The CIA under US President Dwight Eisenhower orchestrated a coup d’etat in 1953 against the Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mosaddeq, one of the first democratically elected leaders in the region. It took the US government half a century to admit any wrongdoing and offer a tepid apology to the Iranian people for meddling in their affairs. Madeleine Albright, the former US Secretary of State, announced in the twilight of the Clinton administration that “it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs”. Too little, too late.
Mr Mossadegh had irked Britain and the US when he nationalised the Iranian oil industry. The Iranian people never forgave the US for his removal and 30 years ago this month they expelled the Shah after months of riots and rallies in the street, replacing him with the Ayatollah Khomeini as their unquestionable leader. Ironically, the revolution of 1979 included not only religious leaning conservatives but also communists, nationalists as well as liberals. People from all walks of life resented what the American government had done in 1953 as well as the wide spread corruption in the Iranian government, and the Shah as its embodiment. Similarly, Khomeini, consciously or not, came to embody a way forward. He was the anti-Shah who called for the outright ousting of the former emperor and won the support of Iranians across the board.
Initially, Khomeini appointed a western educated liberal by the name of Mehdi Bazargan who had volunteered for the French army to fight against Nazi Germany. Mr Bazargan campaigned for human rights and democracy during the rule of the Shah and continued to appeal for calm and reason throughout the revolution.
On November 4 1979, upon hearing the news of the US embassy’s takeover by Iranian youth, and the Ayatollah’s condoning of it, prime minister Bazargan resigned in protest as he had previously given American diplomats assurance of their safety. That is the day the revolution lost its way. Iran has gone from crisis to crisis ever since.
First Iran tried so called “collaborators” within the previous regime in makeshift overnight courts and went as far as executing some of them. Then the hostage crisis emerged, lasting 444 days, and when it concluded, Iran entered into a futile war with the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein that lasted eight long years.
Iran paradoxically seemed to be more occupied with issues further afield and neglect matters in its immediate surroundings. Backing Hizbollah, Hamas, Venezuela and Syria would be less odd if Iran had spent some time tackling issues in its immediate vicinity and within its own borders. For example, Iran reinforced its occupation of three of the UAE’s islands, refusing to enter into any talks with the UAE Government toward a settlement, contributing to tensions with its Arab Gulf neighbours.
On its north-western border, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has yet to be resolved. The re-emergence of the Taliban, an ultra conservative rival to Iran’s Shia regime to its north-east seems to have escaped the Iranian government’s attention. And to its west, Iran has neglected the Kurdish question. Kurds comprise 15 per cent of the population and share sympathies with their brethren in Iraq and Turkey. News reports have even claimed that Osman Ocalan, the brother of the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan sought refuge in Iran’s Kurdish territory in 2007.
On Iran’s south-west border with Pakistan, the Jundollah, or God’s Soldiers, made up of disenfranchised Sunni militants from Iran’s neglected Baluchi minority, have taken up an armed struggle against the government. In 2007 they kidnapped 30 people and killed 11 Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In 2008 they abducted and killed 16 policemen.
And most importantly, within its borders Iran has to deal with an unemployment rate of 20 per cent and a staggering rate of inflation at 26 per cent, as well as dwindling oil revenues.
This is not an exercise in bashing Iran, a country for which I have a lot of respect. It is however an exercise to point to the challenges that are facing the country on its immediate borders and within.
Thankfully, the UAE Government has taken the right path in its dealings with Iran by continuing to emphasise good neighbourly relations as well as trade links. A revealing example of how importantly Iran regards its trade with the UAE emerged when it described the US pressure to limit the UAE’s trade with Iran as “illegal”, saying it would jeopardise the region’s economy.
Finally, maybe Iran should consider concentrating on its immediate challenges such as tackling unemployment and cross border terrorism rather than waste time with Hugo Chavez’s deliriums, Hassan Nasrallah and Khaled Meshaal’s empty rhetoric and the Holocaust denial conferences.
Maybe then, just maybe, the Iranian revolution would once again find its way.
This article was first published in The National on Sunday, February 8th 2009
Sunday, 8 February 2009
Sunday, 1 February 2009
Of Arabs, Jews and an internet that never forgets
Not long ago I received an e-mail that included as an attachment a few pictures of prominent Gulf sheikhs in what appeared to be compromising situations. There was one of a certain UAE former minister with Shimon Perez, the Israeli president, when the latter was foreign minister. Another showed a dignitary in what looked like a discotheque. Needless to say all the pictures carried captions under them sarcastically praising their Excellencies for their "hard work".
None of the e-mails concerning these public figures explained the circumstances under which the photos had been taken. For example, was what appeared to be a nightclub in fact a charity ball? Probably not, but that's beside the point. We happen to know that sensationalism works: if you doubt that, just turn on a certain Arabic news channel.
In the autumn of last year Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed of the Abu Dhabi ruling family bought Manchester City football club. Negotiations on behalf of the buyer were conducted by Sulaiman al Fahim. For some followers in the UAE community Mr al Fahim's popularity ratings went from overnight fame to notoriety because of some pictures of him with the socialite, actress and model Kim Kardashian that appeared on the internet. He explained the circumstances by saying: "All there is to it is that I was invited to the opening of a restaurant in Las Vegas and the actresses took these shots with me."
Fair enough. The truth is that many of those who criticised him, including bloggers, journalists and e-mail-forwarding timewasters, have a few skeletons in their own closets that they would probably not want to appear all over the internet.
I have some of my own. Eleven years ago, when I was a 20-year-old student in Paris, a visiting GCC official delegation invited me and some friends for dinner at Nino's, a Jewish-Tunisian owned restaurant in the 17th arrondissement. Shortly after we sat down, I sensed the presence of a man twice my size standing right behind me, blaring out in broken Arabic-Iraqi dialect: "Welcome, my Gulf brothers!" Were we that obvious, I wondered – until I learnt that it was the restaurant manager who had pointed us out. The heavy breathing hoverer was none other than Yitzhak Mordechai, the former Israeli Minister of Defence whose conviction a couple of years later on charges of sexual misconduct during his military service ended his public life. "Come visit us in Jerusalem" he yelled. "You visit us in Jerusalem one day," a Bahraini delegate answered back, and that was the end of that one-minute, friendly, tense encounter.
I couldn't help but wonder, as I saw some of the e-mails recently: what if someone had taken my picture with that undesirable and e-mailed it around? The repercussions would certainly have been more serious for my hosts, some of whom currently run large airline businesses in the Gulf.
Another "skeleton" was exposed when my name was published on the Washington Post website recently as a donor to the Clinton Foundation. I had partly sponsored a youth exchange programme three years ago that brought together Muslim, Christian and Jewish children to learn to live in a diverse world. Oh, the horror.
On that subject, David Ben-Gurion, the founder of Israel, speaking about Palestinian refugees in 1949, said: "The old will die and the young will forget." Yes and no. On the initiative of a good friend from Kuwait, I also participated a few years ago in sponsoring a project known as the Nakba Archive, the purpose of which is simply to record hours of testimonies of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war with Israel who are now living in the camps in Lebanon. Thanks to the digital age and the internet, only the first half of Mr Ben-Gurion's prediction will come true. Researchers can forever access these testimonies on the internet to hear and see what this rapidly thinning generation has to say.
Last year I had to take the very difficult decision to let go of someone who works for one of our organisations. It was because of an e-mail that she sent to another institution despite my explicit instructions not to contact that party. The e-mail made it literally half-way around the world before appearing in my inbox several days later. One must keep in mind that once the "send" button is pressed there is no way of undoing that: unlike human beings, the internet never forgets. E-mails, including small comments that are sent in jest, find a way to inconveniently reappear sooner or later.
Technology doesn't always work in one's favour, which could be something very positive for governance in the Arab world as we lack even the basic understanding of transparency. For example, it may keep officials in check when they finally realise that their actions, intentional or not, are recorded for ever and can't be undone. Who knows? Maybe, thanks to the internet, one-day corruption in the Middle East will once again become taboo, rather than practiced in broad daylight.
Diamonds don't last for ever. The internet does – and it never forgets.
This article was first published in The National newspaper on Sunday February 1st 2009
None of the e-mails concerning these public figures explained the circumstances under which the photos had been taken. For example, was what appeared to be a nightclub in fact a charity ball? Probably not, but that's beside the point. We happen to know that sensationalism works: if you doubt that, just turn on a certain Arabic news channel.
In the autumn of last year Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed of the Abu Dhabi ruling family bought Manchester City football club. Negotiations on behalf of the buyer were conducted by Sulaiman al Fahim. For some followers in the UAE community Mr al Fahim's popularity ratings went from overnight fame to notoriety because of some pictures of him with the socialite, actress and model Kim Kardashian that appeared on the internet. He explained the circumstances by saying: "All there is to it is that I was invited to the opening of a restaurant in Las Vegas and the actresses took these shots with me."
Fair enough. The truth is that many of those who criticised him, including bloggers, journalists and e-mail-forwarding timewasters, have a few skeletons in their own closets that they would probably not want to appear all over the internet.
I have some of my own. Eleven years ago, when I was a 20-year-old student in Paris, a visiting GCC official delegation invited me and some friends for dinner at Nino's, a Jewish-Tunisian owned restaurant in the 17th arrondissement. Shortly after we sat down, I sensed the presence of a man twice my size standing right behind me, blaring out in broken Arabic-Iraqi dialect: "Welcome, my Gulf brothers!" Were we that obvious, I wondered – until I learnt that it was the restaurant manager who had pointed us out. The heavy breathing hoverer was none other than Yitzhak Mordechai, the former Israeli Minister of Defence whose conviction a couple of years later on charges of sexual misconduct during his military service ended his public life. "Come visit us in Jerusalem" he yelled. "You visit us in Jerusalem one day," a Bahraini delegate answered back, and that was the end of that one-minute, friendly, tense encounter.
I couldn't help but wonder, as I saw some of the e-mails recently: what if someone had taken my picture with that undesirable and e-mailed it around? The repercussions would certainly have been more serious for my hosts, some of whom currently run large airline businesses in the Gulf.
Another "skeleton" was exposed when my name was published on the Washington Post website recently as a donor to the Clinton Foundation. I had partly sponsored a youth exchange programme three years ago that brought together Muslim, Christian and Jewish children to learn to live in a diverse world. Oh, the horror.
On that subject, David Ben-Gurion, the founder of Israel, speaking about Palestinian refugees in 1949, said: "The old will die and the young will forget." Yes and no. On the initiative of a good friend from Kuwait, I also participated a few years ago in sponsoring a project known as the Nakba Archive, the purpose of which is simply to record hours of testimonies of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war with Israel who are now living in the camps in Lebanon. Thanks to the digital age and the internet, only the first half of Mr Ben-Gurion's prediction will come true. Researchers can forever access these testimonies on the internet to hear and see what this rapidly thinning generation has to say.
Last year I had to take the very difficult decision to let go of someone who works for one of our organisations. It was because of an e-mail that she sent to another institution despite my explicit instructions not to contact that party. The e-mail made it literally half-way around the world before appearing in my inbox several days later. One must keep in mind that once the "send" button is pressed there is no way of undoing that: unlike human beings, the internet never forgets. E-mails, including small comments that are sent in jest, find a way to inconveniently reappear sooner or later.
Technology doesn't always work in one's favour, which could be something very positive for governance in the Arab world as we lack even the basic understanding of transparency. For example, it may keep officials in check when they finally realise that their actions, intentional or not, are recorded for ever and can't be undone. Who knows? Maybe, thanks to the internet, one-day corruption in the Middle East will once again become taboo, rather than practiced in broad daylight.
Diamonds don't last for ever. The internet does – and it never forgets.
This article was first published in The National newspaper on Sunday February 1st 2009
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
There must be no room for elitism in the Gulf
The biggest talking point in the past few days among the citizens of the Gulf countries wasn’t the inauguration of President Barack Obama. In fact, it was something that at face value seems insignificant, yet carries deep meaning.
Mobile audio messages, e-mails and internet postings carried recordings across the region of a now notorious five-minute phone call made to the official Saudi state sports TV channel. The phone call came from Muscat, in the sultanate of Oman, host city of the 19th Gulf Football Cup. Briefly, the humiliating tirade went like this:
The caller talks about one of the football commentators in the studio. “Jassim,” he says, “is speaking from ignorance, he has no idea what he’s talking about. You are all discussing something that you don’t know. Respect yourself. You and those like you want to evaluate players? You have to stay quiet or speak the truth. How can you talk like you are the saviour? You took more than what is allowed. You have to be polite. If you haven’t been brought up properly we will know how to bring you up.” The caller hangs up abruptly. The presenter thanks him.
The caller was in fact Prince Sultan bin Fahd, son of the late King Fahd, and the current president of the Saudi Arabia Football Federation. A video recording of his tirade has been posted numerous times on YouTube, and as I write this it has been viewed more than 600,000 times.
There are two aspects to this story. First, even considering the caller’s history of emotional outbursts, such harsh criticism by a senior member of the royal family on live TV was a surprise to many in the Gulf, who have been accustomed to at least a facade of mutual respect between the rulers and their subjects, as dictated by the Bedouin and Arab customs of the region.
Second, the repercussions of such public scolding could compel commentators to hold back on criticism – not only regarding sports analysis, but on issues extending beyond trivialities. These live talk programmes that emulate western debate shows after major football games draw many journalists and commentators, and such criticism will surely lead to self-censorship. Subsequently, The Observers forum on the website of the international news and current affairs TV channel France 24 carried a translation of a cartoon in which a Saudi man drags a compatriot to the entrance of a TV studio. “Come on, don’t be scared,” the first man is saying. “No, no, I don’t want to, I don’t want to,” replies the other.
The Arabic news networks Elaph and Al Arabiya, both of which are closely affiliated with the family of the caller, went as far as allowing their readers to post scores of critical comments about the caller’s remarks. “Abu Tamim” wrote: “There is no doubt that the pundits made some mistakes, but the powerful man’s mistakes were bigger and he should apologise.” “Hugo” wrote: “These men are from respected families and such language should not be used even against criminals.” “Saudi1123” wrote: “What happened live on air went beyond the acceptable.” Clearly, such comments concerning a public figure are something that we are not used to reading in the Gulf very often – until now, that is, largely thanks to the internet.
The truth is that had the tirade come from an anonymous caller the TV station would have cut the call without hesitation. However, many believe that it is precisely because the caller is a known figure and represents the ruling family that he should have not let his emotions get the better of him, and should have kept in mind that respect isn’t a one-way relationship.
By coincidence, on the very same day that those football commentators were verbally abused by a member of the Saudi royal family, the Federal National Council in the UAE sanctioned proposed new legislation to regulate the media, which would increase significantly the fines imposed on journalists who criticise the ruling families and “harm the economy”. The two events are connected because they go to the heart of the relationship between the general public and those who govern them. In a well ordered society it is the duty of a responsible press and media to represent the public interest. They cannot do that if they have to operate under a perpetual cloud of threatened legal action from a vague and unclear law. The parliamentarians could have taken a page out of Saudi Arabia’s book regarding the polite and respectful criticism of a senior ruler published on government-sanctioned websites.
It is imperative that the UAE remain a country of equality, rather than one that tolerates elitism under any guise. The decision by the Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid, to prohibit the jailing of journalists was a welcome step. However, enacting a law that effectively instils a separation in the minds of people between themselves and the Government will surely lead to resentment.
Also, the proposed new law assumes that it is only one category of society that deserves protection. It is unacceptable in the Arab Gulf states that some members of society are given ample time live on TV to freely criticise, while others would be fined for doing the same.
After all, respect is not a one-way boulevard but a two-way street.
Sultan Al Qassemi is a Sharjah-based businessman and graduate of the American University of Paris. He is the founder of Barjeel Securities in Dubai
This article first appeared in The National newspaper on Tuesday, January 27th 2009
Mobile audio messages, e-mails and internet postings carried recordings across the region of a now notorious five-minute phone call made to the official Saudi state sports TV channel. The phone call came from Muscat, in the sultanate of Oman, host city of the 19th Gulf Football Cup. Briefly, the humiliating tirade went like this:
The caller talks about one of the football commentators in the studio. “Jassim,” he says, “is speaking from ignorance, he has no idea what he’s talking about. You are all discussing something that you don’t know. Respect yourself. You and those like you want to evaluate players? You have to stay quiet or speak the truth. How can you talk like you are the saviour? You took more than what is allowed. You have to be polite. If you haven’t been brought up properly we will know how to bring you up.” The caller hangs up abruptly. The presenter thanks him.
The caller was in fact Prince Sultan bin Fahd, son of the late King Fahd, and the current president of the Saudi Arabia Football Federation. A video recording of his tirade has been posted numerous times on YouTube, and as I write this it has been viewed more than 600,000 times.
There are two aspects to this story. First, even considering the caller’s history of emotional outbursts, such harsh criticism by a senior member of the royal family on live TV was a surprise to many in the Gulf, who have been accustomed to at least a facade of mutual respect between the rulers and their subjects, as dictated by the Bedouin and Arab customs of the region.
Second, the repercussions of such public scolding could compel commentators to hold back on criticism – not only regarding sports analysis, but on issues extending beyond trivialities. These live talk programmes that emulate western debate shows after major football games draw many journalists and commentators, and such criticism will surely lead to self-censorship. Subsequently, The Observers forum on the website of the international news and current affairs TV channel France 24 carried a translation of a cartoon in which a Saudi man drags a compatriot to the entrance of a TV studio. “Come on, don’t be scared,” the first man is saying. “No, no, I don’t want to, I don’t want to,” replies the other.
The Arabic news networks Elaph and Al Arabiya, both of which are closely affiliated with the family of the caller, went as far as allowing their readers to post scores of critical comments about the caller’s remarks. “Abu Tamim” wrote: “There is no doubt that the pundits made some mistakes, but the powerful man’s mistakes were bigger and he should apologise.” “Hugo” wrote: “These men are from respected families and such language should not be used even against criminals.” “Saudi1123” wrote: “What happened live on air went beyond the acceptable.” Clearly, such comments concerning a public figure are something that we are not used to reading in the Gulf very often – until now, that is, largely thanks to the internet.
The truth is that had the tirade come from an anonymous caller the TV station would have cut the call without hesitation. However, many believe that it is precisely because the caller is a known figure and represents the ruling family that he should have not let his emotions get the better of him, and should have kept in mind that respect isn’t a one-way relationship.
By coincidence, on the very same day that those football commentators were verbally abused by a member of the Saudi royal family, the Federal National Council in the UAE sanctioned proposed new legislation to regulate the media, which would increase significantly the fines imposed on journalists who criticise the ruling families and “harm the economy”. The two events are connected because they go to the heart of the relationship between the general public and those who govern them. In a well ordered society it is the duty of a responsible press and media to represent the public interest. They cannot do that if they have to operate under a perpetual cloud of threatened legal action from a vague and unclear law. The parliamentarians could have taken a page out of Saudi Arabia’s book regarding the polite and respectful criticism of a senior ruler published on government-sanctioned websites.
It is imperative that the UAE remain a country of equality, rather than one that tolerates elitism under any guise. The decision by the Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid, to prohibit the jailing of journalists was a welcome step. However, enacting a law that effectively instils a separation in the minds of people between themselves and the Government will surely lead to resentment.
Also, the proposed new law assumes that it is only one category of society that deserves protection. It is unacceptable in the Arab Gulf states that some members of society are given ample time live on TV to freely criticise, while others would be fined for doing the same.
After all, respect is not a one-way boulevard but a two-way street.
Sultan Al Qassemi is a Sharjah-based businessman and graduate of the American University of Paris. He is the founder of Barjeel Securities in Dubai
This article first appeared in The National newspaper on Tuesday, January 27th 2009
Sunday, 18 January 2009
Hopeless in Gaza: it didn’t have to be this way
I recall as a child being told the old saying: “There’s no use crying over spilt milk.” On Thursday evening, as I made my modest contribution to the Dubai Cares Gaza campaign by carrying boxes filled with school bags, I suddenly felt my eyes watering up. For I thought to myself that each bag I filled with school equipment and piled on top of the others to be shipped to the helpless children of Gaza represented a child, probably one who had lost his mother, or father or entire family.
For each bag that we filled there was another that we didn’t, simply because the child is no longer there. I looked away so as not to embarrass myself in front of the other volunteers. I breathed deeply and continued working. Bag after bag we filled with school materials.
There’s this one girl I saw on TV, she lost a limb in the attacks. Precision bombing, Israel calls it. I packed a small eraser for her small hands but these won’t erase the terror she endured. “Don’t forget the colouring pens,” I yelled. Certainly, there are more injured children. “Shall we put bandages in the same bag?” I asked an organiser. Apparently not: there are other bags reserved specifically for medical equipment. Silly me.
In 1994, Yasser Arafat, the PLO leader, arrived in the Palestinian Territories for the first time in decades and declared that he would turn Gaza into the Singapore of the Middle East. Fifteen years later it couldn’t be more different. Arafat’s prediction of Gaza being used as an example will certainly come true, but not in the way he envisioned. Today, Gaza is more like Somalia than a Mediterranean port. In fact, one day soon people will be using Gaza as the example of a failed state as Somalia continues to fade into distant memory. Thus Afghanistan will be called the Gaza of Central Asia, and Zimbabwe will be the Gaza of Africa.
But it didn’t have to be that way, if it wasn’t for the fear of certain countries in the region that they would lose the Palestinian cause as a bargaining tool if the Palestinians made their peace with the devil. What would they be left with as negotiating leverage? The idea of using Palestinian youth as an outsourced army to fight the Israelis was too appealing to lose. Setting them up with firepower and turning their dials – fire at will. But it was less their will than that of certain characters who have come and gone in the Middle East. Endless blood and destruction. The Holy Land, indeed: unholy is more like it.
No, it didn’t have to be that way at all. It’s February 2005. The Israelis announce their withdrawal from Gaza. The occupiers are leaving. Good riddance. Let’s build something now, shall we? In walks none other than a Dubai tycoon, the man responsible at one time or another for the most valuable property company in the world, operating in 17 countries with a global portfolio worth more than $100 billion that includes the tallest building on Earth and the biggest mall on the planet, and above all one of the right-hand men of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai. Enter Mohammed al Abbar, chairman of Emaar with all its pomp and glory, to start building. His offer was to pay $56m for the 21 settlements that the Israelis were to evacuate. Finally, we can get started with turning this port city into Singapore, as Arafat wanted.
But wait. How can the sensationalist Arabic press let go of this golden opportunity? Rather than headlines reading “Dubai to spearhead Gaza development”, there were headlines that accused the UAE of normalisation with Israel. “Rewarding aggression in Palestine”, read one editorial. The horror! Public outcry ensued. Mohammed Al Abbar was forced to appear on Dubai TV and defend his position. “These journalists,” he said, “they’ve so much spare time. They should use it better. Go visit Gaza and see how they live there.”
Suddenly the initiative to create Emaar Palestine was no longer there. The result was that the Gazans were left with scant employment opportunities. “The crossings are still controlled by the enemy,” was the broken record that Arab patriots played. I say, why not make the best of a bad situation instead of making the worst of it? A few more years of such mentality guaranteed further radicalisation. Good evening, Hamas. Hello, hopelessness. Enter Israeli terror.
Back in the Dubai Cares tent among the 700 volunteers, as we packed 50,000 bags to send to Palestinian schoolchildren, I couldn’t help but wonder: what if Mohammed al Abbar had bought these plots of land and developed them? Building houses. Building homes. Creating jobs. Creating hope. Would we be packing these bags at all?
Indeed, I recall that there’s no use crying over spilt milk. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop shedding a tear over that little girl’s spilt blood.
This article first appeared in The National newspaper on Sunday January 18th 2009
Sultan Al Qassemi is a Sharjah-based businessman and graduate of the American University of Paris. He is the founder of Barjeel Securities in Dubai.
For each bag that we filled there was another that we didn’t, simply because the child is no longer there. I looked away so as not to embarrass myself in front of the other volunteers. I breathed deeply and continued working. Bag after bag we filled with school materials.
There’s this one girl I saw on TV, she lost a limb in the attacks. Precision bombing, Israel calls it. I packed a small eraser for her small hands but these won’t erase the terror she endured. “Don’t forget the colouring pens,” I yelled. Certainly, there are more injured children. “Shall we put bandages in the same bag?” I asked an organiser. Apparently not: there are other bags reserved specifically for medical equipment. Silly me.
In 1994, Yasser Arafat, the PLO leader, arrived in the Palestinian Territories for the first time in decades and declared that he would turn Gaza into the Singapore of the Middle East. Fifteen years later it couldn’t be more different. Arafat’s prediction of Gaza being used as an example will certainly come true, but not in the way he envisioned. Today, Gaza is more like Somalia than a Mediterranean port. In fact, one day soon people will be using Gaza as the example of a failed state as Somalia continues to fade into distant memory. Thus Afghanistan will be called the Gaza of Central Asia, and Zimbabwe will be the Gaza of Africa.
But it didn’t have to be that way, if it wasn’t for the fear of certain countries in the region that they would lose the Palestinian cause as a bargaining tool if the Palestinians made their peace with the devil. What would they be left with as negotiating leverage? The idea of using Palestinian youth as an outsourced army to fight the Israelis was too appealing to lose. Setting them up with firepower and turning their dials – fire at will. But it was less their will than that of certain characters who have come and gone in the Middle East. Endless blood and destruction. The Holy Land, indeed: unholy is more like it.
No, it didn’t have to be that way at all. It’s February 2005. The Israelis announce their withdrawal from Gaza. The occupiers are leaving. Good riddance. Let’s build something now, shall we? In walks none other than a Dubai tycoon, the man responsible at one time or another for the most valuable property company in the world, operating in 17 countries with a global portfolio worth more than $100 billion that includes the tallest building on Earth and the biggest mall on the planet, and above all one of the right-hand men of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai. Enter Mohammed al Abbar, chairman of Emaar with all its pomp and glory, to start building. His offer was to pay $56m for the 21 settlements that the Israelis were to evacuate. Finally, we can get started with turning this port city into Singapore, as Arafat wanted.
But wait. How can the sensationalist Arabic press let go of this golden opportunity? Rather than headlines reading “Dubai to spearhead Gaza development”, there were headlines that accused the UAE of normalisation with Israel. “Rewarding aggression in Palestine”, read one editorial. The horror! Public outcry ensued. Mohammed Al Abbar was forced to appear on Dubai TV and defend his position. “These journalists,” he said, “they’ve so much spare time. They should use it better. Go visit Gaza and see how they live there.”
Suddenly the initiative to create Emaar Palestine was no longer there. The result was that the Gazans were left with scant employment opportunities. “The crossings are still controlled by the enemy,” was the broken record that Arab patriots played. I say, why not make the best of a bad situation instead of making the worst of it? A few more years of such mentality guaranteed further radicalisation. Good evening, Hamas. Hello, hopelessness. Enter Israeli terror.
Back in the Dubai Cares tent among the 700 volunteers, as we packed 50,000 bags to send to Palestinian schoolchildren, I couldn’t help but wonder: what if Mohammed al Abbar had bought these plots of land and developed them? Building houses. Building homes. Creating jobs. Creating hope. Would we be packing these bags at all?
Indeed, I recall that there’s no use crying over spilt milk. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop shedding a tear over that little girl’s spilt blood.
This article first appeared in The National newspaper on Sunday January 18th 2009
Sultan Al Qassemi is a Sharjah-based businessman and graduate of the American University of Paris. He is the founder of Barjeel Securities in Dubai.
Sunday, 11 January 2009
The war that made al Jazeera English 'different'
It was the winter of 2001, barely a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks: an obscure channel in a tiny Gulf state created shock waves with its coverage of the American invasion of Afghanistan. Tayseer Alouni, the only journalist in Taliban-controlled Kabul (he is currently serving a seven-year jail term in his adopted country of Spain for colluding with al Qa'eda), was able to interview the terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden shortly after the September 11 attacks. It was one of the biggest television events in history and it put, for better or worse, al Jazeera Arabic on the map forever.
Today, it is the al Jazeera English channel that has without a doubt made its name in the past two weeks. What the American invasion of Afghanistan did for al Jazeera Arabic, the Israeli invasion of Gaza is doing for its English language twin.
In 2007, one of Hamas's few successes as governors of the Strip was securing the release of the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, then the only Western journalist working full-time in Gaza. Ironically, the imbecile gang that kidnapped him denied the Palestinians of Gaza the opportunity of having based among them a professional and respected news reporter who would have been able to report on the sickening Israeli bombings of their impoverished ghetto.
Enter al Jazeera English to fill the void: a channel that is now clearly trying to assert its breakaway from its sensationalist sister after a tangled start. Despite the insistence of al Jazeera Arabic's management that their channel is independent, it was clear to anyone watching it that ever since the "courtesy visits" in the spring of 2008 between the Qatari and Saudi leaderships – after a six-year break in relations – the station's critical stance against Saudi officials completely ceased.
The cessation was so evident that the Lebanese political scientist As'ad Abu Khalil commented on his Angry Arab blog about "the demise of al Jazeera". Something seismic happened in the corridors of al Jazeera that coincided with the wake of this sudden reconciliation between the two countries. Up to 16 journalists working in al Jazeera English were abruptly fired or quit, including the veteran American journalist David Marash citing "lack of clarity over its direction".
This was followed soon after by the replacement of Nigel Parsons, the managing director of al Jazeera English, with Tony Burman, the former head of CBC News who later told National Public Radio in America that "al Jazeera English is not a translation of al Jazeera Arabic. It's a different channel that's intended for a different audience, and its choice of stories, formats, etcetera, are both different", adding that "there is no interference from the Qatari government" in the editorial.
This winter's war on Gaza could cement the emergence of al Jazeera English from the shadows of its now tamed sister channel. Al Jazeera English's journalists inside the Strip, including Nour Odeh and Sherine Tadros, have covered the attacks quite professionally – unlike many other journalists, who remind me of the quotation: "In time of war, the loudest patriots are the greatest profiteers."
The reporters are backed by an array of news anchors and political commentators, including Shihab Rattansi, Ghida Fakhri and Marwan Bishara. But the star of the coverage is probably the young Egyptian-American producer-turned-correspondent Aymen Mohyeldein, a veteran of both NBC and CNN who appears on the channel day and night. Mohyeldein's professional reporting as well as his grace-under-fire attitude is sure to make him a household name in the near future.
Accentuating its "different" approach, al Jazeera English refrains from calling even the civilian victims of the Gaza attacks "martyrs" even though the Arabic channel uses the term loosely on various occasions in order to appeal to Arabic viewers.
Al-Jazeera English also doesn't seem to be sharing its editorial team with the Arabic channel. The footage that is shot by one channel is seldom seen on the other. Even though most of their journalists are proficient in Arabic as well as English, I have yet to see one of them appear on the other channel even for a brief update.
But the biggest factor that distinguishes al Jazeera English reports from all the hundreds of others filed by global news channel reporters stationed around the Gaza Strip, is its status as the only network with professional television reporters inside the territory. By interviewing families of victims and ordinary Gazans caught between Hamas's arrogance and Israel's reign of terror, and by beaming pictures of dying children and crowded hospitals, they have been able to embarrass both Hamas and Israel, neither of whom seem to care for the plight of the Palestinians of Gaza as long as they appear to be triumphant.
The pictures that appear on al Jazeera English have contributed to the galvanising of the collective conscience of the English speaking world. Al Jazeera English broke its blockade in America recently by making use of technology such as its website, YouTube, Livestream and even employing Twitter, the global online social messaging utility to get its "different" message across.
For al Jazeera English, the horrific war on Gaza has proven to be a "different" blessing in disguise.
Today, it is the al Jazeera English channel that has without a doubt made its name in the past two weeks. What the American invasion of Afghanistan did for al Jazeera Arabic, the Israeli invasion of Gaza is doing for its English language twin.
In 2007, one of Hamas's few successes as governors of the Strip was securing the release of the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, then the only Western journalist working full-time in Gaza. Ironically, the imbecile gang that kidnapped him denied the Palestinians of Gaza the opportunity of having based among them a professional and respected news reporter who would have been able to report on the sickening Israeli bombings of their impoverished ghetto.
Enter al Jazeera English to fill the void: a channel that is now clearly trying to assert its breakaway from its sensationalist sister after a tangled start. Despite the insistence of al Jazeera Arabic's management that their channel is independent, it was clear to anyone watching it that ever since the "courtesy visits" in the spring of 2008 between the Qatari and Saudi leaderships – after a six-year break in relations – the station's critical stance against Saudi officials completely ceased.
The cessation was so evident that the Lebanese political scientist As'ad Abu Khalil commented on his Angry Arab blog about "the demise of al Jazeera". Something seismic happened in the corridors of al Jazeera that coincided with the wake of this sudden reconciliation between the two countries. Up to 16 journalists working in al Jazeera English were abruptly fired or quit, including the veteran American journalist David Marash citing "lack of clarity over its direction".
This was followed soon after by the replacement of Nigel Parsons, the managing director of al Jazeera English, with Tony Burman, the former head of CBC News who later told National Public Radio in America that "al Jazeera English is not a translation of al Jazeera Arabic. It's a different channel that's intended for a different audience, and its choice of stories, formats, etcetera, are both different", adding that "there is no interference from the Qatari government" in the editorial.
This winter's war on Gaza could cement the emergence of al Jazeera English from the shadows of its now tamed sister channel. Al Jazeera English's journalists inside the Strip, including Nour Odeh and Sherine Tadros, have covered the attacks quite professionally – unlike many other journalists, who remind me of the quotation: "In time of war, the loudest patriots are the greatest profiteers."
The reporters are backed by an array of news anchors and political commentators, including Shihab Rattansi, Ghida Fakhri and Marwan Bishara. But the star of the coverage is probably the young Egyptian-American producer-turned-correspondent Aymen Mohyeldein, a veteran of both NBC and CNN who appears on the channel day and night. Mohyeldein's professional reporting as well as his grace-under-fire attitude is sure to make him a household name in the near future.
Accentuating its "different" approach, al Jazeera English refrains from calling even the civilian victims of the Gaza attacks "martyrs" even though the Arabic channel uses the term loosely on various occasions in order to appeal to Arabic viewers.
Al-Jazeera English also doesn't seem to be sharing its editorial team with the Arabic channel. The footage that is shot by one channel is seldom seen on the other. Even though most of their journalists are proficient in Arabic as well as English, I have yet to see one of them appear on the other channel even for a brief update.
But the biggest factor that distinguishes al Jazeera English reports from all the hundreds of others filed by global news channel reporters stationed around the Gaza Strip, is its status as the only network with professional television reporters inside the territory. By interviewing families of victims and ordinary Gazans caught between Hamas's arrogance and Israel's reign of terror, and by beaming pictures of dying children and crowded hospitals, they have been able to embarrass both Hamas and Israel, neither of whom seem to care for the plight of the Palestinians of Gaza as long as they appear to be triumphant.
The pictures that appear on al Jazeera English have contributed to the galvanising of the collective conscience of the English speaking world. Al Jazeera English broke its blockade in America recently by making use of technology such as its website, YouTube, Livestream and even employing Twitter, the global online social messaging utility to get its "different" message across.
For al Jazeera English, the horrific war on Gaza has proven to be a "different" blessing in disguise.
Sunday, 4 January 2009
Hamas has failed – it is time they stepped down
Regardless of the outcome of the barbaric Israeli Operation Cast Lead, one thing is certain; it is high time for Hamas to step down as the keeper of Gaza. This is where people will object and remind us that they were democratically elected. My answer to that is: Yes, but they are incompetent.
Most of us in the Middle East still believe that incompetence is a trait exclusive to dictators such as Muammer Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Jamal Abdul Nasser. However modern history has proven that democracy and incompetent governance aren’t mutually exclusive. For example, George W Bush and Mikhail Saakashavili were both democratically elected and yet they are responsible for disastrous wars.
Clearly, Hamas has not mastered the art of politics, and as the veteran British journalist Robert Fisk recently noted, they do not have the military discipline of Hizbollah. Hamas also baulked at the opportunity of reconciliation that was brokered by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia last year and didn’t mend the relations with Fatah that may have allowed them to take partial control of the vital Rafah crossing with Egypt.
Then there was the audacity of Khaled Mashaal, the Hamas supreme leader, who called for the launch of a third intifada from exile in Syria.
Mashaal wakes up in the safety of Damascus, turns on the television, reads the paper and then says live on Al Jazeera TV – where else? – that “we want armed resistance, a military uprising to face the enemy”. Couldn’t he smuggle himself into the Gaza Strip to be with his resistance fighters?
That resistance has for many years been funded by donations from wealthy Arabs in the Gulf, among others to cover an annual budget that the US Council on Foreign Relations estimates at $70 million. Despite such sums, Hamas has hardly managed to amass a significant arsenal or military capabilities.
All it has to show after all this time and money is little more than long-range fireworks that it launches into neighbouring towns but which do more damage to its own image than to any infrastructure in Israel.
Ultimately Khaled Mashaal, who declared from Damascus that the resistance “has lost very few people” as the body count approached 434, displayed the same arrogance as the Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, who unashamedly declared only last Thursday that there is “no humanitarian crisis in Gaza”.
Many thought that Gaza and the West Bank were inseparable entities until Hamas’s bloody takeover of the Strip in the summer of 2007 damaged that notion. Their 18-month rule is marred by lawlessness, extra-judicial public killings and gang warfare that is more reminiscent of Somalia than a civilised state.
Time magazine reported on the violence that followed the takeover then: “Gangs have tossed enemies alive off 15-storey buildings, shot one another’s children and burst into hospitals to finish off wounded foes lying helplessly in bed.”
Last week, Taghreed El-Khodary of the New York Times reported that Hamas militants in civilian clothing again resorted to killing wounded former inmates of Gaza’s central jail who were accused of collaboration with the enemy. These unproved “collaborators” were executed in public even though Palestinian Human Rights groups repeatedly claim that “most of these people are completely innocent”. Hamas seems to be either unable or unwilling to stop such extrajudicial executions.
Additionally, on the first anniversary of Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip, the Christian Science Monitor found a lack of medicines in hospitals as well as of clean drinking water in the territory, and raw sewage streaming into the sea. And this isn’t because Hamas’s dignity prevents it from meeting the enemy.
Hamas’s vast propaganda machine around the Arab world mysteriously fails to report on the meetings between its members and Israeli government representatives. For example, after a 90-minute meeting with an official from the Israeli state electricity company in order to sort out the town’s electricity needs, the Hamas-affiliated mayor of Qalqilya told the BBC about the meeting: “It was civil, without any problem between him and I.”
Where do you think Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in the Strip, gets his electricity from?
By any standards Hamas has failed miserably. It has failed in peace, failed in governance, and moreover failed in war. In addition to Hamas’s ambiguous political agenda, their goal seems to be resistance for the sake of resistance, a quagmire where the journey really is the destination. It is time for Khaled Mashaal to step down and allow more competent leaders to emerge before he causes even more damage to his cause. The question is if Hamas leaves, what is the alternative?
In fact, probably the only good thing that can be said about Hamas is that they are not Fatah.
This article first appeared in The National newspaper on Sunday January 4th 2008
Most of us in the Middle East still believe that incompetence is a trait exclusive to dictators such as Muammer Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Jamal Abdul Nasser. However modern history has proven that democracy and incompetent governance aren’t mutually exclusive. For example, George W Bush and Mikhail Saakashavili were both democratically elected and yet they are responsible for disastrous wars.
Clearly, Hamas has not mastered the art of politics, and as the veteran British journalist Robert Fisk recently noted, they do not have the military discipline of Hizbollah. Hamas also baulked at the opportunity of reconciliation that was brokered by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia last year and didn’t mend the relations with Fatah that may have allowed them to take partial control of the vital Rafah crossing with Egypt.
Then there was the audacity of Khaled Mashaal, the Hamas supreme leader, who called for the launch of a third intifada from exile in Syria.
Mashaal wakes up in the safety of Damascus, turns on the television, reads the paper and then says live on Al Jazeera TV – where else? – that “we want armed resistance, a military uprising to face the enemy”. Couldn’t he smuggle himself into the Gaza Strip to be with his resistance fighters?
That resistance has for many years been funded by donations from wealthy Arabs in the Gulf, among others to cover an annual budget that the US Council on Foreign Relations estimates at $70 million. Despite such sums, Hamas has hardly managed to amass a significant arsenal or military capabilities.
All it has to show after all this time and money is little more than long-range fireworks that it launches into neighbouring towns but which do more damage to its own image than to any infrastructure in Israel.
Ultimately Khaled Mashaal, who declared from Damascus that the resistance “has lost very few people” as the body count approached 434, displayed the same arrogance as the Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, who unashamedly declared only last Thursday that there is “no humanitarian crisis in Gaza”.
Many thought that Gaza and the West Bank were inseparable entities until Hamas’s bloody takeover of the Strip in the summer of 2007 damaged that notion. Their 18-month rule is marred by lawlessness, extra-judicial public killings and gang warfare that is more reminiscent of Somalia than a civilised state.
Time magazine reported on the violence that followed the takeover then: “Gangs have tossed enemies alive off 15-storey buildings, shot one another’s children and burst into hospitals to finish off wounded foes lying helplessly in bed.”
Last week, Taghreed El-Khodary of the New York Times reported that Hamas militants in civilian clothing again resorted to killing wounded former inmates of Gaza’s central jail who were accused of collaboration with the enemy. These unproved “collaborators” were executed in public even though Palestinian Human Rights groups repeatedly claim that “most of these people are completely innocent”. Hamas seems to be either unable or unwilling to stop such extrajudicial executions.
Additionally, on the first anniversary of Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip, the Christian Science Monitor found a lack of medicines in hospitals as well as of clean drinking water in the territory, and raw sewage streaming into the sea. And this isn’t because Hamas’s dignity prevents it from meeting the enemy.
Hamas’s vast propaganda machine around the Arab world mysteriously fails to report on the meetings between its members and Israeli government representatives. For example, after a 90-minute meeting with an official from the Israeli state electricity company in order to sort out the town’s electricity needs, the Hamas-affiliated mayor of Qalqilya told the BBC about the meeting: “It was civil, without any problem between him and I.”
Where do you think Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in the Strip, gets his electricity from?
By any standards Hamas has failed miserably. It has failed in peace, failed in governance, and moreover failed in war. In addition to Hamas’s ambiguous political agenda, their goal seems to be resistance for the sake of resistance, a quagmire where the journey really is the destination. It is time for Khaled Mashaal to step down and allow more competent leaders to emerge before he causes even more damage to his cause. The question is if Hamas leaves, what is the alternative?
In fact, probably the only good thing that can be said about Hamas is that they are not Fatah.
This article first appeared in The National newspaper on Sunday January 4th 2008
Sunday, 28 December 2008
The land of two steps forward and one step back
The case of the Saudi judge upholding the marriage of an eight-year-old girl to a man 50 years her senior is so very wrong on innumerable levels and is a step back in the otherwise forward progress of the Kingdom.
Indeed, much of the progress in the Muslim world at large seems to consist of taking two steps forward and one step back. In Saudi Arabia, few doubt the popularity of the modernising King Abdullah. He has, for example, initiated the establishment of several women's universities and has even declared, to the American journalist Barbara Walters, that he believes "the day will come when women will drive."
One of the reasons Saudi Arabia is a land of two steps forward, one step back is that the religious establishment cannot publicly seem to be readily giving up their say in the moral governance of Saudi society: a "right" they won many decades ago. As other countries in the Arab world have proven, it takes a drastic event for the more conservative elements to step back and allow the train of progress through.
Take, for example, the tragic fire that occurred in a Saudi girls' school in 2002 when 15 students burned to death – allegedly as a result of the guards not allowing them to leave the building as they weren't covered up. The tragedy prompted the government – under the effective control of then Crown Prince Abdullah – to take away the mandate for girls' education from the religious establishment and give it to the Education ministry.
Regarding the current case of the eight-year-old girl, the unspoken issue is clearly the marriage of the Prophet Mohammed to Aisha who, according to some accounts, was as young as nine years old. This allegation is entirely unproven. According to senior Islamic scholars (including Dr Muzammil Siddiqi, the respected former director of the Islamic Society of North America), there is no evidence that Aisha was in fact nine years old; estimates of her age vary but she could even have been as old as 24.
It has to be remembered here that until a few decades ago, unlike in the West, there was no authority in the Arabian Peninsula recording dates of birth. In fact, my own Kuwaiti grandmother's passport states that she is barely six years older than my late father (1933 and 1939 respectively). This is a highly unlikely scenario; my mother tells me that my grandmother is easily 16 years older than my dad. Still very young by today' standards to be a mother, but it was a harsh world then in the Gulf.
The issue of adolescent relationships is a matter of considerable concern, even in the West. According to the UK's Family Planning Association, in 2005 there were 55,000 teenage pregnancies in Britain alone, some as young as 13. This number is down from a peak of 95,000 five years earlier. In the USA, teenage pregnancies are on the rise with the latest statistics showing that in 2006 there were 139,000 teenage pregnancies, or 22 for every 1,000 girls. This number is an even more astounding 32 per 1,000 teenage Jewish girls in Israel, and is even higher for Muslim Israeli girls.
To those who want to single out Saudi Arabia for particular criticism, I would say they are not alone.
The most encouraging issue to arise from the horrific marriage of this poor eight year old girl is the fact that condemnation isn't just coming from abroad. The deafening silence of previous years has been broken. Saudis – liberals and conservatives alike – are speaking out against this barbaric act.
Christoph Wilcke, a Saudi Arabia researcher for Human Rights Watch, told me that "the Saudi media has become less censored in recent years and is more able to reflect what, in this case, is clearly public anger shared by many in government over the actions of a father who pawned his daughter and a judge who acts like he's part of the deal".
In a clear split between the religious establishment and the government, the Human Rights Commission, a Saudi government run organisation, said it "opposes child marriages" and that they "violate international agreements that have been signed by Saudi Arabia and should not be allowed".
Even more interesting is the recent condemnation of the judge's ruling by Wajeha al-Huwaider, the co-founder of an organisation known as the Society of Defending Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia whose very existence was unthinkable just a few years ago. Ms al-Huwaider went as far as telling CNN that certain actions (read those by the religious establishment) "keep us backward and in the dark ages" and called on the "minister of justice and human rights groups to interfere now" and "end this marriage deal".
This case proves that not every parent is fit to be one; the same may apply to the parents of the British and American teenage girls who become pregnant. Would-be parents ought to be subject to a parenthood exam – or even a licence. After all, isn't raising a child at least as challenging as driving a car? Likewise, mothers in Saudi Arabia must be given custody of their children and allowed to represent their interests in court. As King Abdullah said: "The day will come".
In the land of two steps forward one step back, let's just hope that it doesn't take another tragedy for that to occur.
This article was first published in The National on Sunday 28th of December 2008
Indeed, much of the progress in the Muslim world at large seems to consist of taking two steps forward and one step back. In Saudi Arabia, few doubt the popularity of the modernising King Abdullah. He has, for example, initiated the establishment of several women's universities and has even declared, to the American journalist Barbara Walters, that he believes "the day will come when women will drive."
One of the reasons Saudi Arabia is a land of two steps forward, one step back is that the religious establishment cannot publicly seem to be readily giving up their say in the moral governance of Saudi society: a "right" they won many decades ago. As other countries in the Arab world have proven, it takes a drastic event for the more conservative elements to step back and allow the train of progress through.
Take, for example, the tragic fire that occurred in a Saudi girls' school in 2002 when 15 students burned to death – allegedly as a result of the guards not allowing them to leave the building as they weren't covered up. The tragedy prompted the government – under the effective control of then Crown Prince Abdullah – to take away the mandate for girls' education from the religious establishment and give it to the Education ministry.
Regarding the current case of the eight-year-old girl, the unspoken issue is clearly the marriage of the Prophet Mohammed to Aisha who, according to some accounts, was as young as nine years old. This allegation is entirely unproven. According to senior Islamic scholars (including Dr Muzammil Siddiqi, the respected former director of the Islamic Society of North America), there is no evidence that Aisha was in fact nine years old; estimates of her age vary but she could even have been as old as 24.
It has to be remembered here that until a few decades ago, unlike in the West, there was no authority in the Arabian Peninsula recording dates of birth. In fact, my own Kuwaiti grandmother's passport states that she is barely six years older than my late father (1933 and 1939 respectively). This is a highly unlikely scenario; my mother tells me that my grandmother is easily 16 years older than my dad. Still very young by today' standards to be a mother, but it was a harsh world then in the Gulf.
The issue of adolescent relationships is a matter of considerable concern, even in the West. According to the UK's Family Planning Association, in 2005 there were 55,000 teenage pregnancies in Britain alone, some as young as 13. This number is down from a peak of 95,000 five years earlier. In the USA, teenage pregnancies are on the rise with the latest statistics showing that in 2006 there were 139,000 teenage pregnancies, or 22 for every 1,000 girls. This number is an even more astounding 32 per 1,000 teenage Jewish girls in Israel, and is even higher for Muslim Israeli girls.
To those who want to single out Saudi Arabia for particular criticism, I would say they are not alone.
The most encouraging issue to arise from the horrific marriage of this poor eight year old girl is the fact that condemnation isn't just coming from abroad. The deafening silence of previous years has been broken. Saudis – liberals and conservatives alike – are speaking out against this barbaric act.
Christoph Wilcke, a Saudi Arabia researcher for Human Rights Watch, told me that "the Saudi media has become less censored in recent years and is more able to reflect what, in this case, is clearly public anger shared by many in government over the actions of a father who pawned his daughter and a judge who acts like he's part of the deal".
In a clear split between the religious establishment and the government, the Human Rights Commission, a Saudi government run organisation, said it "opposes child marriages" and that they "violate international agreements that have been signed by Saudi Arabia and should not be allowed".
Even more interesting is the recent condemnation of the judge's ruling by Wajeha al-Huwaider, the co-founder of an organisation known as the Society of Defending Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia whose very existence was unthinkable just a few years ago. Ms al-Huwaider went as far as telling CNN that certain actions (read those by the religious establishment) "keep us backward and in the dark ages" and called on the "minister of justice and human rights groups to interfere now" and "end this marriage deal".
This case proves that not every parent is fit to be one; the same may apply to the parents of the British and American teenage girls who become pregnant. Would-be parents ought to be subject to a parenthood exam – or even a licence. After all, isn't raising a child at least as challenging as driving a car? Likewise, mothers in Saudi Arabia must be given custody of their children and allowed to represent their interests in court. As King Abdullah said: "The day will come".
In the land of two steps forward one step back, let's just hope that it doesn't take another tragedy for that to occur.
This article was first published in The National on Sunday 28th of December 2008
Sunday, 21 December 2008
Arab journalists in name, poles apart in practice
It is said, although the origin of the phrase is sometimes disputed, that the 18th-century Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke once pointed to the Press Gallery in the House of Commons and declared: "Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all" (the first three accepted social and political classes, or estates, were the aristocracy, the clergy and the commoners).
One of the saddest things about the incident involving the Iraqi thug who threw his shoes at President George Bush is that sometimes he is referred to as a journalist. The name of the noblest of professions has been dragged through the ditch into a dark place indeed.
First let us consider a proud moment in the modern history of Arab journalism. At the White House in the early 1960s, an era when women journalists were usually confined to covering the fashions worn by the First Lady rather than questioning the President, a young woman steps forward and asks John F Kennedy a question: a simple act that reverberated across US government departments. Welcome to the world of Helen Thomas, the daughter of illiterate Syrian immigrants, the First Lady of the Press who has covered every American president since Kennedy. For Ms Thomas that question was the first in a long list of impressive achievements that includes being the first woman president of the White House Correspondents Association and the first woman officer of the National Press Club: for decades she almost invariably had the honour of asking the first question during presidential press conferences, even though she always asked tough ones.
Ms Thomas, now 88 years old, has a special annual lifetime achievement award named after her by the 9,000-member Society of Professional Journalists in the US and has been the subject of an HBO documentary entitled Thank you, Mr President after her signature phrase. The former Cuban leader Fidel Castro was once asked what the difference was between US and Cuban democracy, and his answer was: "I don't have to answer questions from Helen Thomas."
Last week Tariq Alhomayed, editor of the popular London-based Arabic daily newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, noted in his editorial that the shoe-throwing incident in Iraq was the other face of the cheering and applause that greeted the announcement by the US Administrator Paul Bremer that the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been captured. "There is no room for applause, insults or throwing shoes at others in journalism," Mr Alhomayed said, adding that "this Iraqi journalist, who today has the right to ask questions and to hold a politician responsible and remind him of his lies, decided not to do that; he decided that shoes were more powerful than words, reason and argument, as this is some people's idea of democracy."
On the other hand, Al Quds Al Arabi, another London-based newspaper (which is miraculously celebrating almost 20 years of publishing in one of the most expensive cities in the world apparently without the need for advertisements other than from Yemen Airlines) had a different take on the shoe-throwing incident. The newspaper's editor stated categorically "the fact that he [the shoe-thrower] has become a hero in the eyes of tens of millions". He also stated that the action was "understandable" because this "citizen who cares about his country" was frustrated. And the shoe-thrower's employer, Al Baghdadia television, demanded that he be released "in line with the democracy and freedom of expression that the American authorities promised the Iraqi people" and declared that "any measures [against him] will be considered the acts of a dictatorial regime".
President Bush, hardly known for his eloquent oratorical skills, said that the shoe thrower wanted to get on TV, and had succeeded. "I don't know what his beef is," he added, "but whatever it is I'm sure somebody will hear it." I personally won't be surprised if Al Jazeera television offers the shoe-thrower a job. In a section of its website called, of all things, Analysis, the channel has posted an article entitled The shoes are a letter from the widows and orphans as part of its multifaceted coverage of the incident.
It is high time that we ceased to glorify individuals who disguise themselves as journalists and allow their emotions to seep through their reporting. We have seen them already in the US, the likes of Bill O'Reilly of Fox News and Keith Olbermann of MSNBC, and in the Arab world there are Ghassan Bin Jiddou and Faisal Al Qassim, both of Al Jazeera: they all blur the lines so much that it becomes counterproductive to watch their programmes.
Helen Thomas recently told Newsweek magazine: "You can't have a democracy without an informed people" and that "the role of the press is to seek the truth". It is a sad day when a representative of the Fourth Estate is given the chance to seek the truth, to inform his people and to expose President Bush by asking him a tough question, and instead throws his shoes like a caged primate – no matter how "frustrated" he is.
* This article first appeared in The National newspaper on December 21st 2008
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081221/OPINION/298149438
One of the saddest things about the incident involving the Iraqi thug who threw his shoes at President George Bush is that sometimes he is referred to as a journalist. The name of the noblest of professions has been dragged through the ditch into a dark place indeed.
First let us consider a proud moment in the modern history of Arab journalism. At the White House in the early 1960s, an era when women journalists were usually confined to covering the fashions worn by the First Lady rather than questioning the President, a young woman steps forward and asks John F Kennedy a question: a simple act that reverberated across US government departments. Welcome to the world of Helen Thomas, the daughter of illiterate Syrian immigrants, the First Lady of the Press who has covered every American president since Kennedy. For Ms Thomas that question was the first in a long list of impressive achievements that includes being the first woman president of the White House Correspondents Association and the first woman officer of the National Press Club: for decades she almost invariably had the honour of asking the first question during presidential press conferences, even though she always asked tough ones.
Ms Thomas, now 88 years old, has a special annual lifetime achievement award named after her by the 9,000-member Society of Professional Journalists in the US and has been the subject of an HBO documentary entitled Thank you, Mr President after her signature phrase. The former Cuban leader Fidel Castro was once asked what the difference was between US and Cuban democracy, and his answer was: "I don't have to answer questions from Helen Thomas."
Last week Tariq Alhomayed, editor of the popular London-based Arabic daily newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, noted in his editorial that the shoe-throwing incident in Iraq was the other face of the cheering and applause that greeted the announcement by the US Administrator Paul Bremer that the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been captured. "There is no room for applause, insults or throwing shoes at others in journalism," Mr Alhomayed said, adding that "this Iraqi journalist, who today has the right to ask questions and to hold a politician responsible and remind him of his lies, decided not to do that; he decided that shoes were more powerful than words, reason and argument, as this is some people's idea of democracy."
On the other hand, Al Quds Al Arabi, another London-based newspaper (which is miraculously celebrating almost 20 years of publishing in one of the most expensive cities in the world apparently without the need for advertisements other than from Yemen Airlines) had a different take on the shoe-throwing incident. The newspaper's editor stated categorically "the fact that he [the shoe-thrower] has become a hero in the eyes of tens of millions". He also stated that the action was "understandable" because this "citizen who cares about his country" was frustrated. And the shoe-thrower's employer, Al Baghdadia television, demanded that he be released "in line with the democracy and freedom of expression that the American authorities promised the Iraqi people" and declared that "any measures [against him] will be considered the acts of a dictatorial regime".
President Bush, hardly known for his eloquent oratorical skills, said that the shoe thrower wanted to get on TV, and had succeeded. "I don't know what his beef is," he added, "but whatever it is I'm sure somebody will hear it." I personally won't be surprised if Al Jazeera television offers the shoe-thrower a job. In a section of its website called, of all things, Analysis, the channel has posted an article entitled The shoes are a letter from the widows and orphans as part of its multifaceted coverage of the incident.
It is high time that we ceased to glorify individuals who disguise themselves as journalists and allow their emotions to seep through their reporting. We have seen them already in the US, the likes of Bill O'Reilly of Fox News and Keith Olbermann of MSNBC, and in the Arab world there are Ghassan Bin Jiddou and Faisal Al Qassim, both of Al Jazeera: they all blur the lines so much that it becomes counterproductive to watch their programmes.
Helen Thomas recently told Newsweek magazine: "You can't have a democracy without an informed people" and that "the role of the press is to seek the truth". It is a sad day when a representative of the Fourth Estate is given the chance to seek the truth, to inform his people and to expose President Bush by asking him a tough question, and instead throws his shoes like a caged primate – no matter how "frustrated" he is.
* This article first appeared in The National newspaper on December 21st 2008
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081221/OPINION/298149438
Sunday, 14 December 2008
What if… the Israelis were to bomb Iran?
Baghdad, Monday, February 29, 2010, almost 15 months in the future, and Israel has attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities. What might the consequences be…
The shutting down by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard of all maritime traffic crossing the Straits of Hormuz, through which 17 million barrels of oil or nearly 25 per cent of world supplies flow each day, signalled a further escalating of tensions in the Middle East that sent the price of oil up by $163 to $228 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange this morning.
This comes two days after Operation Persepolis on Saturday morning, in which Israeli pilotless drones destroyed the Iranian uranium enrichment plant at Natanz in central Iran and the Bushehr nuclear power plant on the shores of the Gulf. The first strike resulted in the deaths of at least 19 employees inside the nuclear compound that experts believe operates tens of thousands of nuclear centrifuges; no information is available on the Russian-built Bushehr plant.
It is unclear whether the United States, which has a permanent residual force of 45,000 troops in neighbouring Iraq, agreed to or had prior knowledge of the strike. Israeli media had reported earlier that the IDF was studying possible precision strikes against the Iranian nuclear reactors that do not include coordination with the Pentagon. President Barack Obama is said to be in consultation with world leaders and the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Defence, and will make a statement this evening that is expected to be publicly supportive of Israel.
The Belgian Prime Minister, Yves Leterme, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, is heading a high-level delegation to Tehran that includes the British Prime Minister, David Milliband, and the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, to meet the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The delegation issued a joint press release that criticised the “unwarranted Israeli use of force” and called upon Iran to show restraint. The Iranian government put its military on high alert immediately after the strikes, but is believed to be awaiting a visit tomorrow from the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, before taking any retaliatory action.
Meanwhile a major airlift is being organised by the US and European countries to fly their citizens out of the Arab Gulf states that lie in close proximity to the destroyed Bushehr plant; foreigners crowded airports on Sunday seeking tickets out of the region and a number of carriers suspended their inbound flights. India, which has a significant expatriate presence in the Gulf, ordered all available government-owned and commercial planes to carry its citizens out of the region.
There are currently 12 million foreigners residing in the West-allied Arab Gulf states, where US military bases have been put on high alert. Saudi Arabia has the largest number of expatriates, with 6.5 million, followed by the UAE, where expatriates constitute about 80 percent of the population of five million. Panic buying has resulted in skyrocketing prices of essential food items as Gulf residents hurried to stockpile supplies. Stock exchanges were closed today as investors rushed to the markets to offload their shares on Sunday, mirroring a sharp decline in Western equity markets led by the Dow Jones, which lost 17 per cent upon opening this morning.
In a rousing speech on Sunday during the so-called Two Million Man March in Tehran, Mr Ahmedinejad promised to retaliate against what he called the “despicable Zionist entity” vowing to “wipe it off the face of the map once and for all”. Sporadic protests have erupted across Iran with demonstrators demanding that the country uses all possible force to destroy Israel, along with the American bases in the region.
A spokesman for the firebrand Iraqi cleric Muqtada Al Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, who declined to be identified, announced that the movement is willing to assist Iran in gaining “strategic positions closer to the enemy borders” with or without the Iraqi government’s consent. Similar statements of support were issued by Hamas and Hizbollah.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who is meeting President Obama in the White House today to discuss the repercussions of Operation Persepolis, said his country will “do everything in its power to eliminate the possibility of another Holocaust”. Mr Netanyahu refused to comment on whether Israel would consider the use of nuclear weapons if Iran retaliates, maintaining the country’s policy of nuclear ambiguity. The former US President Jimmy Carter has previously stated that Israel has an arsenal of at least 150 atomic weapons.
The Pentagon estimates that the Iranian government, which has mandatory military conscription, has approximately 20 million men available for military service, four times the total number of the citizens of Israel, which also maintains a conscription service. Earlier this year in a military parade Iran unveiled its Shahab 4 intercontinental ballistic missile, which is capable of carrying nuclear warheads to a range of 2,300km, putting Israeli cities well within reach. Yesterday an Iranian military spokesman said that it had renamed the 1,000km range Zelzal 4, or earthquake missiles, the “Tel Aviv Zelzal”.
This article first appeared in The National newspaper on Sunday December 14th 2008
The shutting down by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard of all maritime traffic crossing the Straits of Hormuz, through which 17 million barrels of oil or nearly 25 per cent of world supplies flow each day, signalled a further escalating of tensions in the Middle East that sent the price of oil up by $163 to $228 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange this morning.
This comes two days after Operation Persepolis on Saturday morning, in which Israeli pilotless drones destroyed the Iranian uranium enrichment plant at Natanz in central Iran and the Bushehr nuclear power plant on the shores of the Gulf. The first strike resulted in the deaths of at least 19 employees inside the nuclear compound that experts believe operates tens of thousands of nuclear centrifuges; no information is available on the Russian-built Bushehr plant.
It is unclear whether the United States, which has a permanent residual force of 45,000 troops in neighbouring Iraq, agreed to or had prior knowledge of the strike. Israeli media had reported earlier that the IDF was studying possible precision strikes against the Iranian nuclear reactors that do not include coordination with the Pentagon. President Barack Obama is said to be in consultation with world leaders and the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Defence, and will make a statement this evening that is expected to be publicly supportive of Israel.
The Belgian Prime Minister, Yves Leterme, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, is heading a high-level delegation to Tehran that includes the British Prime Minister, David Milliband, and the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, to meet the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The delegation issued a joint press release that criticised the “unwarranted Israeli use of force” and called upon Iran to show restraint. The Iranian government put its military on high alert immediately after the strikes, but is believed to be awaiting a visit tomorrow from the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, before taking any retaliatory action.
Meanwhile a major airlift is being organised by the US and European countries to fly their citizens out of the Arab Gulf states that lie in close proximity to the destroyed Bushehr plant; foreigners crowded airports on Sunday seeking tickets out of the region and a number of carriers suspended their inbound flights. India, which has a significant expatriate presence in the Gulf, ordered all available government-owned and commercial planes to carry its citizens out of the region.
There are currently 12 million foreigners residing in the West-allied Arab Gulf states, where US military bases have been put on high alert. Saudi Arabia has the largest number of expatriates, with 6.5 million, followed by the UAE, where expatriates constitute about 80 percent of the population of five million. Panic buying has resulted in skyrocketing prices of essential food items as Gulf residents hurried to stockpile supplies. Stock exchanges were closed today as investors rushed to the markets to offload their shares on Sunday, mirroring a sharp decline in Western equity markets led by the Dow Jones, which lost 17 per cent upon opening this morning.
In a rousing speech on Sunday during the so-called Two Million Man March in Tehran, Mr Ahmedinejad promised to retaliate against what he called the “despicable Zionist entity” vowing to “wipe it off the face of the map once and for all”. Sporadic protests have erupted across Iran with demonstrators demanding that the country uses all possible force to destroy Israel, along with the American bases in the region.
A spokesman for the firebrand Iraqi cleric Muqtada Al Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, who declined to be identified, announced that the movement is willing to assist Iran in gaining “strategic positions closer to the enemy borders” with or without the Iraqi government’s consent. Similar statements of support were issued by Hamas and Hizbollah.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who is meeting President Obama in the White House today to discuss the repercussions of Operation Persepolis, said his country will “do everything in its power to eliminate the possibility of another Holocaust”. Mr Netanyahu refused to comment on whether Israel would consider the use of nuclear weapons if Iran retaliates, maintaining the country’s policy of nuclear ambiguity. The former US President Jimmy Carter has previously stated that Israel has an arsenal of at least 150 atomic weapons.
The Pentagon estimates that the Iranian government, which has mandatory military conscription, has approximately 20 million men available for military service, four times the total number of the citizens of Israel, which also maintains a conscription service. Earlier this year in a military parade Iran unveiled its Shahab 4 intercontinental ballistic missile, which is capable of carrying nuclear warheads to a range of 2,300km, putting Israeli cities well within reach. Yesterday an Iranian military spokesman said that it had renamed the 1,000km range Zelzal 4, or earthquake missiles, the “Tel Aviv Zelzal”.
This article first appeared in The National newspaper on Sunday December 14th 2008
Sunday, 7 December 2008
Dubai's debt is not in vain
While many observers seem to be preoccupied with the future of Dubai and the UAE, it might be prudent to draw their attention to where the country actually stands today.
The credit crunch, in fact, serves as a perfect opportunity for us to show the world that our ambitions were well placed and that many of the developments undertaken were not only very well timed but, it could even be argued, may even have been rather restrained.
Not too long ago, what is now the UAE was a land of scant primary schooling and absolutely no prospects of higher education for either sex. Regular outbreaks of polio reflected the minimal health services, while a less-than basic road network impeded trade and commerce. The emirates were able to transform themselves in less than two generations into global centres of commerce and tourism despite being in the politically turbulent region of the Middle East in an era when negative news has been the norm and hope in short supply.
Sceptics may argue that this impressive development is solely due to the UAE – and Abu Dhabi more specifically – being blessed with oil, but the answer to that is all too common in our region: think Iraq, Libya and even Kuwait.
However, the rapid development of the newly-created UAE came with some social cost to the country. Certain unscrupulous developers took advantage of migrant labourers, and more conservative voices have lamented what they see as a declining respect for the nation's culture not only by some foreigners but also by UAE nationals themselves. Both are issues that the UAE Government is actively remedying.
Had Dubai and its sister emirates allowed themselves to be yet more victims of the prevalent mentality in the region that discourages development because "tensions are high in the Middle East", the country would never have been built.
Rather than compete with our neighbours, Dubai set as its benchmarks New York, London and Singapore, emulating the best and even challenging them at their own game – a challenge that necessarily required a great deal of financing.
Recently, Mohammed Ali Alabbar, the Director-General of the Dubai Department of Economic Development, announced that the Government of Dubai's debt obligations today – including state-affiliated companies – stand at $80 billion. This figure is dwarfed by the $350 billion in assets that it holds, a figure that includes assets of only some of the state-affiliated companies.
Additionally, Dubai is part of the UAE, a federation that according to the Ministry of Economy registered a Gross Domestic Product (the value of all goods and services produced in one year) in 2007 of $200 billion, making it an economic superpower by any standards. What is more, ADIA, one of several Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth funds that was established as a result of the visionary planning of the late President Sheikh Zayed in 1976, has assets estimated to be in excess of $500 billion (as of January 2008); and, of course, 10 per cent of the world's oil supply lies under the capital's control.
To cut a long story short, this is a strong and resilient economy despite the global financial crisis and the severe corrections witnessed within the UAE equity and real estate markets.
The truth is that had Dubai awaited what could be considered a more ideal geo-political environment, or had it been more cautious about its development, we would not have built the single largest driverless metro system in the world, nor would we have built the superb road infrastructure that will serve many generations yet to come. We would not have built the Healthcare City, the Media City, the Academic City, the Humanitarian City, as well as the world class airport that is used to transport UN aid workers and supplies to trouble spots in Asia and Africa. The same goes for DP World, the fourth largest port operator on the planet.
In fact, one way to put Dubai's accumulated debt into perspective is to imagine the cost of building all of the above today. Should Bahrain, Beirut or Amman decide to build a metro, for example, they will face a much higher cost of financing and even tougher repayment schemes than those secured by Dubai in the past decade.
Today, the UAE is confident enough to have women parliamentarians, judges and ambassadors, placing them on an equal footing with their male counterparts. Young Emirati boys and girls are growing up with even more hope for the future and with an eye to improving whatever shortcomings this country may have, including labour reforms and corporate governance.
Pioneering Dubai, by not delaying or tempering developments, effectively broke the regional taboo on thinking big and proved that we, too, in the Middle East can not only dream but can achieve world class status. Just look at all our neighbours following suit.
Undoubtedly, Dubai has a great deal of debt, but once these loans are settled they will be proved a price worth paying to secure this nation's future.
By taking the path it has, Dubai has effectively brought the future forward rather than await its arrival. Our debt will not be in vain.
Sultan Al Qassemi is a Sharjah-based businessman and graduate of the American University of Paris. He is the founder of Barjeel Securities in Dubai
This article was first published in The National Newspaper on December 7th 2008
The credit crunch, in fact, serves as a perfect opportunity for us to show the world that our ambitions were well placed and that many of the developments undertaken were not only very well timed but, it could even be argued, may even have been rather restrained.
Not too long ago, what is now the UAE was a land of scant primary schooling and absolutely no prospects of higher education for either sex. Regular outbreaks of polio reflected the minimal health services, while a less-than basic road network impeded trade and commerce. The emirates were able to transform themselves in less than two generations into global centres of commerce and tourism despite being in the politically turbulent region of the Middle East in an era when negative news has been the norm and hope in short supply.
Sceptics may argue that this impressive development is solely due to the UAE – and Abu Dhabi more specifically – being blessed with oil, but the answer to that is all too common in our region: think Iraq, Libya and even Kuwait.
However, the rapid development of the newly-created UAE came with some social cost to the country. Certain unscrupulous developers took advantage of migrant labourers, and more conservative voices have lamented what they see as a declining respect for the nation's culture not only by some foreigners but also by UAE nationals themselves. Both are issues that the UAE Government is actively remedying.
Had Dubai and its sister emirates allowed themselves to be yet more victims of the prevalent mentality in the region that discourages development because "tensions are high in the Middle East", the country would never have been built.
Rather than compete with our neighbours, Dubai set as its benchmarks New York, London and Singapore, emulating the best and even challenging them at their own game – a challenge that necessarily required a great deal of financing.
Recently, Mohammed Ali Alabbar, the Director-General of the Dubai Department of Economic Development, announced that the Government of Dubai's debt obligations today – including state-affiliated companies – stand at $80 billion. This figure is dwarfed by the $350 billion in assets that it holds, a figure that includes assets of only some of the state-affiliated companies.
Additionally, Dubai is part of the UAE, a federation that according to the Ministry of Economy registered a Gross Domestic Product (the value of all goods and services produced in one year) in 2007 of $200 billion, making it an economic superpower by any standards. What is more, ADIA, one of several Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth funds that was established as a result of the visionary planning of the late President Sheikh Zayed in 1976, has assets estimated to be in excess of $500 billion (as of January 2008); and, of course, 10 per cent of the world's oil supply lies under the capital's control.
To cut a long story short, this is a strong and resilient economy despite the global financial crisis and the severe corrections witnessed within the UAE equity and real estate markets.
The truth is that had Dubai awaited what could be considered a more ideal geo-political environment, or had it been more cautious about its development, we would not have built the single largest driverless metro system in the world, nor would we have built the superb road infrastructure that will serve many generations yet to come. We would not have built the Healthcare City, the Media City, the Academic City, the Humanitarian City, as well as the world class airport that is used to transport UN aid workers and supplies to trouble spots in Asia and Africa. The same goes for DP World, the fourth largest port operator on the planet.
In fact, one way to put Dubai's accumulated debt into perspective is to imagine the cost of building all of the above today. Should Bahrain, Beirut or Amman decide to build a metro, for example, they will face a much higher cost of financing and even tougher repayment schemes than those secured by Dubai in the past decade.
Today, the UAE is confident enough to have women parliamentarians, judges and ambassadors, placing them on an equal footing with their male counterparts. Young Emirati boys and girls are growing up with even more hope for the future and with an eye to improving whatever shortcomings this country may have, including labour reforms and corporate governance.
Pioneering Dubai, by not delaying or tempering developments, effectively broke the regional taboo on thinking big and proved that we, too, in the Middle East can not only dream but can achieve world class status. Just look at all our neighbours following suit.
Undoubtedly, Dubai has a great deal of debt, but once these loans are settled they will be proved a price worth paying to secure this nation's future.
By taking the path it has, Dubai has effectively brought the future forward rather than await its arrival. Our debt will not be in vain.
Sultan Al Qassemi is a Sharjah-based businessman and graduate of the American University of Paris. He is the founder of Barjeel Securities in Dubai
This article was first published in The National Newspaper on December 7th 2008
Sunday, 30 November 2008
It's not enough for Muslims to be revolted by terror
"They knock on my door aggressively but I don't open it, I stay very quiet." The caller pauses briefly before continuing. "But I am fine." These were the words of UAE national Rashid al Owais, a 40-year-old marble trader whose business took him to Mumbai last week.
Rashid, a Muslim and an Arab, was among the hostages of the co-ordinated terrorist attacks by a cowardly crew of criminal gangsters. He was speaking to Dubai TV on Thursday night from his hotel room in the Oberoi Trident, where he had been holed up since the beginning of the siege. Naturally, the UAE was one of the first countries to condemn this "reprehensible crime".
The situation of the UAE is unique: its ties with India go back hundreds of years, and it is a country where the peaceful Indian community constitutes a majority of the foreign residents. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, an association of 56 Islamic states, also condemned the terror attacks stating that "these acts of violence contradict all human values and can be justified by nothing". Nothing is the key word here.
Since the evil attacks of September 11, moderate Muslims dread the news of yet another "holy attack" in which the name of their religion – which means peace – is used as an excuse for bloodthirsty savagery. In fact there is an unannounced air of relief among Muslims whenever perpetrators of violent attacks turn out to be from non-Islamic fundamentalist backgrounds. Such was the case during the Virginia Tech university massacre in April 2007 in which 32 mostly students were killed by a South Korean.
We like to remind others that like Rashid al Owais, Muslims are victims of terror, too. We also are mindful of other notorious non-Islamic groups that perpetuate violence, including Eta in Spain and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. The latter are responsible for up to 60,000 deaths and more than 200 suicide attacks, one of which took the life of Rajiv Gandhi, the then prime minister of India.
The perpetrators of last week's Mumbai attacks could not have chosen a more powerful symbol of humanity than India, with its beautiful mosaic of ethnicities – a mosaic that will undoubtedly continue to shine despite the crimes of an unrepresentative minority who hijack Islam whenever the state of their miserable existence dawns upon them.
India is a proud nation in which the Hindu majority embraces many minorities such as Muslims and Christians, and where they are able to dream and flourish. This is the country of Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, who as a poor boy in the mid 20th century was forced to sell newspapers to pay for his studies, but who grew up to be elected as the 11th president of over a billion people earlier this decade.
This is the country, too, of Azim Premji, a young Stanford graduate who had the opportunity to turn a fledgling family business called Western Indian Vegetable Products Limited, into a global software giant now called Wipro, making him until recently it's richest citizen.
This is the country of Shah Rukh Khan, an orphaned Muslim boy who rocketed into movie stardom and yet respects the religion of his wife and continues to place the Holy Quran next to Hindu gods in his house. This is the country of the Taj Mahal, the most magnificent Islamic structure in the world, built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal.
But most importantly, this is the country of the everyday man and woman, Hindu, Christian and Muslim, who wake up each morning and often embark on a journey that could last several hours, leaving their loved ones behind in order to build better lives for their families. This vision of humanity is at odds with the beliefs of terrorists, brainwashed thugs who also leave their homes and embark on a journey – but in their case to commit murder.
It is not enough for moderate Muslims to be revolted by the attacks in Mumbai as we have been revolted by the attacks on the New York office towers, Amman wedding, London transport system, Madrid trains, Beslan school, Jerusalem pizzeria, Baghdad markets and numerous other places. It is time to take a serious stand against these perpetrators and reclaim our religion.
Muslims must be more vocal in their sentiments regarding such criminals, and Islamic states must counter this behaviour proactively. To borrow from an unpopular phrase, the Islamic states must launch a psychological pre-emptive strike against these terrorists and more importantly those who encourage them. Muslim preachers who fail to condemn terror must either be re-educated or discredited completely, and those who excuse terror using certain conflicts as a pretext must be silenced because the poison that they spread today will come back to haunt us all tomorrow.
Some media outlets can also act as a conduit for the terrorists' propaganda. The stories of reformed radicals such as Sayed Imam, also known as Dr Fadl, must be highlighted to the ignorant minority. Our message must be clear: "These acts of violence contradict all human values and can be justified by nothing."
Nothing.
This article was published in The National on Sunday 30-11-2008
Rashid, a Muslim and an Arab, was among the hostages of the co-ordinated terrorist attacks by a cowardly crew of criminal gangsters. He was speaking to Dubai TV on Thursday night from his hotel room in the Oberoi Trident, where he had been holed up since the beginning of the siege. Naturally, the UAE was one of the first countries to condemn this "reprehensible crime".
The situation of the UAE is unique: its ties with India go back hundreds of years, and it is a country where the peaceful Indian community constitutes a majority of the foreign residents. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, an association of 56 Islamic states, also condemned the terror attacks stating that "these acts of violence contradict all human values and can be justified by nothing". Nothing is the key word here.
Since the evil attacks of September 11, moderate Muslims dread the news of yet another "holy attack" in which the name of their religion – which means peace – is used as an excuse for bloodthirsty savagery. In fact there is an unannounced air of relief among Muslims whenever perpetrators of violent attacks turn out to be from non-Islamic fundamentalist backgrounds. Such was the case during the Virginia Tech university massacre in April 2007 in which 32 mostly students were killed by a South Korean.
We like to remind others that like Rashid al Owais, Muslims are victims of terror, too. We also are mindful of other notorious non-Islamic groups that perpetuate violence, including Eta in Spain and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. The latter are responsible for up to 60,000 deaths and more than 200 suicide attacks, one of which took the life of Rajiv Gandhi, the then prime minister of India.
The perpetrators of last week's Mumbai attacks could not have chosen a more powerful symbol of humanity than India, with its beautiful mosaic of ethnicities – a mosaic that will undoubtedly continue to shine despite the crimes of an unrepresentative minority who hijack Islam whenever the state of their miserable existence dawns upon them.
India is a proud nation in which the Hindu majority embraces many minorities such as Muslims and Christians, and where they are able to dream and flourish. This is the country of Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, who as a poor boy in the mid 20th century was forced to sell newspapers to pay for his studies, but who grew up to be elected as the 11th president of over a billion people earlier this decade.
This is the country, too, of Azim Premji, a young Stanford graduate who had the opportunity to turn a fledgling family business called Western Indian Vegetable Products Limited, into a global software giant now called Wipro, making him until recently it's richest citizen.
This is the country of Shah Rukh Khan, an orphaned Muslim boy who rocketed into movie stardom and yet respects the religion of his wife and continues to place the Holy Quran next to Hindu gods in his house. This is the country of the Taj Mahal, the most magnificent Islamic structure in the world, built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal.
But most importantly, this is the country of the everyday man and woman, Hindu, Christian and Muslim, who wake up each morning and often embark on a journey that could last several hours, leaving their loved ones behind in order to build better lives for their families. This vision of humanity is at odds with the beliefs of terrorists, brainwashed thugs who also leave their homes and embark on a journey – but in their case to commit murder.
It is not enough for moderate Muslims to be revolted by the attacks in Mumbai as we have been revolted by the attacks on the New York office towers, Amman wedding, London transport system, Madrid trains, Beslan school, Jerusalem pizzeria, Baghdad markets and numerous other places. It is time to take a serious stand against these perpetrators and reclaim our religion.
Muslims must be more vocal in their sentiments regarding such criminals, and Islamic states must counter this behaviour proactively. To borrow from an unpopular phrase, the Islamic states must launch a psychological pre-emptive strike against these terrorists and more importantly those who encourage them. Muslim preachers who fail to condemn terror must either be re-educated or discredited completely, and those who excuse terror using certain conflicts as a pretext must be silenced because the poison that they spread today will come back to haunt us all tomorrow.
Some media outlets can also act as a conduit for the terrorists' propaganda. The stories of reformed radicals such as Sayed Imam, also known as Dr Fadl, must be highlighted to the ignorant minority. Our message must be clear: "These acts of violence contradict all human values and can be justified by nothing."
Nothing.
This article was published in The National on Sunday 30-11-2008
Sunday, 23 November 2008
'Tournalists' who catch the Dubai bashing syndrome
Since Dubai has taken a front seat in the international limelight, we in the UAE have grown used to welcoming journalists from across the world. Recently, though, there has been a slew of reporters coming hoping to uncover a "dark side". Thankfully, the UAE has largely ignored this negative campaign and has continued with its development, looking towards the future.
The truth is that so many visiting journalists have come looking for negative news that I have become apprehensive of their visits. In early November, the UAE won a great honour when Dubai hosted the World Economic Forum's Summit on the Global Agenda, billed as an opportunity to gather 700 of the world's most influential thinkers from academia, business, government and society to discuss and find solutions to "the most critical challenges facing humanity".
Among the attendees were dozens of Nobel laureates and one of my own heroes from the financial world, Mohamed El-Erian the current CEO of Pimco, the world's largest bond investor with $692 billion of assets under management as of 2007, who also used to manage Harvard University's $35 billion endowment fund.
It was a gathering like no other. Naturally, a newspaper like the Los Angeles Times would want to cover the event and reflect on the discussions. That is what I initially thought when I started reading its report; but I was mistaken. Its reporter, Rosa Brooks, "spent a few days in Dubai" and came up with hurtful phrases like "for us normal human beings, it's hard not to be revolted by Dubai", and "Dubai is repulsive enough to make most ordinary mortals start rooting for the collapse of global capitalism".
As a UAE national, the thing I found to be repulsive and revolting was her attitude. Did she bother writing about Dubai Cares? It only happens to be on an unprecedented billion-dollar, eight-week fundraising drive to help people around the world. Did she write that the UAE is one of the most generous countries in the world with regards to its aid as a ratio of GDP?
She is not the only one to act this way. There was a book published recently, The Vulnerability of Success – a title as ironic as, say, The Curse of the Multi-Millionaire – that was also full of errors. For instance, it has many references to a certain "Sultan Bin Sulayman", who seems to be a juxtaposition of two respected but very different Dubai leaders, Dr Omar Bin Suleiman and Sultan Bin Sulayem.
As the book was being reviewed by the UAE's National Media Council prior to its release, the author went public and accused the NMC of having a "kneejerk reaction" and banning it. In fact, the book was never banned but was simply being reviewed – in the same way that in the UK, the British Board of Film Classification reviews movies before screening them. Is that a kneejerk reaction? We in the UAE have our processes too.
There barely passes a week without another dying (circulation wise) newspaper from the West sending a reporter to the UAE to uncover our "dark side". Sure, it's not perfect here, but we're trying our best. Do criticise us, but get your facts right.
When I spoke to a fellow Emirati columnist about the West's Dubai bashing syndrome he told me: "It's natural, they're jealous." He may be right. Stagnant economies (we're still predicted to grow at 4.25 per cent in 2009 despite the economic crisis), ageing populations, weakening social welfare and scant natural resources aren't really as exciting as reading about Princess Diana.
Part of this maybe because the UAE has suffered from a lack of representation not only in the international media but, unfortunately, locally too. Although the efforts of our expatriate journalists are admired and appreciated, it is important that the opinions of UAE and Gulf nationals appear in the local media. It is said that 98 per cent of journalists in the UAE hold a work visa, meaning that they are not citizens. Imagine if for three decades all you read in the British press had been written by Arabs or Americans: the news would not reflect local opinions. Sadly, this was the case here until The National arrived. It is an area in which our GCC neighbours are exceeding us. Even in the 1990s, it was not surprising to find reports and Op-Eds written by nationals in English language newspapers in Kuwait or Oman.
Yet few Emiratis have penned or translated their opinions into English. The rare cases include Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qassimi, Ruler of Sharjah, Mohammed Abdul Jalil al Fahim, and Essa Saleh al Gurg. These books give everyone a better picture of the people of this land. We need more of these enlightening windows into the culture and history of the UAE.
There have been other valuable contributions, such as My Vision – Challenges in the Race for Excellence by Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, that won the Sheikh Khalifa Emirati Book Prize, when it was published in Arabic in 2007. When the English version becomes available it will be a welcome addition to the libraries of those who want to learn about Dubai from the inside rather than from the biased opinions of tourist-journalists – who would perhaps be better called "tournalists".
I hope the UAE continues with its wise open-door policy regardless of the negativity of some of those who write about us. I also hope that more Emiratis are represented in the national media. These policies are the best way to combat the Dubai Bashing Syndrome.
* Sultan Al Qassemi is a Sharjah-based businessman and graduate of the American University of Paris. He is the founder of Barjeel Securities in Dubai. This article first appeared in The National newspaper on 23/11/2008
The truth is that so many visiting journalists have come looking for negative news that I have become apprehensive of their visits. In early November, the UAE won a great honour when Dubai hosted the World Economic Forum's Summit on the Global Agenda, billed as an opportunity to gather 700 of the world's most influential thinkers from academia, business, government and society to discuss and find solutions to "the most critical challenges facing humanity".
Among the attendees were dozens of Nobel laureates and one of my own heroes from the financial world, Mohamed El-Erian the current CEO of Pimco, the world's largest bond investor with $692 billion of assets under management as of 2007, who also used to manage Harvard University's $35 billion endowment fund.
It was a gathering like no other. Naturally, a newspaper like the Los Angeles Times would want to cover the event and reflect on the discussions. That is what I initially thought when I started reading its report; but I was mistaken. Its reporter, Rosa Brooks, "spent a few days in Dubai" and came up with hurtful phrases like "for us normal human beings, it's hard not to be revolted by Dubai", and "Dubai is repulsive enough to make most ordinary mortals start rooting for the collapse of global capitalism".
As a UAE national, the thing I found to be repulsive and revolting was her attitude. Did she bother writing about Dubai Cares? It only happens to be on an unprecedented billion-dollar, eight-week fundraising drive to help people around the world. Did she write that the UAE is one of the most generous countries in the world with regards to its aid as a ratio of GDP?
She is not the only one to act this way. There was a book published recently, The Vulnerability of Success – a title as ironic as, say, The Curse of the Multi-Millionaire – that was also full of errors. For instance, it has many references to a certain "Sultan Bin Sulayman", who seems to be a juxtaposition of two respected but very different Dubai leaders, Dr Omar Bin Suleiman and Sultan Bin Sulayem.
As the book was being reviewed by the UAE's National Media Council prior to its release, the author went public and accused the NMC of having a "kneejerk reaction" and banning it. In fact, the book was never banned but was simply being reviewed – in the same way that in the UK, the British Board of Film Classification reviews movies before screening them. Is that a kneejerk reaction? We in the UAE have our processes too.
There barely passes a week without another dying (circulation wise) newspaper from the West sending a reporter to the UAE to uncover our "dark side". Sure, it's not perfect here, but we're trying our best. Do criticise us, but get your facts right.
When I spoke to a fellow Emirati columnist about the West's Dubai bashing syndrome he told me: "It's natural, they're jealous." He may be right. Stagnant economies (we're still predicted to grow at 4.25 per cent in 2009 despite the economic crisis), ageing populations, weakening social welfare and scant natural resources aren't really as exciting as reading about Princess Diana.
Part of this maybe because the UAE has suffered from a lack of representation not only in the international media but, unfortunately, locally too. Although the efforts of our expatriate journalists are admired and appreciated, it is important that the opinions of UAE and Gulf nationals appear in the local media. It is said that 98 per cent of journalists in the UAE hold a work visa, meaning that they are not citizens. Imagine if for three decades all you read in the British press had been written by Arabs or Americans: the news would not reflect local opinions. Sadly, this was the case here until The National arrived. It is an area in which our GCC neighbours are exceeding us. Even in the 1990s, it was not surprising to find reports and Op-Eds written by nationals in English language newspapers in Kuwait or Oman.
Yet few Emiratis have penned or translated their opinions into English. The rare cases include Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qassimi, Ruler of Sharjah, Mohammed Abdul Jalil al Fahim, and Essa Saleh al Gurg. These books give everyone a better picture of the people of this land. We need more of these enlightening windows into the culture and history of the UAE.
There have been other valuable contributions, such as My Vision – Challenges in the Race for Excellence by Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, that won the Sheikh Khalifa Emirati Book Prize, when it was published in Arabic in 2007. When the English version becomes available it will be a welcome addition to the libraries of those who want to learn about Dubai from the inside rather than from the biased opinions of tourist-journalists – who would perhaps be better called "tournalists".
I hope the UAE continues with its wise open-door policy regardless of the negativity of some of those who write about us. I also hope that more Emiratis are represented in the national media. These policies are the best way to combat the Dubai Bashing Syndrome.
* Sultan Al Qassemi is a Sharjah-based businessman and graduate of the American University of Paris. He is the founder of Barjeel Securities in Dubai. This article first appeared in The National newspaper on 23/11/2008
Sunday, 16 November 2008
Arab presidents who share a motto: 'Till death do us part'
"If it lasted with others it would never have reached you." The first time I read this Arabic saying about authority was when I visited Kuwait several years ago; it can be found atop the magnificent gate of Al-Seef Palace by the shore of the Gulf and dates back about 1337 Hijri, or 1918 AD, to remind the country's emir of his finite mandate. In contradiction of this statement, there is a worrying addiction displayed by leaders of Arab republics who seem to continue pursuing perpetual tenures in their presidencies.
Coincidentally, in the same year that the Arabic saying was scripted in monarchical Kuwait, a baby was born to a poor family in Alexandria, Egypt, who would set a precedent for clinging to authority that would change the Arab world for ever. That baby's name was, of course, Jamal Abdul Nasser.
One must first appreciate that Abdul Nasser was the first Egyptian since the Pharaohs to rule the land of the Pyramids after about two millennia of Romans, Kurds, Mamluks, Brits and Albanians among others having a go. He may have felt that history owed him, an Egyptian, an extended mandate. And so in the 1950s, he held a series of referendums that effectively proclaimed him president of Egypt for life, an undisputed fact even after his defeat by the Israeli army in 1967.
Abdul Naser passed away in 1970, but he left a legacy that is still felt in the 21st century – as recently as last week, in fact, when the Algerian parliament followed the precedent he set and "in an historic vote" amended the constitution to allow President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to run for a third term.
It wasn't a coincidence that one Algerian newspaper editorial commented that "by adding itself to the handful of states in the world, the Arab world in particular, which have written lifetime presidencies into their constitutions and consolidated personal or hereditary powers, Algeria is jumping backwards" – 52 years to be exact. To borrow from the words of the Arizona Senator John McCain: "My friends, we've seen this movie before", namely in Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Tunis and Mauritania.
The most controversial term extension of them all must be the one enacted by Syria, not on itself, but imposed on its fragile neighbour Lebanon. In 2004, Syria decided that their ally, the Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, would do well to stay in power for another three years (and why not?) after the expiration of his constitutionally-capped six-year mandate, because "the situation in the region is unstable and change at this time is not beneficial", as one Lebanese parliamentarian put it. Sound familiar?
The most imaginative of Arab republic presidents who perpetually extend their tenure must be the Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh. Mr Saleh has effectively been in power in Yemen in one shape or another since 1978. What is interesting about his repeated extensions is that even though he promised not to run for re-election in 2006 – "because we have to train ourselves in the practice of peaceful succession" – he decided he could not keep his promise (for the second time) after hearing "the chants, statements, messages, poems and calls" urging him to run for re-election again and again. Power to the people indeed.
The first person to call and congratulate Mr Saleh on "the confidence of the Yemeni people in him" was none other than the "Brother Leader and the Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya", Muammer Qadafi, another of Abdul Nasser's inspirations who has been in power since 1969.
The Brother Leader Qadafi devised an ingenious plan to stay in power for four decades: he proclaimed that he does not hold an official title and is merely a guide working on behalf of his people, so no elections are necessary. In another coincidence, the first and last free elections in Libya were held under King Idris I in 1952, the very year Abdul Nasser came to power.
Egypt, the most populous Arab nation, has only had three presidents over the past half a century. The country's current head, Hosni Mubarak – whose achievements include having his country's foreign debts forgiven – is a frail man in his ninth decade who has been in power since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. Egypt's presidential system gives new meaning to the vows "in sickness and in health, till death do us part", since no leader has left office voluntarily.
There are countless other stories of leaders of Arab republics, all of whom criticised the excesses in the monarchies they toppled before assuming power and effectively becoming monarchs in all but name themselves.
Having assumed the helm of power and absolute authority that comes with the presidency, it seems to be difficult for Arab republic leaders to go back to a civilian life and they instead opt to perpetually extend their tenure. Indeed, it would be wise to remind such presidents that power is elusive and impermanent for "if it lasted with others it would never have reached you".
This article first appeared in The National newspaper on Sunday November 16th 2008
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081115/OPINION/720488718
Coincidentally, in the same year that the Arabic saying was scripted in monarchical Kuwait, a baby was born to a poor family in Alexandria, Egypt, who would set a precedent for clinging to authority that would change the Arab world for ever. That baby's name was, of course, Jamal Abdul Nasser.
One must first appreciate that Abdul Nasser was the first Egyptian since the Pharaohs to rule the land of the Pyramids after about two millennia of Romans, Kurds, Mamluks, Brits and Albanians among others having a go. He may have felt that history owed him, an Egyptian, an extended mandate. And so in the 1950s, he held a series of referendums that effectively proclaimed him president of Egypt for life, an undisputed fact even after his defeat by the Israeli army in 1967.
Abdul Naser passed away in 1970, but he left a legacy that is still felt in the 21st century – as recently as last week, in fact, when the Algerian parliament followed the precedent he set and "in an historic vote" amended the constitution to allow President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to run for a third term.
It wasn't a coincidence that one Algerian newspaper editorial commented that "by adding itself to the handful of states in the world, the Arab world in particular, which have written lifetime presidencies into their constitutions and consolidated personal or hereditary powers, Algeria is jumping backwards" – 52 years to be exact. To borrow from the words of the Arizona Senator John McCain: "My friends, we've seen this movie before", namely in Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Tunis and Mauritania.
The most controversial term extension of them all must be the one enacted by Syria, not on itself, but imposed on its fragile neighbour Lebanon. In 2004, Syria decided that their ally, the Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, would do well to stay in power for another three years (and why not?) after the expiration of his constitutionally-capped six-year mandate, because "the situation in the region is unstable and change at this time is not beneficial", as one Lebanese parliamentarian put it. Sound familiar?
The most imaginative of Arab republic presidents who perpetually extend their tenure must be the Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh. Mr Saleh has effectively been in power in Yemen in one shape or another since 1978. What is interesting about his repeated extensions is that even though he promised not to run for re-election in 2006 – "because we have to train ourselves in the practice of peaceful succession" – he decided he could not keep his promise (for the second time) after hearing "the chants, statements, messages, poems and calls" urging him to run for re-election again and again. Power to the people indeed.
The first person to call and congratulate Mr Saleh on "the confidence of the Yemeni people in him" was none other than the "Brother Leader and the Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya", Muammer Qadafi, another of Abdul Nasser's inspirations who has been in power since 1969.
The Brother Leader Qadafi devised an ingenious plan to stay in power for four decades: he proclaimed that he does not hold an official title and is merely a guide working on behalf of his people, so no elections are necessary. In another coincidence, the first and last free elections in Libya were held under King Idris I in 1952, the very year Abdul Nasser came to power.
Egypt, the most populous Arab nation, has only had three presidents over the past half a century. The country's current head, Hosni Mubarak – whose achievements include having his country's foreign debts forgiven – is a frail man in his ninth decade who has been in power since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. Egypt's presidential system gives new meaning to the vows "in sickness and in health, till death do us part", since no leader has left office voluntarily.
There are countless other stories of leaders of Arab republics, all of whom criticised the excesses in the monarchies they toppled before assuming power and effectively becoming monarchs in all but name themselves.
Having assumed the helm of power and absolute authority that comes with the presidency, it seems to be difficult for Arab republic leaders to go back to a civilian life and they instead opt to perpetually extend their tenure. Indeed, it would be wise to remind such presidents that power is elusive and impermanent for "if it lasted with others it would never have reached you".
This article first appeared in The National newspaper on Sunday November 16th 2008
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081115/OPINION/720488718
Sunday, 9 November 2008
America's Flawed Democracy
The United States has spent most of the new century trying to export its democracy, sometimes by violent means. This democracy, though, is far from ideal.
“Absolutely”, was the answer Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Austrian-born Governor of California, gave when asked whether the ban on foreign-born US citizens such as him running for presidential office should be lifted. Anyone who saw Mr Schwarzenegger’s rousing speech in support of Senator John McCain in Columbus, Ohio, in the closing stages of the election campaign would have been persuaded that this was the man to win the White House back for the Republicans – but he is discriminated against politically.
This effectively second-class citizen status also applies to Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger, who were born in Czechoslovakia and Germany respectively – even though, according to US succession laws, as serving Secretaries of State they were both fourth in line to become President.
Likewise, at the time of the launch of the US war in Iraq no fewer than 38,000 US military men and women were not, in fact, American citizens. Indeed, of the first ten Californians to be killed in Iraq, five were not US citizens: they included the Guatemalan orphan and later US Marine Lance Corporal Jose Gutierrez, who died aged 22 while serving the US in Iraq just a few months after illegally entering America.
They all died for a country that would never allow them to serve as President or Vice President, although many of those killed on duty are awarded US citizenship posthumously. This is the same country that permitted a former Miss Alaska beauty pageant competitor to run for high public office.
As the death toll in Iraq continues to grow, a disproportionate number of those deaths among the American military are of non-citizens who are sometimes referred to as “cannon fodder”. This is because they usually occupy the less protected infantry positions that put them directly in the line of fire.
The reason they sign up for military service may be related to widespread poverty in their communities: since many of them are disadvantaged, the most attractive legal recourse to funds and the dignity awarded by citizenship is to serve in the military. In 2006, the US military was able to meet 105 per cent of its enlistment requirements after it raised cash grants to those who sign up to $40,000, and found that lower and middle-income areas were over-represented in the recruitment.
In addition to these democratic anomalies, the US electoral process is among the most complex in the world. There are primaries and caucuses, electoral colleges, pledged and unpledged delegates and superdelegates and in the end it is quite possible for the person who wins the most votes to lose the election. This has in fact happened, most recently in 2000, when Al Gore, the Democratic presidential candidate, won half a million more votes than the now outgoing President George W Bush, and yet lost the election. The reason was the so-called Florida fiasco: Mr Bush won a mere 500 votes more than Mr Gore and so carried the entire state, with its vital 25 Electoral College votes. Thus Mr Bush became the “leader of the free world” by winning fewer votes than his opponent.
This is partly due to the Electoral College voting system: in a presidential election, the votes are counted state by state, after which each state sends a number of representatives to the Electoral College, the number being equal to the number of its Senators and Representatives in the US Congress, and therefore roughly based on its population: so California, for example, has the highest number of Electoral College votes, 55, while more sparsely populated states, such as Wyoming, have as few as three. There are 538 electors in the College, so 270 or above is the figure needed to win the presidency.
In Barack Obama’s case the headlines were misleading, with numerous TV stations and newspapers announcing a landslide victory because he won 364 Electoral College votes against John McCain’s 162. To outsiders it seemed as if Mr Obama had won more than twice as many votes as the Republican candidate, but that is not so. Mr Obama won by 7.6 million votes over his opponent – an impressive number, until you realise that the United States is a country of over 300 million.
In the final count, Mr Obama had around 52 per cent of the votes compared with about 46 per cent for McCain. This hardly reflects the skewed percentages represented in the Electoral College, which give the misleading impression that Mr Obama won 70 per cent of American citizens’ votes.
Another drawback of the system is that certain states, such as Tennessee, which has a smaller population than Arizona, is given a larger representation in the Electoral Colleges.
So while there is no denying that America is a democratic country, it is far from the perfect democracy it portrays itself to be. Just ask Arnold Schwarzenegger.
This article first appeared in The National on Sunday November 9th 2008
“Absolutely”, was the answer Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Austrian-born Governor of California, gave when asked whether the ban on foreign-born US citizens such as him running for presidential office should be lifted. Anyone who saw Mr Schwarzenegger’s rousing speech in support of Senator John McCain in Columbus, Ohio, in the closing stages of the election campaign would have been persuaded that this was the man to win the White House back for the Republicans – but he is discriminated against politically.
This effectively second-class citizen status also applies to Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger, who were born in Czechoslovakia and Germany respectively – even though, according to US succession laws, as serving Secretaries of State they were both fourth in line to become President.
Likewise, at the time of the launch of the US war in Iraq no fewer than 38,000 US military men and women were not, in fact, American citizens. Indeed, of the first ten Californians to be killed in Iraq, five were not US citizens: they included the Guatemalan orphan and later US Marine Lance Corporal Jose Gutierrez, who died aged 22 while serving the US in Iraq just a few months after illegally entering America.
They all died for a country that would never allow them to serve as President or Vice President, although many of those killed on duty are awarded US citizenship posthumously. This is the same country that permitted a former Miss Alaska beauty pageant competitor to run for high public office.
As the death toll in Iraq continues to grow, a disproportionate number of those deaths among the American military are of non-citizens who are sometimes referred to as “cannon fodder”. This is because they usually occupy the less protected infantry positions that put them directly in the line of fire.
The reason they sign up for military service may be related to widespread poverty in their communities: since many of them are disadvantaged, the most attractive legal recourse to funds and the dignity awarded by citizenship is to serve in the military. In 2006, the US military was able to meet 105 per cent of its enlistment requirements after it raised cash grants to those who sign up to $40,000, and found that lower and middle-income areas were over-represented in the recruitment.
In addition to these democratic anomalies, the US electoral process is among the most complex in the world. There are primaries and caucuses, electoral colleges, pledged and unpledged delegates and superdelegates and in the end it is quite possible for the person who wins the most votes to lose the election. This has in fact happened, most recently in 2000, when Al Gore, the Democratic presidential candidate, won half a million more votes than the now outgoing President George W Bush, and yet lost the election. The reason was the so-called Florida fiasco: Mr Bush won a mere 500 votes more than Mr Gore and so carried the entire state, with its vital 25 Electoral College votes. Thus Mr Bush became the “leader of the free world” by winning fewer votes than his opponent.
This is partly due to the Electoral College voting system: in a presidential election, the votes are counted state by state, after which each state sends a number of representatives to the Electoral College, the number being equal to the number of its Senators and Representatives in the US Congress, and therefore roughly based on its population: so California, for example, has the highest number of Electoral College votes, 55, while more sparsely populated states, such as Wyoming, have as few as three. There are 538 electors in the College, so 270 or above is the figure needed to win the presidency.
In Barack Obama’s case the headlines were misleading, with numerous TV stations and newspapers announcing a landslide victory because he won 364 Electoral College votes against John McCain’s 162. To outsiders it seemed as if Mr Obama had won more than twice as many votes as the Republican candidate, but that is not so. Mr Obama won by 7.6 million votes over his opponent – an impressive number, until you realise that the United States is a country of over 300 million.
In the final count, Mr Obama had around 52 per cent of the votes compared with about 46 per cent for McCain. This hardly reflects the skewed percentages represented in the Electoral College, which give the misleading impression that Mr Obama won 70 per cent of American citizens’ votes.
Another drawback of the system is that certain states, such as Tennessee, which has a smaller population than Arizona, is given a larger representation in the Electoral Colleges.
So while there is no denying that America is a democratic country, it is far from the perfect democracy it portrays itself to be. Just ask Arnold Schwarzenegger.
This article first appeared in The National on Sunday November 9th 2008
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak – the Emirati sheikh of hearts
The first memory I have of Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak was in Ajman many years ago, when I asked my late father who was the charismatic person being repeatedly greeted at the wedding of the son of a prominent personality there. Little did I know that the person who so impressed me then would have one of the strongest positive impacts on both UAE society and my life personally.
It isn’t surprising that the Al Nahyan branch of the Bani Yas tribe of the Arabian Peninsula would produce such a powerful personality. After all, it has given us the resolute Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, the country’s current President, as well as Abu Dhabi’s visionary Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, but most of all it gave us the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan, the founder of the UAE and the person who steered it effectively from a sparsely populated, illiterate, desperately poor and defenceless group of entities known as the Trucial States, to a respected world economic powerhouse proudly called the United Arab Emirates.
At the outset, it is important to highlight the role that Sheikh Nahyan’s father, Mubarak bin Mohammed, a close adviser to Sheikh Zayed and the UAE’s first Minister of the Interior, played in the formation of his personality as well as the nation. Next November, Abu Dhabi will be hosting the most glamorous Formula 1 Grand Prix in the world, an honour that we have won partly due to the advanced road network in Abu Dhabi – laid under the supervision of Sheikh Mubarak in the 1970s.
Sheikh Mubarak, upon the instructions of Sheikh Zayed, adopted the New York-style grid system for the capital, and even named the streets and neighbourhoods. It was also Sheikh Mubarak who, early on in UAE history, eliminated the inspection of vehicles entering the capital from the northern Emirates to solidify the federation. Sadly, a personal injury prompted Sheikh Mubarak to retire from the civil service in 1979; fortunately he has continued to implement his values through his sons – especially Sheikh Nahyan.
Among the many hats that Sheikh Nahyan wears are Minister of Higher Education, close adviser to the rulers of Abu Dhabi, and successful private businessman. According to the Zawya.com portal, Sheikh Nahyan’s interests span areas as diverse as property development, banking, telecoms, automobiles, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and tourism. The one thing that isn’t mentioned is his greatest interest: educating the younger generations of Emiratis.
Sheikh Nahyan makes it a point to personally attend the graduation ceremonies of the educational institutions that he heads, including the women-only Zayed University, the Higher Colleges of Technology, and the oldest centre for higher learning in the country, UAE University. At a time when the world is becoming more and more impersonal, Sheikh Nahyan makes a point of looking each student in the eyes as he hands them their well-earned degrees.
His vision for education is constantly stressed in his numerous speeches at various conferences, for example the topic of his speech at a recent BusinessWeek forum revolved around building human capital.
Sheikh Nahyan is a man who believes that “spending in education is the most feasible investment in the future” and is known to say to parents: “We will work together to serve and develop the country and its sons.” His enthusiasm for education is evident in his surprise inspections of schools right across the UAE; with such a prominent advocate for academic reform, it isn’t surprising that the UAE Government has allocated close to a quarter of the Dh42 billion ($11 billion) 2009 budget for education.
Sheikh Nahyan also exemplifies the Emirati tradition of reaching across to other, less fortunate, people, as well as to statesmen, academics and leaders of various religious faiths. Earlier this year on Easter Sunday, he inaugurated the new Anglican church in Abu Dhabi, personifying the tolerance of the UAE.
His belief in interfaith relations was clear in a hand written note to Giovanni Bernardo Gremoli, the Apostolic Vicar of Arabia at the end of his 29 years of service, in which he wrote: “To my dear Bernardo. It has been a pleasure knowing you as a friend and man of peace and tolerance and real fine human being and man of God. I wish you all the best.” It is in times like these that the world most needs personalities such as Sheikh Nahyan.
And yet despite all the hard work Sheikh Nahyan does for young Emiratis, it is something that he continues to do closer to home that outshines everything else. Since his father’s retirement from public life, Sheikh Nahyan has exemplified the notion of a fine son raised by a fine man. Sheikh Nahyan continues to involve his much respected father in his daily life, visiting him several times a day, first before heading to work, then again in the afternoon and another visit in the evening. In their Ramadan majlis this September, no fewer than 50 leading sheikhs visited Sheikh Mubarak at his home – including the Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, the rulers of Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, and all the crown princes and deputy rulers without exception. Absolutely no one else, save the ruler of the UAE and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, gets awarded such high respect.
And standing by Sheikh Mubarak’s side, day after day throughout the last three decades, has been Sheikh Nahyan.
My most vivid recent memory of Sheikh Nahyan is in the Ramadan tent he hosted where people from all sections of UAE society came together as guests of his legendary hospitality. Sheikh Nahyan’s modesty was evident; he treated all visitors with the same respect, standing up and greeting them one after the other – in their dozens – with his customary smile.
It is rare to find a personality that can match Sheikh Nahyan’s. He seldom grants interviews, embodying the adage that actions speak louder than words. In truth, the letter in which he referred to Bishop Gremoli as a “man of peace and tolerance, and a real fine human being” could easily be applied to its author.
He truly is the Emirati Sheikh of Hearts.
This article was first published in The National on Nov 2nd 2008
It isn’t surprising that the Al Nahyan branch of the Bani Yas tribe of the Arabian Peninsula would produce such a powerful personality. After all, it has given us the resolute Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, the country’s current President, as well as Abu Dhabi’s visionary Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, but most of all it gave us the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan, the founder of the UAE and the person who steered it effectively from a sparsely populated, illiterate, desperately poor and defenceless group of entities known as the Trucial States, to a respected world economic powerhouse proudly called the United Arab Emirates.
At the outset, it is important to highlight the role that Sheikh Nahyan’s father, Mubarak bin Mohammed, a close adviser to Sheikh Zayed and the UAE’s first Minister of the Interior, played in the formation of his personality as well as the nation. Next November, Abu Dhabi will be hosting the most glamorous Formula 1 Grand Prix in the world, an honour that we have won partly due to the advanced road network in Abu Dhabi – laid under the supervision of Sheikh Mubarak in the 1970s.
Sheikh Mubarak, upon the instructions of Sheikh Zayed, adopted the New York-style grid system for the capital, and even named the streets and neighbourhoods. It was also Sheikh Mubarak who, early on in UAE history, eliminated the inspection of vehicles entering the capital from the northern Emirates to solidify the federation. Sadly, a personal injury prompted Sheikh Mubarak to retire from the civil service in 1979; fortunately he has continued to implement his values through his sons – especially Sheikh Nahyan.
Among the many hats that Sheikh Nahyan wears are Minister of Higher Education, close adviser to the rulers of Abu Dhabi, and successful private businessman. According to the Zawya.com portal, Sheikh Nahyan’s interests span areas as diverse as property development, banking, telecoms, automobiles, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and tourism. The one thing that isn’t mentioned is his greatest interest: educating the younger generations of Emiratis.
Sheikh Nahyan makes it a point to personally attend the graduation ceremonies of the educational institutions that he heads, including the women-only Zayed University, the Higher Colleges of Technology, and the oldest centre for higher learning in the country, UAE University. At a time when the world is becoming more and more impersonal, Sheikh Nahyan makes a point of looking each student in the eyes as he hands them their well-earned degrees.
His vision for education is constantly stressed in his numerous speeches at various conferences, for example the topic of his speech at a recent BusinessWeek forum revolved around building human capital.
Sheikh Nahyan is a man who believes that “spending in education is the most feasible investment in the future” and is known to say to parents: “We will work together to serve and develop the country and its sons.” His enthusiasm for education is evident in his surprise inspections of schools right across the UAE; with such a prominent advocate for academic reform, it isn’t surprising that the UAE Government has allocated close to a quarter of the Dh42 billion ($11 billion) 2009 budget for education.
Sheikh Nahyan also exemplifies the Emirati tradition of reaching across to other, less fortunate, people, as well as to statesmen, academics and leaders of various religious faiths. Earlier this year on Easter Sunday, he inaugurated the new Anglican church in Abu Dhabi, personifying the tolerance of the UAE.
His belief in interfaith relations was clear in a hand written note to Giovanni Bernardo Gremoli, the Apostolic Vicar of Arabia at the end of his 29 years of service, in which he wrote: “To my dear Bernardo. It has been a pleasure knowing you as a friend and man of peace and tolerance and real fine human being and man of God. I wish you all the best.” It is in times like these that the world most needs personalities such as Sheikh Nahyan.
And yet despite all the hard work Sheikh Nahyan does for young Emiratis, it is something that he continues to do closer to home that outshines everything else. Since his father’s retirement from public life, Sheikh Nahyan has exemplified the notion of a fine son raised by a fine man. Sheikh Nahyan continues to involve his much respected father in his daily life, visiting him several times a day, first before heading to work, then again in the afternoon and another visit in the evening. In their Ramadan majlis this September, no fewer than 50 leading sheikhs visited Sheikh Mubarak at his home – including the Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, the rulers of Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, and all the crown princes and deputy rulers without exception. Absolutely no one else, save the ruler of the UAE and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, gets awarded such high respect.
And standing by Sheikh Mubarak’s side, day after day throughout the last three decades, has been Sheikh Nahyan.
My most vivid recent memory of Sheikh Nahyan is in the Ramadan tent he hosted where people from all sections of UAE society came together as guests of his legendary hospitality. Sheikh Nahyan’s modesty was evident; he treated all visitors with the same respect, standing up and greeting them one after the other – in their dozens – with his customary smile.
It is rare to find a personality that can match Sheikh Nahyan’s. He seldom grants interviews, embodying the adage that actions speak louder than words. In truth, the letter in which he referred to Bishop Gremoli as a “man of peace and tolerance, and a real fine human being” could easily be applied to its author.
He truly is the Emirati Sheikh of Hearts.
This article was first published in The National on Nov 2nd 2008
Sunday, 26 October 2008
It’s not enough for the UAE just to recognise Kosovo
This month the United Arab Emirates became the first Arab state to recognise Kosovo, the newest country in the world.
Kosovo, which embodies the concept of Balkanisation, is a remnant of a remnant. During the talks that led to the break-up of Yugoslavia, its status was a neglected but boiling issue until Nato air power forced the Serbs out of the historic territory in 1999, after half of its two million inhabitants were driven out by Serbian troops fighting the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Kosovo’s birth in February was not celebrated across the world; in fact, there were numerous demonstrations, however small, against its recognition. The Serbian President called it a “false country” and the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, cautioned that his country might change its policy towards Abkhazia and South Ossetia should Kosovo be allowed to secede. Six months later, in August, Russia recognised the independence of those two Georgian regions, specifically citing the case of Kosovo in a move that may yet ignite what some refer to as Cold War Two.
Kosovo, which is probably the only country in the world that has a road named after President George W Bush running in front of its parliament, was the first nation that the UAE actively supported all the way through to independence, with the deployment of 1,500 troops who have been there since 2001. In fact, even before the troop deployment and as early as 1999, the UAE had sent planeloads of aid and treated Kosovo refugees in its camps, using mobile medical clinics equipped with X-ray machines.
At a cost of $25.7 million to the UAE, an airport named after the nation’s founder, Sheikh Zayed, was built in record time at Kukes, near Kosovo’s border with Albania, on a disused base dating from the Second World War, to handle planes that could carry relief and supplies to the 100,000 refugees in the area. By the time the UAE’s full deployment of medical and military personal in Kosovo was in full swing it was the biggest international humanitarian mission in its history. The aid given to Kosovo by the UAE’s Red Crescent Authority alone has cost Dh125 million in the past decade.
The UAE’s troops were backed by 50 Russian-made BMP-3 armoured fighting vehicles and 15 French-made Leclerc main battle tanks, and its special forces were equipped with six Apache helicopters. In March 2000, Lieutenant-General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, now the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, visited the province in his capacity as commander of the UAE’s armed forces to inspect the troops, along with King Abdullah of Jordan. It was therefore a natural extension to a decade-old commitment that the UAE recognise Kosovo.
But it is too early to tell if that recognition is enough to point Kosovo in the right direction. After all, its tiny GDP of $4 Billion is smaller than a medium-sized company’s annual turnover, while unemployment levels and those of people living under the poverty line both hover around an all too high 40 per cent. Also, several EU states, including Spain and Greece, irresponsibly shun Kosovo along with Russia, a UN Security Council member: possibly in the belief that it would become a non-state, or in the naive hope that the Americans and the British would withdraw their recognition of the country and it would be reabsorbed into greater Serbia.
Either Kosovo, which sits comfortably in the bosom of the European continent, not far from numerous potential flashpoints, is now embraced wholeheartedly by the EU and the international community, or we will have only ourselves to blame. The last time the international community neglected a state that was receiving high amounts of unregulated Gulf financial assistance it was Afghanistan, and we all know what happened there.
The UAE for its part has invested heavily in the province, building up to 50 mosques: these are obviously required, considering the country’s 90 per cent plus Muslim population, but they are only one aspect of what the country needs. If the UAE and other supporters of Kosovo’s independence want to make sure that the newborn state does not become a victim of religious extremism, they must invest in secular institutions such as universities, colleges, hospitals and vocational training centres. They must also ensure that the mosques are staffed by tolerant imams, and not brainwashing preachers of the sort that went to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It would be wrong of the UAE, the US, Europe and the rest of the civilised world to neglect Kosovo once again, after they encouraged and endorsed its independence. Extremism knows no global financial crisis; it breeds in the unlikeliest of places, and where better than in the bosom of Europe? Kosovo’s secular democratic institutions need to be shored up, including its parliament – even if it does stand on George W Bush Avenue.
This article was first published in The National on Sunday 26 Oct 2008
Kosovo, which embodies the concept of Balkanisation, is a remnant of a remnant. During the talks that led to the break-up of Yugoslavia, its status was a neglected but boiling issue until Nato air power forced the Serbs out of the historic territory in 1999, after half of its two million inhabitants were driven out by Serbian troops fighting the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Kosovo’s birth in February was not celebrated across the world; in fact, there were numerous demonstrations, however small, against its recognition. The Serbian President called it a “false country” and the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, cautioned that his country might change its policy towards Abkhazia and South Ossetia should Kosovo be allowed to secede. Six months later, in August, Russia recognised the independence of those two Georgian regions, specifically citing the case of Kosovo in a move that may yet ignite what some refer to as Cold War Two.
Kosovo, which is probably the only country in the world that has a road named after President George W Bush running in front of its parliament, was the first nation that the UAE actively supported all the way through to independence, with the deployment of 1,500 troops who have been there since 2001. In fact, even before the troop deployment and as early as 1999, the UAE had sent planeloads of aid and treated Kosovo refugees in its camps, using mobile medical clinics equipped with X-ray machines.
At a cost of $25.7 million to the UAE, an airport named after the nation’s founder, Sheikh Zayed, was built in record time at Kukes, near Kosovo’s border with Albania, on a disused base dating from the Second World War, to handle planes that could carry relief and supplies to the 100,000 refugees in the area. By the time the UAE’s full deployment of medical and military personal in Kosovo was in full swing it was the biggest international humanitarian mission in its history. The aid given to Kosovo by the UAE’s Red Crescent Authority alone has cost Dh125 million in the past decade.
The UAE’s troops were backed by 50 Russian-made BMP-3 armoured fighting vehicles and 15 French-made Leclerc main battle tanks, and its special forces were equipped with six Apache helicopters. In March 2000, Lieutenant-General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, now the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, visited the province in his capacity as commander of the UAE’s armed forces to inspect the troops, along with King Abdullah of Jordan. It was therefore a natural extension to a decade-old commitment that the UAE recognise Kosovo.
But it is too early to tell if that recognition is enough to point Kosovo in the right direction. After all, its tiny GDP of $4 Billion is smaller than a medium-sized company’s annual turnover, while unemployment levels and those of people living under the poverty line both hover around an all too high 40 per cent. Also, several EU states, including Spain and Greece, irresponsibly shun Kosovo along with Russia, a UN Security Council member: possibly in the belief that it would become a non-state, or in the naive hope that the Americans and the British would withdraw their recognition of the country and it would be reabsorbed into greater Serbia.
Either Kosovo, which sits comfortably in the bosom of the European continent, not far from numerous potential flashpoints, is now embraced wholeheartedly by the EU and the international community, or we will have only ourselves to blame. The last time the international community neglected a state that was receiving high amounts of unregulated Gulf financial assistance it was Afghanistan, and we all know what happened there.
The UAE for its part has invested heavily in the province, building up to 50 mosques: these are obviously required, considering the country’s 90 per cent plus Muslim population, but they are only one aspect of what the country needs. If the UAE and other supporters of Kosovo’s independence want to make sure that the newborn state does not become a victim of religious extremism, they must invest in secular institutions such as universities, colleges, hospitals and vocational training centres. They must also ensure that the mosques are staffed by tolerant imams, and not brainwashing preachers of the sort that went to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It would be wrong of the UAE, the US, Europe and the rest of the civilised world to neglect Kosovo once again, after they encouraged and endorsed its independence. Extremism knows no global financial crisis; it breeds in the unlikeliest of places, and where better than in the bosom of Europe? Kosovo’s secular democratic institutions need to be shored up, including its parliament – even if it does stand on George W Bush Avenue.
This article was first published in The National on Sunday 26 Oct 2008
Monday, 13 October 2008
The UAE should rethink its organ donation policy
It is ironic that if I die in Britain my organs will be donated to any person who may be in need of them, as per my expressed permission on my UK driving licence (I ticked the box). In what some may refer to as a "circle of karma", my elder brother is a seasoned blood donor and some of my relatives have benefited from cornea transplants in the USA.
The fact that the UAE along with other Middle Eastern states has yet to introduce an organ donation law – even though the Ministry of Health has been "mulling" doing so for as long as I can remember – is shameful. It should require only a few months to study the law, take it to the Federal National Council (and give them some much required work) and then present it to the country's President to sign in as legislation, should it be acceptable of course.
Until then, Emiratis will continue to travel to places like the Philippines and South Asia to seek organs. The reason for this delay can partly be attributed to the various religious edicts that cast a shadow of doubt on the concept of organ donation. Despite the fact that the Holy Quran is very clear on the value and the sanctity of life as expressed in the Al-Ma'ida Sura of the Holy Scripture: "Whoso saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind" (Chapter 5: Verse 32). Note that the verse highlights the value of human life in general and not just that of Muslims.
Recently, an Omani scholar stated: "Our body is sacred and a dead body is respected in Islam and there's no need to scavenge it for organ donations." The numbers beg to differ with the scholar. In neighbouring Muslim Saudi Arabia, there were 8,500 patients waiting for kidney transplants alone.
These sorts of fatwas lead to confusion in Islamic countries including the UAE, Egypt and Pakistan, where a study found that only 60 per cent of people were willing to donate organs while 73 per cent were willing to receive such donations.
In Israel, a country that, like the UAE, that has mixed feelings about organ donations due to confusing rabbinical edicts, the parents of Ahmad Khatib, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot dead in Jenin in 2005 by Israeli soldiers, donated his organs for use in Israel. The organs ended up saving the lives of five Israeli children and an elderly woman. This compassionate gesture was praised as remarkable by the occupying power's parliamentary speaker as the organs went to save the lives of Arabs, Jews and Druze.
One of the recipients, also a 12-year-old child from Israel's Arab minority, has been waiting for an organ for five years. "I feel that my son has entered the heart of every Israeli," said Ahmad's father.
The issue with the validity and the enforcement of consensual organ donation is not simply restricted to the developing countries of the Middle East. A study in the British Medical Journal in 2006 showed that 41 per cent of families in the UK blocked the harvesting of organs from patients who, when they were alive, had given written permission for them to be taken.
In fact, Britain has a surprisingly low ratio of organ donations, with only 16 in every one million persons per year donating their organs compared with more than double that ratio in Spain. The problem mostly was the 41 per cent – up from 30 per cent in the 1990s – of families who denied consent after their relative's death, with the ratio rising among the ethnic minorities.
There are several ways that governments can encourage organ donations, according to the UK's Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, the body in charge of issuing such recommendations. Amongst the POST's suggestions is to follow Spain's Presumed Consent, which means that a deceased person's organs could be taken for transplant unless he or she specifically "opts out"; of course this system can also be coupled with the family's permission.
The most common method is the Opt In system, where people fill in a form that indicates their wish to donate organs after death. Finally, there is the so-called Incentive Scheme, where priority for certain medical treatments is given to patients who are willing to be organ donors.
In June of this year, Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi owned sovereign wealth fund, invested more than Dh340 million ($92.6 million) in a hospital in Kobe, Japan that will specialise in organ transplants and regenerative medicine, where it will send doctors to acquire organ transplant knowledge.
The hospital is due to open in 2010, so let's hope that by the time it is ready the UAE's Ministry of Health will have done mulling and finally drafted the organ donation law. If it hasn't, Mubadala will have to find other uses for these valuable and well trained physicians – or maybe it will just send them to the Philippines.
*This article was originally published in The National newspaper on 12 Oct 2008
The fact that the UAE along with other Middle Eastern states has yet to introduce an organ donation law – even though the Ministry of Health has been "mulling" doing so for as long as I can remember – is shameful. It should require only a few months to study the law, take it to the Federal National Council (and give them some much required work) and then present it to the country's President to sign in as legislation, should it be acceptable of course.
Until then, Emiratis will continue to travel to places like the Philippines and South Asia to seek organs. The reason for this delay can partly be attributed to the various religious edicts that cast a shadow of doubt on the concept of organ donation. Despite the fact that the Holy Quran is very clear on the value and the sanctity of life as expressed in the Al-Ma'ida Sura of the Holy Scripture: "Whoso saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind" (Chapter 5: Verse 32). Note that the verse highlights the value of human life in general and not just that of Muslims.
Recently, an Omani scholar stated: "Our body is sacred and a dead body is respected in Islam and there's no need to scavenge it for organ donations." The numbers beg to differ with the scholar. In neighbouring Muslim Saudi Arabia, there were 8,500 patients waiting for kidney transplants alone.
These sorts of fatwas lead to confusion in Islamic countries including the UAE, Egypt and Pakistan, where a study found that only 60 per cent of people were willing to donate organs while 73 per cent were willing to receive such donations.
In Israel, a country that, like the UAE, that has mixed feelings about organ donations due to confusing rabbinical edicts, the parents of Ahmad Khatib, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot dead in Jenin in 2005 by Israeli soldiers, donated his organs for use in Israel. The organs ended up saving the lives of five Israeli children and an elderly woman. This compassionate gesture was praised as remarkable by the occupying power's parliamentary speaker as the organs went to save the lives of Arabs, Jews and Druze.
One of the recipients, also a 12-year-old child from Israel's Arab minority, has been waiting for an organ for five years. "I feel that my son has entered the heart of every Israeli," said Ahmad's father.
The issue with the validity and the enforcement of consensual organ donation is not simply restricted to the developing countries of the Middle East. A study in the British Medical Journal in 2006 showed that 41 per cent of families in the UK blocked the harvesting of organs from patients who, when they were alive, had given written permission for them to be taken.
In fact, Britain has a surprisingly low ratio of organ donations, with only 16 in every one million persons per year donating their organs compared with more than double that ratio in Spain. The problem mostly was the 41 per cent – up from 30 per cent in the 1990s – of families who denied consent after their relative's death, with the ratio rising among the ethnic minorities.
There are several ways that governments can encourage organ donations, according to the UK's Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, the body in charge of issuing such recommendations. Amongst the POST's suggestions is to follow Spain's Presumed Consent, which means that a deceased person's organs could be taken for transplant unless he or she specifically "opts out"; of course this system can also be coupled with the family's permission.
The most common method is the Opt In system, where people fill in a form that indicates their wish to donate organs after death. Finally, there is the so-called Incentive Scheme, where priority for certain medical treatments is given to patients who are willing to be organ donors.
In June of this year, Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi owned sovereign wealth fund, invested more than Dh340 million ($92.6 million) in a hospital in Kobe, Japan that will specialise in organ transplants and regenerative medicine, where it will send doctors to acquire organ transplant knowledge.
The hospital is due to open in 2010, so let's hope that by the time it is ready the UAE's Ministry of Health will have done mulling and finally drafted the organ donation law. If it hasn't, Mubadala will have to find other uses for these valuable and well trained physicians – or maybe it will just send them to the Philippines.
*This article was originally published in The National newspaper on 12 Oct 2008
Sunday, 5 October 2008
Emirati heroes, who serve the country from within
The last time Ali saw his brother was when he was 11 years old. Abdul Rahman was one of the 4,000 troops who proudly went to push back Saddam's forces from Kuwait as part of the coalition forces during the first Gulf War in 1991. Unlike his comrades, Abdul Rahman never made it back to the UAE; he was killed in combat, one of the half dozen UAE martyrs for freedom. "I never had a chance to say goodbye," said Ali, who talks fondly about the war hero. He decided from a young age to follow in the footsteps of his elder brother and become a fighter pilot in order to serve his country like Abdul Rahman had done.Honour, pride and patriotism ran though his veins. "You need not become a fighter pilot to serve your country," Ali's father, an avid traveller who took his son to dozens of countries said. "There are other equally valuable services you can perform for your country, such as hospitality," and explained to him the importance of representing our Emirati and Arab culture in the best of forms.
And this is how Embrace Arabia was founded in Abu Dhabi. A cultural awareness firm staffed by UAE nationals whose mission is to foster a deeper understanding of the indigenous culture among the several million expatriates who call the Emirates their home and the equal number of tourists who visit.
Ali also recently began starring in his own show on a local satellite television channel in which "the culture of the UAE is explained to a potential audience of 90 million viewers". "People ask me all sorts questions," jested Ali before ending his presentation, "such as what Emirati men wear under their flowing kandooras?"
A visiting British journalist told me recently about a group of English women whom she'd met in an expatriate coffee shop a few steps from the magnificent Jumeirah Mosque. "They've been here for an entire year, and they've never met an Emirati," she said. "Do they want to?" was my initial reaction.
Last Ramadan, the Young Arab Leaders organisation hosted a joint iftar with the Dubai-based British Business Group, in which Abdallah Essa Al-Serkal, Chairman of the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding, presented their activities.
Ironically, Abdallah started by boasting: "We take 2,000 tourists on a tour of the Jumeirah Mosque every day," adding, "we also place individuals who sign up for our programmes with generous Emirati families who have volunteered to host them for lunch or dinner" (needless to say such programmes are free of charge).
"We explain to them why men wear white and women wear black. We tell them that some issues are religious and others cultural," said Abdallah, announcing that, "in Ramadan the centre serves real Emirati iftar, my mom's own cooking in fact, all for free."
Abdallah comes from one of the prominent families of Dubai, a merchant family whose business was founded in 1947 and whose current interests span various fields such as distribution of tyres, hotel management and engineering services.
"I don't get paid for this; it's not my full time job so please forgive me if I make mistakes," he smilingly said to a cheering crowd. Abdallah closed by saying: "This is the same presentation we gave President Bush when he visited our centre recently."
Wael Al Sayegh begins his weekly broadcasts on a local English language FM station with the customary "Salaam Alaikom" before giving listeners a much needed Emirati perspective on local and international developments. For years, this well spoken young Emirati has been offering his services via his Dubai-based Al Ghaf Cultural Consultants to the UAE expatriate community as well as to businesses who want to make sure that their employees have a full understanding of the culture they live in.
"Why did you choose the Al Ghaf tree as a name?" I recall asking him two years ago. "Because it is a symbol rooted in the UAE culture," he replied.
What is interesting is that not only does Wael offer his services to multinational giants such as Pepsi Co and General Motors, but UAE-based companies such as Al Dar, the Dubai World Trade Centre and the Dubai International Financial Centre have also called upon him to deliver his cross-cultural insights to their staff.
As Abu Dhabi and Dubai continue to gain importance in the world economy there will be more and more expatriates who decide to call this country home. The chances of meeting Emiratis will therefore also shrink due to the falling percentages we find ourselves representing in the country. In the last official count we stood at 20 per cent of the population.
The real question some expatriates need to ask isn't "How come we never meet Emiratis?" it is "Do we want to?" It's true that the Emirati population is minuscule, but we are always accessible – just ask Ali, Abdallah, Wael and President Bush.
This article first appeared in TheNational.ae on Sunday Oct. 5th 2008
And this is how Embrace Arabia was founded in Abu Dhabi. A cultural awareness firm staffed by UAE nationals whose mission is to foster a deeper understanding of the indigenous culture among the several million expatriates who call the Emirates their home and the equal number of tourists who visit.
Ali also recently began starring in his own show on a local satellite television channel in which "the culture of the UAE is explained to a potential audience of 90 million viewers". "People ask me all sorts questions," jested Ali before ending his presentation, "such as what Emirati men wear under their flowing kandooras?"
A visiting British journalist told me recently about a group of English women whom she'd met in an expatriate coffee shop a few steps from the magnificent Jumeirah Mosque. "They've been here for an entire year, and they've never met an Emirati," she said. "Do they want to?" was my initial reaction.
Last Ramadan, the Young Arab Leaders organisation hosted a joint iftar with the Dubai-based British Business Group, in which Abdallah Essa Al-Serkal, Chairman of the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding, presented their activities.
Ironically, Abdallah started by boasting: "We take 2,000 tourists on a tour of the Jumeirah Mosque every day," adding, "we also place individuals who sign up for our programmes with generous Emirati families who have volunteered to host them for lunch or dinner" (needless to say such programmes are free of charge).
"We explain to them why men wear white and women wear black. We tell them that some issues are religious and others cultural," said Abdallah, announcing that, "in Ramadan the centre serves real Emirati iftar, my mom's own cooking in fact, all for free."
Abdallah comes from one of the prominent families of Dubai, a merchant family whose business was founded in 1947 and whose current interests span various fields such as distribution of tyres, hotel management and engineering services.
"I don't get paid for this; it's not my full time job so please forgive me if I make mistakes," he smilingly said to a cheering crowd. Abdallah closed by saying: "This is the same presentation we gave President Bush when he visited our centre recently."
Wael Al Sayegh begins his weekly broadcasts on a local English language FM station with the customary "Salaam Alaikom" before giving listeners a much needed Emirati perspective on local and international developments. For years, this well spoken young Emirati has been offering his services via his Dubai-based Al Ghaf Cultural Consultants to the UAE expatriate community as well as to businesses who want to make sure that their employees have a full understanding of the culture they live in.
"Why did you choose the Al Ghaf tree as a name?" I recall asking him two years ago. "Because it is a symbol rooted in the UAE culture," he replied.
What is interesting is that not only does Wael offer his services to multinational giants such as Pepsi Co and General Motors, but UAE-based companies such as Al Dar, the Dubai World Trade Centre and the Dubai International Financial Centre have also called upon him to deliver his cross-cultural insights to their staff.
As Abu Dhabi and Dubai continue to gain importance in the world economy there will be more and more expatriates who decide to call this country home. The chances of meeting Emiratis will therefore also shrink due to the falling percentages we find ourselves representing in the country. In the last official count we stood at 20 per cent of the population.
The real question some expatriates need to ask isn't "How come we never meet Emiratis?" it is "Do we want to?" It's true that the Emirati population is minuscule, but we are always accessible – just ask Ali, Abdallah, Wael and President Bush.
This article first appeared in TheNational.ae on Sunday Oct. 5th 2008
Monday, 29 September 2008
Chicken Licken and the American financial crisis
In the United States this autumn, the elite financiers of September 15 succeeded in doing what the elite terrorists of September 11 failed to do: bring the US economy to its knees. But they’re not the only nincompoops in charge in the US.
According to The New York Times, the Bush administration initially estimated the cost of the Iraq war at $50 billion, and the Democratic opposition in Congress “largely agreed”. The real cost of the war isn’t $50 billion, in fact it is nowhere near it. Early last year the estimated expenditure of the war stood at $1.3 trillion, while Joseph Stiglitz, the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences and a world authority on free markets (basically a very smart guy) has calculated the war’s expenses at $3 trillion.
Back in 2003, when a former Bush administration economic adviser predicted that the war would cost the US between “$100 and $200 billion”, Donald Rumsfeld fired him and called his numbers “baloney”.
The point being, are people now willing to trust either party that the $700 billion bail out package will rescue the US economy from a financial meltdown? I doubt it. Using the US government’s Iraq war miscalculation formula ($50 billion planned to a conservative $500 billion spent), the cost of the so called bail out will likely be in the region of $7 trillion. The plan will mostly benefit those referred to as “the fat cats of Wall Street” who originally caused the crisis.
Two weeks ago all we heard from the fat cats was financial Armageddon if Lehman Brothers failed, and yet it did fail and we are still around. The end of the world was prophesied before, as well as during, the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction fiasco; sombre words were employed. Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, weightily intoned about “the gravity of the threat” Iraq’s WMD’s “could pose to the world”. Doomsday loomed.
It all actually reminds me of a silly fable set in a farmyard that I read as a child called Chicken Licken. Basically, one day an acorn falls on Chicken Licken’s head. He (it could equally have been a she) then goes around hysterically warning all species of animals (and using vocabulary eerily similar to what Powell used in his famous UN address) that there is “compelling”, “powerful” and “irrefutable” evidence that “the sky is falling”.
The naive animals start to follow Chicken Licken (whom we may consider as Henry Paulson and the lame duck Bush administration) and repeat his mantra “the sky is falling” believing the propaganda more and more with every repetition. The story was full of funnily-named animals, such as Gander Lander (Fannie Mae), Drake Lake (Freddie Mac), Ducky Lucky (AIG), Goose Loose (Goldman Sachs) and Cocky Locky (Merrill Lynch). To escape the imminent end of the world the animals gathered in a shelter that was offered by the cunning Foxy Loxy (the Sovereign Wealth Funds of China, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Singapore) who eats them all.
What was intriguing to me was, why were all the adult animals following a hysterical, adolescent chicken?
During the Asian financial crisis in 1997, which I recall clearly as my South East Asian friends pulled out of university in France, the proponents of capitalism such as the IMF and some Western countries balked at the Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammed, who ordered his government to interfere by pegging the Ringgit lower than they advised, which in turn made Malaysian exports cheaper and allowed the economy to recover faster. The IMF had also warned against “bail outs” and government intervention, Mahathir recently blogged, and yet now it is standing idle.
America eventually recovered from the 1929 crisis by doing exactly the opposite of bailing out the banks; in fact, up to 4,000 of them were allowed to fail or encouraged to merge with other banks under the New Deal introduced by President Franklin Roosevelt when he took office in 1933. The current bailout is setting the stage for sovereign wealth funds to step in and buy the rescued US entities that logically should be allowed to collapse.
For years China has been lending America money by buying US Treasury bonds so that Americans can buy Chinese products; allowing the Americans to sink more and more in debt in a deepening vicious circle. The socialist leaning states of the Middle East and Asia are the new financiers of the world, there’s no escaping that. The Chinese may offer Ducky Lucky shelter, but they expect to have crispy aromatic duck for dinner.
In the end the only thing this foolish bail out is going to prevent is a fresh case study for students to learn about the repercussions of allowing banks to fail.
In today’s animal farm, socialism is coming to the rescue of capitalism. Hats off to Karl Marx.
This article first appeared in The National on September 28th 2008
According to The New York Times, the Bush administration initially estimated the cost of the Iraq war at $50 billion, and the Democratic opposition in Congress “largely agreed”. The real cost of the war isn’t $50 billion, in fact it is nowhere near it. Early last year the estimated expenditure of the war stood at $1.3 trillion, while Joseph Stiglitz, the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences and a world authority on free markets (basically a very smart guy) has calculated the war’s expenses at $3 trillion.
Back in 2003, when a former Bush administration economic adviser predicted that the war would cost the US between “$100 and $200 billion”, Donald Rumsfeld fired him and called his numbers “baloney”.
The point being, are people now willing to trust either party that the $700 billion bail out package will rescue the US economy from a financial meltdown? I doubt it. Using the US government’s Iraq war miscalculation formula ($50 billion planned to a conservative $500 billion spent), the cost of the so called bail out will likely be in the region of $7 trillion. The plan will mostly benefit those referred to as “the fat cats of Wall Street” who originally caused the crisis.
Two weeks ago all we heard from the fat cats was financial Armageddon if Lehman Brothers failed, and yet it did fail and we are still around. The end of the world was prophesied before, as well as during, the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction fiasco; sombre words were employed. Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, weightily intoned about “the gravity of the threat” Iraq’s WMD’s “could pose to the world”. Doomsday loomed.
It all actually reminds me of a silly fable set in a farmyard that I read as a child called Chicken Licken. Basically, one day an acorn falls on Chicken Licken’s head. He (it could equally have been a she) then goes around hysterically warning all species of animals (and using vocabulary eerily similar to what Powell used in his famous UN address) that there is “compelling”, “powerful” and “irrefutable” evidence that “the sky is falling”.
The naive animals start to follow Chicken Licken (whom we may consider as Henry Paulson and the lame duck Bush administration) and repeat his mantra “the sky is falling” believing the propaganda more and more with every repetition. The story was full of funnily-named animals, such as Gander Lander (Fannie Mae), Drake Lake (Freddie Mac), Ducky Lucky (AIG), Goose Loose (Goldman Sachs) and Cocky Locky (Merrill Lynch). To escape the imminent end of the world the animals gathered in a shelter that was offered by the cunning Foxy Loxy (the Sovereign Wealth Funds of China, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Singapore) who eats them all.
What was intriguing to me was, why were all the adult animals following a hysterical, adolescent chicken?
During the Asian financial crisis in 1997, which I recall clearly as my South East Asian friends pulled out of university in France, the proponents of capitalism such as the IMF and some Western countries balked at the Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammed, who ordered his government to interfere by pegging the Ringgit lower than they advised, which in turn made Malaysian exports cheaper and allowed the economy to recover faster. The IMF had also warned against “bail outs” and government intervention, Mahathir recently blogged, and yet now it is standing idle.
America eventually recovered from the 1929 crisis by doing exactly the opposite of bailing out the banks; in fact, up to 4,000 of them were allowed to fail or encouraged to merge with other banks under the New Deal introduced by President Franklin Roosevelt when he took office in 1933. The current bailout is setting the stage for sovereign wealth funds to step in and buy the rescued US entities that logically should be allowed to collapse.
For years China has been lending America money by buying US Treasury bonds so that Americans can buy Chinese products; allowing the Americans to sink more and more in debt in a deepening vicious circle. The socialist leaning states of the Middle East and Asia are the new financiers of the world, there’s no escaping that. The Chinese may offer Ducky Lucky shelter, but they expect to have crispy aromatic duck for dinner.
In the end the only thing this foolish bail out is going to prevent is a fresh case study for students to learn about the repercussions of allowing banks to fail.
In today’s animal farm, socialism is coming to the rescue of capitalism. Hats off to Karl Marx.
This article first appeared in The National on September 28th 2008
Imagine if… the UN were to pass this resolution
New York, April 1st 2015:
In an unprecedented step, the Security Council of the United Nations voted in a heated session that extended late into Tuesday evening to withdraw the recognition of two member states. According to Resolution 2133, Pakistan and Bangladesh will both cease to be recognised in their current form beginning 2pm on the May 11, 2015. This is the first time that the world body has taken such a step, prompting the French representative to call it “an extremely special case”.
The UN Secretary General, Natasha Rabinovich, addressed a stormy press conference that was attended by representatives of the UN Security Council, which saw several journalists interrupt and challenge the decision. The Secretary General stated in reply to a question regarding the right of the UN to determine the future of peoples: “Taking into account that the security of these nations is integral to the security of the entire world, we deeply regret having to take such action but they cannot be allowed to continue to fail their people and the world community.”
The British ambassador to the UN, Sir John Steward, also addressed the press conference saying: “The global fight against terror requires stable governments to be able to provide security for their own population and eradicate terrorist breeding grounds.” Europe has been hit by a string of terror attacks that have been linked to fundamentalist training grounds based in the North-Western Pakistani borders with Afghanistan.
Reactions from the Pakistani government came swiftly via Masood Afzal, the country’s ambassador to the world body. “This is a completely illegal and unacceptable act,” he said, adding that: “The people of Pakistan will not stand for this and will fight the resolution by all means. It is not part of the mandate of the United Nations to dictate the fate of an entire nation which has elected a democratic government in a transparent and fair process”.
Riots broke out in the streets of Pakistan when the news was announced, with protesters demanding the use of the country’s nuclear weapons in the event of foreign troops entering Pakistani territory.
The United States, Britain and France voted in favour of the resolution. Russia and China both abstained, allowing the resolution to pass with a simple majority of nine of the 15 states serving on the UN Security Council.
In the six months since the resolution was tabled by the US and the European powers of the UK, France, Poland and Germany, known as the EU4, tensions have mounted in the Asian subcontinent with Pakistan’s President, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, repeatedly shuttling between Moscow and Beijing. Both capitals were expected to use their veto power against the resolution but according to observers, the emergence of India as a superpower and major trading partner, as well as a rising tide of militant Islamism especially within Pakistan in recent years, contributed to their abstention.
Sources inside the UN also reported that Russia received assurances from the US and the EU4 that included guarantees that no former Soviet state would be allowed into Nato before 2025. The same sources also expect a UN resolution to be passed in the coming months designating Tibet as an integral part of China, and Nima Lhamo, the Dalai Lama, as persona non grata within UN bodies.
The reintegration of Pakistan and Bangladesh into India reverses a seven decade-old independence process widely seen as having failed due to the deteriorating situation in each country with regards to education, health care, unemployment, rampant corruption and graft, as well as the mounting threat of global terrorism.
The foreign ministers of the US and the EU4 are expected to travel to the wealthy Arab Gulf states as well as Japan in order to raise the $30 billion that experts predict will be the cost of reintegrating the two states into India over the coming two years.
Although the resolution does not call for the use of force and is being billed as a “soft power” approach to world diplomacy, various countries and world organisations such as Human Rights Watch issued strongly worded condemnations.
The controversial resolution calls for the isolation of both states starting with a halt of all international flights from May 18, should their governments fail to start taking steps towards reintegration. Both nations will also be suspended from world bodies, and trade will only be allowed in essential items such as food and medicine from June 1. Also by then, the embassies of both Pakistan and Bangladesh in UN member nations will be required to be vacated and diplomats expelled. Only the representatives to the UN will be allowed to remain to coordinate humanitarian efforts, according to the resolution.
Mohammad Yunus, the President of the hunger and poverty stricken state of Bangladesh issued a joint statement with Aisha Mubarak, the country’s Prime Minister welcoming the UN resolution.
This article first appeared in The National on September 21 2008
In an unprecedented step, the Security Council of the United Nations voted in a heated session that extended late into Tuesday evening to withdraw the recognition of two member states. According to Resolution 2133, Pakistan and Bangladesh will both cease to be recognised in their current form beginning 2pm on the May 11, 2015. This is the first time that the world body has taken such a step, prompting the French representative to call it “an extremely special case”.
The UN Secretary General, Natasha Rabinovich, addressed a stormy press conference that was attended by representatives of the UN Security Council, which saw several journalists interrupt and challenge the decision. The Secretary General stated in reply to a question regarding the right of the UN to determine the future of peoples: “Taking into account that the security of these nations is integral to the security of the entire world, we deeply regret having to take such action but they cannot be allowed to continue to fail their people and the world community.”
The British ambassador to the UN, Sir John Steward, also addressed the press conference saying: “The global fight against terror requires stable governments to be able to provide security for their own population and eradicate terrorist breeding grounds.” Europe has been hit by a string of terror attacks that have been linked to fundamentalist training grounds based in the North-Western Pakistani borders with Afghanistan.
Reactions from the Pakistani government came swiftly via Masood Afzal, the country’s ambassador to the world body. “This is a completely illegal and unacceptable act,” he said, adding that: “The people of Pakistan will not stand for this and will fight the resolution by all means. It is not part of the mandate of the United Nations to dictate the fate of an entire nation which has elected a democratic government in a transparent and fair process”.
Riots broke out in the streets of Pakistan when the news was announced, with protesters demanding the use of the country’s nuclear weapons in the event of foreign troops entering Pakistani territory.
The United States, Britain and France voted in favour of the resolution. Russia and China both abstained, allowing the resolution to pass with a simple majority of nine of the 15 states serving on the UN Security Council.
In the six months since the resolution was tabled by the US and the European powers of the UK, France, Poland and Germany, known as the EU4, tensions have mounted in the Asian subcontinent with Pakistan’s President, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, repeatedly shuttling between Moscow and Beijing. Both capitals were expected to use their veto power against the resolution but according to observers, the emergence of India as a superpower and major trading partner, as well as a rising tide of militant Islamism especially within Pakistan in recent years, contributed to their abstention.
Sources inside the UN also reported that Russia received assurances from the US and the EU4 that included guarantees that no former Soviet state would be allowed into Nato before 2025. The same sources also expect a UN resolution to be passed in the coming months designating Tibet as an integral part of China, and Nima Lhamo, the Dalai Lama, as persona non grata within UN bodies.
The reintegration of Pakistan and Bangladesh into India reverses a seven decade-old independence process widely seen as having failed due to the deteriorating situation in each country with regards to education, health care, unemployment, rampant corruption and graft, as well as the mounting threat of global terrorism.
The foreign ministers of the US and the EU4 are expected to travel to the wealthy Arab Gulf states as well as Japan in order to raise the $30 billion that experts predict will be the cost of reintegrating the two states into India over the coming two years.
Although the resolution does not call for the use of force and is being billed as a “soft power” approach to world diplomacy, various countries and world organisations such as Human Rights Watch issued strongly worded condemnations.
The controversial resolution calls for the isolation of both states starting with a halt of all international flights from May 18, should their governments fail to start taking steps towards reintegration. Both nations will also be suspended from world bodies, and trade will only be allowed in essential items such as food and medicine from June 1. Also by then, the embassies of both Pakistan and Bangladesh in UN member nations will be required to be vacated and diplomats expelled. Only the representatives to the UN will be allowed to remain to coordinate humanitarian efforts, according to the resolution.
Mohammad Yunus, the President of the hunger and poverty stricken state of Bangladesh issued a joint statement with Aisha Mubarak, the country’s Prime Minister welcoming the UN resolution.
This article first appeared in The National on September 21 2008
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