December 2014

Year in the arab World

introduction

was good news from North Africa, where Tunisia’s democratic transition BAlAncing Act progressed with free parliamentary and presidential elections and Morocco By Roula Khalaf, Foreign editor pushed ahead with plans to turn itself into a finance hub for sub-Saharan Africa. The past year will be remembered United Arab Emirates against Qatar for On the following pages, the Financial as one of the Middle East’s most much of the year. Times reprints edited highlights of tumultuous, a time of political Across the region, Arab governments our political, security and economic decadence and shattered illusions. have been forced to contend with reporting over the past year, giving Rarely a peaceful region, the Arab the diminishing role of the US and readers a gripping and concise picture world was convulsed in 2014 by continuing anxiety over the influence of of the challenges facing the region. existential crises, in which borders of Iran. But, as ever, they continued to be As this magazine shows, the Islamic nation states created by colonial powers thwarted by inter-Arab bickering and State of Iraq and the Levant, known as after the end of the first world war the lack of a common vision. Isis, has posed the most dramatic test for were challenged and the dreams of a The main pocket of relative stability the Arab world since the Sunni extremist young population for more democratic was in the oil-rich economies of the group took over Mosul, Iraq’s second city, political systems were smashed. Gulf, where growth was fuelled by in June. Isis has merged the civil war in By the end of the year, four Arab high energy prices and generous Syria with the sectarian conflict in Iraq, countries were engulfed in war – Iraq, government spending programmes. and could become a menace to other Syria, Libya and Yemen; the Gaza Strip Dubai has reclaimed its role as a states in the region. was still reeling from a summer conflict magnet for Arabs from other troubled The resurgence of a monstrous with Israel; and Lebanon and Jordan spots, and emerged from its debt crisis jihadi force lashing out against the were struggling with waves of Syrian with a determination to reassert its Shia as well as other minority sects has refugees. ambition as the regional business hub. provoked regional and international Meanwhile, an autocratic By year-end, however, the steep drop outrage. It has brought the US back government has returned to Egypt, in oil prices looked likely into the region, temporarily, with air even more repressive than the to sour the mood and strikes against Isis positions containing Mubarak regime swept away in the put a damper on the the jihadis’ advances but not yet close to 2011 revolution. And the Gulf was oil-based economies’ destroying the group. patching up a political conflict expansion. However, as president Barack Obama that pitted Saudi Arabia and the In 2014, there has made clear to Washington’s Arab allies, it will be up to the political elite in the region – particularly in Iraq – to find the compromises that are necessary to defeat Isis. While Iraq may have a chance of overcoming the raging conflict and surviving as a state, restoring stability to Syria looks nearly impossible, at least in the short term. In Syria, Isis is only one piece of a complex puzzle, with the regime of Bashar al-Assad still battling it out with a range of opposition groups. Opponents to Assad, within Syria and across the region, argue that organisations like Isis will continue to thrive as long as the Assad regime survives. As 2014 draws to a close, hope appears in short supply in the Arab world, the optimism of political transformation that erupted in the 2011 youth revolutions long gone, replaced by anxiety over jihadi violence, and uncertainty over what lies ahead.

www.ft.com/ArAB-world | 3 CONTENTS FT YEAR 36 46 MOROCCO TUNISIA Finance minister The Arab spring IN THE celebrates survives in economic success the cradle of from solar panels revolution ARAB to car exports WORLD

SPECIAL REPORTS EDITOR MICHAEL SKAPINKER HEAD OF PRODUCTION 28 AND COMMISSIONING EDITOR LEYLA BOULTON LIBYA HEAD OF EDITORIAL CONTENT HUGO GREENHALGH The south’s PRODUCTION EDITOR dangerous mix GEORGE KYRIAKOS of oil, guns and SENIOR DESIGNER JONATHAN SAUNDERS inter-ethnic PICTURE EDITORS conlict CHRIS LAWSON, ANDY MEARS COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST MARK CARWARDINE SALES MANAGER AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST LARRY KENNEY ADVERTISING PRODUCTION DANIEL LESAR 38 CONTRIBUTORS Borzou Daragahi Middle East correspondent ARAB BUSINESS Geoff Dyer US diplomatic correspondent How a marked David Gardner International Affairs editor Siona Jenkins Middle East and Africa news editor upturn in inancial

Simeon Kerr Gulf correspondent RIS SECKIN/ activity deied BIO BUCCIARELLI/ Roula Khalaf Foreign editor BA

FA violence elsewhere Lobna Monieb Cairo news assistant in the region Ingram Pinn Visual commentator Anjli Raval Oil and Gas correspondent GETTY IMAGES; ED GILES

Heba Saleh Cairo correspondent Y/ Erika Solomon Lebanon and Syria correspondent ENC YEZ NURELDINE,

Piotr Zalewski Freelance journalist AG FA Saadia Zahidi World Economic Forum senior director

COVER: FAYEZ NURELDINE, RAMZI HAIDAR, ABDELHAK SENNA, FABIO BUCCIARELLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; REUTERS; BLOOMBERG; ED GILES PHOTOS: AFP/GETTY IMAGES; REUTERS; ANADOLU

4 |WWW.FT.COM/ARABWORLD 6 MIDDLE EAST The conlicts in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon have merged into a single sectarian 33 war WOMENOMICS Millions more 12 Muslim women go to university – ISIS INC and work An oil smuggling network created to evade sanctions on Saddam’s Iraq 40 is being exploited JIHADI WOMEN anew Western female jihadis deploy ‘soft power’ of Isis online 16 LEBANON Fresh turmoil at the crossroads of the Middle East 34 24 EGYPT Long overdue GULF The House of Saud 42 slashing of fuel subsidies has is increasingly ABU DHABI proven very hardline at home Pressure mounts unpopular and aggressive on emirate to pay abroad fees for workers toiling on grand museum projects 44 OBITUARY Self-efacing Scot who helped build Dubai

WWW.FT.COM/ARABWORLD | 5 MIDDLE EAST

6 |www.ft.com/arab-world middle east: three nations, one conflict

The crises in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon are merging into a single sectarian war. By Borzou Daragahi

On the line BIo BUCCIARELLI/AFP/GEtty ImAGEs

FA a Kurdish fighter on the turkey-iraq border. Kurds from several villages in oil-rich hasake province are fighting groups affiliated to al-Qaeda Photo:

www.ft.com/arab-world | 7 MIDDLE EAST

this story was raqi forces have stepped up their patrols along the shia-dominated governments in syria, Iraq and Lebanon first published in barren 605km syrian border recently, but they admit they against sunni rebels who appear to be learning tactics the ft on have very little to show for it. the flow of guns, fighters from each other and sharing resources. the governments May and money moving in and out of Iraq has just grown too are also taking varied levels of direction from Ayatollah 27 heavy to control. Ali Khamenei’s regime in Iran. Weaponry supporting one day this spring they caught a convoy of fighters the syrian regime comes from Russia, which with China from the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant, or Isis, provides cover from the UN security Council. starting a firefight, only to hear word two days later of an “It’s all one arena under the control of Khamenei,” says even larger convoy that had made its way past them. the Dhaffar al-Ani, an Iraqi sunni politician. “It’s a shia- best the border controls can do is serve as the eyes and Russian alliance.” ears of Baghdad. the other side in the conflict also receives backing from “We maintain a strong presence on the border to try to powerful foreign patrons, including saudi Arabia, turkey cut their supply lines, but mostly to try to find out what is the United Arab Emirates and the west, which supplies happening on the other side,” says Brigadier General saad training and weapons to the rebels in syria as well as maan Ibrahim, spokesman for Iraq’s interior ministry. political support to sympathetic sunni and allied factions “It is clear that what is happening in syria is impacting in Lebanon. us and hurting the Iraqi people directly. If there is any the stoking of Kurdish national aspirations and problem in syria or fresh outbreak of violence in syria, the assertive emergence of al-Qaeda and its offshoots this will be reflected in Iraq.” – including the ambitious Isis – as major forces in Lebanese and Iraqi shia militiamen take up arms in areas outside the control of the three countries’ central syrian towns and cities. syrian insurgents set off bombs governments has raised the stakes further. in southern Beirut. sunni fighters flow from syria to Iraq, together, these factors have compounded the dangers where they battle government troops on the outskirts in the oil and gas-rich region sitting along Nato’s of Baghdad, while Lebanese and Palestinian sunnis in southeast frontier. Lebanon fight in the syrian city of homs. Governments “this is qualitatively different from the contained war in Baghdad and Beirut, backed by their patron in tehran, in Iraq in the 2000s or the Lebanese civil war of the 1970s look the other way – or sometimes help – as arms and and 80s,” says Kirk sowell, an analyst for Uticensis, a risk- fighters make their way into syria for battles from Aleppo management firm. “What’s happening is potentially far to Damascus to Deraa. more dangerous than what was happening in Afghanistan this is more than just the “spillover” from the syria in the 1990s.” conflict analysts warned about when the uprising against Bashar al-Assad began in 2011. the various conflicts in A 35-YEAR WAR syria, Iraq and Lebanon are increasingly merging into Like the 30 years war, this one is rooted in the breakdown one war stretching from the Zagros mountains to the of an old order. the radical shia clerics who replaced mediterranean sea in what the writer Rami Khoury shah mohammed-Reza Pahlavi in Iran in 1979 created a calls “a single operational arena in terms of the ease of new anti-western bloc opposed to the sunni-dominated movement of fighters and weapons”. moderate regimes led by saudi Arabia and its patron, While few believe that the map of the region is about to the Us. sunni regimes hit back by supporting saddam be redrawn, the emerging conflict represents a dangerous hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, which along with the last breakdown of the nation states created in the sykes-Picot decade of the Lebanese civil war, could be seen as an early agreement sealed by French and British colonial overlords phase of the longer conflict. 90 years ago. But the outlines of the war now raging across the “this region, the Levant, never had national identities Levant and mesopotamia became clearer after the 2003 or entities before sykes-Picot,” says Paul salem of the Us invasion of Iraq. the election of a shia-dominated middle East Institute in Washington. “the identities, government in Baghdad gave Iran influence in its former unlike the countries, tend to be cross-border – because rival, while enraged sunnis took up arms – first against you have shi’ite here and here, sunni here and here, and the American occupiers, then against Baghdad. Kurd here and here.” the largely sunni 2011 uprising against Assad’s In its duration, geographic scope and extent of its heterodox shia Alawite regime and the Damascus foreign involvement, the conflict resembles the 30 years government’s harsh response engulfed the region in a war, the series of conflicts rooted in religious differences still-expanding war. between Protestants and Catholics that devastated 17th- “the worst thing is there is no solution on the horizon,” century central Europe. warns Ali mousawi, spokesman for Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-maliki. “that means this problem will keep ‘MORE DANGEROUS THAN AFGHANISTAN’ growing.” the war this time generally pits three increasingly allied As in the 30 years war, local or regional leaders – whether syria’s Assad, Lebanon-based hizbollah’s hassan Nasrallah, Iraq’s maliki or masoud Barzani of Iraqi Kurdistan – struggle to maintain control over amorphous ‘People don’t have any rules to go statelets and appeal to potential foreign backers for help. Iran and Russia serve as the patrons for the shia- by. They have to obey the people dominated or shia offshoot governments in Beirut, with guns who moved to their Baghdad and Damascus, hoping to counter the power of the Us and the west. saudi Arabia and its allies neighbourhood’ back the sunnis, hoping to counter Iran. the Us and

8 |www.ft.com/arab-world fiGhters withoUtborders

TURKEY IRAN Key ove between Sy s m ria a Kurdish region urd nd K Ir Sunni tribal area Al Hasakah aq Aleppo Mosul Lebanese Shia Sunn i jihad is fig militias fight for ht i n Sy the regime in Syria ria Kirkuk and Hamah Ira SYRIA q Lebanese Sunni Homs fighters flow Shia militia head to fight in between Syria Syria and Lebanon

Beirut LEBANON Baghdad Damascus IRAQ ISRAEL JORDAN

100 km Najaf

EU cautiously seek to identify allies from foes amid ‘These tribes are mixed between Syria and a dizzying and ever-changing cast of militia leaders, jihadi adventurers, sectarian politicians and rogue gangs Iraq. They share the same grandfathers. dressed up as political groups. They don’t take orders from the state’ HELL FOR CIVILIANS As in the 30 years war, civilian populations endure terrible warfare and marauding. some German states lost more than half of their populations during the mayhem moved into their neighbourhood. the tragedy is that of the 17th-century conflict. Perhaps 200 people a day or ordinary people most affected have the least to say about more now die in political violence across syria, Iraq and how the war is conducted.” Lebanon, a trio of countries comprising 60m people. With about 9m of syria’s 25m inhabitants displaced, BORDERS AND STATES the UN has called the syria conflict the worst man-made No major power has an interest in redrawing the map of humanitarian crisis since the second world war. thanks the middle East in the way the 30 years war drastically to the Assad regime’s relentless air campaigns on civilian redefined Europe. neighbourhoods, syria’s economy and infrastructure But perhaps the more lasting and potentially have been devastated, and large stretches of major cities, devastating legacy of the conflict could be the gradual including Aleppo and homs, lie in rubble. degradation of the very ideas of Lebanon, syria and Iraq In Iraq, where sunnis rose up 11 years ago after as national entities. the toppling of saddam hussein, about 200,000 Borders once traversed only by hardy smugglers are civilians have been killed in crossfire, bombings and becoming increasingly permeable as sectarian and assassinations. Violence has picked up again as sunni regional identities assert themselves. hisham hashem, insurgents, inspired by the war in syria, target security a researcher and commentator writing a book on armed officials and shia civilians. shia militias such as Esahib groups, notes that eight major sunni tribes straddle the al-haq have responded with targeted death-squad Iraq-syria border, each of them being drawn into conflicts assassinations of sunni civilians. on either side. In Lebanon, a small, weak and religiously diverse “these tribes are mixed between syria and Iraq. they country nestled between syria and Israel, soldiers, share the same grandfathers,” says hashem. “they don’t combatants and civilians die in clashes that stretch from take orders from the state.” the southern city of sidon to the northern city of tripoli. Kurds in Iraq attempt to control political developments once a tourist magnet, many of the visitors Lebanon now in a semi-autonomous enclave carved out in syria by hosts are Iraqis and syrians seeking a haven. syrian Kurds, who in turn use northern Iraq as a strategic For the civilians caught in the crossfire, “it’s chaos, it’s and logistical waystation. Kurdish fighters of the a total jungle, it’s hell,” says Khoury, who teaches political Kurdistan Workers party, many of whom spent their science at the American University of Beirut. lives in Iraq and turkey, now go to the self-declared self- “People don’t have any rules to go by,” he adds. “they rule area of Rojava in syria. have to obey the rules of the people with guns that have militants from the outskirts of Deir Azour along ➤

www.ft.com/arab-world | 9 MIDDLE EAST

Anbar to Baghdad and Diyala provinces. ‘Al-Qaeda and the takfiris are worse enemies “they attack important government districts in to us and the Syrians and the people of the Baghdad, universities, military bases, supermarkets,” says Ali sarai, an editor at the Iraqi newspaper, sabah region than any other group’ al-Jadeed, in Baghdad. “this sends the message they can attack any place any time.”

the river Euphrates in syria show up in Baghdad, where ECHO CHAMBER they sell stolen jewellery and looted artefacts to buy Governments and militants are making decisions not in weapons. response to actual threats on the ground but in response sunni Lebanese and Palestinian militants who to regional fears. maliki recently took to dropping began their careers as fighters in southern or northern explosives-laden barrel bombs on Fallujah, using a Lebanon fight in syria before circulating back home for technique that has had devastating consequences for new battles. syrian civilians in Aleppo. maysoon Damlouji, a member of Iraq’s parliament, to many, the conflict between Iraqi troops and said she has seen young men boarding late-night flights insurgents already resembles the sectarian civil war in from Baghdad to Beirut to defend the holy shrine of syria. Just as sectarian clashes in the Lebanese city of sayyida Zeinab, the revered daughter of the shia saint tripoli have come to resemble those of the syrian city of Ali who is buried near Damascus. homs, Anbar province in Iraq resembles Deir Azzour in “the government is allowing Iraqis to go fight in syria syria. under the pretence of defending sayyida Zeinab,” she “maliki is afraid what happened in syria will come says. “the Iraqis are fighting on both sides of the syria to Baghdad,” says sarai. “But the military operation war.” is not the right solution. that makes all the sunni swaths of Lebanon have long been beyond the control people against the central government. Iraqi sunnis are of the central government in Beirut. Now, vast tracts completely different from syrian sunnis because Iraqi of Iraq and syria also lie beyond their governments’ sunnis want to be part of the Iraqi government.” authority. on Iraq’s sunni Baghdadiya television channel, sowell Isis, often derisively referred to by its Arabic acronym recently found himself briefly disoriented while listening Compare and contrast Daish, has begun setting up a proto-state in parts of to a news report. “you have sunnis that talk about the this latest conflict resembles the 30 years war that devastated syria and Iraq, with its own courts, police and public revolutionaries in Anbar using the same language as 17th-century central europe services. It appears to be expanding its influence from when they talk about syria. on the sunni continuum you have this sort of common ideology. the syrian and Iraqi sunnis are almost interchangeable.” on the shia side, Esahib al-haq and other groups are gearing up to do battle in syria. Even the government says it respects those who go to defend sayyida Zeinab, and says it cannot do anything about them. “We are not saying we are friends with the syrian regime; we actually consider ourselves a victim of the syrian regime,” says hussein shahrestani, Iraq’s deputy prime minister. “But al-Qaeda and the takfiris [muslims who accuse other muslims of apostasy] are worse enemies to us and the syrians and the people of the region than any other group.”

ROCK BOTTOM? the strong emergence of the broad threat by al-Qaeda and its offshoots, including Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra, represents the gravest threat to the future of the region. But it might also have brought some of the regional powers to their senses, forcing regional players into a future Peace of Westphalia, which ended the 30 years war, to come together to work on de-escalating the conflict instead of pushing to win it. In recent weeks, saudi Arabia’s foreign minister publicly invited his Iranian counterpart to visit Riyadh. the emir of Kuwait, a strong supporter of the rebel cause with tribal ties to eastern syria, announced that he would visit tehran. Jordan and turkey, strong supporters of the sunni rebellion, have clamped down on jihadi fighters moving in and out of the war zone. “We’re starting to see signs of saudis and Iranians playing footsie,” says Khoury. “I think we’ve finally reached the low point of the war because there’s so much fear among the establishments in the region.”

10 |www.ft.com/arab-world

ISIS fuelling isis inc

An oil smuggling network created to evade UN sanctions on Saddam’s Iraq is being exploited anew. By Borzou Daragahi and Erika Solomon

aiting for his job interview, the young Syrian was impressed by the array of high-end camera equipment, video-editing pods and overall organisation in the offices of his prospective employer. The salary, five times that of a typical Syrian civil servant, was not bad either. “They offered me $1,500 a month, plus a car, a house and all the cameras I needed,” says the one-time tailor in his late 20s. “I remembered looking around the office. It was amazing the equipment they had in there. I remember thinking, these people can’t just be getting their money on their own. There has to be a state behind this.” His prospective employer, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the al-Qaeda offshoot known as Isis, has pretensions to being a state but it is not there yet. The group controls a third of Iraq and a quarter of Syria but the young man was not being recruited to take up arms. Instead, he was being hired to work at the group’s media office – the sort of operation more often associated with multinationals – in Raqqa, the Syrian city that is the de facto capital of the group’s self-declared Islamic Caliphate or state. He chose not to take the job – staying in Syria was too dangerous, he decided – but the story illustrates the level of resources and funding available to the terror group that has grown out of the Syrian conflict into an organisation that President Barack Obama committed the US to “degrade and ultimately destroy” this month. Strangling the source of that revenue – which estimates put at anywhere between $1m and $5m a day – is seen by the US and its allies as essential to halting the Isis advance. Western investigators have sought to trace bank account numbers in the Gulf and locate jihadi donors as far afield as Indonesia. In addition to nefarious ransom and extortion rings, Isis taps areas under its control for money, charging retail stores about $2 a month in taxes. ➤

12 |www.ft.com/arab-world 10 The number of oil fields under Isis control in Syria and Iraq 171 / 177 Iraq’s ranking in Transparency International’s 2013 corruption index $1m-$5m Isis daily oil revenues LAHUDDIN/AFP/GETTY SA T YA PHOTO: WELA

www.ft.com/arab-world | 13 ISIS

In coming days, it plans to charge for electricity and water ‘It is pumping oil and selling it to fund its consumption to make money in areas under its control, according to one activist in Syria. brutal tactics, along with kidnappings, But experts say that to crack down on Isis’s finances, western governments and their Middle East allies must theft and extortion’ look first at a decades-old oil smuggling network, which is now being tapped by the group to finance its proto-state. This lucrative unofficial trade encompasses northern Iraq, Asked if the administration was looking at bombing northeastern Syria, southern Turkey, parts of Iran and, oilfields or refineries controlled by Isis, Kerry said: “I have according to western officials and leading international not heard any objection.” experts, is where Isis earns the bulk of its money. The boundaries of the mostly Kurdish black market Maplecroft, the risk management firm, says in a recent zone have never been easy to police, rarely recognised report that Isis now controls six out of 10 of Syria’s by people with cross-border kinship and trade ties. The oilfields, including the big Omar facility, and at least terrain ranges from the grassy plains dividing Turkey four small fields in Iraq, including those at Ajeel and from northwest Syria to the forbidding mountains Hamreen. between Iraqi Kurdistan and its Turkish and Iranian Oil smuggling has deep roots in the region. After the neighbours to the flatlands along Iraq and Syria’s imposition of UN energy sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s, Jordanian borders. a robust network of smugglers, traders and bootleg Smuggling underpins the economy of the semi- refineries flourished. autonomous, three-province KRG with smugglers’ coves Hundreds of entrepreneurs emerged, buying and dotting its borders with Iran, Syria and Turkey. In towns selling small parcels of Iraq’s oil at discounted prices and like Hajj Omran along the Iran-Iraq border, smugglers transporting them across the Turkish border to sell at a openly regale visitors with tales of their exploits. markdown. Many of the business people have grown rich Iraqi Kurdistan officials warn they have limited and powerful, with vested interests and political ties. resources to police the trade – the region now shares Energy experts and western officials say Isis may be a 1,000km border with Isis – and complain that funds laundering up to 80,000 barrels of oil a day worth several have shrunk since Baghdad began withholding budget million dollars through this shadow market. The oil is revenues to the region, another example of how Iraq’s smuggled through rugged mountain and desert routes or political divisions benefit Isis. even legitimate crossings at Reyhanli, Zakho or Penjwan “The government is doing all it can to control the for consumption in Turkey, Iran or Jordan. borders,” says Sherko Jawdat Mustafa, a member of the “The fact that Iraq was under sanctions for so long Kurdistan region’s parliament. “But recession is prevailing led Kurdish and Iraqi businessmen to fill a vacuum and over Kurdistan with all its institutions and apparatus.” create smuggling networks for Iraqi oil,” says Valerie Officials also suspect border guards in Iraq, Iran, Syria Marcel, a Middle East and Africa energy specialist at and Turkey are bribed to allow shipments to pass. “It’s Chatham House, the London think-tank. “Turkish, like a drug cartel and a criminal organisation which is Iranian, Syrian, Iraqi networks have grown because of also benefiting from official support or [those in power] decades of bans on exports. From Iraq and now from Syria there is this grey market. That’s becoming a huge 1. problem.” xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Black market oil is often refined at plants in Iraqi Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Kurdistan that are partly the byproduct of the tensions xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx between Kurdish leaders and Baghdad. In recent years xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx the Kurdistan Regional Government looked the other way as homegrown refineries popped up to supply the local market after Baghdad banned the export of petroleum products without its consent. This means that the Kurds are potentially helping put money in the coffers of the jihadi group that its own peshmerga forces are fighting. “It’s now possible that Isis could be selling crude [via middlemen] to these knock-off refineries,” says Bilal Wahab, an energy expert at the American University of Sulaymaniyah. “The KRG is unwilling to shut them down because it would have to raise the price of gasoline. It can’t raise the price of gasoline because it can’t pay salaries, and it can’t pay salaries because the central government hasn’t given the KRG its budget in eight months. Yes, it’s illegal. Yes, it’s bad. But it is what greases the wheels of the economy.” International officials accept that the bulk of Isis’s funds are raised within the vast areas of Iraq and Syria it controls. “It’s pumping oil and selling it to fund its brutal tactics, along with kidnappings, theft, extortion and external support,” John Kerry, US secretary of state said last week.

14 |www.ft.com/arab-world turning a blind eye,” says Marcel. “It couldn’t exist on the “Given that the IsIslamiclamic State has sought to minimise its1 scale that it is right now without some army and customs reliance on the international banking system, the group is people being complicit and benefiting.” comparatively less prone to asset seizures or international Iraq ranks 171 out of 177 in Transparency financial sanctions,” says the Maplecroft report. International’s 2013 ratings of perceived official In addition, the group is believed to have distributed corruption. Security forces often look the other way in its money across a wide geographic area. “Stopping exchange for a cash payment. smuggling operations will not affect the Islamic State in “A lot of money also goes to the guys at the the short run,” says Hisham Hashemi, an authority on checkpoints,” says Wahab. “So you have to enforce Sunni insurgents in Baghdad. “They have enough money accountability at the checkpoints and find ways to keep – in cash – that could keep them going for a good two them from taking bribes.” years.” A Turkish official recently said seizures of smuggled fuel But Isis’s outsized ambition and refusal to compromise had risen from 35,260 tons in 2011 to more than 50,000 might lead to the downfall of its financial empire. Isis’s tons in the first six months of 2014 alone, suggesting an pretensions toward statehood have compelled it to explosion in the trade. But the market appears to have attempt to take control of the entire process and cut out shifted in recent weeks in response to a tightening of the middlemen. There are also signs that international Turkish border controls. momentum is building to stifle the black market oil trade. Much of the trade is carried out inside Isis-controlled The governments of Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan have areas, making efforts to curb it even tougher. “Now announced fresh interdiction efforts. Prices of crude oil most of the traders are Iraqi,” says Othman al-Sultan, in Syria have risen from $25 to $41, suggesting decreased an activist in the Syrian city of Deir Ezzor. “All the Iraqi production following Turkey’s clampdown on the border, traders come to buy the crude and take it back into an activist says. Iraq.Syrian crude is cheap and they use it for generators At the smuggling village of Hacipasa, near the Syrian and factories in Iraq.” border, residents recently railed at government efforts to Gaining ground Isis has sought to divorce itself from dependence on block illegal border crossings that provide a livelihood isis has made significant international donors in its efforts to create a self-sufficient for many Turks. If the recently installed Baghdad territorial gains in iraq (above) economy since establishing itself as a significant presence government of prime minister Haider al-Abadi resumes and syria (left and below), with the help of an influx of of money in the Syria conflict. It was in part a disagreement over long-delayed budget payments to Kurdistan, it would and manpower whether to raise funds locally or internationally that led create even more of an incentive for Kurds to crack down to friction with other Syrian rebel groups, including the on bootleg refineries that purchase black-market oil. al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al Nusra. “Isis is trying to take the oil products as close to the Analysts suggest tracking down account numbers or end user as possible to capture more profit,” says Marcel. arresting international supporters will do little to damage “By doing that, Isis’s finances become probably easier to the finances of a group that deals almost exclusively in target than a constellation of little middlemen with small cash. Most Gulf supporters seeking the removal of Bashar volumes crawling around the whole territory.” al-Assad, the Syrian president, are now largely shunning Additional reporting by Piotr Zalewski in Ankara, Geoff the group. Dyer in Washington and Lobna Monieb in Cairo

this story was suPPlY cHain: industrY on alert to sPot rogue oil first published in the ft on the quantities are small but the origin, and making it more difficult consultancy in london, says: “the September risks are large for any global for traders to identify its source. Kurdistan regional government trader found to be handling oil shwan Zulal, an iraqi oil analyst, and operators in the region want 21 from isis-controlled fields, writes says the volumes of isis oil that their oil to be credible. there is Anjli Raval in london. could enter the international little advantage gained through the biggest traders say they markets are minimal. but he the smuggling and selling of isis are confident they have avoided adds that it is possible for trucked oil. purchases of any smuggled crude to be mixed with pipeline “what is more likely, is crude oil because of the procedures oil in storage facilities at the via these small refining units – counter parties have to pass turkish port of ceyhan. being sold within the region to through strict due diligence and “nobody wants to get involved domestic buyers,” he says. “it is other “know your customer” in this stuff, but this is really much easier to see the end users processes – already in place. as the only way [traders] could being located in these areas a result low volumes of poor- inadvertently be buying isis rather than the oil getting into quality, unauthenticated crude crude,” says Zulal. the international markets in any are unlikely to make it into their after isis’s June takeover of real way.” networks, they say. much of northwestern iraq the even so the industry is on alert, analysts, however, warn there is un security council warned that says stéphane graber, general a small chance that oil smuggled those caught trading crude from secretary of the geneva trading out of iraq by truck could enter regions controlled by the group & shipping association. “we are the global supply chain. once could face sanctions. this could following the situation with our extracted it can be easily mixed affect bank credit lines. members very closely to ensure

2. and processed with oil from richard mallinson, geopolitical [they are] not breaking any legitimate sources, disguising its analyst at energy aspects, a existing international rules.” PHOTOS: REUTERS

www.ft.com/arab-world | 15 LEBANON Photo: reuters

16 |www.ft.com/arab-world lebanon on the brink

Political gridlock, economic torpor and the machinations of pro-Syrian Hizbollah – the non-state regional superpower – have once more pushed the crossroads of the Middle East to the edge of collapse. By David Gardner

Beirut, December 27 2013 the aftermath of the car bomb explosion that killed former Sunni minister and strategist mohamad chatah

www.ft.com/arab-world | 17 LEBANON

1 ust after last Christmas, Mohamad Chatah, Yet eclipsing this quasi-feudal cast of grotesques is the Overseer senior strategist to saad hariri, a former prime long shadow of hizbollah, the shia Islamist paramilitary Sayyed hassan nasrallah, leader minister of Lebanon, was making his way to movement, born out of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution of hizbollah, hails followers from a a meeting within the heavily guarded area and Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. the spearhead hoarding in beirut of downtown Beirut occupied by the sunni- of Iran in the Levant, it has grown from being one of 2 Jdominated opposition. unlike most Lebanese the states-within-a-state that Lebanon seems to spawn Under construction politicians, who travel in convoys of armoured suVs prodigally, to becoming clearly, if not always visibly, more the mohammad al-amin mosque bristling with bodyguards, Chatah was in his own, almost powerful than the state. in central beirut, inaugurated in 2008, surrounded by ongoing ostentatiously standard, sedan. he took the same shortcut reconstruction work he always took. twenty minutes before he arrived, CCtV ast May, hizbollah openly committed the full cameras show a car arriving near this road to the hariri might of its militia to the civil war in syria on complex to replace another car parked there overnight. the side of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship. this the drivers of both vehicles knew precisely where the fateful decision, taken in tehran, has attached cameras were and how to evade recognition. When Lebanon to the syrian battlefield, which now Chatah got there, the 30kg explosive charge inside the lstretches from Beirut to Baghdad, creating second car was remotely detonated. It killed him, his another arena for the vicious struggle within Islam driver and four bystanders, one of them a young student between sunni and shia out for an early morning jog. syria is the frontline in this fratricidal conflict, reignited this story was Another day, another Beirut bomb. Beirutis seemingly after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003 that first published in shrugged it off. By New Year’s eve, nearby bars and brought the shia majority there to power and lengthened the ft on restaurants that had had their windows and doors blown the regional reach of Iran – to the indignant consternation May in were gleaming once more – and overbooked. the of the west’s sunni allies in the Gulf, led by saudi Arabia. almost adjacent Music hall, celebrated for its drinking, In Lebanon, the sunni-shia fight has now almost eclipsed 16 dining and dancing to eclectic east-west fusions of live antagonism between Muslims and Christians – the main music, throbbed frenetically. the show must go on. faultline of its civil war – with the latter now divided Inured to long years of civil war, serial invasions and between the two Islamic camps. occupations, and a string of high-profile assassinations for While the petty rivalries of Lebanon’s politics – which no one has been brought to justice, the Lebanese with lead players endlessly changing their colours have an unhealthily high tolerance of chaos. Amnesia and coalitions – might be dismissed as a parochial is considered almost a civic virtue and the absence of a psychodrama, the country seems unable to escape real state able to provide a modicum of security is paraded and predatory regional menace, with neighbouring syria as a vindication of the country’s freewheeling spirit: and Israel, as well as Iran and saudi Arabia, the most aggressively mercantile, interspersed with lots of partying deeply involved external players in Lebanon’s recent past. but punctuated by slices of mayhem. the difference now is that hizbollah, built on a reputation For a long time – through the sectarian savagery and of fierce resistance to Israel and us-led policies in the relentless destruction of the 1975-90 civil war, through Middle east, has taken a starring role as a regional the Israeli invasions of 1978, 1982, 1996 and 2006, protagonist. throughout the 22-year Israeli occupation of the south this time last year it was hizbollah that enabled the that ended in 2000 and 29 years of syrian occupation Assad regime to take al-Qusair, a small syrian town that came to an ostensible end in 2005 – this was a heady astride the strategic homs Gap that links the capital, brew, the bubbly in the fabled resilience of the Lebanese. Damascus, to the northwest coastal heartland of the Now, despite occasional signs of fizz, it has gone distinctly minority Alawites, the esoteric branch of shi’ism the flat. It is not just that Lebanon remains a state that often Assads made the backbone of their crumbling security seems just hours away from collapse. It is that Beirut, the state. Qusair was also a staging post for arms smuggled faded jewel of the Mediterranean that once touted itself from Lebanon to the rebels. Assad forces had failed as the Paris of the east, looks as though it is never going several times to clear this corridor. In their new role to recover its lustre. the physical resurrection of Beirut as shock-troops for a syrian regime that is morphing and much of its hinterland is real enough. But can it ever into a well-armed militia network under Iranian make anything of itself? guidance, hizbollah also cleared rebels from syria’s side Lebanon is saddled with a political class of warlords in of Lebanon’s border in the Qalamoun hills in a just- suits, political entrepreneurs who treat their people not concluded battle that began last November. as citizens but as cattle to be herded inside the country’s sayyed hassan Nasrallah, the leader of hizbollah, 18 officially recognised sects. Instead of individual rights calls these intrusions into syria divinely sanctioned with guarantees of religious and political pluralism for resistance, protecting the shia and other minorities from each community, rights are vested in the sects in ways the savagery of sunni jihadi extremism. In 1998, on one that their leaders, often the scions of political dynasties, of three occasions I interviewed him, Nasrallah argued easily usurp and then trade with external powers seeking passionately that Iran, under the reformist leadership to bolster their interests in the region. of then President Mohammad Khatami, would light the path of Islam and eclipse obscurantists such as osama bin Laden. Yet hizbollah, licensed by syria during its occupation of Lebanon as a resistance movement to ‘Inadequately classified as a non-state actor Israel’s occupation of the south, has always thrived on by social scientists and diplomats, Hizbollah is conflict. And Nasrallah has made his fighters the foot soldiers of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme really a sort of non-state hyperpower’ Leader, under the wing of the al-Quds brigade of its

18 |www.ft.com/arab-world 1 Photo: AMZI hAIDAr/AFP/GettY IMAGes; CoNtrAsto/eYeVINe

Islamic revolutionary Guard Corps. the corps’ leader, Qasem soleimani, calls the shots across the enlarged syrian battlefield and helped build this bastion on the Mediterranean for the Islamic republic. “they have always been a part of the revolutionary Guard,” says one european ambassador in Beirut with deep experience in the region. “If it’s a sin then it’s an original sin.” Inadequately classified as a non-state actor by social scientists and diplomats, hizbollah is really a sort of non-state hyperpower. “they are behaving like an imperial power,” says one perplexed Lebanese shia intellectual. “hizbollah has taken Lebanon into a regional confrontation, and we will pay heavily for it whether they win or lose.” It is hard for anyone who is not an Arab to grasp what hizbollah signified at the peak of its prestige – after forcing Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000 and then holding the region’s superpower to a draw in the last war in 2006. that is why it is so difficult to credit its claim that propping up the Assad regime is an act of “resistance” – while a predatory clan clings to power by crushing a civic uprising against tyranny with ballistic missiles and 2 barrel bombs, artillery barrages and air strikes, industrial- scale torture and systematic starvation, using incendiary bombs on school playgrounds and cluster bombs on bakery queues. Nasrallah, shrewd and cerebral as well as fiery and charismatic, has been virtually in hiding since 2006, fearing assassination by Israel. every time he graces the nation with his soaring, remotely delivered oratory, celebratory gunfire rings out across Beirut. But his turban has started to slip.

www.ft.com/arab-world | 19 LEBANON

he Chatah murder last December was read the Party of God’s thrust into syria, exposing its Lebanese by many as a message, delivered just as the rearguard to reprisals (more than a dozen car-bombings uN-backed special tribunal for Lebanon since last summer and dozens of thwarted attacks), means was due to open in the hague. Charged it has had to tighten its grip at home. thus, it brought in absentia were five hizbollah operatives, down a government it all but controlled in March last taccused of carrying out the February 2005 year by refusing to extend the mandate of Major General assassination by truck bomb of rafiq hariri, the former Ashraf rifi, head of the Lebanese IsF, who is close to premier and father of saad. that was a sort of regicide the hariris and led the last security service it could not that changed the course of Lebanon. control. “they have a foot in every office in this country,” hariri was the architect of the postwar rebuilding says a retired senior intelligence officer, “and they control of Beirut and Lebanon, though he failed in its political all the intelligence branches.” reconstruction. he was a sunni, as all prime ministers Parliament limps along in a legal penumbra, after MPs Walid Jumblatt: must be in Lebanon’s politico-sectarian equation, awarded themselves extensions to their terms, because leader of the druze community, alongside a Christian president and shia speaker the constitutional tribunal empowered to adjudicate he has shifted allegiances of parliament, but as the primus inter pares of the on proroguing the legislature was kneecapped by the numerous times triumvirate. A construction tycoon who diversified withdrawal of hizbollah trusties, leaving it inquorate and into banking and media before entering politics, with impotent. international allies such as Jacques Chirac, then president As hizbollah MP Ali Ammar put it in parliament: of France, hariri was the only real obstacle to Iranian- “We are not small and we are playing the game of the syrian designs on Lebanon. Critically, in the autumn big players. We are big players and we have defeated big of 2004, he moved his sunni coalition into alignment players.” Another void threatens to open in the current with Christians and Druze, a millennium-old offshoot of election of a new president by parliament, unlikely to shi’ism, which had reconciled with the Christians in 2001. happen soon since the March 8 MPs either cast blank the demonstrations that followed the hariri ballots or fail to turn up. “You have to safeguard stability assassination divided the country into two camps, named but create a vacuum in all the organs of state that for the dates of their biggest rallies. March 8, built might oppose you,” says the shia intellectual. Nearly around hizbollah, includes Amal, another civil war-era all commentary on the so far abortive contest is about shia militia, whose leader, Nabih Berri, is speaker of personalities rather than policy. Much of it centres on parliament, and the Christian party of General Michel General Aoun, Lebanon’s would-be De Gaulle, who, at 80, Saad Hariri: Aoun, the messianic figure who lost a suicidal “war of and having turned on a sixpence, depends on hizbollah to the son of rafiq and leader of the liberation” against syria and rival Christian militias in realise his unlikely ambition and become president. future movement, who now lives the last spasms of Lebanon’s fratricide in 1988-90. March outside powers, so often blamed by Lebanese for in exile in Paris 14 – the date of the rally that eventually forced syria to their woes, are both meddlers and onlookers. the withdraw its troops in 2005’s so-called Cedar revolution saudis, backing March 14, and the Iranians, behind – is a 12-party coalition built around saad hariri, leader March 8, stood back last month to allow an uneasy of the mainly sunni Future Movement, in alliance with and largely inoperable coalition government between the residue of the Maronite Christian militias of the the two sides. the us, France and the uK are trying Phalange and Lebanese Forces and, episodically, the to build up the capability of the army, Lebanon’s last Druze. saad, a businessman thrust into a leadership functioning institution aside from the central bank, in role for which he was ill prepared after his father rafiq’s full knowledge of hizbollah’s hold on military intelligence assassination, lives in self-imposed exile in Paris to avoid and the growing co-ordination between regular troops the same fate. and the irregular but highly disciplined guerrilla force. Political paralysis has been the norm since then. the saudis, just as paradoxically, are trying to boost Paradoxically, the withdrawal of syria and its troops their influence by promising a $3bn grant to Lebanon’s led to Iran and its Arab allies getting their claws deeper army, which is perceived by some, to quote the european into the Lebanese political fabric. Car bombs eliminated ambassador, as “a partisan army protecting the shi’ites”. Michel Aoun: dissidents, from the writer samir Kassir in the summer A former shia minister and avowed foe of paramilitarism achristian and former army of 2005 to Wissam al-hassan, intelligence chief of the remarks ruefully that “the truth is the little stability we commander, he has now allied his Internal security Forces (IsF) in August 2012. have here is because of hizbollah”. followers to hizbollah in the march 8 coalition An agreement in May 2008 was supposed to break the March 14 and the Future Movement, many of political impasse, as the diplomatically ambitious gas-rich their cadres confined behind high walls under armed emirate of Qatar distributed $44m in cash to Lebanese protection, cannot agree. they say Chatah, a former politicians all but locked up in a Doha hotel, not to finance minister and us ambassador, was murdered mention an Airbus to Bashar al-Assad. the deal in effect in reprisal for November’s twin suicide bombing of the awarded hizbollah a veto on government policy. Iranian embassy, claimed by sunni jihadis allied to syria’s that is but part of the hizbollah strategy towards rebels but blamed by hizbollah on saudi Arabia. that he Lebanon’s Potemkin-republic institutions, which is to fill was also the Future Movement’s strategist would not have them, keep them empty or render them unworkable. For improved his chances of survival.

afiq hariri’s postwar project was to recreate ‘The withdrawal of Syria and its troops led Beirut as the capital market and commercial crossroads of the Middle east. sectarian to Iran and its Arab allies getting their claws deadlock, more wars and the rivalries of outside powers thwarted him. the project deeper into the Lebanese political fabric’ rmoved south, mainly to Dubai, now a major

20 |www.ft.com/arab-world

LEBANON

tourism, transshipment hub and budding regional financial centre that, in a cruel irony, scooped up many of ‘It has always been a delusion on the part the disillusioned architects of the Beirut project. that, too, of people who unleash violence in the is changing, as Gulf countries start driving out thousands of the Lebanese working there, targeting the shia but Middle East to think they can control it’ catching others in the net, since they believe hizbollah has been using its influence to arrange passports for coreligionists with Christian or sunni-sounding names. base three times the size of Lebanon’s economy. saidi adds Much of downtown Beirut, the neo-ottoman heart of that the Lebanese “don’t have the hang-ups of the us and the city’s resurrection, lies empty. Almost any building of the Gulf with Iran, and we could even use Gulf money consequence is surrounded by blast barriers and razor coming through Beirut towards syria and Iran. that wire. Lebanon is leaching talent, as its best-educated could be a renaissance.” youngsters seek lives and livelihoods abroad, leaving Fouad Makhzoumi is a sunni businessman and their less fortunate compatriots locked up at home as politician who over the past 30 years has created a the clients of communal patrons. But even some older multinational fibreglass-pipe-making business. he Lebanese, who have withstood everything the country believes that if Lebanon can equip itself with a robust has thrown at them, say belief in a different future here is rule of law and proper training schemes, it can find new futile. niches in providing infrastructure, especially by leveraging “the Lebanese love novelty and think they are so the country’s share of newly discovered offshore oil and modern, but they are killing the new,” says the (sunni) Mohamad Chatah: gas riches. “It needs a vision,” he says, “otherwise [while] owner of a bank, who is thinking of relocating to Istanbul. a leading Sunni figure whose older people may keep finding their way through the “You think you have a circle, but the circle of sanity gets assassination last year has been minefields of doing business here, younger people simply blamed on Shia forces smaller and smaller [as] everybody ends up taking refuge won’t be interested.” Politics – sectarian politics – is where they feel safe, in their own sect with its outside ultimately all. protectors.” A successful (Christian) architect, expanding in the Gulf but many of whose projects at home are amir Franjieh is a centre-left intellectual from blocked, concludes that the only way forward is to play an illustrious and divided Maronite Christian the game and stand for parliament, a proven path to dynasty, former adviser to rafiq hariri, and patronage. “If you want to work in this country you need incubator of the political movement that is power,” he says. now the largely ineffectual March 14 coalition. Lebanon today seems unable to untie these knots. But S “At the political level, yes, it’s a desolate when it does work, it can be a revelation: a country that panorama but if you look at civil society, the debate is rich survives on its wits. Banking and services (including and vibrant,” he says. In a country without institutions he tourism) are its specialities, going back in history to when believes Lebanon’s Christians urgently need to mediate it operated as go-between to the civilisations emerging between sunni and shia, and proposes a truth and along the banks of the Nile and between the euphrates reconciliation commission. “We need something that and tigris rivers. Its hidden asset, invaluable for a nation Rafiq Hariri: tells us our half-century of conflict and war is over.” he making a living as an intermediary, is its diaspora, four lebanon’s current volatility dates also wants to break the sectarian stranglehold on politics times as numerous as the population of the country, with back to the killing of the Sunni with a bicameral system, consisting of a lower house – prime minister in 2005 which millions of Lebanese keep close family and business currently divvied up by religion – representing citizens ties. and their political preferences, and a senate to safeguard the Lebanese economy is not really susceptible to the rights of sects. these initiatives would have to be conventional economic analysis. Lebanon is best seen, driven by civil society, he says, but if they were to prosper, economically speaking, as the biggest island in a far-flung they could be transferable to syria and other countries archipelago, stretching from Abidjan to sydney, from with a mosaic of sects such as Iraq. toronto to são Paulo, into the banks of Paris and the But for as long as syria’s civil war fans the flames across bond-dealing rooms of London and New York – wherever the Levant, there is little room for nuanced debate. All the irrepressibly entrepreneurial Lebanese are to be Lebanon’s sect and faction leaders are united in the desire found. to keep the lid on and spare the country a real relapse into Nasser saidi, a us-educated shia Lebanese, was vice- communal strife but it is far from clear they are all talking governor of the central bank during the hariri era, then about the same lid. As hizbollah’s drive into syria shows economy minister, before becoming chief economist for once again, it has always been a delusion on the part of the fledgling Dubai International Financial Centre. Now people who unleash violence in the Middle east to think a consultant, he believes diaspora talent, allied to the that they can control it. quality of Lebanese higher education and its regional ties, Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Druze who has shifted could be mobilised to make Beirut a financial conduit alliances many times in defence of his people, fears for the vast reconstruction costs of the region, which for the future of his and other minorities, recalling the he estimates at $250bn for syria alone. If the tentative Christian exodus from Iraq after the us-led invasion of rapprochement between Iran and the us and other 2003 rekindled the sunni-shia war. “I see a bleak future international powers prospers, that too could clear a path for the Christians here and in [all] the Middle east,” he to hundreds of billions of dollars in unmet investment says. “If they leave, the pluralism of the region will go needs for a country crippled by sanctions. “If you were with them and we’ll be left on our own. We have to play talking just about financing the reconstruction of syria for time and keep extinguishing the smaller fires before and Iran, that could reignite Beirut,” he says. “We have the they get bigger...or we’ll be linked directly to a syria as knowhow and the banks” – which already have a deposit disintegrated as Iraq.”

22 |www.ft.com/arab-world

GULF Saudiarabia: a kingdom on guard

Alarmed by the rise of political Islam, the House of Saud is increasingly hardline at home and aggressive abroad. By Roula Khalaf

he reaction was almost monarchy, where no right of assembly is recognised, it has instant. on the same been impossible for a group to emerge that could pose a day that the saudi threat to the house of saud. government announced Casting a wide net against a group’s sympathisers is not a ban on the muslim the usual saudi way of doing business. the government’s Brotherhood, the four- preferred method is to combine subtle co-option and not- finger sign of sympathy so-subtle punishment on a narrow band of leaders and with Egypt’s Brothers agitators. disappeared from “It’s strange. Nothing has dramatically changed in twitter picture displays. saudi Arabia to justify this,” says a Riyadh-based lawyer. No one in the Around the same time as the legal crackdown, saudi kingdom was willing to Arabia stepped up a long-running dispute with Qatar, take the risk of being accusing its smaller neighbour of destabilising the Gulf. accused of supporting Along with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the Islamist group, even Riyadh withdrew its ambassador from Doha. It also if the yellow symbol was sometimes just an expression hinted at more stringent measures, including closing its of pity for the victims of the Cairo regime’s repression of borders and airspace, in what is shaping up to be one of Islamists. the worst crises within the Gulf Cooperation Council, the this month’s ban, it was clear, would be enforced under regional group that includes both saudi Arabia and Qatar. harsh antiterrorism regulations that had been introduced People close to the Riyadh government say saudi just a few weeks earlier. so sweeping were the new laws Arabia is assuming regional responsibility and will no that any hint of support for outlawed groups could be longer tolerate those who spread chaos across the region. deemed a criminal offence. “We are becoming an initiator of policy and defining our the actions taken by the saudi leadership reflect an interests,” says one. increasingly hardline attitude in Riyadh that has rattled others, however, say the moves are a sign of growing political activists and puzzled middle Eastern and insecurity at a time when an ageing leadership is western officials. desperate to return the Arab world to a more comfortable

the muslim Brotherhood certainly has followers pre-Arab awakening status quo, however intolerant that EZ NURELDINE/AFP/GEttY ImAGEs

in saudi Arabia. And they were emboldened by the might seem. AY sudden, if shortlived, success of their brethren in Egypt this apparent nervousness has been accentuated by the and tunisia after the 2011 uprisings. But in an absolute suspicion among saudi officials that the Us is abandoning Photo: ➤

24 |www.ft.com/arab-world Big presence The 90-year-old King Abdullah, seen in the background, right, is said to have reduced his workload, allowing his aides to adopt a more uncompromising attitude www.ft.com/arab-world | 25 GULF

the Kingdom while seeking better relations with Iran, regIonal rIvalry Riyadh’s regional rival. President Barack obama will seek saudi Arabia might have handled Egypt with a softer to assuage these fears when he visits saudi Arabia this touch had it felt more secure in its neighbourhood. But the week. stand-off between the sunni kingdom and shia Iran has “saudi Arabia has changed. Before it was more cautious, intensified over the past three years, as the two regional more diplomatic. Now it’s more assertive and more heavyweights backed opposite sides in the syrian war. paranoid,” says a saudi political analyst who asked to to saudi Arabia’s chagrin, moreover, Iran’s image in the remain anonymous. world has improved with the election of hassan Rouhani. the centrist president favours engagement with the west IslamIst threat and has embarked on negotiations with world powers that there is much to trouble a conservative regional leader are designed to curb Iran’s nuclear programme and ensure in a middle East that is in a state of permanent ferment. it remains peaceful. three years after the outbreak of Arab uprisings that sent the prospect of a resolution of the nuclear dispute ripples of panic through the autocratic Gulf, saudi Arabia – bolstered by the Rouhani government’s signing of an is operating in a more threatening environment. interim nuclear agreement in November – has sparked a the biggest blow in 2011 was the loss of hosni mubarak, profound rift in saudi-Us relations. Riyadh’s reliable Egyptian ally. Worse yet, his demise the growing production of shale gas in the Us, along ushered in a saudi nightmare: the rise of the muslim with its reduced dependence on Gulf oil, has deepened Brotherhood. saudi fear that the era of a special relationship with the It might seem ironic for a Wahhabi theocracy to oppose Us – one based on an exchange of oil for security – was so forcefully a party that mixes religion with politics. But it nearing an end. is precisely because the monarchy bases its legitimacy on saudi officials have been uncharacteristically vocal in Islam that it fears Brotherhood rivalry. If political Islam their criticism of the Us, which they also blame for failures were to be rooted in power in the largest Arab country, it in syria. And they have made no secret of their opposition could become an exportable commodity to the Gulf. to a nuclear deal with Iran, which they suspect would lead Fortunately for the kingdom, the Brotherhood’s rule to western acquiescence of Iranian regional hegemony. in Cairo came to an abrupt end last summer in a military “With the warming of Us relations with Iran and the coup that had popular support. saudi Arabia quickly reduction in saudi Arabia’s strategic oil importance, the embraced the new military regime and propped it up with saudis are concerned about losing out,” says the Riyadh- billions of dollars of economic aid. the effective restoration based lawyer. of the old mubarak order was an opportunity the saudis What saudi officials do not express, however, is that the were now determined to preserve. sense of vulnerability and anxiety about the future might “there is a conviction in saudi that the muslim be exacerbated by something closer to home: the state of Brotherhood is the only power that could have exploited the monarchy. the Arab spring, and so they think that without the King Abdullah is about 90 years old and is said to have Brotherhood there can be no revolutions,” says the saudi considerably reduced his workload in the past year. Crown political analyst. Prince salman, his brother, is also believed to be in fragile the saudi government’s fretting over Islamists in the health. Analysts and diplomats say that some princes and kingdom, however, did not end with the fall of mohammad aides, including Khalid al-tuwaijri, the king’s “gatekeeper”, morsi, Egypt’s Islamist president. As Cairo’s crackdown on have assumed greater authority and pushed for a more the Brotherhood escalated, many saudis were at odds with uncompromising policy. official policy as their sympathies lay closer to the Islamists Internal disarray appears to have affected saudi than to the Egyptian army. decision-making, particularly in policy towards syria. the anxiety over Islamists in the UAE also added to saudi backing for a nebulous rebel movement has also led Out of the box saudi concerns. Last year, the UAE government accused to a flood of saudis joining extremist groups – potentially regional calculations have been complicated by isis taking centre dozens of alleged Islamists of plotting a coup backed by the forming a new wave of jihadis who might return to the stage after the publication of this Brotherhood overseas. In July, the supreme court handed kingdom and wage a domestic jihad, much as they had article (the cartoon was published down long prison sentences to the alleged plotters in a trial done after fighting the soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. in august) criticised as unfair by western human rights groups. Last month, Riyadh sought to stem the flow of saudi As pressure on the Brotherhood widened, however, militants (at least 1,000 have gone to syria, according to saudi relations with Qatar grew frostier. Qatar, the the interior ministry, and many more according to western only Gulf state to have been traditionally sympathetic sources) by imposing 20-year jail terms on those travelling to Islamists and to have backed the morsi government, to fight abroad. refused to join the regional crackdown on the Until recently syria policy was led by Bandar bin Brotherhood. saudi pressure for a change of policy in sultan, the hawkish national security chief and former Doha, however, has continued to intensify, climaxing in the ambassador to Washington. withdrawal of the three Gulf ambassadors this month. saudi watchers say that although Prince Bandar might According to Gulf sources, the main saudi demand has still be involved, the syria file has now been handed to been for the closure or the drastic curbing of the coverage mohammed bin Naif, the more restrained interior minister of Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based network and only remaining whose focus is on antiterrorism at home. popular channel that gives ample airtime to Brotherhood members. Qatar, however, has insisted it will not be securIty gamble bullied. It has argued that it is neither committed to the It is not only in syria, however, that saudi Arabia has taken Brotherhood nor able to dictate to Al Jazeera how it should a dangerous gamble. cover the Egyptian story. As the kingdom flexes its muscle, it risks provoking

26 |www.ft.com/arab-world billionairE SoundS alarm 1 on falling oil PricE

a Saudi billionaire has sounded the alarm over the potential impact of falling oil prices on the gulf kingdom’s economy. in an open letter to Saudi ministers posted via twitter, Prince alwaleed bin talal al-Saud expressed his “astonishment” at comments made by ali al-naimi, the oil minister, who reportedly played down the impact of oil prices falling below $100 a barrel. Prices have since fallen below $88 a barrel, or a quarter since June. Prince alwaleed, noting the kingdom’s 2014 budget was 90 per cent dependent on oil revenues, said belittling the impact of lower prices was a “catastrophe that cannot go unmentioned”. the prince expressed similar concerns last year over the rise of shale oil, which, with weakening asian demand, has contributed to the rapid slide in oil prices – despite geopolitical uncertainties in iraq, a major producer. His public broadside against the veteran oil minister came as analysts said the gulf members of opec, the oil producers’ cartel, led by Saudi arabia, seem prepared to drive down oil prices to retain market share and fend off the threat of rising uS production, despite the risks to their hydrocarbon-dependent economies. “Saudi thinking has to be that lower prices are not so bad and gulf states can cope, either by cutting spending or dipping into reserves or borrowing,” said robin mills of manaar Energy consulting. “$100 a barrel is too high – you get weak demand growth, so maybe if it cools off to around $80, the shale boom cools off and you get more reasonable demand.” gulf oil producers, most of which have large cash reserves, seem to be betting that the short-term pain of declining oil revenues from lower prices will close off competing supplies and revive the lowest global oil demand since 2009. oil prices are reaching levels that, if sustained, threaten some gulf states’ ability to meet domestic spending commitments, forcing a drawdown on reserves or debt issuance. Saudi arabia needs an oil price of $89 a barrel in 2013 to balance the budget, up from a “fiscal break-even” of $78 a barrel in 2012, according to the international monetary fund. This is an extract from a story irst published on October 14. simeon Kerr broader turmoil in the region while also breeding ‘What Saudi officials do not express is that the resentment at home. With the new antiterrorism laws, even the small political space that had been opened sense of vulnerability and anxiety about the by King Abdullah is at risk of vanishing as freedom of expression is restricted. future might be exacerbated by something Western diplomats say that Riyadh and other Gulf closer to home: the state of the monarchy’ states financing Egypt’s economy should be using their leverage to counsel reconciliation and reform instead of replicating Egypt’s harsh measures against the GCC alliance on which it hopes increasingly to rely this story was Brotherhood. to counter Iran’s authority. New fissures are already first published in Within the Gulf, too, there are similar concerns. As one apparent in the region. the ft on senior Gulf official says: “the message that’s now being As tarek osman, author of Egypt on the Brink, says, March given to political Islam is go underground, and that’s after two camps are emerging: one led by saudi Arabia and 25 years of telling them to learn about democracy.” the UAE, which maintains that political Islam is a 26 the fear for Egypt and beyond is that the repression perilous force that should be confronted; and the other of the Islamist group that had renounced violence led by Qatar and turkey’s ruling party, which believes long ago might moderate some of its leaders but also in political Islam’s ability to transform the region. unleash radicalised splinter groups. this could further “this confrontation has not reached its peak yet,” swell jihadi ranks at a time of resurgence for al-Qaeda he says. franchises in north Africa and syria. saudi Arabia’s policies might be pursued in the saudi Arabia’s attempt to force a united Gulf front name of stability. But they could well achieve the towards Egypt could also backfire, undermining a opposite.

www.ft.com/midEaSt | 27 LIBYA

armed men join us for the 50km journey from the main local town of Owbari to the oil wells. “It’s a diverse group of people here and that’s the libya’s problem,” says Musa. The laid-back 36-year-old is a former social studies teacher who used to work for an organisation protecting antiquities. He is now a sort of benign deputy warlord. “There are weapons in everyone’s hand, remnants of al-Qaeda from the Mali war. Drugs badlands come from Mali, Algeria and Niger.” At about the 25km point, the paved road comes to an end and the open desert beckons. Truckers, smugglers and ordinary travellers in Libya’s south often find it Southern Libya is a vast territory easier on their cars, lorries and lower backs to leave the rutted roads and drive across the sand, which has been where oil, guns, trafficking smoothed by wind and time. and inter-ethnic conflict are Save for the occasional blanched camel skeleton, the desert trek is uneventful. The complications begin dangerously combined. immediately on arrival at the facility. Musa’s Tebu comrades are vying for its control with a militia from By Borzou Daragahi Zintan, the small western mountain city that turned against Muammer Gaddafi at the outset of the 2011 uprising and which carries extraordinary weight in national affairs. There is considerable jostling about which facility we can access and by whose authority. The Zintani militia, which is the principal group guarding the facility, insist on feeding us lunch and try to put on their best faces for the guests. But like a dysfunctional family trying to keep up appearances, the different groups prove unable to contain themselves. The man in charge in one area of the oilfields refuses to allow us to pass because he doesn’t trust the militiamen accompanying us. The protesters at the tent encampment will not allow us to speak to or photograph anyone and begin arguing among themselves over who exactly is their authorised spokesman. The divisions cause chaos, explains the manager. “Most of our problems are young people coming here with guns,” says Hassan Said, co-manager of the El Sharara field, jointly operated by Libya and the Spanish oil company, Repsol. He is an English speaker from he militia commander with the dazzling smile leads 1. one of the Fezzan peoples – darker-skinned Arabs who us through the desert towards the oilfields, his Toyota muzzar akkar, a tuareg, occupied positions of relative privilege under Gaddafi. “If in the slum quarter of owbari pick-up truck throwing up a cloud of exhaust and dust. they belong to one militia or another tribe they don’t get Looming on the horizon are the steeply sloping mountain along. Sometimes they are shooting, mostly in the air. The ridges surrounding the Owbari Valley. Overhead the problem is we have a dangerous oil facility with explosive midday sun is glaring down on the dunes, a sea of golden gases.” desert in what was once the ancient Roman province of The oil facility serves as a fable for Fezzan, as well as for Fezzan. the rest of Libya. The goose that lays the golden eggs has The remote oil outpost we are aiming for, called the been trampled nearly to death by the squabbling armed El Sharara fields, is part of the Murzuq basin and one of men protecting it. A land rich in culture, natural beauty the most important in Libya, drawing out 350,000 or so and economic resources, Fezzan today is a powder keg, an barrels of oil daily from the parched earth. That’s on a impoverished and treacherous region riven by ethnic and good day. On a bad one, when war or political chaos shuts tribal animosities ancient and new, with the added risks down the spigot, it can produce nothing. These have been posed by arms smuggling and the presence of a uranium particularly bad days. Ethnic Tuareg tribesmen recently stockpile. staged a sit-in at the facility, forcing it to stop pumping Stirred up for decades by Gaddafi’s manipulations, completely for more than two months. It reopened again exacerbated by the bigotry and racism of the country’s earlier this month. post-revolutionary elite, Fezzan’s tensions reached crisis Ibrahim Musa’s ever-present smile had turned into point in March 2012. During the events surrounding what this story was a frown and he had squirmed uncomfortably when he first published in is called “Black Saturday”, an all-out tribal and ethnic war heard our plans to go to the facility on our own. For now, the ft on between Arabs and Tebu and Tuaregs left scores dead in

as acting commander of one of the militias in charge of January the slums of the regional capital, Sabha, and stirred up securing the oilfields, he is responsible for us. There were separatist sentiment across southern Libya. bandits and smugglers and Islamic militants, he had 10 “If we don’t get our rights and they keep mistreating us, explained, insisting that he and a couple of jeep-loads of from this checkpoint on, all the way down to the border, ➤ PHOTO: ED GILES

28 |www.ft.com/arab-world we will declare it’s not part of Libya,” says Mohammed Wardugu, a 25-year-old Tebu militia commander who oversees a key checkpoint south of Sabha. He gestures towards the flatlands. “This is our territory here.” The ancient land Fezzan was one of three ancient Roman provinces, along with Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, that make up contemporary Libya. Among the foreign rulers who have controlled the country, only the Ottoman sultans seriously bothered to try to bring Fezzan under control, establishing a series of ominous fortresses along the edge of the Sahara. Others tended to claim this part of Libya only to leave it to the elements. Even compared to the leisurely paced cities of Libya’s coast, life moves slowly in the Sahara. It takes Mohammad Ahmed two months to drive his camel train from the heart of his native Niger up through the Sahara to the markets near Sabha, spending his nights beneath a sheet of stars. “We don’t have much of a life,” he says, seated barefoot upon cushions arranged on his camel’s hump. His worn, sun-chiselled face makes him look more like a man in his fifties than twenties, and save for his mobile phone and black hoodie he could be from a previous millennium. Like Ahmed, up until a few decades ago the various peoples of the Sahara lived nomadic lives by necessity, ignoring arbitrary national borders imposed mostly by European colonial masters. When Gaddafi came to power in 1969, he imposed an Arab nationalist identity on Libya that helped empower the country’s majority against the European overseers and their surrogates. But he excluded Libya’s minority Amazigh (Berber) and the darker-skinned Tuareg and Tebu, with their separate languages, elaborate clothes and customs that include more relaxed attitudes to women’s honour, dress and sexuality. He denied many of the nomadic peoples their citizenship rights, infinitely delaying their applications for passports even if they had birth certificates proving that they were born in the country on the premise that their origins were in Chad or Niger. The Arab-dominated post-revolutionary government continues this practice, a source of great trauma for the minorities. Indeed, the one time that the charming Musa’s cool demeanour cracks is when he discusses his protracted attempts to get Libyan citizenship. The bigotry runs deep. One Arab tribal leader spends 15 minutes regaling us with racist jokes about black men, including Barack Obama. Another of them, Hassan Raqiq, spokesman for Sabha Inter-Tribal Council of Elders, claims Gaddafi brought 750,000 black people from Niger, Chad and Mali into the country during the civil war, only about 150,000 of whom returned home – an absurd claim in a country of just six million. Hundreds of thousands of these black people, he tells us, are positioned along the Chadian border or hiding out in the slums of Owbari. “We definitely experience discrimination and not just from the state,” says Amina Ebrahim, an eloquent 29-year-old ethnic Tuareg woman who has been denied Libyan citizenship though she was born in the country’s mountain city of Nalout. Her inability to register as a national makes it impossible for her to finish her university degree though she has studied for years. She now helps run Tameet Assout, a Tuareg charity in Sabha which helps poor women make traditional handicrafts.

PHOTO: XXXXXXXXXX 1. Unlike Arabs, Tuaregs are matrilineal. Though Muslim,

www.ft.com/arab-world | 29 LIBYA

the women dress in bright and flowery clothing in contrast to the dark colours favoured by Arabs. Ebrahim – talking to me in the courtyard of the Tameet Assout building – wears a flimsy yellow hijab. “When you come to a meeting dressed the way we are, they question whether you are Libyan,” she says. “They say, ‘You are Mauritanian! You are Nigeri!’ Of course, it is hurtful.”

Trafficking With little recourse, the young of the region turn to smuggling across Libya’s porous borders. In the most benign form of the trade, they transport subsidised Libyan food and fuel to sell at a mark-up in Chad and Niger and return with cattle or camels. Far more commonly, however, they come back with sub-Saharan Africans escaping war and seeking a better life. Local officials confide that 70 per cent of Fezzan’s economy is smuggling. Transporting migrants within Libya is fairly safe, but cross-border smuggling of people attracts a higher margin. “First they trade with food because it is very cheap and sell it in Niger and Chad,” says Abouzom Allafi, an economics professor at Sabha University. “They bring “We were liberated August 17 2011, days before Tripoli migrants of two types, those who want to live here and fell,” says Ali Sid Abou Bakr, a 27-year-old Tebu activist in those who want to live in Europe. They also smuggle the city of Murzuq just south of Sabha, during a meeting drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, to consume here or to distribute in a café. He pulls out a hefty book called Memory of in Algeria and Egypt.” The business has grown over Fire, a history of the 2011 uprising by a scholar from the the decades. “We have relations across the border,” eastern city of Derna. “There’s not one word about the says Mohammad Aji Halal, a 37-year-old geologist and Tebu or Murzuq, even though the Tebu revolutionaries community leader in the city of Murzuq. “The trade were the first to turn their weapons against the regime in routes have been established for 100 years.” the south.” So deeply ingrained is the smuggling business that The uprising also added a dangerous new element to it has bred its own subculture. The smugglers scoff at the mix of contraband swirling back and forth across the Hyundais – their vehicle of choice is the Toyota Hilux, Sahara: guns, and lots of them. Gaddafi’s vast weapons preferably with four-wheel drive and a double cabin, storehouses – expansive bunkers spread out across the which they insist handles the desert better than any desert – were thrown open and looted. A traditionally other vehicle. However, the illicit trade is “not just about lawless area became even more unruly as state security money”, according to Lamin Taher, a local official in forces melted away. Skinny teens in flip-flops and Ray- the village of Hamira, a desolate backwater of cinder Ban Aviators began slinging guns over their shoulders block huts just south of Sabha, which is a linchpin of the and plopping checkpoints down along desert roads. As in trafficking business. “Say you’re taking 20 people in your the rest of Libya, holding an AK-47 and calling oneself a truck and four don’t have money. We’ll take them. It’s a “revolutionary” has become a ticket to respect for aimless, religious duty to help someone in trouble.” angry young men. One western diplomat in the capital, Tripoli, sums up afTer The revoluTion the growing international concerns about Libya’s south. Gaddafi’s manipulations didn’t just stoke racism and “The absolute issue for the south is that the economy is justify neglect. He also won the loyalty of some in the almost entirely dependent on the trafficking of humans, south by holding out the promise of citizenship to those arms, drugs and tobacco,” he says. “It’s not clear that with nomadic roots in the Sahara. In exchange they would there’s any economic plan to allow people to move out of have to serve as his praetorian guard, fighting his wars these businesses. You’ve got 10, one hundred times the in Chad and joining his regular armed forces against the weapons that were in Iraq. Much of the area is controlled rebellion when the Nato-backed uprising against him by armed groups and there are open borders. The began. Amina Ebrahim says her father, for example, was quantity of weapons and the scale of the problem is so 1. killed fighting for Gaddafi in 2011. large you need an international effort.” Loaded truck Once the rebels took control of Libya, the long-brewing For now order is left to tribal leaders and a new class armed militia from racism towards the darker-skinned Libyans of the south of warlords. Among the most benign are figures such the tebu tribe took on an institutional character. They were broadly as Musa, the Tebu commander in Owbari. The former 2. derided as African mercenaries who fought for Gaddafi schoolteacher boasts rare administrative skills and Post-Gaddafi Libya even though some did the opposite. The famously maintains a spreadsheet detailing how many men are Protesters wave the flag of the warrior-like Tebu, for example, proudly boast that they under his unit’s command down to a single digit. amazigh ethnic minority in the took the arms Gaddafi gave them to fight the rebels and At the other end are men like the Arab militia obari Valley promptly turned them on the regime, wresting control commander who last year boasted about his control over 3. of what they consider their homeland before rebels took yellowcake uranium and shoulder-held anti-aircraft Well behaved Tripoli – and without the help of Nato firepower. rocket launchers. Described by some as a former criminal tebu schoolgirls near murzuq

30 |www.ft.com/mideast A council of tribal elders was convened. Predictably, 1 competition over lucrative trade routes had fuelled much of the ethnic rivalry. There was one consolation, however: in a move to cool tempers, Tebus such as Musa finally got an audience with the government and their citizenships approved. In the end, 54 Tebu – mostly civilians, women and children – were killed and perhaps twice as many Arabs – almost all fighters. The killings only reinforced the Tebu’s martial tendencies and determination to keep their guns. “Even the people who we elected are not accountable to us,” says Yousef Chaha, head of a community group, seething with anger. “Even the media when they come down here don’t show the conditions we are living in. This is why we want federalism or even separation from Libya.”

ePilogue Hardworking people strive to make a difference in Fezzan. Aisha Jouma Yousef, a 26-year-old Tebu schoolteacher in Hamira, has devoted her life to a primary school, near Murzuq, that now consists of half-a-dozen trailers 1. arranged in a rectangle on the desert sand. “They’re well behaved and want to learn,” she says of her students, her stern expression masking an obvious passion. “We have 3. textbooks but no equipment or tools. I would like to build 2. this school up to a level where it has very high standards.” But for now at least, the future of Fezzan belongs not to upstanding community pillars but to Musa, the in and out of Gaddafi’s jails, many associate him and his charismatic militia leader who is our guide in Owbari. Arab tribesmen with the worst violence in the south in Explaining that the same armed Islamic extremists who decades: an incident in March 2012 that left more people flowed out of the country to join the 2012 Mali uprising dead in the south than the 2011 rebellion, including flowed back in afterwards in the face of the French-led scores of Arabs. counter-offensive, he convinces us to let him and his men provide protection on a visit into the town’s slum quarter. ‘Black SaTurDaY’ However, he agrees to leave his truck-mounted large- It started out as a deadly armed robbery. A member of calibre guns back at his headquarters. an Arab tribe was killed when his pick-up truck was Perhaps 3,000 families are crowded into the vast slum, carjacked in Sabha in late March 2012. Many Arabs a densely packed network of mud-brick houses, criss- blamed the Tebu, though without evidence, and a meeting crossing electrical wires and open sewers. The men swarm of militia leaders was convened the next day. Tempers around Musa, treating him like a celebrity. Though mostly flared and a Tebu man was killed at the meeting. Fighting on opposite sides during the revolution, centuries-old erupted shortly thereafter: Arabs began using the bonds between Libya’s Tebu and Tuareg peoples remain weapons that they had seized during the uprising against strong. He encourages them to speak their minds even as the inhabitants of the Tayuri neighbourhood, a hilly slum his armed men nervously patrol. near the airport. Though it lies atop one of the biggest oil reserves For days, Libyan media in Tripoli and Benghazi took in north Africa, there are no schools here, the locals the Arab line, that the south was under attack by Gaddafi complain. There is not a single health clinic. People die loyalists and mercenaries from Chad and Niger. Militias of scorpion stings. Few if any of the men, women and from Misurata, Zintan and Benghazi began dispatching children living here hold citizenship, their applications fighters to come to the aid of their brethren (though most held up just as they were under Gaddafi. Many concede declined to participate when they got an inkling of what that they fought alongside the former leader’s forces but had really happened). insist that they had no choice. All say that they have made On the morning of March 31, Tebu from Sabha and sacrifices for Libya. “My father fought for Libya in Chad outlying areas marched on the Arab militias and fought and in Lebanon,” says Hassan Muhammad, a 37-year- back, retaking positions used to attack Tayuri. Well- old Tuareg. “The way we’re treated by the old regime is armed and determined, they sent the Arabs into retreat the way we’re treated by the new regime,” says Harou and brought an end to the fighting. “We crept up behind Muflah, a 32-year-old former soldier as the last traces of them and took back our people’s rights,” says Yahya Adam daylight flicker out and a purple night sky envelops the Mousa, a 30-year-old Tebu fighter. neighbourhood. “We are ready to die for our rights and for our country,” says Mohamed Lamin, a 21-year-old student. His elders ‘There are weapons in everyone’s hand, try to persuade him to calm down and retract his threat. remnants of al-Qaeda from the Mali war. Drugs He refuses. “I’m ready to fight,” he cries out in English, so there is no mistaking it. “I’m ready to do anything because come from Mali, Algeria and Niger’ I have been wronged.” PHOTOS: ED GILES

www.ft.com/mideast | 31

WOMENOMICS ‘Womenomics’ sweeps the Muslim world

Millions more women across the Muslim world are going to school, university – and work. By Saadia Zahidi

The first convert to Islam was a businesswoman. She was a wealthy trader who inherited her father’s business and later expanded it into an even more impressive enterprise. At one point, she offered a job to a man. He accepted and conducted a trading mission from Mecca to Syria under the tutelage of his female boss. Her name was Khadija. He was the Prophet Muhammad, and the two later married. Khadija’s personal loyalty to the Prophet and her financial independence were essential pillars of support in the early days spreading the message of Islam. These facts highlight the unusual economic independence of the woman Muhammad married – and his approval of her sovereign existence. This history is often missing from the narrative within and about Islam – one of many reasons why women have not been a significant economic force in the Muslim world. But this is rapidly Winning proposal education gender gaps from abysmally Millions of ordinary women and changing. Saadia Zahidi receives large starting points only 40 years ago. men have made conscious, and often Today’s Muslim world comprises the ft/mcKinsey The shift has also come in higher deeply personal and brave decisions to bracken bower Prize 1.6bn people. That is nearly a quarter education. In Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, break tradition, sometimes shunning of the global population, and they Algeria, Oman, Jordan, Lebanon and cultural pressures. These myriad contribute about 16 per cent of global Saudi Arabia, university enrolment individual decisions will add up to a gross domestic product, growing at rates for women exceed those for men. new segment of the labour market 6 per cent annually. It includes rich These accelerations are massive, – and an unprecedented consumer petro-states on the cusp of dramatic underreported and current. In Egypt, power. change such as Saudi Arabia, UAE 10 years ago there were three women A movement has started where and Qatar, as well as members of what for every four men in university. Today economics trumps culture. Changes Goldman Sachs calls the “Next 11”: those numbers are nearly equal. In that took half a century in the US are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkey, resource-rich countries, the figures are being compressed into a decade in Indonesia and Iran. dramatic. In the UAE, women enrol today’s Muslim world, where they are Half of these people – 800m – are in university at three times the rate of set to continue at a significantly faster women. There is an untold, unfolding men. In Saudi Arabia, the university pace. Imagine if the US, in just a few story hidden in their classrooms, in enrolment rates for women are higher years, had transformed from the 1950s their careers, and in their purses. In than those in China, Mexico or Brazil. era of The Feminine Mystique to Lean just a generation or two, a widespread What does all this mean? As In in the 2010s. That is the magnitude education movement has elevated the female education becomes rooted and of the change sweeping the Muslim prospects of millions of women in these normalised, the next wave of change has world. this story was countries, from Tehran to Tunis. first published in come: women are now going to work. Most governments in the region, the ft on The past 10 years have triggered an This is an extract from the entry that especially those that possess oil wealth, November exponential change that will one day be won the FT/McKinsey Bracken Bower have made massive investments the stuff of history books. Nearly 40m Prize for a business book proposal. The in education over recent decades – 13 more Muslim women are in the labour author is a World Economic Forum rapidly closing primary and secondary force than just a decade ago. senior director

www.ft.com/arab-world | 33 EGYPT

1. Fuel queues for millions of Egyptians living in poverty, the price rises represent Egyptians rail yet more hardship imposed by the government

2. Gamble president abdel fattah al-sisi said the subsidy reduction was against rising necessary to save the nation fuEl costs getty ImageS y/ enc ag Slashing of subsidy to cut deficit has proven very unpopular. By Heba Saleh yed albaz/anadolu Sa Photo:

rinking tea as they waited for passengers 2 on a Ramadan evening, furious minibus drivers at a station in Imbaba, an impoverished district of the capital, railed against their new president, abdel Fattah dal-Sisi, and the sharp rise in fuel prices his government announced over the weekend. “We are fighting with passengers all the time because they don’t want to pay the increased fare,” said Ismail yassin. “they are angry at us, but they should direct their wrath at those who put up the prices.” Pressed by gulf donors to address egypt’s 12 per cent deficit, Sisi’s government pledged a $6bn cut in its energy subsidy bill – which accounts for a fifth of state spending – reducing it to $14bn in the fiscal year which started this month. overnight fuel and electricity prices increased and the cost of diesel, which fuels the ramshackle, privately operated minibuses that are the main means of transport for millions of poor egyptians, jumped by 64 per cent to 25 cents a litre. the finance minister said last week that the savings, along with increases in a range of taxes, would shave off two percentage points from the expected deficit to make it a more manageable 10 per cent of gross domestic product. by dramatically increasing the prices so soon after taking office, Sisi is taking a significant gamble with his popularity, as he acknowledged in a speech on monday. “the decision to move prices to offset the subsidy reduction may not suit this timing and it could damage my popularity, but I made it to save the nation and the state,” he said. the price hikes have prompted a wave of public

34 |www.ft.com/arab-world 1

‘We blame the man in charge. Before this was in place because parliamentary elections expected before the end of the year would make it even more increase I thought he would sort out the difficult for the government to increase prices. “the urgency of this move cannot be contested,” abu country and bring down prices’ basha said. “It is a price shock to the economy which will have to be absorbed. there are some promising government initiatives to expand support to the poor, but disgruntlement, quarrels at bus stops and strikes by nothing is up and running yet.” some drivers, but – so far – none of the eruptions of In recognition of popular discontent with the price violence which have deterred successive governments rises, the army – now the backbone of Sisi’s regime – on from implementing what has long been seen as a crucial monday announced it was selling cheap products in its reform. network of shops and using its own fleet to lay on extra Still, for millions of egyptians living in poverty, the bus services in the capital to protect the people from price rises – which come after years of dithering and “exploitative” drivers and traders. with no accompanying mitigating measures for the unleashing a string of obscenities against Sisi and the poor – represent yet more hardship imposed by an government, mohamed Ibrahim, a driver in Imbaba, said uncaring government. the full inflationary impact of the that a 25 per cent increase in minibus fares allowed by the rises has yet not fed through to the wider economy, but authorities did nothing to offset the price rises. consumers already complain of increases in food prices “We have had enough,” he shouted. “enough of this and economists say the measures, along with a widely- expensive life and enough of this exploitation.” expected expansion of value added tax, will push up his colleagues complained that it was not just diesel inflation to around 14 per cent. that had gone up, but also engine oil – a twice-weekly “everything has gone up, vegetables, meat, cigarettes, expense crucial to keeping their decrepit vehicles on the everything except people who still cost the same,” road. lamented mazen mohamed, a sales representative who “We blame the man in charge,” said ahmed al-Sayed. this story was said he supports a wife and two children on earnings of “before this increase I thought he would sort out the first published in just over $180 a month. he reckoned that his monthly country and bring down prices.” the ft on transport costs would now increase by 75 per cent to but in his speech, Sisi likened the subsidy cuts to “bitter July around $35. medicine”, that could not be avoided. mohamed abu basha, egypt economist at eFg- “Was there another choice? no, I swear to god. could 8 hermes, the regional investment bank, argued the move we have delayed this decision? It should have happened could not be deferred until a social protection network years ago,” the president added.

www.ft.com/arab-world | 35 MOROCCO A finance hub for sub-Saharan Africa

Siona Jenkins interviews Mohamed Boussaid, Morocco’s minister of finance

Good news is a rare commodity in International Monetary Fund (IMF) act. “Our vision is to develop south- the Arab world these days. Violence estimates GDP will grow at around south cooperation with a new model,” is raging across Syria and Iraq, Egypt 4.7 per cent in 2015. said Boussaid. “We are not there just has retrenched into authoritarianism “Morocco is an exceptional case in for business; it’s how to satisfy (African and Libya is in chaos. Even Tunisia, this region and investors are confident countries’) needs in a partnership which is managing its transition to in its political and economic stability,” approach, not an aid approach.” democracy with aplomb, is facing said Boussaid. He credits the success Central to this south-south pivot huge economic challenges. to reforms begun more than a is an ambitious plan for Morocco to But in the far west corner of North 1 decade ago, including investment become a platform for production and Africa, Morocco has so far been in major infrastructure projects export to African countries through spared much of the pain of the last Casablanca Finance four years. City (CFC), a new “Morocco is a bright spot in the regional finance hub. region,” said Mohamed Boussaid, the So far some 60 minister of finance, during a visit to companies have London last week. “For us the Arab CFC “status”, giving spring was just a breeze.” them lower income Heavy spending on subsidies tax, simplified helped the country withstand this immigration ‘breeze’ as it blew in from the east procedures and a when long-standing regimes were package of other toppled in 2011, but left the state incentives. Those with a hefty fiscal deficit that reached taking advantage 7.4 per cent of GDP by 2012. This of the special status was reduced by the following year include multinational to 5.5 per cent of GDP and remains banks, such as on target for further reduction this BNP, and insurance year, as Rabat slashes subsidies and companies, including reforms its economy. 2 AIG. There are also The country’s economic and professional services, political stability – rare commodities private equity, asset in the region – have already brought 1. and programmes for industry and management and law firms. returns. Tourist numbers were up by 7 Bright spot renewables, particularly solar energy. A boost was given to the zone per cent in 2013 as many Europeans, mohamed boussaid Rabat is also looking south to the when the African Development Bank says investors are scared off by the unrest in Egypt and confident in the fast growing economies of sub- this year chose Casablanca from 10 Tunisia, travelled instead to Morocco. country’s political and Saharan Africa. Trade has increased other potential locations to be the Investment in the automobile economic stability to an average of around $1bn per year headquarters for its new $3bn Africa50 sector has grown, with car exports and Moroccan investment outflows to Fund that will finance infrastructure 2. increasing 70 per cent year-on- Harnessing power Africa have jumped by more than 40 on the continent. year in 2013. Earlier this year, the morocco has invested per cent over the past decade. By next year Boussaid hopes to that government sold a ¤1bn eurobond heavily in renewables, Morocco’s private sector has already 100 companies will be based at CFC. – its first euro-denominated bond in particularly solar established itself in west and central “Morocco has a very strategic four years. The oil importer is also energy Africa. Maroc Telecom has become position in Africa but until now we benefitting from the low oil price. the dominant telecoms provider in didn’t explore all the potential of this Many analysts predict Morocco francophone Africa, with over 30m position,” said Boussaid. this story was will be North Africa’s best performing first published in subscribers. The banking sector is also “Africa is the new and the future economy in coming years. Although the ft on expanding south. Banque Marocaine growth pole of the world, but for

growth slowed slightly this year October du Commerce Extérieur (BMCE) development you need finance. CFC because of low agricultural yields through its Bank of Africa Group is wants to be this region’s hub to attract and weak growth in Europe – 28 present in 17 African countries. money from the world and to funnel it Morocco’s main export market – the Now the state is getting in on the to these countries.”

36 |www.ft.com/arab-world

ARAB BUSINESS cash flows as region shrUgs off bad news

Indicators show a marked upturn in financial activity in the region, even as sectarian violence spreads. By Simeon Kerr

t the end of September, the Middle East’s revitalised Sunni jihadist groups have emerged out of the Access to finance largest property developer completed its Syrian civil war to threaten the largest economies of the dubai, at the heart of the sale of a portion of its retail business, taking Arab world in the oil-rich Gulf. wealthy gulf, has emerged as an operational centre $43bn of orders for an initial public offering The US is leading regional allies in an air campaign for businesses operating aof $1.6bn. against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, known in africa On the same day, Mohamed Alabbar, Dubai-based as Isis, who had threatened to overrun the oil-rich state of Emaar Properties’ chairman, said it was planning a Iraq from their strongholds in Syria. similar offering for its hospitality arm. In Yemen, Shia rebels have overrun the capital, forcing And as Emaar Malls shares began trading on Dubai a new power-sharing arrangement in the country, Financial Market, Alabbar said the developer would also prompting concerns among the oil-rich Sunni Gulf states list its Egyptian arm next year as confidence returns to the about Iran’s regional advances. north African economy. Yet as regional proxy wars focused global attention on This busy week confirmed what bankers have known the militant threat, strong economic growth was fuelled for a year – ballooning stock markets are persuading by government spending programmes and high oil prices serious companies to launch equity listings for the first – until the price falls of recent months. time since the global financial crisis. “There has been a minimal impact on the domestic and EY, the consultancy, says the amount raised in regional regional banking sector from geopolitical events given IPOs in the first half of the year increased 14 per cent, that banks have a limited exposure to regions like Syria compared to the same period last year, to $2.4bn – the and Iraq,” says Naresh Bilandani, an equity analyst on highest raised in the first half since 2008. Middle Eastern banks at JPMorgan. The return of capital markets activity has come as a Private-sector growth across the region, while relief to pared-down investment banking teams. continuing to lag behind levels needed for sustainable In the year to date, there have been 172 regional youth employment, is helping corporate and retail mergers and acquisitions deals valued at $17bn, less than banking, especially in fast-growing Saudi Arabia and the half the 330 deals worth $42bn in the same pre-crisis United Arab Emirates. period of 2008, according to Zawya, a data provider. Crédit Agricole Private Banking’s latest macroeconomic Clients, moreover, regularly expect global banks to lend research report identifies sustained economic growth in on the major advisory transactions, such as debt issues these two largest Arab economies. The report’s August and mergers, reducing profitability because of low interest index on non-oil private sector activity saw a record in rates. “The only place to make money is IPOs, where the UAE, where new orders reflected strong growth, there are nice margins and business fees,” says one senior sustaining job creation. In Saudi Arabia, the same index Dubai-based investment banker with a European bank. hit its highest level since July 2011. “But there just isn’t enough to feed everyone – it is still an Even Egypt, more than a year on from the military coup anaemic recovery for investment banking.” against the post-revolutionary Islamist government, is The optimistic markets outlook comes even as seeing tentative signs of recovery, the report finds, though

38 |www.ft.com/arab-world PhOTO: REUTERS

‘There has been a minimal impact on the Iran, which remains isolated by sanctions despite talks over the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme. domestic and regional banking sector from Many businesses in Africa are calling for more access to finance. Dubai Islamic Bank, the world’s oldest sharia- geopolitical events’ compliant lender, plans to open its first branch in Kenya in February next year. Mohammed al-Shaibani, DIB’s chairman, says the bank is encouraged by rising interest employment has yet to catch up with non-oil economic in Islamic finance across eastern Africa, including in growth. Gulf banks are also well on the road to recovery Islamic bonds, or sukuk. Kenya will open the door for after domestic and global financial crises, given the more branches across the region, including Tanzania and support from their governments, the standalone strengths Uganda, he says. of their balance-sheets and healthy pre-provisioning Shaibani is also chief executive of Dubai’s state-owned buffers. Regional banks’ strong capitalisation along with sovereign wealth fund, the Investment Corporation sovereign backing from oil-rich governments has kept of Dubai, which recently invested $300m in Nigeria’s liquidity cheap in the areas such as the Gulf. Dangote Cement, owned by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Less worried about protecting themselves from risk, Dangote. ICD, the state entity that controls businesses regional banks are looking abroad, to emerging markets such as Emirates airline, is also set to co-invest with with lower banking penetration, to find growth. Dangote in further deals. The Dubai state investor is “Domestic banks are trying to be more international following in the footsteps of other regional and Asian and looking beyond borders into other emerging markets SWFs that have been deploying capital across the like Asia and Africa for better yield opportunities,” says continent. Chinese companies are increasingly using the JPMorgan’s Bilandani. entrepôt emirate as a launch pad for Africa, with four of Lenders from Abu Dhabi, such as the National Bank of the five largest Chinese lenders now basing their regional Abu Dhabi and First Gulf Bank, are expanding in Asia. operations at Dubai International Financial Centre. Qatar National Bank and Dubai’s Emirates NBD have The tax-free DIFC is even mulling introducing clearing made acquisitions in north and sub-Saharan Africa. in the Chinese renminbi. South Africa-based Standard “Egypt offers the best growth opportunity within the Bank has witnessed a “serious pick-up” in Arab capital regional banking space and, in our view, is at the cusp of flows into sub-Saharan Africa over the past two-and-a this story was entering into a new credit growth cycle after three years of half years, says its Dubai-based chief executive for the first published in almost no growth,” he says. Middle East and north Africa, Rassem Zok. the ft on The regional commercial hub of Dubai’s fastest- Multinationals, from trading firms to food distributors, October growing trade partner, sub-Saharan Africa, is also luring are increasingly using their Dubai regional headquarters investor interest. Dubai has emerged as an operational to make decisions on their African businesses, says Zok. 8 centre for businesses operating in Africa, helping replace “Our mandate is to link them to reach targets in Africa,” haemorrhaging trade flows with its traditional partner he says.

www.ft.com/arab-world | 39 female jihadis Internet draws women to jIhadI ranks

Isis spawns ‘girl power subculture’. By Heba Saleh Photo: reuters

hey cheer on beheadings, defend rape and the while there was still a “window of opportunity”. enslavement of women, and yearn to revive oppressive “It feels like I never left the west,” she wrote soon centuries-old traditions that many of their female after her arrival. “I’m surrounded by so many Brits and co-religionists in Muslim countries are struggling to europeans, it is unbelievable.” shake off. An air raid a few days later left her undaunted: hundreds of western Muslim women who have “Witnessed my first strike last night as the disbelievers travelled to syria to marry fighters of the Islamic state attacked raqqa. Alhamdulillah [thank God] zero in Iraq and the Levant, known as Isis, are part of what casualties & more money wasted by the Kafir [infidels].” experts call the “soft-power” of the militants. Isis has the women and their universe of online followers used social media to attract recruits and build an image and young admirers back home are part of what sasha of the group as a reincarnation of the just and righteous havlicek, director of the London-based Institute for state to which many Muslims aspire. strategic Dialogue, describes as a “jihadi girl power umm Mu’awiyah, who tweets in english and appears subculture”, facilitated by the internet. to be British, is a recent arrival in raqqa, the syrian For Isis, she argues, the recruitment of these women capital of the Islamic state proclaimed by Isis. Despite is “very good troop morale-strategy because in the battle the us-led strikes against the group, she tweeted on of ideas it is good to say western women, with all their october 8 that she had finally “made it to Dar al-Islam”, freedoms, chose this”. or the land of Islam, and exhorted others to “rush” over Mostly young, aged 15-22, jihadi women use social

40 |www.ft.com/arab-world ‘They may be yearning for the lifestyles of early Muslims, but their language is that of tech-savvy teenagers’

media, such as twitter, tumblr and Kik, the messaging service, to exchange advice on how to get to syria, to celebrate Isis advances and to relay observations on their lives. they may be yearning for the lifestyles of early Muslims, but their language is that of tech-savvy teenagers, with slang and emoticons interspersed with Arabic religious terms spelt out in english letters. havlicek describes it as “a kind of jihadi subculture cool”, with the Arabic words inserted to provide a sense of authenticity and being “part of the gang”. Muhajirah Amatullah describes herself on twitter as “just a random Muhajirah [emigree to the Islamic state] /wife/mother who has access to the internet. I pose no threat to your National security: D Chillax!” In another tweet, she projects an image of a contented homemaker. “Mashallah! [by God’s will]. Beautiful blue sky raqqa today. What to do? Do the washing of course! spoken like a true domestic pro!” But juxtaposed with the domesticity and observations about the oranges and bananas in raqqa’s markets there is praise of the bravery of Isis soldiers who are real “men”, unlike enemy troops. “thy [sic] sleep w/eyes open+chop heads off”, she writes. In an apparent response to critics opposed to the enslavement of prisoners of war taken by Isis, she posts excerpts from what appears to be a religious study permitting slavery: “repost: Islamic rulings re PoW Sharia law (inc slaves Men/Women/Children). B4 condemn/ a billboard urging reject/oppose – lets learn!” women to wear the veil in Raqqa, the syrian umm hussain al-Britani, identified in the British capital of the islamic press as a 45-year-old Muslim convert sally Jones, one- state proclaimed by isis time singer in a band, opines on her twitter feed on october 13 that “taking female Kafirs [unbelievers] as slaves is ibadah”, or an act of worship. experts say 60 British women have joined Isis, though all numbers are uncertain. Women are also known to have travelled from sweden, France, Belgium, Canada and the us. reports say British women have joined the all-female al-Khansaa brigade twItter chatter charged with enforcing Islamic rulings on women in raqqa. online, too, jihadi women appear to be trying to enforce moral rules. A twitter account that goes by the ‘witnessed my first ‘mashallah! [by ‘[I’m] just a random handle @irhabbyukhts, meaning “terrorist sisters” – an strike last night as God’s will]. beautiful muhajirah [emigree apparent attempt at irony – is dedicated to naming and the disbelievers blue sky raqqa to the Islamic state] shaming jihadi men who flirt online with girls. attacked raqqa. today. what to do? /wife/mother who It warns: “Ya Akhawat [sisters] 140 letters cannot alhamdulillah do the washing of has access to the define the Deen [religiosity] and Akhlaq [morals] of [thank God] zero course! spoken like internet. I pose anyone on twitter. Don’t get fooled, shaytan [the devil] spares no one!” casualties & more a true domestic no threat to your money wasted by pro!’ national security: d the kafir [infidels].’ chillax!’ this story October was first published in 28 the ft on

www.ft.com/arab-world | 41 ART Call on Abu Dhabi to aid migrant workers

Pressure group demands oil-rich state pays worker fees. By Simeon Kerr

An artists’ pressure group on It has also drawn up an Gulf Labor acknowledged Fridaycalled on Abu Dhabi to give “employment practices policy” to efforts to improve the standard of workers building the oil-rich emirate’s protect rights, including demands on accommodation but pointed out that museums – which include satellites of contractors to pay off any recruitment not all workers on TDIC projects were the Guggenheim and the Louvre – a fees paid by their workers. housed at the bespoke facility, which one-off fee of $2,000 to help them pay but Gulf Labor said none of includes a “well-manicured” cricket off recruitment fee debts as controversy the 20 workers interviewed at the pitch. rages over migrant labour rights in the accommodation facility had yet had Although the site has a capacity of Gulf. these fees reimbursed. 20,000, it has never housed more than Gulf Labor, a group of international The report came after TDIC 14,000 workers, the report cited TDIC artists campaigning for the protection invited the pressure group to visit officials as saying. When the artists of migrant labourers working on accommodation and museum visited, only 6,000 workers were living 1 academic and cultural institutions in construction sites in March. Gulf Labor there. Abu Dhabi, said such payments “would acknowledged the help relieve workers of the immediate developer’s willingness burden of debt...which underpins to engage in worker their extreme vulnerability”. welfare “seriously”. As Gulf states launch grandiose TDIC did not respond schemes, scrutiny of labourers’ rights to requests for has intensified. Qatar’s bid to host comment. the World Cup in 2022 has prompted Gulf Labor said its similar concerns after claims that main concern was low workers are dying on construction sites pay for the workers there. on site, suggesting Most South Asian workers in Abu a “living wage” to Dhabi’s cultural district, currently a give labourers “basic building site, reported having paid independence and recruitment fees of $1,000-$3,900 mobility”. to agents in their home countries, In interviews with often having to pledge family land as workers, the group collateral on loans for the fees, the found average wages 2

group said. were $177-$245 a PhoTo: bLooMbErG “Workers building the region’s most month. Mandatory luxurious and biggest developments overtime boosting working hours to 1. Given the poor communication Home base should be able to offer their labour 10-12 a day, six days a week, pushed up between workers and management, Labour rights protesters without this extreme pressure of salaries to $300-$320. at the Guggenheim in the group recommended the setting indebtedness,” Gulf Labor said in a however, some labourers were New York up of workers’ councils to “evaluate statement. managing to repatriate less than $200 problems”. Unions are banned in the Gulf Labor’s campaign, launched a month, the equivalent salary of a 2. UAE. Under construction in 2011, has inspired direct action skilled worker in many home countries, An artist’s impression of Gulf Labor, which also visited protests at the Guggenheim’s New York the group said. others were still paying Saadiyat Island with the labour camps not associated with the base, embarrassing the US museum off debts after several years, it added. Guggenheim Museum museums, said TDIC’s Saadiyat facility and putting Abu Dhabi under more The group also found that a 20 per in Abu Dhabi at left was modern but isolated and distant pressure to reform labour standards. cent wage increase promised by UAE from the rest of the city.

The Tourism Development and contractor Arabtec after strikes in May this story was The group suggested scattering Investment Company (TDIC), the 2013 had not materialised. first published in workers’ accommodation across government-owned developer, has Arabtec denied the claims, saying the ft on the city as a “bridge towards a more set up workers’ accommodation on worker wellbeing was a “top priority.” May healthy and just society ...in which Saadiyat Island, where the museums “In the past months, we have effected construction and maintenance workers and a branch of New York University wage rises for our workforce,” the 2 might live among communities of more are under construction. company said in a statement. permanent residents”, it said.

42 |www.ft.coM/ArAb-worLD

OBITUARY

In charge of electricity, Duff would William Duff (1922–2014) also accompany Rashid on outings to lambast officials for a slow delivery of street lighting. He helped foreign Financial supervisor companies too, for instance fighting off attempts by local officials to procure Self-effacing Scot invoked an bribes from British investors in a cabling factory; he persuaded the ruler emir’s powers to build Dubai. that Dubai needed business more than By Simeon Kerr business needed Dubai. And as officials in Abu Dhabi, an investor in Bank of Credit and Commerce International, tried to persuade UAE governments to switch accounts to the doomed lender, A last official link between the Gulf ’s Duff presciently blocked any such colonial era and its commercially move. dynamic present, Bill Duff devoted his Known to chide gently young life to Dubai and played a bigger part Emiratis for their poor classical Arabic, than any other westerner in the early he helped persuade Sheikh Rashid to transformation of the emirate from make a £750,000 donation to Exeter obscure outpost into global hub. university’s Middle Eastern studies Duff, who has died aged 91, arrived centre. as an economic adviser in 1959 in Duff also started the emirate’s first what were called the Trucial states. English-curriculum school, which His mission came at the behest of until recent years was run by his wife. the UK, which was seeking to boost Dubai remained their home until his social development among its Gulf death on Valentine’s day. He and Allen protectorates as communist and are now interred in the same corner of nationalist agitation grew. the emirate’s desert Christian burial Sheikh Shakhbut bin Sultan al- ground. Nahyan, ruler of richer neighbour After Rashid died in 1990, Duff Abu Dhabi, vacillated – only for assumed a lower-profile position, as Dubai’s Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed honorary adviser, then retired just as al-Maktoum to hire the self-effacing Dubai’s frenzied property boom began. Scot, with whom he instantly hit it The fiscal prudence he instilled ebbed off. That lasting partnership with the away as executives sought to dazzle wily Bedouin leader laid the financial both the royal family and the world foundations of modern Dubai. Duff with ever bigger, brasher projects. built the accounts and customs ‘Duff went unhonoured by the The global financial crisis pricked departments of the ruler’s office, taking the bubble; the emirate’s debts signatory powers together with Sheikh British government, despite subsequently prompted a sovereign Rashid. promoting UK-Dubai ties’ default scare. The UK meanwhile ousted Abu Trade, transport and tourism – the Dhabi’s ruler in favour of Sheikh Zayed underlying economic drivers laid bin Sultan al-Nahyan, who with Rashid Bank of Iran and the Middle East, a down by Sheikh Rashid – have since would go on to found the United Arab forerunner of HSBC. Once installed underpinned the city’s recovery. The Emirates in 1971 at a ceremony next in Dubai, he designed and built the department of finance, founded by door to Duff’s beachfront villa. financial architecture that channelled Duff, returned to prominence as the Born in Singapore on May 13 two decades of oil revenues into crisis forced Dubai to restructure part 1922, William Robert Duff attended infrastructural development, from of its $130bn debt pile. Cheltenham College before reading electricity and water to ports, airports Unlike other expatriates such as classics at Oxford, where he excelled and hotels. Sir Maurice Flanagan, Emirates at boxing. After the second world war Duff was at Sheikh Rashid’s side Airline’s founding chief executive, interrupted his studies, his soldiering in 1976 when the ruler called Neville Duff went unhonoured by the British ended in Palestine where a love for the Allen of Halcrow, a UK engineering government, despite decades of Arab world began. As a captain, he was consultancy, to an early morning promoting UK-Dubai ties. While at caught up in an attack by the Stern meeting on a hilltop 40km outside the centre of decision making for three Gang of Zionist militants and, more the city. There, the sheikh outlined decades, he also never acquired the happily, met his Polish wife Irenka. plans for a vast port development wealth of some of his peers. this story was Returning to Oxford to study Arabic, and demanded a cost estimate by first published in But Duff, who is survived by Irenka, Duff then perfected his command lunchtime. The result was Jebel Ali the Ft on daughters Diana and Sheila and four

of the language alongside diplomats port and free trade zone, initially February grandchildren, never regretted his life and spies at the specialist British- ridiculed as a white elephant. Today as a civil servant. As he told his family: run school in Shemlan, Lebanon. it accounts for one-quarter of gross 28 “It is not about the money. How many He was then posted to Kuwait with domestic product. people get to help build a country?”

44 |www.Ft.com/arab-world

OPINION Tunisia still holds dream of freedom

Sometimes I stare at the art on my ‘Tunisians say they are a more bullets. I say largely because there have living room wall to remind myself that been moments of doubt, when political I hadn’t dreamt that day in February moderate society than their assassinations and intense polarisation 2011. I’ve had Mohamad Abla’s mixed might have derailed the transition. media painting (pictured below) for brethren in north Africa’ These are many reasons why Tunisia almost two years but it’s never felt as is holding together, not least that it is a unreal as now. homogeneous society, with a pragmatic The oil on photography depicts a the inspiration for other uprisings. It By ROula Islamist party that learnt the lesson of simple scene: three men sweeping captured the imagination of the world Khalaf patience from the demise of the Muslim away pools of water on a misty, bustling that had long given up on change in Brotherhood in Egypt. The secular street. But it’s no ordinary day in Cairo: the Arab realm. On another wall in my opposition is also more organised than it’s the morning after the collapse of apartment hangs a tribute to Mohamed its Egyptian counterpart, and gathers the Mubarak regime, when protesters Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor under one umbrella anti-regime types returned to clean up Tahrir Square. I who set himself alight (and as we now and revolutionaries. Also, fortunately witnessed that moment, impressed by know, set the whole region ablaze). It’s for Tunisians, the Gulf states – pro- an extraordinary display of civic duty a calligraphy by Samir al-Sayegh of the Islamist Qatar, anti-Islamist Saudi that I’d rarely seen in Egypt before. word freedom (hurriya) and is part of a Arabia and the United Arab Emirates That spirit is gone, the dream of what collection in which the artist wrote the – that sparred so fiercely in Egypt seem was called the Arab spring smashed word in 2011 every day in a different far less interested in Tunisia. by more powerful forces of counter- script. Despite the Tunisian exception, Tunisians say they are a more revolution. Instead, today’s Arab world the calligraphy somehow doesn’t feel as moderate society than their brethren in is decomposing as if by chemical poignant as it once did. north Africa, and they are blessed with reaction, a region overwhelmed by a Tunisia may still not make it; I a wider middle class. While there is collective mayhem in which the rot of wouldn’t dare predict. Next week it some truth to this, there is no shortage decades of authoritarianism and bottled will hold parliamentary elections and of radicals in the country. up sectarianism are taking over. after that a presidential vote that should One scary figure reflects the this story was With four states – Syria, Libya, complete its democratic transition. Like first published in extent of this: some 3,000 young Iraq and Yemen – ravaged by war, an other parts of the Arab world, Tunisia the ft on Tunisians have joined jihadi groups

authoritarian regime back in charge has had two clashing visions of the October in Syria. That’s the single largest of another (Egypt) and barometers future – one more secular, the other contingent of foreign fighters, even of freedom rapidly sliding virtually Islamist, except that the struggle has 15 bigger than Saudi Arabia’s. Why? Some everywhere, Arabs who have long been fought largely with ballots, not of them might have been prisoners lamented their state of ihbat released during the revolution, many – frustration – are looking others are poor, intoxicated by radical for a new word to describe Salafi preachers, and are lured by the current state. Ya’as – financial reward. Some day they desperation – would seem could return and point their guns at more appropriate today. Tunisians. Yet there is one corner of Moncef Marzouki, the president, this region that might be says that’s why Tunisia is in a rush to considered an Arab spring complete its transition. Only then can it survivor. It’s a country blessed focus on the economic deprivation that with one very valuable thing: feeds the radicalism of youth. it is neither big enough He’s right: the Tunisian exception nor rich enough to matter has to be consolidated to deal with the sufficiently, so no outsider country’s inflation in jihadis. has meddled significantly to wreck it. The secular party Nida Tunis won Tunisia, with a population parliamentary elections in November. of just over 10m, was the The second round of the presidential cradle of the 2011 revolts, and vote is scheduled for December 28.

46 |www.ft.com/arab-world