One fine morning
The Arab press forecasts what will make news in 2004. Dina Ezzat reads ahead
The file on the death of the Princess of Wales is to resurface.
Next year -- that's in a few days -- the mysterious circumstances that led to the tragic death of Diana, the "Princess of Hearts", along with her Egyptian boyfriend Dodi El-Fayed in 1997 will be re-examined upon the request of billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed, Dodi's father. That was the story reported by the London-based daily Al-Hayat on Monday. Al-Hayat was one of several Arab dailies that gave prominence to this story and promised intriguing and perhaps fascinating developments as the case recaptures public attention in the early weeks of next year. The Arab press has already started to debate news and rumours on whether Diana was pregnant -- and whether Dodi was the father -- when the couple were killed in a car crash in the French capital.
This said, no matter how much attention the Arab press is likely to dedicate to Diana and Dodi, the couple can never compete for space with the toppled and captured former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, an anti-America, now turned pro-America Arab figure. Indeed, this week the Arab press was overwhelmed with a most unexpected Libyan declaration of possession of an unconventional weapons programme and the intention to stop it. "Mother of all surprises" was how several commentators described Tripoli's decision to reconcile with Washington and London, their biggest enemies.
According to the editorial in the Libyan paper Azzahf Al- Akhdar, Tripoli's previous efforts to develop unconventional weapons "was an attempt to develop [the Libyan] defensive capabilities during the Cold War. This was something that many other countries were doing. Now, [with the end of the Cold War] we made the brave decision to give up these weapons."
The implications of this "brave decision" are bound to take up much space in the Arab press, at least during the early weeks of 2004. Gaddafi is being flooded with requests for interviews. This is likely to be the case for a while longer given the increasing world attention in Libya. It was on Monday that the London-based daily Al-Quds Al- Arabi reported a potential meeting sometime soon that will bring "Gaddafi together with US President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, possibly in Italy".
Other potential news involving Gaddafi included an upcoming meeting with the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El-Baradei who is expected in the Libyan capital early next year to agree on the inspection work that will be conducted by his agency and the details of the inspection protocol that Tripoli will sign on to.
The local consequences of the Libyan decision are potential material for news stories and features of the Arab press during the coming weeks. On Sunday, Al-Hayat's regular commentator Ghassan Charbale argued that by revealing his country's unconventional weapons programme, "a new Gaddafi has said good-bye to the old Gaddafi." The new Gaddafi, Charbale argued, will be attempting to position his son to succeed him.
According to Charbale, the Libyans will now be watching how Gaddafi tries to "open the doors of stability and perpetuation of [the Gaddafis: Seif Al-Islam Gaddafi]". On Monday, another regular commentator of Al-Hayat, Rachid Khashana, argued that the decision will open a new page in Gaddafi's relations with the West.
The consequences of the Libyan decision, however, are far from being confined to the borders of Libya. Stories are already being reported about the implications of the Libyan decision to countries that once cooperated with Tripoli in its now defunct non- conventional weapons programme. Syria, several papers reported, will be next under the West's list. On Tuesday, the Arab press carried a story about an orchestrated British diplomatic attempt, that should also include France and Germany, to "force Syria to give up its secret programme of weapons of mass destruction".
As Satei Noureddin noted in his daily column in the Lebanese daily As-Safir, the Libyan decision is perhaps one of the last signs of the end of the Arab order as we know it since Arab states gained independence from European colonisation, and even as it has evolved in the 1980s with the oil boom in the Arab Gulf states.
The new Arab order, prominent Saudi commentator Abdel-Rahman Al-Rashid argued in Asharq Al-Awsat on Monday, should be based on realism. For Al-Rashid, the Libyan decision was a lesson in realism since Tripoli chose to give up its unconventional weapons programme before the Americans moved to "strip it of all weapons, even kitchen knives".
Another move towards realism in the Arab world that Al-Rashid hailed was the decision of the Sudanese government to settle for a 50-50 share of oil revenues with its southern rebels before it is forced to give up more. Al-Rashid hoped that the Arab world would show more signs of realism in the near future.
The metamorphose of the Arab order is bound to grab the attention of Arab reporters and commentators in 2004. Indeed, in their Arab summit expected in March, Arab leaders would be well advised to agree on new rules to administrate their relations. But this is not likely to take up as much attention as the expected trial of Saddam Hussein and the evolving state of affairs in Iraq. Speculation is already appearing in the Arab press about whether Saddam will be tried in or out of Iraq and whether he will be treated as a prisoner of war.
For some commentators, however, the debate over the future of the ex-Iraqi leader should not get too much attention. In an article in Asharq Al-Awsat on Sunday, Iyad Abu Shaqra argued that Arab public opinion and intelligentsia should move past the post-Saddam saga including the stories of how he was really captured and what his fate will be. The focus now should be on the future of Iraq, Abu Shaqra said. "It does not matter how Saddam was captured. What really matters now is what kind of Iraq will emerge from underneath the [American] occupation."
It is not yet clear what will happen to Iraq. The only sure thing is that the occupiers are still not sure what to do with the country even after they captured Saddam. Neither news of the security nor political situation have been positive judging from reports out of Iraq this week.
Nine months after the occupation of Iraq there are still more questions than answers about its future. One very interesting question that the Arab press is working on is whether Iraq will evolve into a federation of semi- separate states. This week, the president of the Iraqi Interim Governing Council was quoted in the Arab press as saying that he supports a "federal Iraq, but the final decision will be made by the Iraqi people".
Another Arab leader whose fate, the Arab press predicted, is likely to be settled in 2004 is Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. On Monday, several Arab papers gave prominent coverage to leaked statements by US President George Bush who according to some Israeli papers indicated to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that the time had come to get rid of Arafat. On Tuesday, the same papers gave coverage to public statements made by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin who responded to the Israeli reports by reiterating that Arafat is the legitimate and elected leader of the Palestinian people.
It is not only Arab leaders whose ultimate fate might be decided in 2004. The future of Arab organisations is in doubt. The Arab League is not likely to disappear in 2004 but whether Secretary-General Amr Moussa will keep his job is debatable. The Arab press this week, particularly in Kuwait, reported an end -- of sorts -- to Moussa's dispute with Kuwait over his opposition to the war and occupation of Iraq.
However, there were also reports of continued friction with the United Arab Emirates over Moussa's stance on the war on Iraq and his support for closer Arab ties with Tehran which must still settle a dispute with Abu Dhabi over three contested islands. "Moussa managed to contain his differences with Kuwait but not with the United Arab Emirates," the daily Kuwaiti Al-Watan reported Tuesday morning.
What is really at stake seems to be the future of the Maghreb Union (MU) the five-state sub-regional grouping that brings together Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania. The MU has for years been hijacked by a dispute between Algiers and Rabat over Algerian support for Polisario separatists. This week, the Arab press, particularly in the Maghreb states, offered detailed coverage of the failure of the leaders of the MU to convene in the Algerian capital for a long delayed summit.
On Tuesday morning, the Algerian daily Al-Chaab ran an editorial criticising the failure of the Maghreb leaders to live up to the expectations of their people who have been seeking unity for years. The union of Maghreb states, the front page editorial read, "is a long awaited dream of the generations that lived through the years of revolution and liberation and it will still be the dream of the next generation".
Equally brought to scrutiny by the Arab press this week was the future of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the six-state sub-regional grouping that includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Unlike the MU, the GCC held their summit on time. However, like the MU, the GCC leaders failed to settle their disputes.
One thing that the Arab press will be looking for during the next year in all Arab countries is the level of human development. This week, the Arab press gave subdued coverage to a report by the Arab Council for Childhood and Development. The report carried shocking facts and figures: one said 48.8 per cent of Arab citizens over the age of 15 are illiterate. Yet the findings, issued on Sunday, hardly made it on the front page of any Arab paper.
For Ahmed Al-Robei, the daily commentator of Asharq Al-Awsat the report was extremely disturbing both by the image it reflected and the lack of attention it received from the Arab media. "Had it been produced elsewhere, it would have made headlines... When will this [Arab] nation wake up and show resolve to invest in development, education and healthcare?... It will be one fine morning... But when?"
