According to Qaddafi, democracy comes from the Arabian words for ‘to keep’ and ‘chair’, so democracy would be an Arabic invention for leaders who will keep their chairs, forever. This story was told by the ambassador of Iraq on a popular Clio lecture last week, organized by the Clio Forum Committee. A week before, on Monday 21 February, the ambassador of Israel gave a lecture on stability in the Middle East. Measured to the number of people who came to visit the lectures, both were a huge success.

TEXT: LISANNE VAN UNEN
IMAGE: STIJN HEMEL

Israeli perspectives on the Middle Eastern jungle
The ambassador of Israel, Mr. Harry Kney-Tal, spoke extensively about the history and causes of the uprisings in the Middle East, especially about Egypt. One difficulty in the Middle East is the fact that people used to feel part of one Arab ummah, not of their specific country. Nowadays, there is a tension between the feelings of belonging to the ummah and national sentiments. But there is another challenge in Middle Eastern countries: a demographical one. Over half of the population in these countries is under the age of 25. There are not enough jobs for this young generation, resulting in graduates earning minimum wages. This generation bears an explosive frustration, which a fear barrier can contain only until a certain point. You cannot predict this point, but it has been reached now, which is clearly visible in the news coverage these days.

Being trained as a Soviet expert, even he and his colleagues could not predict the fall of the Soviet Union. The same wisdom applies to the Middle East: no one can tell for sure what will happen there. Although the ambassador hopes democracy will spread, even democracy can be a threat when there is no stability. At the moment, the transition in Egypt looks more like a coup d’état by the military. It is therefore not certain that the transition in Egypt will result in democracy, or just another dictatorship. The more, democracy is not simply reached by elections. Education in democratic values is equally necessary. Finally, countries like Libya may disintegrate at any time. The future will stay uncertain, according to the ambassador.

The Western reaction to the unrest in the Middle East remains ambiguous, according to the ambassador. The United States is usually zigzagging in international politics between stability and values, and therefore the US often changed their minds about which regimes to support. This creates the view in some states, like Saudi Arabia, that the United States are not a stable ally.

While the larger part of the evening had concentrated on the affairs of Israel’s neighbors, a final question brought up the domestic issue of the Israeli settlement policy. This made the atmosphere somewhat more critical and it seemed like people differed about whether the question was necessary or inappropriate. The ambassador answered there has never been an independent state of Palestine, and that the Palestinians are not that easy and stable in negotiations themselves. A new agreement is not yet approved by Abbas. In the ambassador’s words: ‘the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.’

The uprisings in the Middle East will have a great impact. The causes for the uprisings though, are long term problems that will remain difficult to understand and especially difficult to solve. The situation is very complicated, even for an ambassador like Mr. Kney-Tal.  As he put it: ‘the Middle East is like a jungle.’


Moving beyond the security issue in Iraq
On Monday 28 February, the ambassador of Iraq, Mr. Sa'ad Ibrahim Al-Ali, gave a lecture. Again, the room was quite crowded, maybe encouraged by the success of the last lecture. The ambassador started by explaining some facts about the Republic of Iraq. Contrary to popular opinion, Iraq is moving beyond the security problem alone. Other issues will grow in importance, for example agricultural problems with the water supply, for which Iraq has to compete with Turkey and Syria. Other challenges are the population growth, medical care, education and the sectarian divide in Iraq. This last problem led to a government with far too many ministers, because all political parties had to be satisfied. Some ministers do not even have a portfolio!

He also addressed the same problem as the ambassador of Israel did: the large number of young people in Iraq. For this young generation, there are not enough jobs, neither are there enough universities to educate them. To provide them, Iraq needs more foreign investments. He said: ‘everybody thinks we have a lot of money. Yes we do’. The problem is that only 25% of the annual budget of Iraq is usually available for investments, the rest is the operational budget. Although Iraq is still facing a lot of problems after the democratization process, the ambassador thinks everything is going much better. For most issues, there is just more time needed for them to be solved.

 In the question round, the debate unsurprisingly focused on the protests in the Middle East. The ambassador thinks democracy is suitable for everyone: it is in the nature of all people. Dictators are the ones who portray democracy as not suitable, saying that Iraqi democracy represented chaos. The protests in the Middle East however make clear that people in other countries want to be democratic like Iraq. This, however, does not however mean that the unrest disappears when democracy is installed: even in Iraq citizens are protesting now. According to the ambassador, people always need what they are missing, so in Iraq people demonstrate for other things like food and jobs.

In some way, this night Iraq was considered for a moment as an example for its neighbors. Illustratively, Iraq will host the Arab League summit soon. The ambassador thinks all countries will come to the summit, stating: ‘At the moment the safest country in the Middle East is Iraq.’ He also believes that the League can do a lot for democratic reforms, but that the League should have done so earlier. Then the protests in the Middle East may not even have been necessary.

The ambassador was really enthusiastic about his country and the democracy there. At the question what kept Iraq together, regarding all different sects, he answered: ‘What’s not keeping Iraq together?’ Terrorism and violence are political problems in his view, not problems between people. Almost every citizen who fled Iraq wants to return, he said. ‘Because they love Iraq so much.’