Egypt today an "action replay of Iran in 1979", when Islamists pushed out liberals and leftists after the revolution.) He predicts that the same thing will happen in Syria, asserts that Bahrain crushed its revolt with Saudi assistance and tacit US approval, and maintains that the Libyan and Yemeni revolts were dominated by tribes and Islamists from the start.
Bradley is a British journalist with three other books to his name - including one on Egypt, in which he predicts an uprising against Hosni Mubarak. He has spent years in the region, and brings to After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts a copious amount of first-hand knowledge. He also enlivens his otherwise downbeat and enervating argument with a potent dose of caustic wit, so that even readers relatively confident of democracy's triumph in the Arab world will look about furtively, hoping that Bradley isn't around to add their names to "those who subscribe to the kitten-loving, Facebook Arab Spring narrative".
Nevertheless, one cannot but conclude that Bradley's doomsday prophesying is premature. His pessimism rests largely on two arguments - both of which relate only indirectly to the current situation. The first is that a number of the Islamist leaders who claim to be moderate have made extremist statements in the past. (Bradley pays special attention to Rachid Ghannouchi, chief of Tunisia's Ennahda party.) The second is that when Islamists have secured a share of power in other countries - such as Malaysia and Indonesia, which Bradley discusses extensively in an informative but digressive chapter - they have not moderated their earlier views, despite having initially pretended otherwise. Bradley extrapolates that Islamists in the Arab world will be the same.
While Bradley deftly analyses Islamists' political strategies, he tends to overestimate their long-term success. He is correct that Islamists often compensate for being a numerical minority both by utilising long-established grassroots networks and by voting en masse, ending up with a share of power disproportionate to their true numbers. "The Islamists, to put it simply, do not need majority support from the total population to triumph in elections," he notes. "They need a majority within the minority who vote." Bradley adds that, in post-revolt elections in Tunisia and Egypt, overall voter turnout was low, and attributes this phenomenon to the masses having risen up due to lack of economic opportunity, not a desire to engage in party politics.
But what about the day after the elections, when the Islamists find themselves in power and the people expect tangible improvements in their lives, as opposed to increased personal restrictions? Bradley makes no mention of Gaza-governing Hamas having softened its initial zeal with time. And even though he observes that in Indonesia, voters turned against the Islamists in 2009, he apparently cannot conceive of a similar phenomenon occurring in any of the Arab countries currently falling under the Islamists' sway. In fact, Bradley seems to think that Islamists in Egypt and elsewhere will subvert the nascent democratic process so thoroughly that there will be no way to dislodge them.
Although the author should be commended for his unflinching examination of economic setbacks caused by the mass upheavals and the attacks on personal freedoms launched by emboldened Islamists, he veers into exaggeration. To hear Bradley tell it, the economic damage done will take decades to reverse, while the transgressions by Islamists are bound to increase and worsen. The author also generalises quite a bit. For example, the Libyan rebels did include Islamist contingents, but to Bradley all the rebels were Islamists and Muammar Qaddafi was secular: "The 'rebels' were religious extremists fighting to impose Islamic law in Libya once secular Qaddafi was ousted."
Granted, when it comes to international politicking, the author has reasons to be alarmed. He points to US acquiescence in Saudi Arabia's collusion with the Bahraini regime in suppressing the revolt in that country as proof of Western hypocrisy. And he lays bare much of the realpolitik behind Saudi's support of Nato in Libya. According to Bradley, the West wanted Libya's oil. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia wanted to crush the largely Shiite uprising against a Sunni minority in Bahrain. "This allowed the Saudis to make a deal with Washington: Let us invade Bahrain and we will vote for UN Resolution 1973, which kick-started the Nato intervention in Libya by authorising 'all necessary force' to protect civilians."
Bradley does not spare Iran, that other regional behemoth. He details Iran's quashing of domestic dissent and its support for the currently embattled Syrian regime as well as Hizbollah in Lebanon. (Iran also sponsors Hamas.)
But he proceeds to adopt a wholly defeatist attitude, claiming that "if the Arab Spring had even a remote chance of ushering in a wave of progressive change, it would have had to challenge, in concrete and progressive ways, the internal power structures and region-wide influence of both countries. A tall order indeed."
For him, the Arab Spring is over and the results are not positive: "The Arab Spring has been a dismal failure. All indications are that what comes next will be significantly worse than what existed before, in Tunisia and everywhere else, and the traumatic events up to now have already caused untold havoc and violence and made the lives of innocent ordinary people even more miserable than they already were. Socially and economically, the Arab Spring has put back countries like Tunisia, Yemen, and Syria by decades."
The main problem with After the Arab Spring is that, although Bradley's criticism of Islamists and their western cheerleaders often hits its mark, he fails to discern the long-term positive effects of political democratisation in the Arab world. Given that the situation in autocratic Arab countries was (by his own admission) untenable, change was bound to happen. And since the regimes were adamantly opposed to ceding political or even economic power, their overthrow became the only way to effect change. This realisation makes it clear that the sooner such regimes were toppled the better, as there is no sense in postponing the inevitable and prolonging people's agony.
The chief caveat attending the otherwise joyous overthrow of sclerotic Arab regimes is admittedly that Islamists will assume a greater socio-political role. As Bradley shows, this has already happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and will probably happen in Yemen and Syria. The immediate results of this disturbing phenomenon are fewer personal freedoms, greater censorship and harassment of women and religious minorities. Bradley does well to force readers - many of whom may be unrealistically sanguine about recent events - to confront the dark side of the Arab Spring.
Yet paradoxically, unrestricted political expression and activity on the part of Islamists will impel liberals to openly oppose them. Hitherto, Arab liberals and Islamists would often close ranks against autocratic regimes, thoroughly deforming the politico-ideological arena and rendering any distinctions other than pro- or anti-regime purely theoretical.
The two developments enabling a rectification of this political aberration are a general receding of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the toppling of autocratic Arab regimes. So long as Arabs were obsessively focused on Israel, much of their political energy was directed towards events over which they had little influence. Of course, the autocratic regimes exploited their people's pro-Palestinian sympathies and anti-Israeli animus so as to deflect attention from themselves.
Once the Arab-Israeli conflict began to diminish in importance, Arabs in various countries began to focus more on their own rulers' faults. But in order to seriously challenge regimes, opposition groups had to unite. This alliance of convenience ends as soon as the regimes fall. At that point, liberals and Islamists can get on with the business of promoting liberalism and Islamism, respectively, as opposed to devoting their energies to fighting the common enemy.
This is what has happened in those countries in which the dictatorial regimes were overthrown. To be sure, the Islamists have the upper hand in their growing confrontation with liberals. Islam, upon which their movements claim to be built, remains the single most powerful component of identity for many Muslims, and the main focus of their loyalties. And, as Bradley demonstrates, unlike the frequently elitist liberals, Islamists have been laying the socio-cultural groundwork for their political decisions for decades by working among the masses.
But at least the battle lines have been drawn. Liberals and Islamists will no longer be bedfellows in those Arab countries that have liberated themselves from tyranny. A political fight that should have taken place a long time ago has finally begun. Hopefully, whichever party emerges triumphant will respect democratic norms and avoid emulating its predecessor's approach to most political opponents.
Rayyan Al-Shawaf is a writer and book critic in Beirut.
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Race card
4pm Al Bastakiya Listed US$300,000 (Dirt) 1,900m
4.35pm Mahab Al Shimaal Group 3 $350,000 (D) 1,200m
5.10pm Nad Al Sheba Turf Group 3 $350,000 (Turf) 1,200m
5.45pm Burj Nahaar Group 3 $350,000 (D) 1,600m
6.20pm Jebel Hatta Group 1 $400,000 (T) 1,800m
6.55pm Al Maktoum Challenge Round-3 Group 1 $600,000 (D) 2,000m
7.30pm Dubai City Of Gold Group 2 $350,000 (T) 2,410m
The National selections:
4pm Zabardast
4.35pm Ibn Malik
5.10pm Space Blues
5.45pm Kimbear
6.20pm Barney Roy
6.55pm Matterhorn
7.30pm Defoe
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The biog
Favourite car: Ferrari
Likes the colour: Black
Best movie: Avatar
Academic qualifications: Bachelor’s degree in media production from the Higher Colleges of Technology and diploma in production from the New York Film Academy
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre 6-cyl turbo
Power: 374hp at 5,500-6,500rpm
Torque: 500Nm from 1,900-5,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 8.5L/100km
Price: from Dh285,000
On sale: from January 2022
Friday’s fixture
6.15pm: Al Wahda v Hatta
6.15pm: Al Dhafra v Ajman
9pm: Al Wasl v Baniyas
9pm: Fujairah v Sharjah
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Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Rain Management
Year started: 2017
Based: Bahrain
Employees: 100-120
Amount raised: $2.5m from BitMex Ventures and Blockwater. Another $6m raised from MEVP, Coinbase, Vision Ventures, CMT, Jimco and DIFC Fintech Fund
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
Starring: Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, Jenny Ortega
Director: Tim Burton
Rating: 3/5
Company Profile
Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million
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About Tenderd
Started: May 2018
Founder: Arjun Mohan
Based: Dubai
Size: 23 employees
Funding: Raised $5.8m in a seed fund round in December 2018. Backers include Y Combinator, Beco Capital, Venturesouq, Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, Paul Buchheit, Justin Mateen, Matt Mickiewicz, SOMA, Dynamo and Global Founders Capital