Professor Eugene Rogan is a University Lecturer in the modern history of the Middle East and a fellow at St. Antony’s College at Oxford, where he is the director of the Middle East Centre. He recently published a critically acclaimed book on the modern history of the Arab world entitled The Arabs. His previous book, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire, was judged by the Middle East Studies Association to be the best work on the Middle East in 2000 and awarded the Albert Hourani Prize. With the insight only a historian can bring to the table, Professor Rogan discusses in an interview with The Majalla some of the pressing issues the Arab world faces today.
The Majalla: In your most recent book you claim that in ‘any free and fair election in the Arab world today, [the] Islamist elements would win hands down.’ Could you expand on that?
I think that for a lot of Western advocates of democracy they see Islam and democracy as being two ends of the political spectrum. They hope to promote democracy in the region thinking it is going to bring liberal secular people into power. I think the experience of recent history has shown that where there have been free elections in the region, the parties that get the strongest response from voters are those that speak an Islamic rhetoric.
It’s funny that you ask that question, a lot of people have. To me it seems absolutely obvious and it’s not a question of what the future holds, its looking at the recent past. In 1989 when the Jordanians had their freest and fairest elections, the Islamic Action Front swept. The Egyptian authorities have done everything they can to contain the electoral appeal of the Muslim Brotherhood. They force them to run as independents and when they do the win practically every seat they contest. More recently, there are the examples of Hamas’ victory in the Palestinian elections, and the success that Hezbollah has drawn in the polls in Lebanon.
There are many examples to reinforce the idea that the parties that have the strongest appeal to voters are the Islamist parties both because of the religious values they uphold, but also because without exception, they condemn outside domination. That message resonates very well with Arab voters.
Q: How do you believe this will play a role in the upcoming Iraqi elections?
Iraq is already a case of outwardly Islamic parties winning key posts through elections. The real issue in Iraq today is the exclusion of those with association to the Baath party, and how this is alienating a certain segment of Sunni voters. What that really is about is secular nationalist versus Islamist parties, as much as it is about cleansing Iraq of its Baathist past. My own sense is that the secular strand is still strong in Iraq, but I think it will be provoked into a violent response if it is excluded by Islamist forces.
Q: How do you see Arab nationalism today in the Middle East?
I think Arab nationalism has been beat down for so long now, that it is really finally beginning to lose its appeal. Sometimes its trivial things that reveal the death of a great idea, I was really shocked by the Algeria-Egypt football match. If you are to look over the history of the 20 century, Egypt and Algeria always stood shoulder to shoulder on so many key political issues: standing up against imperialism and upholding Arab interests and common purposes. They were the first ones to say it: arab nationalism is dead. I take them at their word.
Arab nationalism has been so worked upon, divided, shattered, fragmented that even its most ardent supporters find it difficult to make a real political agenda out of a common Arab purpose. Again in recent history, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait totally shattered Arab unity. Not just because Iraq had invaded a fellow Arab state but by the way the different Arab states responded to that event. By the way an American-led coalition really split Arab states into an allied force with the US that included such strange bedfellows as Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Kuwaitis. Forcing the Iraqis, the Jordanians, the Yemenis towards an opposition against other Arab states. This was absolutely shattering of Arab nationalism.
Q: Do you see any other cohesive force in the region that encourages Arab unity?
I think Islam will always play on the sympathies of Muslims. I think Muslims will always be concerned for the welfare of Muslims so when you see Muslims suffering in Palestine, then Muslims in Saudi Arabia or in Oman are going to be upset. I think the same still holds for Arabs to be honest. I don’t think that people in one part of the Arab world are comfortable with another people in the Arab world being victimized or colonized. But what’s really happened since the 1940’s—since the independence movements led the Arab world out of imperialism and into their existence as sovereign states—has been to turn the Middle East into a system of independent states, each with their own interest. Increasingly, in the second half of the 20 century, their interests have come to be more important than their common ties. Now, it is probably more honest to look at the Arab world as a community of nation states that share a language and a certain culture, but not necessarily a larger political agenda. I think that is what the 21 century holds for the Arab world.
Q: What responsibility do former colonizers in the Arab world have to their former colonies?
The European powers show in their policies that they have a historic awareness of responsibility for the Arab states of the Eastern Mediterranean. There remain special ties between France and their former colonies, to a lesser degree between Britain and its former colonies. It would be very easy for Britain and France today to say that the faults of French and British governments of 40-70 years ago are no longer their responsibility. But I don’t see them doing that. Perhaps they would like to play more of a role than their limited geo-strategic importance allows them to do. Perhaps Britain and France would like to counter-balance American policies that don’t agree with European policies, but feel themselves constrained when faced with the last real superpower. They don’t have the influence to try to shape American policies. So in that way, I think that both Britain and France tend to be more deferential to American policies, This immediately puts a barrier between them and effective engagement with Arab states. But I am constantly struck by how often France or Britain will intervene on behalf of their former colonies, so I think it still has some resonance for European powers.
Q: Prime Minister Erdogan’s foreign policy has been looking increasingly towards the Middle East. Is Turkey destined to have an influence in the region?
Turkey is crucial as a crossroads between Europe and Asia. In that sense, it is Turkey that lies between the Arab world and the EU. I think that it plays a very important role in the region, and its policies towards the region are undergoing some very significant changes. Turkey has always enjoyed very cordial relations with Israel, but that’s changing. They aren’t breaking relations but they are redefining relations in ways that suggest that Turkey is trying to put more emphasis on building its ties in the Arab world and with Iran, interestingly enough. It is putting Israel on notice that things that Israel does that threaten the interests of say Syria and or Iran are a cause of tension in Israel’s relations with Turkey.
That said, I think that language, culture, and history put a real barrier between strong ties between Turkey and the Arab world. They are really left to play on the one card of common Islamic interests and that will shape relations with Iran within certain limits, because Turkey represents a Sunni power, and Iran’s Shii culture is quite different. There is a limit to how far Turkey and Iran will make common cause on Islamic matters, and for many of the Arab countries, though Islamist parties hold a lot of appeal to the public, their governments remain very secular. So the Syrians will not want to be too Islamist in their own politics either. They are looking for more geo-strategic reasons to build ties with Turkey. Clearly, there are important changes in Turkey’s role in the region and it’s certainly a story worth following.
Q: How have President Obama’s overtures towards the Arab world impacted the challenges that the US faces in engaging the region?
Obama made important strides in the beginning of his presidency in changing American policies towards the region away from the War on Terror which so shaped Bush’s engagement towards the region. This was huge, it is very important to say that everything America was doing was heightening tensions in the Arab world. By his pledges to work to close Guantanamo, to engage in a new relationship with the region on the basis of mutual respect, to open dialogue or discussion with countries that America refused to deal with in the past, he was making meaningful steps towards deescalating tensions between the US and the Arab world.
By the time he got to Cairo he had already been making important overtures to the Arab and Muslim public opinion, and I think his Cairo speech raised expectations to unprecedented heights, that America was returning to an “honest broker role” that many of the Arab world hadn’t heard of since the time of Woodrow Wilson. Since then, Obama has been a great disappointment to the region because his enticing rhetoric has not been matched by actions on the ground, and I fear it won’t be in the foreseeable future.
Obama has lost three elections since winning his own. The first was the Israeli election. There is no doubt that the White House was hoping to have a centre party such as the Kadima party, led by Livni, form the next government in Israel. They had already made progress in engaging with Mahmoud Abass’ administration to try and come up with parameters to restart land for peace negotiations for a final settlement to the peace negotiations. The Obama administration saw in a Livni government the possibility of real progress between Palestinians and Israelis. Instead they got Netanyahu who had to build a coalition with very conservative Israeli forces, including ardent supporters of the settlement movement, which meant that the one red line Obama put down to establish America’s credibility with the Arab world and to entice the Arabs into positive engagement with Israel he couldn’t deliver on. This has put a road block before his Arab-Israeli policies.
The second election he lost was in Iran. I have no doubt the Obama administration believed that one of the reformist candidates would come to power. We had grown used to seeing Iranians making surprising choices at the polls—electing reformists against the opposition of hardliners. Iranians are very bad at falsifying election results, and they were very clumsy in falsifying this one. What this has meant is that not only has Ahmadinejad returned as president, but he has come in as a discredited president. The only thing he can really do to generate popular support in Iran is to stand up against outside pressure against the nuclear question. Every time he raises the nuclear flag he makes the prospect of bringing Iran into compliance with the non-proliferation treaty more remote which also undermines America’s position with Israel in trying to persuade them to come to the negotiating table. Israel’s top priority continues to be security vis-à-vis Iran.
He also lost a third election, and that one was lost in Massachusetts. When Brown took the Senate seat for the Republicans it meant that Obama would be unable to deliver on health care in the US, the single most important domestic issue he has. This totally changed the plans for the Obama administration’s second year in power. He now has between January and November to persuade the American electorate that democrats, both on the hill and in the White house, can deliver benefits to the American people on the economy. If he can make some gains on health care he might, my sense is he is just going to let it rest and its going to be all jobs and the economy. This means there will be very little time and effort invested in foreign affairs, including the Middle East.
Since raising expectations in the Middle East with the Cairo speech, the architecture in the Middle East he hoped he could work with has not materialized, and now he has suffered a major set back domestically. We’re not going to see him back in the Middle East in any significant way through American initiative. When you raise expectations and then disappoint them you set change in motion, often destructive change. My fear is that this disappointment will in ways heighten tensions between the Arab world and the US when we have the president who is most likely to serve as a bridge between these two estranged parts of the world. That’s the problem, that’s the pity.
Q:How do you assess the Iraq Inquiry?
This inquiry is very different from the ones before it. The power that Chilcot has enjoyed in calling up documents that have not been available to the public is unlike any before it. The scope of people being interviewed is also unprecedented. There is an opportunity here to bring a degree of closure that has bedevilled Britain’s foreign relations, and been a very divisive domestic issue.
It has been criticized for not having been more aggressive in pursuing the decision makers, and forcing concessions of mistakes form them, I will reserve judgement until I see the report. If they decide to use the writing of the report to make critical assessments of the way the decision to go to war was pursued than they can succeed in bringing closure to this.
Q: The Arab world’s history almost reads as a history of conflict. How can the Arab world promote stability when there never seems to be enough time to move beyond the last conflict?
There are a lot of foundations on which to build a stable Middle East, and I think its really important that we put those forward with as much emphasis as we put forward the sources of instability. The cultural life of the Arab world is a huge foundation for people to address traumas, to discuss taboos, to find closure with their divisions, and it is going on. There are very courageous authors out there, not many of them are known outside the Arab reading world, but I think we can do more there. The same is true if we look at the plastic arts. There is amazing cultural diversity in this context, and not just in the traditional sites of Arab culture. In Iraq, at the height of the sanctions, you could still see samples of Iraqi art in places like Jordan. It was, to me, such a revelation to go to galleries in Amman and see what artists in Iraq were doing that captured that moment in their history. They were painting the anguish of sanctions with an eloquence that you couldn’t find in print anywhere.
Interview conducted by Paula Mejia
