SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING July 13th 2013

A climate of change

20130713_SRArabSpring.indd 1 27/06/2013 15:25 SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING

A climate of change

The spring proved †ckle, but Arabs are still yearning for it, says CONTENTS Max Rodenbeck ON FRIDAY AFTERNOONS two years ago, the picture on Arab television 3 Revolutionary potential screens developed a curious habit of multiplying. It would split in two, How many more to go? then three, then more and more lookalike frames. At the end of noon 4 Historical borders prayers, as mosques emptied in sequence across four time zones, news Fertile Croissant teams in city after city beamed up dramatic imagery that was strikingly similar. The same vast, joyous, ‡ag-waving crowds surged into the Pearl 6 Political Islam Roundabout in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, thronged the Tahrir The power of religion Squares of Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, and of ’s great metropolis, 8 Youth , and swarmed the beachfront at Benghazi in Libya and the leafy av- Give us a chance enues of Tunis. Everyone was chanting the same refrain: ŒThe people de- mand the fall of the regime. 10 The economy There were many such days in the spring of 2011, as if a hidden con- The haves and the have•nots ductor had orchestrated a pan-Arab symphony of protest, and the upris- 11 Constitution•building ing did bring momentous change. Before it began to stir in December The long march 2010, the world’s 350m Arabs had seemed oddly immune to the democ- A CKNOWLEDGMENTS racy bug that had infected most corners of the globe. Whether republics 15 After Egypt’s double spring Keep going In addition to those cited in the or monarchies, nearly all of the world’s 19 predominantly -speak- text, the author wishes to express ing states had solidi†ed into similar political forms, their varied constitu- warm thanks to all who helped in tional veneers ‡imsy disguises for strongman rule. The people, including many and sundry ways, among them Mohamed Ben Ahmed, Issandr El legions of often jobless youths, had no say in how things were run. Amrani, David Butter, Abu George, In breathtakingly short order the decades-old dictatorships of Tuni- A list of sources is at Michael Hanna, Peter Harling, Emile sia, Egypt, Libya and collapsed. As popular pressure mounted, Economist.com/specialreports Hokayem, Haider Kata, Karima other Arab governments announced political reforms, more public Khalil, Tayseer al Khunaizi, Jane An audio interview with Kininmont, Akram Ramadan, Lina spending and other concessions to appease their restless people. A re- the author is at Sinjab, Prashant Rao, Oussama Safa gion-wide burst of youthful energy that reminded Westerners of their Economist.com/audiovideo/ and Yezid Sayegh. own liberating social upheaval of the 1960s suggested a new sense of em- 1 specialreports

The Economist July 13th 2013 1 SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING

2 powerment. The ŒArab exception‹the apparent inability of these neo-patriarchal states to move towards political norms How much democracy? 2 shared by most of the world‹seemed to have been overcome. Since 2010 Those heady, hopeful days have long passed. The mood Elected New Serious Monarchy/ Head constitution political across the now is gloomy. Some say sourly that the Country Republic of state Legislature issued violence Arab spring has turned into an Islamist winter. They fear that Algeria R ✔* ✔ ✔† ✘ after losing power in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and kin- Bahrain M ✘ ✔ ✘ ✔ dred groups with strong religious leanings that did well in the Egypt R ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Arab spring will may become even more combative. Many sus- Iraq R ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ pect that the Islamists have every intention of following the path Jordan M ✘ ✔/✘‡ ✘ ✘ set by Iran’s revolution three decades ago, and that to such peo- ✘ ✔ ✘ ✘ ple democracy is merely a vehicle for legitimising a new form of Kuwait M authoritarianism: ŒOne man, one vote, one time. R ✔ ✔ ✘ ✘ † Yet Arab Islamists also lament the way things have evolved. Libya R ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Now in power in many countries after decades in opposition, Mauritania R ✘ ✔ ✘ ✘ they are learning hard lessons. Translating religious ideals into Morocco M ✘ ✔ ✔ ✘ practical policies is tough when Islamists themselves are far Oman M ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ from agreed over what those ideals should be, and tougher still Palestinian Territories R ✔ ✔ ✘ ✘ when resistance to Islamist aims, whether from entrenched bu- Qatar M ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ reaucracies or from secular-minded elites, proves sti and unre- Saudi Arabia M ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ lenting. Even so, the overthrow of Muhammad Morsi, Egypt’s Sudan R ✘ ✘ ✔† ✘ Muslim Brotherhood president, by a combination of popular re- R ✔* ✔ ✔ ✔ jection and military muscle came as a shock. Tunisia R ✔ ✔ ✔† ✔ Other critics worry less about the Islamists’ intentions or UAE M ✘ ✔/✘‡ ✘ ✘ the danger of political polarisation than about the messy, pro- Yemen R ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ longed political transitions now in progress, which so far have *Flawed election †Preparing to issue done nothing to alleviate the social problems that spawned the Source: Freedom House, The Economist new constitution ‡Part elected, part appointed upheavals in the †rst place. Nowhere, as yet, has the right to vote or greater freedom to speak translated into markedly better gov- ernment, more jobs or brighter short-term prospects. No Arab strife. When the police in the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain country has emerged as a model for others to follow. Despair failed to stamp out a raucous pro-democracy mutiny, the ruling seems to be winning over hope. Countries such as Tunisia and family panicked. It invited nearby Sunni monarchs to send in Egypt could remain turbulent for years to come, whoever is in troops, which lead to scores of deaths and hundreds of arrests. government there. The result is a grim stand-o between the country’s embittered And those newly democratic countries have done relative- two-thirds majority of Shia Muslims and a wary Sunni minority. ly well. Elsewhere, the †rst ‡owerings of protest in the spring of Not only has Bahrain failed to progress, it has turned the clock 2011 brought not freedom but more tyranny and vicious civil back to where it was after a previous bout of sectarian tensions in the 1980s. Even that outcome pales next to the carnage in Syria. What has unfolded is far beyond the worst imaginings of the protesters The rites of spring 1 who dared to challenge the government with peaceful marches Protests begin in Tunisia, sparked by self-immolation of Muhammad Bouazizi two years ago. The death toll so far has now passed 100,000; more than a quarter of Syria’s 21m people have been displaced; President Ben Ali flees Tunisia half its main cities are in ruins; and, predicts the UN, half its pop- In Egypt demonstrators occupy Cairo’s Tahrir Square ulation will be in need of food aid by the end of this year. What Egypt’s president resigns, army takes control began as an inclusive popular uprising has turned into a fratri- Democracy protests start in Bahrain cidal war with no end in sight. The only conceivable scenarios for the con‡ict’s outcome are dismally bleak. Protests erupt in Libya, eastern half of country falls to rebels A victory for the regime of Bashar Assad would perpetuate Thousands protest peacefully in Morocco, a cruel dictatorship in a physically devastated, psychologically 1 King Mohammed VI promises new constitution soon Uprising in Bahrain is suppressed with help of Saudi troops Islamists win Egypt’s parliamentary election, having earlier polled strongly in Tunisia UN no-fly zone imposed over Libya, NATO bombardment begins President Ali Abdullah Saleh leaves Yemen Government troops in Sana’a, Regime begins Muhammad Morsi of New mass protests in Egypt, Yemen’s capital, kill 45 protesters. shelling , the Muslim Brotherhood leading to army taking control Demonstrations persist Syria’s third- elected president of Egypt and ousting President Morsi largest city, In Syria, 72 protesters killed when thousands of Rebels launch Regime forces security forces fire on crowds at Deraa Sunnis flee offensive to take together with , Syria’s Hizbullah seize town Muammar Qaddafi largest city of Qusayr, Syria killed in Sirte, Libya. War ends D JFMAMJJASOND JFMAMJJASOND JFMAMJJJ 2010 2011 2012 2013 Source: The Economist

2 The Economist July 13th 2013 SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING

750 km Tunis 22.0 A: PALESTINIAN Algiers ATLANTIC Rabat TUNISIA M TERRITORIES e d Casablanca i t e 4.8 33.8 B: BAHRAIN 11.0 r r a LEBANON SYRIA O C E A N MOROCCO n e a n C: S e a 4.3 A QATAR Marrakech IRAQ Tripoli Benghazi 7.2 3.3 D: UNITED 33.0 Cairo ARAB 39.2 JORDAN KUWAIT EMIRATES WESTERN L I B Y A The 2.1 SAHARA SAUDI Gulf (sovereignty 6.2 B disputed) ALGERIA EGYPT ARABIA C 84.7* 9.1 R Riyadh 1.3 e D Muscat 3.9 d

S 3.6 e MAURITANIA a 28.8 N Nouakchott e A il M N O 24.4 GDP per person, 2012 Population, 2013 S U D A N Sana’a $’000 at PPP † Estimate, m Khartoum N E M E Above 50 25-10 Below 5 Total: 355.7 30.9* Y 50-25 10-5 No data *Government figures Sources: UN; Economist Intelligence Unit †Purchasing-power parity

2 traumatised and politically isolated land. Victory for his foes end-point, the wave of change may have only just begun. Judg- could unleash horri†c sectarian vengeance against Syria’s multi- ing by experience elsewhere, such transitions take not months ple minorities by the long-oppressed and now enraged 70% Sun- but years, even decades. ni majority. Should the current stalemate persist, the dissolution Further unrest and almost certainly further bloodshed lie of Syria into hostile enclaves could become permanent, leading in store. But this may well be unavoidable in a part of the world to strife as prolonged as the civil war that ravaged neighbouring where bewildering social change, including extremely rapid Lebanon for 15 years. population growth and urbanisation, for so long went woefully There could be worse to come. Syria’s agony has already unmatched by any evolution in politics. Debate on such crucial spilled across its borders, with nearly two million refugees now issues as the relationship between state and religion, central au- sheltering in neighbouring countries. Trouble has moved the thority and local demands, and individual and collective rights other way, too. The men, money and materiel ‡owing into Syria could not be inde†nitely sti‡ed. Something had to give. 7 are increasingly helping to turn this into a proxy war pitting Mr Assad’s allies‹Iran, Iraq, Russia and Hizbullah (the Lebanese Shia group close to Iran)‹against the Arab and Western coun- Revolutionary potential tries that back his enemies. These, ominously, include extreme ji- hadist factions, among them al-Qaeda, whose ambitions extend far beyond imposing harsh religious laws. They seek to Œcleanse How many more to go? Syria and the region as a whole of anything they see as alien to their narrow interpretation of Islam. The widening of the strife underlines the fragility of Syria’s borders. These Œlines in the sand, drawn a century ago by domi- nant European powers with scant concern for sentiments on the Change now seems less out of reach ground, may in future be redrawn in blood. Already, Kurdish groups in Syria’s north-east have carved out something akin to SIX MONTHS BEFORE Egypt’s revolution in January 2011 an autonomous zone linked, albeit tenuously for now, to the this paper suggested that the seemingly most placid of the Kurdish part of neighbouring Iraq and Kurds in Turkey. Already, Arab countries was about to be shaken to its foundations. Even too, the increasingly open hostility between Syrian Sunnis and after three decades of stu y sameness under the continuous rule Shias has rekindled sectarian passions in Iraq, Lebanon and as of Hosni Mubarak, that much seemed obvious. Egypt’s very pla- far a†eld as Yemen, bringing closer the possibility of a direct cidity made it easy to spot the converging factors that pointed to clash between the Shia superpower, Iran, and big Sunni states impending collapse. such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The 1,400-year-old great †tna Predictions are far more hazardous in times of ‡ux such as (schism) between Islam’s main branches, given to periodic erup- now, but European history may o er some lessons. In 1848 the tions, rumbles ominously again. In the words of an Arab saying, citizens of Sicily rose up to rid their island of a hated tyrant. Hav- ŒFitna sleeps; God’s curse upon him who wakens it. ing overpowered his troops, they proclaimed a constitution and elected a parliament. This was the †rst in a succession of upris- The end of the beginning ings, some 50 in all, that rattled rulers across the continent. The Syria’s tragedy, and to a lesser extent the problems caused Sicilian republic survived for only 16 months, and within two by the transition elsewhere, have other perverse e ects. Regimes years all the other revolts were similarly crushed. Only in Den- that have so far resisted reforms use them as excuses for sticking mark did the revolutionaries achieve a measure of success: the with their old ways. The oil-rich monarchies of the Gulf, in par- king conceded demands for a constitutional monarchy. ticular, have tightened restrictions on freedom of speech. Most of Yet the embers of revolution smouldered on. Within a gen- their citizens are comfortably o and have yet to voice dissent on eration of 1848 the whole of Europe had been radically trans- any scale, but unease stirs below the tranquil surface. formed. Ethnic rather than dynastic boundaries de†ned new na- In short, the scorecard for the Arab spring so far looks over- tions such as Germany and Italy. Slavery and serfdom were whelmingly negative. But this special report will argue that such abolished. Hereditary rule retreated before liberal democracy. an assessment is premature. Rather than having reached a sorry A century later, in May 1968, an eruption of youthful anger 1

The Economist July 13th 2013 3 SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING

King Faisal of Iraq was deposed more Fertile Croissant bloodily in 1958. Imam Muhammad al Badr of Yemen was overthrown in 1962 and King Idris of Libya in 1969. Old divisions are being re-examined By the 1970s this wave had pretty much passed. The Arab political map set- DID WINSTON CHURCHILL hiccup or sneeze? giving a coastal state to the Alawites and an tled into a varied patchwork of kingdoms, Either way, the story goes, the pen in his inland one to the . France and Britain emirates, civilian dictatorships and army- hand slipped on the map, leaving Jordan’s also backed the formation of a Kurdish state ruled republics, some grindingly poor eastern border sharply indented. Like many at the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, but they and others exceedingly rich, some aggres- legends, this holds a kernel of truth. Many refused to allow Œtheir Kurds in Iraq and sively secularist and others, such as Saudi Arab frontiers re‡ect not natural or human Syria to join it. The idea †zzled, leaving Arabia, conservative and puritanical. boundaries but the whims and fears of the today’s 25m Kurds as the globe’s largest imperialists who drew them up. people without a state. But in 1938 France Spot the similarities As colonial secretary in 1921, Churchill donated a chunk of Syria, now known as Even so, those 19 Arab states had might have lopped o more of Jordan, but Hatay, to Turkey. Hatay’s Turkish minority much in common. Most had parliaments, he wanted to keep control of an air corridor had been lobbying more e ectively than the but nearly all of these were the rubber- to another British protectorate, Iraq, where rest of the population, mostly Arabic- stamp kind. Power rested in the hands of the Royal Air Force was dropping poison gas speaking, who wanted to remain in Syria. ruling families or parties dominated by on rebellious Arab tribes. In 1916, in the Now, with Syria again fracturing into narrow clans. The state, often bolstered middle of the †rst world war, Britain and warring parts, Iraq threatening to follow by oil income that ballooned in the 1973 France had signed a secret pact, the notori- suit and cracks beginning to show in Leba- energy crisis, proposed and disposed at ous Sykes-Picot agreement (named after non, the borders drawn up nearly a century will. Zealous ministries of propaganda, the British and the French diplomats who ago are starting to look frayed. Syria’s education and culture made sure the state negotiated it), to split the dispersed Kurds are now meeting as refu- was respected. Brutal police and compli- between them. A northern slice, running gees in the Kurdish autonomous zone in ant courts made sure it was feared. Multi- from the Mediterranean to the Tigris river, northern Iraq. The closely related Sunni ple security organisations that spied on went to France; a southern slice, from Arab tribes of the valley, sliced in each other made sure it was coup-proof. Palestine to Iraq, was bagged by Britain. two by Messrs Sykes and Picot, are uniting Such was the Arab norm for three Both had reason to be happy. The Catholic again, this time to face Shia oppressors. decades: states modelled on patriarchal church had been nagging for French control And to the west, perhaps, that stillborn families that rewarded loyalty with hand- of the Syrian coast, home to many Maronite Alawite state is about to rise again. outs. Some rulers were benign and well

Catholics, and Britain was keen to put the AZ. loved, others venal or cruel, but common French between them and the Russians to 250 km rituals and touchstones, such as memo- the north. T U R K E Y ries of anti-colonial struggles, served to Their carve-up of the Ottoman empire suggest a shared legitimacy. Every year at r S a injar Hatay m I R A N m Arab summit meetings, leaders gathered might have been worse. Unsure at †rst what a Aleppo h S to do with Palestine, they considered giving J to pay homage to Arab unity, Muslim sol- u yd b ba LEBANON b U it to Belgium. Instead, Arthur Balfour, S Y R I A u idarity and the sacred cause of Palestine. r Samarrai Eup Britain’s foreign secretary, in 1917 issued a h Du This wider family was never a very ra ri t e declaration promising a Œnational home for s Tig happy one. The hundred-year-long strug- l a y m Zurbisayd D u Baghdad i the Jewish people in Palestine. Like Chur- Amman gle over Palestine has been one festering l I Ra A Q at chill and Sykes, Balfour quietly favoured l b sore. Yet in terms of casualties su ered, a i R SAUDI h Munt G U afiq n i steering Jews away from British shores. JORDAN ARABIA z a h the Arab-Israeli con‡ict is far from the D u Wartime British oˆcials also sought to f i r worst trauma that Arabs have had to en- Predominant religion: Mutayrat please in‡uential Zionists in America, as Sunni Shia Other Areas of high dure. Civil wars in Sudan, Algeria, Leba- Kurdish population well as Russian Bolsheviks. Significant populations of: non and Iraq have each claimed many France did slice Lebanon out of Syria, Alawites Druze Ismaili Christian Sources: more lives. Syria, with grim certainty, Columbia University; aiming to create a Christian-dominated Sparsely populated/uninhabited The Economist soon will. Egypt lost more soldiers when republic, and in the 1920s brie‡y considered it intervened in Yemen in the early 1960s, in support of republicans against Saudi- backed monarchists, than in the sands of Sinai during the six-day war against Israel 2 in launched a wave of popular protest. In the end nothing in 1967. The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s left vast numbers of people very big happened immediately afterwards, aside from the ar- dead, perhaps half a million, possibly over a million; no one rival of Soviet tanks in Czechoslovakia and the widespread knows for sure. adoption of blue jeans, rock music and notions of personal free- Ironically, Palestinians have often been victims of internal dom. Yet in subsequent years dictatorships toppled, †rst across Arab squabbles. Jordan chased out many of them in the 1970s, southern Europe in the 1970s, then in South America in the 1980s Lebanon in the 1980s, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in the 1990s and and †nally across the crumbling Soviet empire later that decade. Iraq after the American invasion in 2003. The Assad regime in Arabs, too, have lived through waves of change before. The Syria, which long proclaimed itself the chief champion of resis- previous one started in March 1949 when a group of army oˆ- tance to Israel, is busy hounding Palestinians even now. Tens of cers staged a coup against the elected president of Syria, Shukri thousands have ‡ed to neighbouring Lebanon, squeezing in Kouatly, a hero in the struggle for independence from France. among their countrymen already crowded into squalid refugee Three years later Egyptian soldiers shunted King Farouk aside. camps there because Lebanon will not let them own property. 1

4 The Economist July 13th 2013 SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING

2 The importance of Arab rulers’ failure to honour promises In September 2000 a group of 99 intellectuals in Damas- over Palestine should not be exaggerated. Three-quarters of Arab cus, the Syrian capital, presented a petition to their country’s countries share no border with the troublesome Jewish state. Yet new president. It was a time of hope. The dictator for the previ- that failure is symptomatic of a much wider shortcoming. Sim- ous three decades, Hafez Assad, had died. His son and heir, ply put, Arab regimes have failed to live up to the unspoken bar- Bashar, projected a gentler image. The petitioners humbly asked gains meant to underpin their rule. for an end to the emergency laws in force since 1963, a pardon for This was not always true. Until the mid-1980s most Arab political dissidents and rights of free assembly and speech. countries’ economies performed as well as the rest of the world. At †rst Mr Assad appeared to listen. He released political Living standards rose dramatically. Life expectancy and literacy prisoners and invited exiles to return. But the Damascus spring soared. Limits to freedom seemed a price worth paying for build- quickly clouded over. Within a few years nearly all the signato- ing nations within borders that were mostly legacies of Euro- ries to the petition were in prison or exile. Like other Arab leaders pean imperial rule (see box, previous page). at the time who faced similar pressures, Mr Assad judged that the group of activists was small and had limited support among the A bargain built on oil wider population. Yet this success rested on shaky foundations. Windfall oil He was right to assume that ordinary people were wary of revenues in the 1970s encouraged Arab oil exporters to indulge troublemakers, but failed to notice that the activists’ ideas and their people with mammoth infrastructure projects and cradle- the example of their sacri†ce were making an impact. Arab re- to-grave welfare bene†ts. When the oil price su ered a pro- gimes in general were also slow to become aware of the spread longed slump, their economies stalled. Youths in countries such of new methods of dissent. Some of these were inspired by Pal- as Saudi Arabia and Algeria were shocked by the prospect of estinian uprisings against Israeli occupation. Events in Lebanon, ending up poorer than their parents and being unable to set up which ironically may have been instigated by Mr Assad himself, homes of their own. Youth riots in Algeria in 1988, a precursor to also provided an example. After a car bombing in 2005 that the civil war starting in 1992, were a premonition of troubles else- killed a popular politician, Ra†k Hariri, a where. So was a wave of youthful Islamist activism in Saudi Ara- quarter of Lebanon’s 4m people sponta- bia in the 1990s, the crushing of which caused some to embrace neously poured onto the streets to hold the radical jihadism preached by an exiled Saudi millionaire, vast peaceful demonstrations. Many of Osama bin Laden. them blamed the murder on Syria, which Poorer Arab countries fared no better. Most Arab republics had long meddled in its neighbour’s af- had embraced central planning, state capitalism and import sub- fairs. The uprising forced Lebanon’s pro- stitution. By the 1980s their ineˆcient industries and sclerotic Syrian government to resign and pushed bureaucracies were creaking. The managerial classes in places out Syrian Œpeacekeeping troops left such as Egypt and Syria, perfunctorily educated in the factory- over from Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war. like schools built to accommodate rapidly expanding cohorts of The increasingly restless popula- children, fell ever further behind their peers elsewhere. tions across the Arab world just needed a By the start of the 21st century the proportion of Arab work- few sparks of their own to set them o , and these were not long in coming. When they started to ‡y in Tunisia in late 2010, The Arab revolutions have so far toppled †ve satellite TV, the internet and mobile phones with cameras were on hand to governments (two of them in Egypt), shaken two more magnify the con‡agration‹rather as, back to the bone and badly rattled most others in 1848, the new telegraph, railways and daily newspapers with their illustrated supplements had multiplied the impact of ers employed by the state was close to double the world average, the uprisings across Europe. and far higher still in oil-rich countries. Even so, Arab youth un- The Arab revolutions have so far toppled †ve governments employment was twice the world average. Governments strug- (two of them in Egypt), shaken two more to the bone and badly gled to sustain blanket subsidies on food and energy, legacies of rattled most others. Even quiescent, prosperous Kuwait and paternalism which their secret police advised them should not Oman have seen mass demonstrations in support of reform. For be touched for fear of sparking riots. the moment, however, the wave mostly seems to have run out of In response, rulers who had hitherto shunned business- momentum. Some governments have managed to deal with the friendly policies hastily adopted them. This was easier for the discontent by peaceful means. Muhammad VI, the king of Mo- energy-rich because oil prices conveniently rose. For the rest the rocco, nipped protests in the bud at the height of the Arab spring sudden shift to neo-liberalism brought gains, too, in the shape of in 2011 by adopting a new constitution that limits some of his faster growth rates and big investment in‡ows. But new wealth powers, and by appointing a mildly Islamist prime minister. accrued disproportionately to those with links to ruling clans. The rulers of Algeria, Sudan, Iraq and Jordan have all re- The swaggering families of the rulers and their cronies bagged sorted to tried-and-true methods of co-option and intimidation, prime concessions. The old bargain with the people was increas- which so far seem to have worked. In the †rst three cases, recent ingly ignored. experience of grisly civil wars at home has spoilt the public’s ap- More importantly, those people had changed. By 2010 near- petite for con‡ict. Jordanians, for their part, have been front-row ly two-thirds of Arabs were living in cities. Among those under spectators to tragedies in neighbouring countries. Swamped 30, three-quarters were literate and increasingly connected to the with refugees from both Iraq and Syria, they are keenly aware world via satellite television and the internet. Yet around 40% of that however impatient for change, their own people remain the Arab population were still subsisting on less than $2.75 a day, dangerously split between native East Bankers and a majority spending more than half their income on food. This was an ex- descended from Palestinian refugees, as well as between Islam- plosive mix, and the fuse to set it o had already been lit. ists and secular critics. 1

The Economist July 13th 2013 5 SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING

2 The hereditary rulers of the Gulf stand out as di erent. nising shades. In whatever dose, the mixing of religion with poli- Their small populations and immense and still growing wealth tics implicitly involves the right to interpret and to impose the mean they can Œbuy a holiday from politics, in the words of Hi- will of God. Many Arabs, and not just the avowedly secular, are lal Khashan, a political scientist at the American University of uncomfortable with this and resent such powers of enforce- Beirut. Saudi Arabia announced a $120 billion increase in social ment. Perhaps that is why, amid the seemingly inexorable rise of spending in March 2011. The extra funds for housing subsidies, Islam as a political rallying force and amid increasingly strident scholarships, pensions and temporary unemployment bene†t assertions of sectarian identity, doubts are also growing. were a stopgap measure, but nonetheless welcome for that in a country where, shockingly, a quarter of all families fall below the The people’s choice national poverty line. This may seem an odd claim. Since the 1990s Islamist par- None of the six member states of the Gulf Co-operation ties have captured majorities pretty much wherever Arabs have Council has made any serious move towards political reform or held free elections, and have done even better since the Arab democracy. Instead they have all cracked down more heavily on spring. In Egypt the long-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and its dissent, jailing critics, constraining media and introducing tough allies, including puritanical Sala†sts, grabbed two-thirds of the new laws on public gatherings. Their ministries of information seats in the †rst general election after the uprising. The Brother- work hard to present the changes in Egypt and Tunisia as disas- hood’s candidate, Muhammad Morsi, went on to clinch the pres- trous and to depict Syria as an apocalypse. idency. Libyan and Yemeni voters have also strongly backed Is- Yet if history is any guide, waves like the Arab spring can- lamists, though both countries are politically too fragmented for not be turned back. Paul Salem, the director of Beirut’s Carnegie any one party to dominate. Even Tunisians, despite a long secu- Centre, a think-tank, believes the region has already undergone a lar tradition, gave far more votes to the country’s main Islamist paradigm shift. ŒA massive transformation in political con- party, , than to any other. sciousness has been seared into minds with sacri†ce and hero- It is mainstream Islamists rather than radicals who have ism, he says. ŒNo one now doubts that what the Arab public won the most votes: men with trimmed beards and ties; women wants is elected, constitutional government. In the past two wearing headscarves rather than burqas. These newly empow- years some 124m Tunisians, Egyptians, Yemenis and Libyans ered movements have generally shied away from imposing have reached for that aim. If you include Iraq, with 33.8m people, harsher religious rules. They sense that apart from a committed which held proper elections in 2005, nearly half of all Arabs minority, voters care more about cleaning up government than have accepted that only democracy can bestow legitimacy. 7 bringing society closer to God. Yet as Islamists search for ways to show that they are putting faith into politics, it is not surprising that the tone of their sectarian rhetoric has risen. Political Islam This is something new. The Sunni-Shia schism may have lasted for 14 centuries, but most of that time it has lain dormant. Sectarianism has rarely been much of an issue for the bulk of Ar- The power of religion abs, who live in countries that are overwhelmingly Sunni. In places that are more mixed, intermarriage has been common in modern times. For many years the Muslim Brotherhood contem- plated a grand alliance with Shia Iran, and most Islamists still For Islamists, government is proving harder than harbour lingering dreams of a united Muslim umma (nation). But more recently a combination of factors has pushed the two opposition sects apart, ranging from a waning sense of a shared struggle ON A SUNDAY in early June Muhammad Qatta, a roadside against the West to the oil-greased rise in the in‡uence of Sunni co ee-seller in the Syrian city of Aleppo, refused to serve a Saudi Arabia (whose Wahhabist state ideology vili†es Shias as would-be freeloader. Even the prophet himself would have to heretics) and the empowerment of historically marginalised pay, he said. Some bearded rebel †ghters overheard him. Crying Shias in other countries. blasphemy, they shot him dead. Muhammad was 15 years old. This split has widened dramatically in recent years, begin- On the same day, across the Lebanese border in Beirut, 28- ning in Iraq. The fall in 2003 of the country’s brutal despot, Sad- year-old Hashem Salman also met his maker. He had joined a dam Hussein, gave vent to the burning resentment of the Shia vigil outside the Iranian embassy to protest against Iran’s sup- underclass he had long persecuted, raising fears among Sunnis port for the Syrian regime. Burly men wearing yellow armbands who had ruled the territory since Ottoman times. The American attacked the small crowd with clubs and pistols. Yellow is the col- occupiers did not help. Sweeping purges of former regime mem- our of Hizbullah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese party-cum-mili- bers hurt Sunnis disproportionately. New oˆce-holders were tia that has lately also entered the fray in Syria. Mr Salman took typically chosen by party quota, which favoured the better- two bullets in his legs and one in the back. organised Shias. These killings barely nudged the daily toll from Syria’s civil Islamists in both camps championed armed resistance to war, a war that has warped into bloody attrition between the the occupiers, but the arrival on the scene of al-Qaeda, which es- majority Sunni and better-armed Shia Muslims. Yet they gener- pouses Wahhabist views, promoted not joint e orts but murder- ated unusual outrage. Neither victim had played a role in Syria’s ous competition. The Sunni terrorists’ demolition of the golden- †ghting. One was a Sunni, the other Shia. Both were killed not domed Shia shrine at Samarra in 2006 set o a vicious round of just by members of their own sects but by groups posing as their sectarian Œcleansing that left tens of thousands dead. Iraq’s most zealous guardians. The killers in both cases saw them- once-cosmopolitan capital, Baghdad, became a checkerboard of selves as punishing traitors to the faith. sectarian ghettoes. The country remains divided, the disgrun- Islam, like any great religion, is a broad tent. Within it, Is- tled, impoverished and violent Sunni part now contrasting with lamism‹the belief that politics is and must be an extension of a relatively quiet and prospering Kurdish north and Shia south. the faith‹comes in many colours, from the black of al-Qaeda to America’s intervention had wider e ects. It pushed Iran’s the dark green of Saudi- Wahhabism to the palest of moder- rulers to accelerate their nuclear project. To deter Israel from 1

6 The Economist July 13th 2013 SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING

2 striking to preserve its regional nuclear monopoly, the Shia think. By the second year of the uprising the idealistic instigators superpower also ramped up its long-standing sponsorship of of Syria’s revolution had increasingly retreated, leaving an en- Hizbullah. The Lebanese Shia party-cum-militia ‡exed its grow- raged, radicalised Sunni-dominated core. It was the zealots and ing muscle in a short but nasty war with Israel in 2006. Two years extremists, fuelled by global jihadist networks, who gained a later its militiamen invaded Sunni quarters of Beirut and im- reputation for †ghting hardest and most e ectively. posed a government more to its liking. This has dangerously A self-ful†lling prophet, Mr Assad now poses as the de- tipped Lebanon’s delicate sectarian balance of about one-third fender of Syria’s pluralist urban middle class against a fanatical, Shia, one-third Sunni and one-third others, mainly Christian. impoverished and foreign-sponsored Sunni horde. Radical jiha- dist groups can be counted on to burnish his image by commit- Syria radicalised ting atrocious acts of vengeance. The religious mosaic in neighbouring Syria is equally intri- But there was nothing inevitable about Syria’s march into cate, but its cracks had long seemed better sealed. Many bore a sectarian swamps, and the same is true in other Arab countries. grudge against the 12% minority of Alawites, an esoteric o shoot The Sunni rulers of Bahrain, for instance, played out Mr Assad’s of Shiism to which the ruling Assad clan and much of the oˆcer role in reverse, albeit less brutally. They depicted the (mostly class belong. Yet that was incidental to the uprising starting in Shia) marchers who demanded constitutional democracy in March 2011, which was mainly about freedom. February 2011as an Iranian †fth column. This succeeded in shift- Mr Assad’s regime worked hard not just to crush the revolt ing the issue from local demands for reform to a perceived broad- but to turn it into a sectarian battle. His soldiers, unlike those in er threat against all the Gulf’s Sunni rulers. Two years later, in Egypt and Tunisia, were prepared to riddle unarmed crowds dusty Shia villages just minutes from the sleek waterfront of with gun†re. Stunned at †rst, protesters soon started shooting Bahrain’s capital, Manama, black religious banners and sten- back with whatever came to hand, validating Mr Assad’s claim cilled images of martyrs proclaim sullen resistance. to be battling not a popular revolt but an armed insurgency. Scholars see the return of sectarianism less as a revival of Mysterious attacks against Christians and other minorities Islam’s 1,400-year-old schism than as an outcome of failing mod- followed, prompting some to form pro-government vigilante ern states. Gregory Gause, a political scientist at the University of gangs. The regime singled out Sunnis for punishment, sending Vermont, notes in a recent paper that sectarian identity is stron- packs of thugs to slaughter villagers, blasting Sunni districts with gest in countries with weak central governments, such as Leba- artillery and arresting and torturing thousands. As abandoned non. The abrupt implosion of Iraq and Syria, which had been Sunni homes were systematically plundered, the country’s new- highly centralised and repressive states, helps explain their rapid ly ‡ourishing ‡ea markets took on a new name, souk al sunna. descent into mayhem. An increase in sporadic attacks against Until then, Syrian Sunnis had rarely de†ned themselves in Egypt’s 10% Christian minority may also indicate a decline in the sectarian terms. After all, they made up nearly two-thirds of the state’s capacity to mediate social relations. population. To their minds, class and regional di erences were In most cases, sectarian nastiness has been less a product of more important. But Mr Assad’s ferocious repression forced religious dogma than of contests for power or resources. ŒMore them‹and especially the poorer ones, who su ered most‹to re- often than not, the intricacies of faith and theology are about as relevant in Iraqi sectarian dynamics as Christianity is in the rhetoric of European far-right groups, writes Fanar Haddad, an Iraqi scholar at the National Universi- ty of Singapore. ŒIt is religion as identity rather than religion as faith that is being mobilised. Yet Mr Haddad cautions that this may be changing. Scriptural argu- ments for sectarianism are no longer the preserve of crusty sheikhs from Qasim, the Wahhabist heartland of Saudi Arabia. Hizbullah’s recent dispatch of †ghters into Syria has provoked a torrent of Sunni abuse. Mosque sermons recalled distant historical episodes of supposed Shia per- †dy. Yusuf Qaradawi, a popular televi- sion preacher who speaks for the Muslim Brotherhood, said he regretted his past ef- forts at reconciliation with Shias. He blasted Hizbullah as the party of Satan and called for jihad. This increasingly ugly tone bodes ill for sectarian relations across Islam. The underlying geopolitical struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia, re‡ected by proxy in Iraq and Syria, may yet come to a dan- gerous head. But there are grounds for hope, too. The most important one is that, in the more peaceful political climate of Both sides in Syria pray for victory countries such as Tunisia and Egypt, Ar- 1

The Economist July 13th 2013 7 SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING

2 abs have, for the †rst time, subjected Islamists to practical tests of Youth government. During decades of persecution under dictatorial re- gimes, groups like the Muslim Brotherhood enjoyed the luxury of being in perpetual opposition. They could criticise without Give us a chance having to o er policy alternatives beyond the Brothers’ slogan, ŒIslam is the solution. As they have now found, running the place is a lot more diˆcult than carping from the sidelines. This test has been conducted most visibly in Egypt, where Lots of young people and few decent jobs are a recipe despite its initial electoral success the Brotherhood struggled to secure longer-term gains. Its troubles were partly of its own mak- for trouble ing. The Brothers have long believed that they represent Egypt’s THE NUMBER OF Arabs in the world has tripled since 1970, true silent majority. In contrast to what they see as a corrupt and to about 350m. And although in recent years population slavishly Westernised elite, the Islamists present themselves as growth has slowed in most Arab countries, as it has in most of the embodiment of native cultural authenticity, with high moral the world, demographers think the total is still likely to reach standards. Their tight internal organisation gave an impression 600m by 2050. of quiet competence that proved highly successful at the polls. On maps the Arab world still looks largely empty, and Many hoped that this would translate into e ective government. some of the constituent countries certainly are. In Libya and Mauritania the population density is just three people per Easy to say, hard to do square kilometre. In Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, a Those hopes have been dashed. In the words of an interna- patch of sand the size of Britain, it is below two. But the variety tional consultant who advises regional governments, the Broth- across the region is immense. Lebanon is more crowded than ers turned out to be Œhigh on will, low on skill. Mr Morsi put far Belgium, for instance, and the Gaza Strip is far more closely more e ort into trying to consolidate his own control than into packed than the city of Los Angeles. So are parts of Egypt, since dealing with Egypt’s dire economic and social problems. His ap- 80m of its 85m people are crammed into the narrow Nile valley. pointments plainly showed a preference for piety over compe- These statistics matter. They show the immensity of the de- tence. A new constitution, which Mr Morsi forced through last velopment task that Arab countries face. Yemen, for instance, is December against strenuous objections from non-Islamists and not only one of the world’s poorest countries, with frightening legal experts, proved riddled with ‡aws. rates of child malnutrition; its renewable water resources per In power, Egypt’s Islamists took on many of the characteris- person are less than a tenth of the global threshold for water tics of the ruling party that kept them out for so long. Mr Morsi scarcity. Egypt has experienced a surge in poverty and childhood has shielded the army and police from scrutiny of repressive tac- stunting, a result of poor nutrition. tics that left perhaps a thousand Egyptians dead in repeated So far Arab countries have generally done a creditable job, bouts of unrest. Under his watch courts freed dozens of former at least in some †elds. Life expectancy in the region has risen by regime oˆcials accused of abusing power. At the same time they 25 years since 1960, faster than in most parts of the world. Litera- prosecuted young revolutionaries, including on such charges as cy in Saudi Arabia has shot up from 10% in 1960 to 87%, and 99% Œinsulting the head of state. The Brotherhood’s haughty moral for youths of school-leaving age. Quantity, however, has not attitude and its instinctive secrecy limited its ability to reach out been matched by quality. Saudi Arabia spends a higher propor- to political opponents. Instead, Mr Morsi’s government tried to tion of its GDP on schooling than most rich nations, yet in a re- co-opt or subvert his foes, using state-controlled media, state- cent set of standardised global maths tests, the Trends in Interna- subsidised goods and tactics such as holding televised Œdia- tional Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), under half of logues that excluded authoritative opposition †gures. Saudi 13-year-olds reached the lowest benchmark, compared 1 All this took a steep toll on the Brothers’ standing with the Egyptian public, which has turned out to be far more sophisticat- ed, complex and †ckle than they had assumed. Following their convincing win in parliamentary elections at the end of 2011, ten Far too many idle hands 3 months after Egypt’s revolution, they fared progressively worse By educational level, 2005-10, youth aged 15-24, % at the polls. Mr Morsi won the presidency by a whisker in June Primary Secondary Tertiary 2012, but after peaking at 80% in September last year, by last NEET* rates Unemployment rates month his popularity had plunged to 30%, according to polls. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Even before the latest mass uprising, described by one commen- tator as a Œpopular impeachment, and the army coup, the Mus- Iraq Tunisia lim Brothers had been heavily defeated in elections for universi- West Bank West Bank ty student councils and professional syndicates, bodies they had & Gaza & Gaza long dominated. Egypt’s myriad bickering secular parties are not well placed Jordan Morocco to pro†t from the Brothers’ demise. If national elections are held in the near future, the biggest gainers might be the Brotherhood’s Egypt Jordan Islamist rivals, the puritan Sala†sts. Yet it has become increasing- ly clear that the appeal of the Islamists stems not so much from Morocco Egypt their religious standing or their promises to impose sharia law as from their superior ability to harness the resentments of Egypt’s Yemen Iraq poor. With problems proliferating, from surging unemployment to crippling power and fuel shortages, it was perhaps not surpris- Tunisia Yemen ing that a large section of this vast underclass took to the streets for a second time. 7 Source: World Bank *Not in education, employment or training

8 The Economist July 13th 2013 SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING

2 with 99% in South Korea and 88% in Eng- land. Barely 1% of the Saudi children gained an Œadvanced level, against 47% of South Korean and 8% of English ones. This suggests that Saudi schools are not just of generally poor quality, but that they fail to encourage brighter students. The religion-heavy Saudi curriculum may be a distraction from maths. Still, the kingdom is not the only underachiever. In the TIMSS tests Arab countries made up nine of the bottom ten out of 63 partici- pating countries. Qatar, with one of the world’s highest GDPs per person, scored lower than impoverished Albania in reading, science and maths in the OECD’s PISA study in 2009. These surveys showed up another anomaly. Almost everywhere else boys and girls did more or less equally well, but in Arab countries girls outperformed their pampered male siblings by huge margins, and most Arab countries have more female than male university stu- Displeasing prospects dents. Yet Arab countries also have ex- tremely low female labour-force partici- pation rates. For example, barely 15% of Algerian women of all how long would you have to work to get a house compared with ages have paid jobs, compared with 58% in America. And the ra- your parents? says Kito de Boer, who runs the Dubai oˆce of tio of women to men in low-quality jobs in Arab countries re- McKinsey, a consultancy. The answer for nearly everywhere in mains the highest in the world, according to the International La- the Arab world is, a lot longer. bour Organisation (ILO). Arab governments have at last woken up to the scale of the Partly because of women’s under-representation in the problem. Youth unemployment has become the theme of the workforce, youth unemployment in Arab countries is double moment at regional business forums, too. Numerous private and the global average. In a recent report the World Bank points to an public initiatives have been launched to channel funds into even more telling measure: the proportion of people aged 15-24 training programmes, micro†nance and business incubators. Yet who are Œnot in education, employment or training (NEET), ie, the proportion of Arab †rms o ering training is the lowest in the not even trying for a job. In Iraq, for instance, oˆcial joblessness world, says the ILO. for youths with only primary education is 18%, but the NEET ratio It is not surprising that across the region young people are is a shocking 57%. The rate for youths with university degrees is increasingly taking matters into their own hands, and not just by higher still (see chart 3, previous page). Mustafa Tamimi, a politi- marching for revolution. They are much more dynamic than cal-science student at Baghdad’s Mustansiriya university, dis- their parents’ generation, which waited patiently for govern- misses the institution as Œa factory of unemployment. ment jobs or favours from relatives. They are starting their own The troubles su ered by Muhammad Bouazizi, the unli- businesses, in de†ance of a strong Arab cultural taboo against censed Tunisian pushcart entrepreneur whose self-immolation failure, and joining a plethora of new volunteer groups. And sparked o the Arab spring, are still faced by millions every day. rather as young people in the West did in the 1960s, they are But few people noticed when in May this year a despairing vege- breaking the strictures of patriarchy in new ways. The musical table seller in Riyadh, Muhammad Harissi, doused himself in and artistic scene buzzes as never before, not only in cosmopol- petrol and struck a match after the police had con†scated his itan settings such as Beirut, Cairo and Casablanca but in provin- goods. Tel Quel, a Moroccan weekly, reports that over the past cial towns, too. Young Saudis, bypassing the kingdom’s strictures two years 80 Moroccan youths have done the same. on public entertainment with the aid of new technology, have taken to producing comic videos, musical performances and se- A kingdom for a house rious theatre in their homes and beaming them into the ether. A What drives such people to extremes is not simply the diˆ- subculture of irreverence forms an increasingly strong counter- culty of scraping a living and being harassed by the law but the point to the apparent dominance of public piety. seemingly inescapable bind they †nd themselves in. Arab social One illustration is the immense popularity across the re- conventions remain rigid. Marriage is a prerequisite for sex, and gion of Bassem Youssef, an Egyptian comic and talk-show host. having a house or ‡at is a prerequisite for marriage. To be unable Week after week he nimbly skewers victims such as the Muslim to a ord one is to remain in a state of dependency. Bad state plan- Brotherhood and pompous television presenters. His newspa- ning, poor access to †nance, tangled property laws and rapid per columns have boldly tackled taboo subjects such as atheism. population growth all ensure that in most Arab countries de- Wielding scripture to question the commonly held view that mand for a ordable housing far outstrips supply. apostasy from Islam should be punished by death, Mr Youssef The average age of marriage in Arab countries has risen in- recently pointed out that the Koran suggests no such thing. An Is- exorably in recent decades, suggesting that youths are being lam that has to intimidate its followers, he concluded, is not the forced to postpone setting up home. ŒI think one of the main in- Islam he believes in. And Muslims that have to be so coerced are dicators of what was behind the revolutions is the question, not the kind of Muslims that Islam needs. 7

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660 The economy prices might collapse to $5 a barrel. Instead they soared, peaking in 2008 at $145. The world’s current mix of political instability in 640 oil-producing zones and surging demand from Asia leads some The haves and the to think that despite expanding oil production worldwide, a 620 wobbly balance between supply and demand might be main- have•nots tained. But experience suggests that high prices sustained over 600 long periods encourage massive investment in exploration and 580 But even rich Arab countries cannot squander their improved yields from existing infrastructure. That is what happened in the 1970s, when high prices 560 resources inde†nitely spurred energy conservation and made it cost-e ective to pro- THE SWEET PERFUME wafting over northern Iraq does not duce in places like Alaska and the North Sea. The resulting oil- 540 come from the wild‡owers that speckle its rumpled plains price collapse in the 1980s lasted a long time, despite rising Asian in spring. It is the smell of oil and it is everywhere, ‡aring at well- demand and supply shocks such as the eight-year war between 520 heads, sloshing from the tanker trucks that grind up potholed two of the biggest exporters, Iran and Iraq. Arab producers were roads to backyard re†neries in the Kurdish hills and fuming from badly hit. GDP per person in Saudi Arabia and Libya shrank by a 500 their chimneys. Nor is this the oiliest part of Iraq. That lies in the third and took 20 years to regain its 1981level. 480 deserts to the south where it literally seeps from the ground. In A similar price fall today might not seem as threatening to fact the whole of Iraq sits atop seams and pockets of the sticky the bigger Arab producers. Over the past decade they have 460 stu . There is plenty to go around, if only the Iraqis could agree to racked up surpluses approaching the size of the combined GDP stop shooting each other. of all 19 Arab states, $2.9 trillion. About half of that is sitting in 440 There is plenty for other Arabs, too. Taken together, their 19 sovereign-wealth funds or foreign-currency reserves. But many countries hold some 46% of the world’s total proven oil reserves governments, wary of unrest, have also raised state spending to 420 (as well as a quarter of its natural-gas reserves). The ones with potentially unsustainable levels. The so-called †scal break-even the most have it doubly easy. Saudis or Kuwaitis spend just $3 to point (the oil price needed to balance exporters’ budgets) is cur- 400 tap a barrel from their most accessible wells. Small wonder that rently over $80 for Saudi Arabia and $110 for Algeria, which relies 380 their oilmen sco at looming competition from America’s fancy on energy exports for 70% of its government revenue. frackers and shalers. The technical wizardry of the modern drill- Both governments could simply cut spending, though that 360 ing techniques that may soon make America self-suˆcient in involves political risks. They could also try something else: raise energy can push the cost of extracting a barrel well beyond $100. local energy prices. Throughout the region, the combination of 340 The Arab world’s hydrocarbon riches are unevenly shared. big resources and patriarchal politics has made a hash of eco- Saudi Arabia alone holds the bulk of all reserves. Just eight Arab nomics. The Arab hydrocarbons industry as a whole generates 320 countries have actually grown rich from energy exports, though about $750 billion a year, but nearly a third of that, $240 billion some of them spectacularly so: in the tiny emirate of Qatar some by the IMF’s estimate, is frittered away on energy subsidies for 300 14% of households are dollar millionaires, a higher proportion Arab consumers. 280 than in any other country. Divided among its 250,000 citizens In Saudi Arabia, for instance, petrol costs under $0.20 a litre. (the other 85% of Qatar’s population of 2.1m are foreign workers), Local consumption already eats up a quarter of Saudi oil output, 260 the tiny emirate’s GDP comes to $700,000 per person. Average and on current trends could devour all of it within 25 years. Do- incomes across the Arab Gulf states are around 50 times those in mestic oil consumption across the Arab world last year rose by 240 Yemen, Sudan and Mauritania. 5.2%, the highest rate in any region. In the Gulf states it has been This may change. Poorer Arab states are not about to be- growing at an annual 6% since 1980. 220 come new Qatars, but many, such as Yemen, Tunisia, Sudan and Rich countries can a ord this, though not inde†nitely. For Egypt, already export oil or gas, and the lingering energy paupers 200 are doing better too. Morocco, until now completely reliant on 180 imports, pins high hopes on o shore exploration that is just get- 4 ting under way. Its Atlantic shelf shares the same promising geol- Black gold 160 ogy that oil companies in Mauritania are already exploiting. 2012, $bn Much of this potential lode skirts the long coast of the Western Current-account balance International reserves 140 Sahara, where sovereignty remains contested despite four de- cades of de facto Moroccan control. But there may be plenty in 120 undisputed waters, too. 100 A wobbly balance 80 Huge gas†elds in the eastern Mediterranean also sprawl across maritime borders. Egypt has been tapping its patch for 60 years, with Israel following more recently. Lebanon has untan- gled itself from internal bickering. Some day Gaza should have a 40 share of the crowded territory’s only resource aside from people. Perhaps in the future the other part of Palestine, the West Bank, 20 will also pro†t from the small deposits of crude oil that Israeli + na 0 †rms have found under its hills. Even Jordan may at last be able * – to stop begging its neighbours for fuel. If oil prices hold steady 20 PalestinianSudanMauritaniaSyria BahrainYemenTunisiaJordanOmanEgypt MoroccoKuwaitQatar UAE LebanonIr aq Libya AlgeriaSaudi Arabia above the $100 mark around which they have ‡uctuated in re- Territories cent years, the shale oil that sits under 60% of Jordan’s surface will become commercially viable. That is a big if. In 1999 this newspaper speculated that oil Source: Economist Intelligence Unit *2010

10 The Economist July 13th 2013 SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING

2 poor countries the subsidies have become ruinous. Yemen’s gov- of rationalising labour markets or prosecuting people who have ernment, for instance, spends the equivalent of 6% of its GDP on outstayed their visas, are targeting Shia Lebanese in Kuwait to keeping fuel prices low, more than on health and education com- punish Hizbullah and suspected Islamists in the United Arab bined. Most of this goes on diesel, which feeds the water pumps Emirates. As many as 300,000 Yemenis in Saudi Arabia also risk that irrigate the country’s most important crop, qat, a pleasantly expulsion as part of a plan to open more jobs to Saudi citizens. narcotic shrub that keeps millions quiet. Arab borders remain more jealously guarded than those in The cost to Egypt is just as heavy. The government’s subsidy most other parts of the world. True, countries such as Egypt, Iraq bill is $18 billion, again far higher than its spending on public and, more grudgingly, Jordan and Lebanon have generously schools and hospitals, and almost precisely matches its 11% bud- opened their doors to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. get de†cit. That might have been fudged in the past, since most Most Arab countries still insist on visas for those from elsewhere fuels were produced by state-owned †rms and the cost of subsi- in the region, although some restrictions have been eased. dies was implicit rather than paid in cash. But with local con- sumption growing rapidly, Egypt has lately become a net import- Open wider er. Its central-bank reserves have dropped from $36 billion to $16 Some irksome barriers remain. Unbelievably, the 1,000- billion since the revolution in February 2011. mile-long frontier between Morocco and Algeria, countries that The IMF reckons that in two out of three Arab countries en- have similar populations and living standards and are culturally, ergy subsidies account for more than 5% of GDP, whereas food linguistically and historically close, has been sealed for the past subsidies in the region average only 0.7%. It is true that in places 19 years. Few people in either country even remember why their like Egypt cheap transport has encouraged mobility and cheap governments shut it (Morocco accused Algeria of involvement in power has favoured investment in energy-intensive industries a hotel bombing in Marrakech that killed two tourists). Opening such as fertilisers and cement. But the bene†ts tend to be skewed it up would let poor border towns revert from their current con- to the owners of factories and gas-guzzlers. The IMF estimates centration on smuggling to more legitimate trade. More impor- that 50% of the energy subsidies go to the wealthiest †fth of the tant, access to Algeria’s cash-rich but goods-poor market could population in Sudan and only 3% to the poorest †fth. quickly add $2 billion a year to Morocco’s more dynamic private- 1 Rolling back the subsidies is a tricky business, but it can and must be done. Some countries, such as Jordan and Yemen, have already taken painful measures and so far survived the conse- quences. Libya, too, has been surprisingly bold for a country where petrol has been cheaper than water for a generation. Its current budget provides for sharply higher petrol and electricity prices and a shift in the subsidies to monthly cash transfers of about $500 per citizen. ŒIt sounds like a lot, but this will actually save the government a ton of money, says Faisal Gergab, chief economist at the Libyan Investment Authority. For two years the IMF has been dangling a $4.8 billion loan package in front of Egypt. This could unlock billions more in multilateral and bilateral aid, but it is conditional on budget re- form, which in turn depends on †xing the worsening energy muddle. Egypt’s next government will have to knuckle under, no matter how unpopular that may make it. And so, eventually, will countries such as Saudi Arabia. ŒNow is the time to reform, says Joe Saddi, the chairman of Booz & Co, an American consultancy with a strong base in the region. ŒThey have the money and they have the time. Among friends Mr Saddi has another suggestion: that Arabs should inte- grate their economies. This is not a new idea. Before the †rst world war, Mr Saddi notes, people and goods moved freely across Arab borders. The was founded in 1945 to strengthen regional ties. In the 1960s and 1970s many joint insti- tutions were launched to exchange aid, expertise and invest- ment among Arab states. Those hopeful times saw a †rst big wave of migration to the Gulf. In those early years of the oil boom, its bounty was seen as best shared among brothers. Fellow Arabs received the bulk of Arab development aid and made up some 72% of the Gulf’s ex- patriate labour force. Libya, Iraq and Algeria were also important destinations for migrant workers. These days fellow Arabs account for barely a quarter of the Gulf’s expat workforce, and not just because Asian workers will accept lower pay. For political reasons, Gulf monarchies have ex- pelled large numbers of other Arabs from time to time, such as Palestinians from Kuwait and nearly a million Yemenis from Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. New campaigns today, under the guise Father state provides

The Economist July 13th 2013 11 SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING

2 sector economy, economists say. Constitution•building Given the vast disparities in wealth, opening all Arab bor- ders is not a realistic option. But there are certainly bene†ts ‡ow- ing among Arab nations. Remittances from the Gulf to other The long march Arab countries are currently worth about $35 billion a year, sup- porting whole villages in places such as Upper Egypt and Sudan. In 2009 remittances made up 16% of Jordan’s GDP. According to the World Bank, the Gulf states have been the world’s most gen- After the revolution comes the slow business of erous donors of aid as a share of GDP. Most of this has gone to fellow Arab states, often at crucial times such as after Israel’s dev- devising the machinery of change astation of Gaza in 2009. ALI AHMED SAID is no stranger to controversy. The 83- In the peak year to date, 2008, direct investment from the year-old poet, better known by his pen name, , has Gulf states in the rest of the region amounted to $35 billion. Firms lived in exile from his native Syria since 1956. Revered as a father such as Qatari Diyar, the UAE’s Emaar and Kuwait’s Khara† of modernism‹and sometimes hailed as an Arab T.S. Eliot‹he Group have launched giant property developments in many has also been reviled as too harsh a critic. In 2006 he famously Arab capitals as well as in tourist destinations along the Red and declared the Œextinction of the Arabs. Fear of freedom, he said, Mediterranean seas. Private Gulf investors are also putting a lot had made them lose the creative will to change the world. of money into stock exchanges in cities such as Casablanca, Cai- Yet Adunis has not been happy with the Arab spring either. ro and Amman. He faults its revolutionaries for trying to topple rulers rather than There could be much more of this. ŒIt’s a perfect match, seeking change from within. By using the same vocabulary of says McKinsey’s Kito de Boer. ŒThe Gulf has about $1 trillion to power as the regimes they oppose, he says, they risk substituting spend, and that’s about what is needed in regional investment. one kind of absolutism for another: religious dogma for state ide- The trouble lies with the investment climate in receiving coun- ology. He has infuriated Syrian rebels by telling them to shun vi- tries. And that is a matter of politics more than economics. 7 olence, calling instead, from the safety of Paris, for dialogue even as the Assad government was killing its own people. It does not help that Adunis was born into the same minor- The IMF ity Alawite faith as Syria’s embattled president. Some rebels have accused him of sectarian allegiance to the regime. Others reckons showed what they thought of people like him when in February that in two they sliced the head o a bronze statue in the war-ravaged city of Ma’arrat Numan, 80km south of Aleppo. That monument was a out of three tribute to its most famous son, the 10th-century blind poet al- Arab Ma’arri, an illustrious †gure in the long Arab tradition of mor- dant sceptics to which Adunis belongs. countries Pessimism about where the Arab world is going is under- energy standable, especially in view of what is happening in Syria. But perhaps Adunis is also being over-hasty in dismissing the entire subsidies Arab spring as a game of musical chairs. Across the region, even account for in countries without any regime change, more subtle contests are playing out that may bring about deeper transformations in more than Arab societies. 5% of GDP It is often noted, for instance, that Arab monarchies have proved more resistant to revolution than republics. This is not be- cause revolutionary pressures have been absent. Some 40,000 Moroccans took to city streets in February 2011, at the same time as revolutions were taking place elsewhere. Morocco has suf- fered sporadic protests ever since, as has another kingdom, Jor- dan. At least 50,000 citizens in Kuwait, a huge number for a small state, turned out for peaceful demonstrations last November. Even in the most autocratic of autocracies, Saudi Arabia, dissent has been rising. Among the kingdom’s long-repressed 10% Shia minority, this is to be expected. Concentrated in the oil- rich Eastern Province but largely excluded from sharing its im- mense bounty, the Shias have been increasingly restless witness- es to the harsh suppression of their co-religionists in Bahrain, a short distance away. Clashes with police have left some 17 Saudi Shias dead since February 2011. More surprising has been a small but resilient movement, led largely by Saudi women, calling for the release of relatives imprisoned under sweeping anti-terrorist laws. Many of these protesters are deeply conservative, yet their demands are the same as those of Saudi liberals, including human-rights advo- cates, who have vocally backed the prisoners’ cause. A further echo comes from exiled dissidents, the best-known of whom, an anonymous critic of the ruling Al Saud family who goes by the 1

12 The Economist July 13th 2013 SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING

2 pseudonym of Mujtahid, has more than 1m Twitter followers. Moroccans were invited to respond to an online draft of the new Adunis is right that Arab revolutions have gained power charter which gently trimmed the king’s considerable preroga- and momentum by uniting, if only ‡eetingly, to oust detested tives. Put to a referendum in July 2011, it passed with a claimed strongmen. That strength of purpose is missing in Arab monar- 98.5% in favour. When the mildly Islamist Justice and Develop- chies since royal rulers are still widely perceived as legitimate. ment party proved the strongest in parliamentary elections, the Their critics are asking instead for a new social contract that will king dutifully made its leader prime minister. change the nature of the relationship between citizens and state. This apparently smooth transition has helped sustain Mo- In Kuwait the chief demand was for repeal of an electoral rocco’s impressive economic growth. Yet things are not as happy law seen as giving the ruling Al Sabah family too much in‡uence as they appear. The secretive royal court retains vast holdings in over elections for the country’s 50-man parliament. Skewed sectors such as energy, property development, banking and in- electoral laws have been a focus of Jordan’s protests too, along surance. Repression of dissent, and particularly of the press and with calls for a more equitable distribution of wealth and power. of more radical Islamist factions, continues much as before. In Morocco the main demands were for an end to corruption, There is no sign of widespread protest, but pressures may well more freedom of speech and a new constitutional order to re- mount again with time. duce the overweening in‡uence of the royal court. For Saudis the list is longer and more varied because their vast kingdom has The case for patience few representative institutions of any kind. In Saudi Arabia, too, dissent for the most part remains fo- Arab monarchs have parried such demands in di erent cused on speci†c issues. The state has honed its skills at co-opting ways. At the outset of the Arab spring Kuwait’s Sheikh Jaber al- opponents and exploiting divisions between the country’s reli- Sabah made a cash gift worth about $3,500 to every citizen, giously conservative majority and Westernised liberals. Since along with stacks of food vouchers. Ignoring the rising discon- both the king and his crown prince are old and ailing, even Sau- tent that culminated in last year’s marches, he forced through dis impatient for change accept that patience is the best course elections on his own terms in December, prompting a widely ob- for now. Yet calls for a shift towards constitutional monarchy are served boycott. His government has also prosecuted critics and no longer con†ned to the small educated elite. Even the religious sometimes dealt with them harshly. But Kuwait still stands out as hierarchy has slowly moved away from the strict Wahhabist the most politically open of the Gulf states. Sheikh Jaber agreed doctrine of obedience to the sovereign, and some of its members to refer his electoral law to the courts. A recent ruling upheld the now argue for setting limits to his rule. controversial rules, but ordered parliament to be dissolved and Events in the neighbouring emirate of Qatar have also new elections to be held. Kuwait’s opposition is likely to main- jolted Saudi minds. Last month Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al- tain a strong campaign for reforms that go beyond technicalities. Thani, who at 61 was already the youngest reigning monarch in King Abdullah of Jordan, not being a member of the Gulf the Gulf, handed power to his 33-year-old son, Sheikh Tamim. club of oil-rich nations, had to bend further with the wind. A The new emir soon announced sweeping changes in his cabinet commission he appointed to amend the country’s 1952 constitu- that have, in e ect, empowered a younger generation. Qatar re- tion proposed changes such as electing the prime minister, scrap- mains an undiluted autocracy, but the precedent of a highly pop- ping press laws that allow journalists to be jailed, permitting po- ular ruler resigning at the height of his powers is signi†cant litical parties to be formed and redrawing constituency bound- nonetheless. The subjects of Sultan Qaboos of Oman, for in- aries. These looked progressive, but the royal court still retained stance, may ask more loudly why, after 43 years at the helm, their all the levers of power. Islamist groups object to a ban on reli- childless ruler has yet to name a potential successor. gious parties and journalists bridle at continued restrictions. All these monarchies have shown some agility in respond- King Mohammed VI of Morocco seemingly went further, ing to their people’s demands. But the past two years have setting up a panel to rewrite the country’s constitution in full. shown just how widespread and persistent those demands have been, and how similar they are across the region. Everywhere citizens are calling for Egypt’s new more justice, transparency, accountabil- ity, limits to arbitrary rule, more equitable constitut- economic policies, freedom of speech ion proved and the devolution of central power. All these changes require a new constitution- trouble- al order, making it vital that Arab coun- some, to tries get their constitutions right. The record so far looks unpromising. the Muslim Aside from the monarchies that have tin- Brothers as kered with their constitutions to calm the crowds, three Arab republics, Iraq, Syria much as and Egypt, have adopted completely new anyone national charters in recent years, and Tu- nisia is due to do so soon. Libya, Sudan, and Yemen are further behind. Algeria’s government is also proposing signi†cant constitutional reform. These countries have adopted widely di ering approach- es, but all face similar problems. The †rst to act was Iraq, which un- der American occupation in 2005 launched a new constitution with much 1

The Economist July 13th 2013 13 SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING

tion, but its vague wording has notably failed to check the pow- ers of the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki. He has ridden rough- shod over opponents, at times ruling, in e ect, by decree. Exploiting his titular role as commander-in-chief, he has ap- pointed loyalists throughout the armed forces and the police and formed brigades under his personal command. Vagueness about the limits to Kurdish autonomy has also generated friction, particularly over oil revenues. Kurdish federal authorities have lured foreign †rms with generous contracts. The central government has reacted by closing pipelines, delaying revenue transfers and moving troops to the Kurdish frontier. Something to hold onto Yet Iraqis still cling to the constitution as an island of order in a sea of chaos. Most Sunnis do not so much want Mr Maliki to be overthrown as their grievances to be redressed. Along with prospering Shias in the south, they are beginning to see the pos- sibilities of the clauses allowing regions to declare autonomy, on which the Kurds had insisted. Federalism, once rejected as an American-inspired plot to break up the country, is now more widely accepted as a potential solution to its ills. If this works in Iraq, federalism could be a model for other all-too-unitary states such as Syria, Yemen and even, some day, Saudi Arabia. Egypt’s constitution-writing experience has been shorter and less violent but equally frustrating. The Muslim Brother- hood was determined to anchor the ŒIslamic gains made in its election victory in 2011in a new national charter. Egypt’s secular- leaning courts tried to mute their enthusiasm, but Mr Morsi is- sued a decree conferring legal immunity on his own rulings, as well as on the Islamist-dominated body charged with writing the new constitution. This provoked big protests, but they did not prevent the draft constitution from being put to a referendum and approved by a 64% majority last December. It almost immediately proved troublesome, to the Muslim Brotherhood as much as anyone. Both the religious scholars and Egypt’s constitutional court rejected various draft bills, as the constitution allowed them to do, including one to prepare for the election of a new parliament. This left Mr Morsi having to rely on a rump senate for a legislature which was widely viewed as ille- gitimate. An opinion survey conducted by James Zogby, an American pollster, recently found that, six months after the con- One man, one vote in Iraq stitution was proclaimed, a majority of Egypt’s voters wanted it scrapped. They may now get their way. Egypt’s generals have temporarily suspended the constitution and charged the Su- 2 fanfare. This was never going to be easy, given the country’s eth- preme Court with swiftly producing a better version, to be put to nic and sectarian divisions, its history of dictatorship and politi- a new referendum. This is a dangerous and disruptive precedent, cal volatility, the need to share the spoils of vast oil wealth and but it may yet come up with a more workable and widely accept- the impatience of the American occupiers to see rapid results. ed national charter. Most Sunni Arab politicians boycotted the drafting, which Tunisia is the only Arab country so far to take enough time meant that their constituents’ needs were poorly represented. and trouble over its constitution. Its dominant Islamists said Their absence helped Iraq’s 15% Kurdish minority make big gains from the outset that they would not try to impose controversial in the new order, winning terms for autonomy that come close to clauses, such as enshrining Islamic sharia law as a key compo- outright independence in the north. The Shia majority also se- nent of the legal code. Its temporary legislature, elected in Octo- cured political dominance for the †rst time in Iraq’s history. ber 2011mainly to draw up a constitution, has consulted widely. But the constitution has not helped peace along. Sunni Ira- The constitution is likely to pass with a two-thirds majority of qis have grown increasingly restless at being shut out, as they see the assembly later this summer. it, from much of the business of government. They feel unduly Clearly, setting new rules is not enough, just as elections targeted under sweeping laws against terrorism passed by Shia alone do not make democracy. The Arab world will also have to majorities and enforced by Shia-dominated government forces. rebuild and maintain institutions such as independent courts Since last December regions with a Sunni majority have been in and free media. Yet amid the region-wide cacophony of gun†re a state of semi-permanent revolt. Recruitment to radical jihadist and shouting crowds, such institutions are indeed taking root. In groups has surged and the hideous cycle of sectarian attacks and cafés and on internet forums, debates are being conducted with counter-attacks, which had died down four years ago, has re- a passion and open-mindedness that will not soon die down. started with a vengeance. Ordinary people across the Arab world, and not just educated This is not wholly the fault of the hastily written constitu- city folk, are determined to make their voices heard. 7

14 The Economist July 13th 2013 SPECIAL REPORT THE ARAB SPRING

After Egypt’s double spring would inspire the people, but it seems the ambitions of most Offer to readers Egyptians are for something loos- Reprints of this special report are available. Keep going A minimum order of five copies is required. er-†tting, more individual and Please contact: Jill Kaletha at Foster Printing more stylish. Other would-be Tel +00(1) 219 879 9144 leaders, take note. e-mail: [email protected] It is a shame that Egyptians Corporate offer have had to fall back on their army The Arab world’s road to democracy was always Corporate orders of 100 copies or more are to sort out the mess. The men in available. We also offer a customisation unlikely to be smooth uniform proved cruel and incom- service. Please contact us to discuss your IF YOU WERE Egypt’s president, what would you do if mil- petent masters not long ago, dur- requirements. lions of Egyptians poured into the streets demanding that ing the transition from President Tel +44 (0)20 7576 8148 e-mail: [email protected] you go? During his election campaign last year Muhammad Mubarak to President Morsi. But For more information on how to order special Morsi said that no one would demonstrate against him because other Arabs consider Egypt lucky reports, reprints or any copyright queries as president he would faithfully represent the people’s will. ŒBut at least to have a patriotic and pro- you may have, please contact: if they do, he added †rmly, ŒI would be the †rst to resign. fessional army, not a gangsterish The Rights and Syndication Department Egypt’s †rst ever freely elected president did not resign, militia such as Syria’s. 20 Cabot Square even when his capacity to govern evaporated as perhaps 10m Egypt’s generals have also London E14 4QW people across the country took to the streets at the end of June to learned hard lessons in the Arab Tel +44 (0)20 7576 8148 Fax +44 (0)20 7576 8492 scream for his departure. Instead, like his predecessor, Hosni spring and moved quickly to seek e-mail: [email protected] Mubarak, only 30 months earlier, Mr Morsi had to be deposed by cover behind civilian leaders and www.economist.com/rights the Egyptian army. It was as if the Arab spring had never hap- institutions. Few of those institu- pened: the †rst of a new generation of leaders, as well as the gen- tions work well and they face im- Future special reports erals, behaved much as their predecessors did. mense problems, with a new Biodiversity September 14th Brazil September 28th This does not look like progress. The abrupt unseating of one‹in the shape of a possible The world economy October 12th Mr Morsi would seem to be setting a far more ominous prece- violent backlash from disgruntled The Koreas October 26th dent than the ousting of the country’s last ageing tyrant. And the Islamists‹now looming. But the rude awakening for the Muslim Brotherhood, stripped again of resilience and creativity of ordin- Previous special reports and a list of forthcoming ones can be found online: power held only brie‡y after such a long wait, would seem to be ary Egyptians, who are clearly economist.com/specialreports ‡ashing a danger signal to other ambitious Islamists. ready to †ght for the freedom they Yet the reprise of Egypt’s revolution is not as strange as all have tasted, are an inspiration to that, and may presage aftershocks elsewhere. The French revolu- Arabs everywhere. tion took ten years of convulsions before Napoleon emerged, It will not be a straightforward journey. Even where change and seven more decades before a stable democratic republic has started, the experience of politics as an open contest within took root. In Russia reverberations after 1917 lasted †ve years; in commonly accepted boundaries is still novel, and in most cases Iran after 1979 more than three. those boundaries have yet to be set. The risk of a relapse into If Egyptians revolted a second time, it was partly because strongman rule remains high. For places where the move to Mr Morsi’s government committed sins similar to Mr Mubarak’s. proper public participation has long been frozen, such as Algeria It tried to play the same bossy, patriarchal role but was even and Saudi Arabia, any sudden thaw could cause an avalanche. more inept. The Muslim Brothers turned out to be not something Faleh Abdel Jabbar, an Iraqi sociologist, gives warning that new but a relic from the past. They thought their Islamist dream for now in most Arab countries Œall the elements that theory says should build democracy are absent, and all those that should prevent it are present. The middle classes are weak, clan- nishness prevails, and oil-soaked states see no need for consent from citizens they do not need to tax. That equation is changing, but it will take time. Hope reinforced Yet for all the pitfalls, the spirit of the Arab spring remains alive. Everywhere, to di erent degrees, barriers of fear have been broken. A generation ago Saadallah Wannous, a Syrian play- wright, famously lamented that his people were Œsentenced to hope. Those hopes have strengthened and the sentence feels lighter. A recent region-wide survey of attitudes by the Arab Cen- tre for Research and Policy Studies, based in Qatar, found that most Arabs see their revolutions as positive overall, are con†- dent they will achieve their aims and consider democracy the best form of government. Perhaps more strikingly, although most respondents de- scribed themselves as religious, a strong majority among Arabs say that governments should not use religion to win popular support. They also feel that no one has the right to condemn peo- ple for interpreting Islam di erently, or for holding a di erent faith. Mr Morsi failed to understand that, and paid for it. 7 What’s the buzz on the street?

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