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Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 March 2000 Issue No. 472 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 March 2000 Issue No. 472
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Books Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Imaging tomorrow (3):
Globalisation and specificity
By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
Last week, I was invited by France's Institut du Monde Arabe to deliver a lecture, which followed a round table discussion, on the theme, 'globalisation and specificity'. Obviously, the idea was to talk of globalisation in relation to the specificity of the Middle East in particular, not as a general phenomenon.
The impact of globalisation on a region with which France has historically had, and continues to have, complex relations, is a matter of concern for Paris. Indeed, so important is the Arab world for France that it has set up a special institution, the Institut du Monde Arabe, to deal with the various aspects of France's eventful relations through the ages with its neighbours on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. As the theme for the latest round of discussions suggests, France is concerned at the apparent resistance in the Arab world to the process of globalisation. Though the process is acquiring greater momentum at the global level, it is not making much headway in the Arab world, where features specific to the region are impeding its progress. The most notable of these features is, of course, the Arab-Israeli dispute, which continues to stand as a major stumbling block in the way of progress towards globalisation -- but only where the Arabs are concerned. The same does not apply in the case of the other party to the dispute, Israel, which is successfully investing globalisation to its advantage, while the Arab countries remain on the sidelines.
The explanation for this apparent anomaly lies in the specific nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which is not a traditional conflict between neighbouring countries over the borders separating them but a more fundamental dispute over the very legitimacy of the Jewish state. True, the Jews of Europe were victims of persecution throughout much of their history, from the pogroms in eastern Europe to the Holocaust under Hitler, but the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular have every reason to question why they should be made to pay for crimes committed by Europeans against Jews. The contradiction between Zionism and pan-Arabism is thus between two mutually exclusive ideologies, neither one of which is willing to recognise the claims of the other for fear of divesting its own claims of their absolutist character.
In the Arab collective memory, this specific feature of the conflict has a historical precedent, and, indeed, seems to be a repeat performance of their experience with the Crusades in the Middle Ages. Although at the time it was the Christians, not the Jews, who invaded the Arab world to acquire control of Jerusalem, both times the incursions brought about a collision between the Islamic world and the West. In the case of the Crusades, the confrontation only came to an end with the restoration by the Arabs of all their lands. The comparison between the Christian and Jewish incursions into the Arab world seemed to suggest that the Arab-Israeli conflict could only end with the complete victory of one side and the complete defeat of the other.
This absolutist view at the regional level found its echo in the confrontational dynamics that characterised the bipolar world order, making for a correspondence between two conflicts that differed in substance but displayed similarities when it came to structure. At the summit of the international community, there was the confrontation between capitalism and communism; between the United States and the Soviet Union. At the regional level in the Middle East, there was the confrontation between Zionism and pan-Arabism; between Israel and the Arabs. Both conflicts proceeded from the assumption that they constituted a zero-sum game, with no way out but the total victory of one party and the total defeat of the other.
But things changed dramatically with the implosion of the Soviet Union, which brought an end to the pattern of confrontation that had prevailed throughout the Cold War and replaced the bipolar by a unipolar world order, now identified with the process of globalisation at the international level. However, the easing of tensions at the global level was not met with a similar process in the Middle East, where the Arab-Israeli conflict remains unresolved, thus endowing the region with a specificity of its own.
The disappearance of bipolarity at the summit of the global community and its persistence at the regional level struck a discordant note that could not be allowed to threaten the new world order. This put tremendous pressure on the regional conflict, which found itself pulled in two directions simultaneously: along a time coordinate informed by the weight of history in shaping the pattern of confrontation in the Middle East as a zero-sum game from which protagonists could only emerge as absolute winners or absolute losers; and along a space coordinate informed by the shrinking of the planet in the context of globalisation. Opting to play by the rules of globalisation necessarily limits the weight of history in determining the features of the confrontation.
One of the main mechanisms driving the globalisation process is the information revolution, where enormous advances in information technology (radio, television, computer, fax/modem, satellite, etc.) have managed to reduce distances in time and space by allowing any inhabitant of the planet to be instantly connected to any other inhabitant, regardless of distance. Paradoxically, however, the shrinking of the planet has, by highlighting contrasts between individuals, had the unexpected effect of distancing them from one another.
When the Arab-Israeli conflict was subject to the exclusive pull of the time, i.e. historical, dimension, confrontation had priority over settlement. This was all the more true under the bipolar world order, where each local party could count on the superpower by which it was backed to ensure that it could not be definitively defeated. But things changed with the disappearance of one of the two superpowers. Globalisation brought about developments that can no longer be dismissed. If there existed an incompatibility between the worldwide drive towards globalisation on the one hand and the intractability of conflict in the Middle East on the other, the peace process was there to overcome that incompatibility, using the pressure that the 'shrinking of the planet' effect under globalisation provides, whatever the difficulties residing in the very nature of the conflict.
Then there is President Clinton's personal stake in the success of the Middle East peace process, for reasons having little to do with the interests of the region itself. The outgoing president needs to succeed on this front to compensate for his failures and, more importantly, for his scandals, in other contexts. This intervention by an external factor, the personal game of the US sponsor of the peace process, is bound to complicate the process by introducing new elements of uncertainty. In the months remaining before Clinton's term comes to an end next January, the peace process is likely to witness ups and downs, both unexpected progress and unpredictable failures, with nobody in a position to forecast what the ultimate result will be. All parties will be banking on Clinton's personal interest in concluding a deal before his departure from the White House. Not all parties can be winners simultaneously.
These are not the only imponderables in the months, and years, to come. There is the problem of the growing shortage of potable water throughout the Middle East, a problem that could well lead to military confrontations conducted along very different alliances from those which have characterised regional confrontations over land to date. Then there is the problem of weapons of mass destruction, a problem that will only become more complicated with Israel's brazen refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Now that the secrets of nuclear technology are no longer the monopoly of a limited number of developed countries, many countries can be expected to enter new arms races, whatever the strategies of the great powers in this regard. This has already begun in the Indian subcontinent and is bound to proliferate.
All this is expected to happen at a time power in the Middle East is passing over to a new generation of leaders, if only because of the irrevocable laws of aging. This is likely to bring about a fundamental change in the dynamics of inter-Arab conflict, which has hitherto been played out on the basic premise that the key inter-Arab contradiction is between the so-called progressive Arab military regimes and the all-out conservative (oil-rich) regimes. The contradiction now likely to occupy centre stage is between the upcoming generation of leaders, whether conservative or of military origin, on the one hand, and the outgoing generation of Arab leaders taken as a whole on the other. This new element is sure to endow Middle East specificity with new traits still in the making and difficult to foresee with any degree of accuracy.
