Abstract
Fundamental forces are in the process of changing the societal and economic landscape of the Middle East. Region-specific conditions are combining with more universal factors—the sweeping tide of globalisation, technical progress and the introduction of more powerful communication tools. Organisational renewal opens up for novel ways of doing things and reach out to the most distant of societies and previously static economic activities.
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Notes
- 1.
What constitutes the MENA region is open to multifarious interpretation, though the standard definition comprises 19–21 countries. The World Bank and UNICEF apply this definition to denote 19 and 20 countries, respectively. The main difference between the various authorities concerns whether or not to include Djibouti, Mauritania, Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Some authorities go by membership of the League of Arab States, which has 22 members.
- 2.
These are some of the main leaders who followed Mohammed. Mohammed’s very earliest followers are divided into those who joined him on his Hijra (withdrawal from Mecca to Medina), the Muhajirun, and the Ansar, who were the people of Medina who helped Mohammad and the Muhajirun on their arrival. The sources generally name some 40–60 persons.
- 3.
The zeal and diplomatic skill of the Emperor Heraclius as he clawed back against all odds, coupled with the defence of its mighty Roman walls, saved the legacy of the imperial city of Constantinople for another 800 years, until the Ottomans eventually captured it in 1453 under Mehmet II.
- 4.
Their legacy established an irrevocable bond between the first great dynasty of Islam, across time and space, to later generation followers from the Arabian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean.
- 5.
Saladin, or Salah ad-Din (1137–1193) in Arabic, initiated the line of Ayyubid Sultans in Egypt. He gathered a large force of Muslims—referred to as the Saracens by the Christians—to combat the Crusaders. Attaining a major victory at Hattin 1187 and eventually settling the peace of Ramla in 1192, Saladin is credited with fending off the Crusaders’ onset.
- 6.
Following Vasco da Gama’s rounding of Africa in 1492 and the Spanish–Portuguese onslaught in Latin America, the proceeds from the gold and silver of the new world were partly invested to gain control of the new overseas trade routes and for purchasing lucrative Eastern merchandise that had until then been highly scarce in Europe and thus attained enormous value. At the same time, the expansion and exports of early manufactures from Europe amassed tremendous wealth at the expense of the traditional traders of the Middle East, Central Asia and the Far East. In the process they subjected the industries of both the East and the West to a new powerful impetus for change.
- 7.
Most importantly, the continued discrepancy in religious interpretation between the Saudi-based Sunni perspective versus that of Shia, centred in Iran and to some extent Iraq, perpetuates the old struggle of the Umayyads versus the Abbessids.
- 8.
This has no doubt raised respect and is a factor behind the appeal of Islam in large parts of Africa and Asia, where Christianity has become much less established as a religion, despite the European commercial and political onset.
- 9.
Most famous is Harun al-Rashid in One Thousand and One Nights, a set of folk tales in Arabic compiled during the Islamic Golden Age.
- 10.
Leon Barkho (2008) demonstrated the bias of CNN and BCC, compared to Al Jazeera, as consciously engineered through corporate culture and terminology crafted to distort the message and show only one side of the story.
- 11.
Similar counteraction, instigated by Western powers, hit other newly independent countries around the time. The Democratic Republic of the Congo represents one of the most significant parallel cases. The (again) democratically elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, came to power in 1960 with a programme to nationalise prime natural resources, particularly the copper mines, following the agony of colonisation and in the context of continued foreign exploitation of the country’s mineral wealth. A state of civil war took hold as Belgium, Britain and the United States moved behind the scenes to separate the mineral-rich Katanga region. Dag Hammarskjöld, then Secretary General of the United Nations, refused to bow to the pressures of the dominating powers and engaged in ferocious diplomacy, only to die when his plane crashed in the Zambian jungle on September 18, 1961, under mysterious circumstances. Most probably an act of state terrorism targeting the highest level of international diplomacy, the case remains unaddressed to this day. Lumumba, meanwhile, was stoned to death, whereas the man who led the coup, General Sese Seko Mobutu, was to rule the country for 30 years, engineer a personality cult and become associated with “Mobutuism” as a low mark for perverse societal reforms, while acquiring enormous personal wealth borne out as one of the worst state frauds of all time. The democratic Republic of the Congo, for all its wealth, is still today stranded in a state of severe stagnation, domestic violence and suppression of its impoverished civilian population. In Iran, Mosaddegh was placed under house arrest until his death three years later, but the scars remain and the state of conflict with the old foes is as alive today as ever. This disastrous context, seldom spoken of in Western countries, has had far-reaching consequences for perceptions around the world. Less well known, as more or less all developing countries followed suite in claiming control over their natural resources a few years later, the strategy of the multinationals and the Anglo-American alliance subsequently changed tack (Lipson 1985). Ownership of natural resources was mostly given up, with other ways and means adopted to secure the interests of investors, such as maintained control over logistics chains and access to developed country markets (Moran 1985). In Geneva, decades of work by the United Nations to put in place a convention for multimodal transport, to make the markets of developed countries more transparent and accessible for exports from the third world, was watered down to the point that it had become irrelevant by the time it could be published.
- 12.
US embassy personnel were held hostage for 444 days. The offense most probably cost Jimmy Carter the presidency and was thus instrumental for bringing the Republicans under Ronald Reagan back into the White House.
- 13.
The development work has been substantially upgraded under of HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai and also UAE vice president and prime minister. De facto leader since the mid 1990s, he formally adopted the position of ruler in 2006.
- 14.
Originally planned to be named Burj Dubai, the name of the building was changed just before the inauguration, in connection with the provision of a financial package of 10 billion USD, provided by Abu Dhabi, to fend off Dubai’s acute financial troubles. The name change has thus implicitly become regarded as perhaps the most expensive in history. In reality there were other parts to the deal, although hardly any ownership share or “say” by Abu Dhabi in Dubai’s flagship carrier, Emirates, the world’s most successful airline company over the last decade, which remains to date a shining symbol of Dubai’s remarkable rise.
- 15.
The small indigenous population in these societies is strongly outnumbered by the immigrant workers, especially those from South and East Asia, which offer comparatively cheap labour while benefitting from incomes that are much higher than they can generally earn at home.
- 16.
In February 2011, Oman did experience demonstrations and riots in the coastal cities of Salalah and Sohar. The regime responded with minimal force, however, received strong support from the majority of the population and instituted a range of reforms (Andersson 2012a).
- 17.
It is not possible, and hardly meaningful, to try and put precise numbers on the economic loss. According to some studies though, the current numbers amount to at least US$ 40–50 billion annually across the Arab World, equivalent to the total GDP of countries like Tunisia or Lebanon (World Bank 2008).
- 18.
This does not mean that they resort to organised military revolt and terrorism en masse. As shown by Cole (2009), the vast majority of Muslims have no sympathy for organisations such as Al Qaeda whose platform for take-up of recruits is limited. The violent street protests against what is perceived as the provocations of Western media, culture and societies, for all their visibility, likewise engage only a tiny share of youth in Arab societies.
- 19.
Acknowledgments
The authors are thankful to Qammar Abbas, Karin Björk, and Sara Johansson de Silva for their substantive input and analysis that contributed to this chapter.
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Andersson, T., Djeflat, A. (2013). The Changing Landscape of the Middle East . In: Andersson, T., Djeflat, A. (eds) The Real Issues of the Middle East and the Arab Spring. Innovation, Technology, and Knowledge Management. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5248-5_2
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