Fuel to the flame
The destiny of this pageant lies in the
kingdom of oil
BY ROBERT FISK
The Middle East earthquake of the past five weeks has been the
most tumultuous, shattering, mind-numbing experience in the
history of the region since the fall of the Ottoman empire. For once,
“shock and awe” was the right description. The docile, supine,
unregenerative, cringing Arabs of orientalism have transformed
themselves into fighters for the freedom, liberty and dignity which we
westerners have always assumed it was our unique role to play in the
world. One after another, our satraps are falling and the people we
paid them to control are making their own history – our right to
meddle in their affairs (which we will, of course, continue to
exercise) has been diminished for ever.
The tectonic plates
continue to shift with tragic, brave – even blackly humorous –
results. Countless are the Arab potentates who always claimed they
wanted democracy in the Middle East. King Bashar of Syria is to
improve public servants’ pay. King Bouteflika of Algeria has suddenly
abandoned the country’s state of emergency. King Hamad of Bahrain has
opened the doors of his prisons. King Bashir of Sudan will not stand
for president again. King Abdullah of Jordan is studying the idea of a
constitutional monarchy. And al-Qaeda are, well, rather silent.
Who would have believed that the old man in the cave would
suddenly have to step outside, dazzled, blinded by the sunlight of
freedom rather than the Manichaean darkness to which his eyes had
become accustomed. Martyrs there were aplenty across the Muslim world
– but not an Islamist banner to be seen. The young men and women
bringing an end to their torment of dictators were mostly Muslims but
the human spirit was greater than the desire for death. They are
Believers, yes – but they got there first, toppling Mubarak while bin
Laden’s henchmen still called for his overthrow on outdated
videotapes.
But now a warning. It’s not over. We are
experiencing today that warm, slightly clammy feeling before the
thunder and lightning break out. Gaddafi’s final horror movie has yet
to end albeit with that terrible mix of farce and blood to which we
are accustomed in the Middle East. And his impending doom is, needless
to say, throwing into ever sharper perspective the vile fawning of our
own potentates. Berlusconi – who in many respects is already a ghastly
mockery of Gaddafi himself – and Sarkozy and Lord Blair of Isfahan are
turning out to look even shabbier than we believed. Those faith-based
eyes blessed Gaddafi the murderer. I did write at the time that Blair
and Straw had forgotten the “whoops” factor, the reality that this
weird light bulb was absolutely bonkers and would undoubtedly perform
some other terrible act to shame our masters. And sure enough, every
journalist is now going to have to add “Mr Blair’s office did not
return our call” to his laptop keyboard.
Everyone is now
telling Egypt to follow the “Turkish model” – this seems to involve a
pleasant cocktail of democracy and carefully controlled Islam. But if
this is true, Egypt’s army will keep an unwanted, undemocratic eye on
its people for decades to come. As lawyer Ali Ezzatyar has pointed
out: “Egypt’s military leaders have spoken of threats to the ‘Egyptian
way of life’… in a not so subtle reference to threats from the Muslim
Brotherhood. This can be seen as a page taken from the Turkish
playbook.” The Turkish army turned up as kingmakers four times in
modern Turkish history. And who but the Egyptian army, makers of
Nasser, constructors of Sadat, got rid of the ex-army general Mubarak
when the game was up?
And democracy – the real, unfettered,
flawed but brilliant version which we in the West have so far lovingly
(and rightly) cultivated for ourselves – is not going, in the Arab
world, to rest happy with Israel’s pernicious treatment of
Palestinians and its land theft in the West Bank. Now no longer the
“only democracy in the Middle East”, Israel argued desperately – in
company with Saudi Arabia, for heaven’s sake – that it was necessary
to maintain Mubarak’s tyranny. It pressed the Muslim Brotherhood
button in Washington and built up the usual Israeli lobby fear
quotient to push Obama and La Clinton off the rails yet again. Faced
with pro-democracy protesters in the lands of oppression, they duly
went on backing the oppressors until it was too late. I love “orderly
transition”. The “order” bit says it all. Only Israeli journalist
Gideon Levy got it right. “We should be saying ‘Mabrouk Misr!’,” he
said. Congratulations, Egypt!
Yet in Bahrain, I had a
depressing experience. King Hamad and Crown Prince Salman have been
bowing to their 70 per cent (80 per cent?) Shia population, opening
prison doors, promising constitutional reforms. So I asked a
government official in Manama if this was really possible. Why not
have an elected prime minister instead of a member of the Khalifa
royal family? He clucked his tongue. “Impossible,” he said. “The GCC
would never permit this.” For GCC – the Gulf Cooperation Council –
read Saudi Arabia. And here, I am afraid, our tale grows darker.
We pay too little attention to this autocratic band of robber
princes; we think they are archaic, illiterate in modern politics,
wealthy (yes, “beyond the dreams of Croesus”, etc) and we laughed when
King Abdullah offered to make up any fall in bailouts from Washington
to the Mubarak regime and we laugh now when the old king promises
$36bn to his citizens to keep their mouths shut. But this is no
laughing matter. The Arab revolt which finally threw the Ottomans out
of the Arab world started in the deserts of Arabia, its tribesmen
trusting Lawrence and McMahon and the rest of our gang. And from
Arabia came Wahhabism, the deep and inebriating potion – white foam on
the top of the black stuff – whose ghastly simplicity appealed to
every would-be Islamist and suicide bomber in the Sunni Muslim world.
The Saudis fostered Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Let
us not even mention that they provided most of the 9/11 bombers. And
the Saudis will now believe they are the only Muslims still in arms
against the brightening world. I have an unhappy suspicion that the
destiny of this pageant of Middle East history unfolding before us
will be decided in the kingdom of oil, holy places and corruption.
Watch out.
But a lighter note. I’ve been hunting for the most
memorable quotations from the Arab revolution. We’ve had “Come back,
Mr President, we were only kidding” from an anti-Mubarak demonstrator.
And we’ve had Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi’s Goebbels-style speech:
“Forget oil, forget gas – there will be civil war.” My very own
favourite, selfish and personal quotation came when my old friend Tom
Friedman of The New York Times joined me for breakfast in Cairo with
his usual disarming smile. “Fisky,” he said, “this Egyptian came up to
me in Tahrir Square yesterday and asked me if I was Robert Fisk!” Now
that’s what I call a revolution.
(Robert Fisk, an English
journalist and author, is the Middle East correspondent of the UK
newspaper, The Independent. This article was published in The
Independent on February 26, 2011.)
Courtesy: The Independent;
www.independent.co.uk
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