Author: issandr

Corruption in the Arab world

This just in from the BBC: Oil wealth ‘can cause corruption’.

Good to know they’re on top of things. Actually, to be fair this is a story about the latest report by Transparency International, the corruption watchdog. The Arab world, as always, does not fare particularly well. The least corrupt Arab countries are Oman and the United Arab Emirates who share a ranking of 29th (1st being the least corrupt, this year Finland) with Bahrain (slightly lower than Israel), Jordan and Qatar trailing not far behind in the mid-30s. Egypt and Morocco are way behind, sharing the 77th ranking — lower than Saudi Arabia and Syria, which is a bit of a surprise — and at the same level as Turkey. Libya and the Palestinian Authority don’t do too well and share the 108th position. The oil revenue issue is highlighted here:

“Corruption robs countries of their potential,” said [Transparency International (TI) Chairman Peter] Eigen. “As the Corruption Perceptions Index 2004 shows, oil-rich Angola, Azerbaijan, Chad, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Libya, Nigeria, Russia, Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen all have extremely low scores. In these countries, public contracting in the oil sector is plagued by revenues vanishing into the pockets of western oil executives, middlemen and local officials.”

TI urges western governments to oblige their oil companies to publish what they pay in fees, royalties and other payments to host governments and state oil companies. “Access to this vital information will minimise opportunities for hiding the payment of kickbacks to secure oil tenders, a practice that has blighted the oil industry in transition and post-war economies,” said Eigen.

And guess which Arab country is at the very bottom of the heap, along with notoriously corrupt countries like Pakistan, Congo, Azerbaijan, Myanmar and Haiti (the lowest-ranked country)?

Yup, that’s right: Iraq. Sure, it was probably down there at the bottom of the table under Saddam Hussein and the various “Mr. 10%” that controlled business, but seen as this is a report for 2004, I’m curious who they are reporting as corrupt: the Iraqi interim government, foreign contractors or the former CPA?

“The future of Iraq depends on transparency in the oil sector,” added Eigen. “The urgent need to fund postwar construction heightens the importance of stringent transparency requirements in all procurement contracts,” he continued. “Without strict anti-bribery measures, the reconstruction of Iraq will be wrecked by a wasteful diversion of resources to corrupt elites.”

Iraqi Intellectuals Seek Exile

Iraqi academics are in peril:

Since the war ended 18 months ago, at least 28 university teachers and administrators have been killed, while 13 professors were kidnapped and released on payments of ransom, according to the Association of University Lecturers. Many others have received death threats.

The result: an exodus of academics and other intellectuals, who are urgently needed by a shattered society, from their schools and often the country, joining an earlier generation of exiles who fled the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Is old Najaf being destroyed?

Kamil Mahdi reports that construction projects around Najaf are destroying the core of the old city:

The destruction of Najaf which is now under way is drastic and irreversible. A statement by the head of the Shia Waqf Diwan dated on 8 September shows clearly that the whole matter was only an idea a month ago, yet a decision was quickly taken and demolition has begun. People should at least be allowed to discuss the rights and wrongs of such decisions.

No such discussion is taking place, not even in the sham, pliant and self-selected National Council. Is this the so-called democracy all these people have died and are dying for? If the destruction continues without open and meaningful public consultation that takes place in a rational atmosphere and in total transparency, it will be nothing short of a criminal assault on Iraq’s heritage and on its history. All over the civilised world, historic cities are protected, preserved and developed in ways that retain the character and identity of the city and the integrity of its physical and social fabric.

Winning Hearts and Minds

The Washington Post has an article about an as-yet-unreleased report on Radio Sawa, one of the Bush administration’s attempts–along with Hi Magazine and Al Hurra TV station–to change the hearts and minds in the Arab world. The article says the report–which was commissioned by the State Department’s inspector general– is highly critical of Sawa, which is one of the reasons it (the report) hasn’t been released yet. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (which oversees all of the above mentioned media channels, as well as Voice of America Radio) has strongly disagreed with the findings of the reports and is seemingly in the process of “watering” it down.

I do freelance work for VOA radio here in Cairo, so I know a little about this. A few years ago VOA’s Arabic radio service was discontinued, and Radio Sawa was created instead. Sawa features a blend of pop music and short news. In the opinion of most VOA journalists, Sawa is not a serious news station (not to mention that it’s an interloper). Instead of 3 to 4 minutes reports that used to air on VOA’s Arabic service, Sawa airs at the most 45 second long news items. Also, supposedly the quality of reporting has suffered (this is noted in the leaked State Department report as well). People also complain that while VOA Arabic had a solid, age-old reputation and wide-spread name recognition, Sawa does not enjoy the same esteem, and is seen as fluff and progaganda (Arabs have wondered why Sawa doesn’t openly state that it’s a US government station). I have heard of interviewees granting interviews to VOA and specifically stipulating that they not be aired on Sawa. If people are really refusing to give Sawa interviews then that really does speak to a generally low opinion of the station.

The Washington Post article quotes Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, “VOA unions are obsessed over knocking Sawa.” It’s certainly true that VOA employees have resented Sawa since its creation–they have even sent petitions to Congress about it. Part of this may be territoriality, but most of it I think is seasoned professional journalists watching a good news service get dismantled and a crappy radio station created in its place.

The whole way Sawa has been created has all the Bush administration trademarks:

1) Appoint an ideologically sympathetic businessman to run the operation (much as advertising mogul Charlotte Biers was appointed to her disastrous stint as head of public diplomacy). The guy running the whole Hi/Sawa/Hurra show is BBG member Norman J. Pattiz, a radio tycoon from California. With what I’m guessing is little experience in public diplomacy, journalism or the Middle East, he has focused single-mindedly on “building audience,” making Sawa a pop-music station to attract the huge under-25 audience in the Middle East.

2) Rely on simplistic, flawed and condescending assumptions. The idea that Arab audiences can’t be reached by a serious news channel, but rather have to be tricked into listening by a barrage of US pop music and then slipped a little bit of the news on the hour is insulting. Arabs are much more interested in current events and politics than Americans are, for one. Also, what does this approach gain? Even if the whole Middle East listens to Britney Spears, is that really going to make them start calling the invasion of Iraq a “liberation”? Arabs know when they’re being pandered to. They can listen to our music and still think our politics are bogus, and the only thing that could change that (besides the obvious, changing our politics) is to offer substantive news coverage, talk shows, in-depth reports, etc.

3) Don’t consult any of the seasoned professionals who have been working in the field, thus alienating them all (see my remarks about VOA employees above). Choose your staff based on loyalty to your vision rather than on competency.

4) End up with a shallow, out-of-touch, low-quality, ideologically driven product.

5) Refuse to aknowledge criticism of the results. The Board of Governors is fighting the State Department report tooth and nail, and will probably succeed in having its conclusions re-written.

And the same issues apply to Hi magazine (which had one of the most dismal receptions I’ve ever seen) and Al Hurra, which is so in touch with the Middle East that it is run almost entirely by a cabal of pro-American Lebanese Maronites. These initiatives are all part and parcel of the Bush administration’s huge failure in public diplomacy–a failure to engage in any kind of open, substantive, respectful dialogue with people in the Middle East, because these people are not seen as valid interlocutors but rather as children that need to be brainwashed into agreement using whatever the most effective and shallow commercial means are available. (Hum, sounds like their attitude to the American public). And not only are these methods reprehensible, they don’t work.

Kramer’s chutzpah

Martin Kramer writes in his blog, Sandbox:

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt, held a conference on the fate of the ancient library of Alexandria. To the organizers’ credit, they invited Bernard Lewis, who couldn’t attend, but who sent a paper, read in his absence. The correspondent of the Ahram Weekly, Amina Elbendary, tied herself in knots about it. The invite to Lewis was “bewildering,” since Lewis’s name is “controversial, to say the least, and often associated with the negative connotations of Orientalism.” Well, quite obviously the organizers accomplished Egyptian historians — haven’t been corrupted by post-Orientalist orthodoxy and its blacklisting militancy. There’s hope.

This is pretty laughable from the guy who, along with fellow traveler Likudnik Daniel Pipes, founded an institution whose blacklisting militancy against Middle Eastern studies professors is reminiscent of anti-communist witch-hunts. Not to mention that the likes of Pipes and Kramer, who style themselves as Middle East experts, are really policy advocates, not real scholars like the professors they like to criticize.

Scowcroft on Bush and Sharon

That wishy-washy liberal,Brent Scowcroft, tells the Financial Times what he thinks of the relationship between Bush and Sharon:

But speaking to the FT, Mr Scowcroft, 79, went a step further in
attacking some of the president’s core foreign policies. “Sharon
just has him wrapped around his little finger,” Mr Scowcroft
said. “I think the president is mesmerised.”

“When there is a suicide attack (followed by a reprisal) Sharon
calls the president and says, ‘I’m on the front line of
terrorism’, and the president says, ‘Yes, you are. . . ‘ He (Mr
Sharon) has been nothing but trouble.”

Mr Scowcroft also cast doubt on Mr Sharon’s plan to withdraw from
the Gaza Strip, which last week Dov Weisglass, a leading Israeli
adviser, said was intended to prevent the emergence of a
Palestinian state.

“When I first heard Sharon was getting out of Gaza I was having
dinner with Condi (Rice) and she said: ‘At least that’s good
news.’ And I said: ‘That’s terrible news . . . Sharon will say:
‘I want to get out of Gaza, finish the wall (the Israelis’
security fence) and say I’m done’.”

From revenge to friendship

Qadhafi is canceling Libya’s “day of revenge,” when the country
celebrates its independence from the its former colonial master, Italy,
and replacing it with a “day of friendship.” And he’s also agreed to
allow former Italian pieds-noir who were exiled to href=”http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=570384″>come back:

Giovanna Ortu, born in Libya in 1939 and head of the
association of exiles, said: “For six years we’ve been told it would be
possible, since the Italy-Libya agreement of 1998. In April 1999 Libya
opened up to tourists, but we were specifically barred. I was very much
against Mr Berlusconi’s latest visit to Gaddafi. Successive governments
of left and right have made oil more of a priority than our problems,
and in the process we lost honour.”

The group, the Italian Association for Repatriation to
Libya, still wants Libya to pay €250m (£170m)for expropriated property,
but that is not the principal issue. “None of us wants to go back to
live,” Ms Ortu said. “We no longer cherish hatred and we are ready to
forget. But we want the right to return for holidays. It’s a matter of
honour.”

The $6.6 billion natural gas pipeline that will be going to Italy and
bringing $20 billion over the next 20 years will also help bury those
bad old memories, I’m sure.
Qadhafi
Still, I have a weird feeling that you can never quite know what’s going
to happen next with Qadhafi. After all, he still looks crazy.

While on the subject of the mad bedouin, Abu Aardvark writes of accusations that Libya is supporting remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and reminds us that

Most experts on Libya, both academic and governmental, argued something quite different: Libya took the opportunity to cash in its non-existent nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions and restoration of diplomatic relations, which Qadaffi had been trying to get through negotiations for many years. Qadaffi got what he wanted – the sanctions lifted and normal diplomatic status – and gave up very little.

One day someone will write a history of Qadhafi’s Libya, and I think it will be a most entertaining book.

ICG on two strands of Saudi Islamism

The International Crisis Group has a new report out on “Who are the Islamists?” It makes some important points about making a distinction between the types of Islamist groups operating there, a particularly important thing in a country where everybody, including (or rather especially) the regime claims to be Islamic. There are also some interesting thoughts on the need to nurture a more progressive Islamist strand that has been overshadowed by the Al Qaeda types.

Beneath the all-encompassing Wahhabi influence, Saudi Islamism developed over several decades a wide variety of strains. These included radical preachers, who condemned what they considered the regime’s deviation from the principles of Islam and its submission to the U.S.; social reformers, convinced of the need to modernise educational and religious practices and challenging the puritan strand of Islam that dominates the Kingdom; political reformers, who gave priority to such issues as popular participation, institution-building, constitutionalisation of the monarchy, and elections; and jihadist activists, for the most part formed in Afghanistan and who gradually brought their violent struggle against Western — in particular U.S. — influence to their homeland.

By the late 1990s, the Islamist field was increasingly polarised between two principal strands. Among the so-called new Islamists, political reformers sought to form the broadest possible centrist coalition, cutting across religious and intellectual lines and encompassing progressive Sunni Islamists, liberals, and Shiites. More recently, they have sought to include as well elements of the more conservative but highly popular sahwa, the group of shaykhs, professors and Islamic students that had come to prominence a decade earlier by denouncing the state’s failure to conform to Islamic values, widespread corruption, and subservience to the U.S. Through petitions to Crown Prince Abdallah — the Kingdom’s de facto ruler – they formulated demands for political and social liberalisation. Their surprising ability to coalesce a diverse group prompted the government — which initially had been conciliatory — to signal by the arrests cited above that there were limits to its tolerance.”

ICG reports tend to be well-balanced and insightful. Don’t miss this one if you’re interested in Saudi Arabia, especially because information about that country is scant enough already.