Part.2: What does it mean to be an Arab leftist today?

By Maher Sharif (with introduction and translation by Neil Ketchley)

We do not yet know into what shape events in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere will sediment. We know these events do not yet constitute revolutions. We have not seen the kind of radical change in how power is organised to justify that label. As such, they remain, as described in the Arabic-language press, popular uprisings or intifadas. What is increasingly apparent is that these uprisings have developed largely outside of the existing oppositional hierarchies. Islamists especially have been noticeable by their absence (although are assumed to be waiting on the sidelines). Mobilisations appear increasingly spontaneous and are framed around demands for popular participation in the political process, an end to monarchical-like presidencies, more jobs, lowering the cost of essential goods, and an end to corruption. In Egypt today we heard the call by organised labour to unite in a general strike.

Whilst the political present looks increasingly contested, it seems especially salient to listen to the voices in the Arabic-speaking world and the alternatives they offer. With this in mind, Maher Charif concludes his two-part piece by asking, What does it mean to be an Arab leftist today? Originally published as an op-ed in the Syrian communist weekly, Al-Nur, and re-written for LSE IDEAS, Charif outlines his analysis of the Arab Left, its shortcomings and how it might be rejuvenated.

Read Part.1, here: http://lse-ideas.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-does-it-mean-to-be-arab-leftist.html

“Deepening multi-dimensional democracy

The most important task for the Arab Left is its struggle for democracy; one based on the separation of powers, free and regular elections, public freedoms, individualism, and the peaceful circulation of power. But the Left is not content solely with these dimensions of democratisation. The Arab Left struggles for a deeper kind of democracy, one composed of social and economic dimensions, too. Political democracy remains incomplete if not linked to social progress. At the same time, any social gains which are not linked to the attainment of political democracy will be lost over time; as many of the experiments in several Arab countries have testified.

The problem of nationalism

The Arab Left is struggling with two elements: first, the national element which comes from the necessary struggle against imperialism and Zionism; and a second, democratic element. The struggle against imperialism and Zionism will not succeed if it does not relate organically with the struggle for democratic change and the guarantee of popular participation. Simultaneously, it is the internal weaknesses of Arab societies that helps facilitate the foreign intervention in Arab affairs. A free and sovereign homeland requires a free citizen, one who feels he is the master of his own country.

The national struggle is not limited to a just solution of the Palestinian issue, the liberation of occupied Arab lands, and the realisation of a permanent regional peace. It also includes the elimination of the foreign military presence in the Arab countries, the popular control of the natural Arab wealth, and for the basis of a democratic union between Arab states.

The attitude towards the religious problem

Historically, Arab Leftists, and among them communists, have expressed a respect for religious beliefs. Nevertheless, in the present circumstances, distinguished by the instrumentalisation of religion in politics and the mixing of the sacred and the profane, compels us to confront and understand religion as a social phenomenon that confirms the need for a secular, modern state.

In reality, the Left, and in particular the Marxist Left, when addressing religion, have tended to perpetuate a false interpretation based on selective quotations from Marx, taken out of their historical context. If one goes back to the Marxist heritage, one finds that Marx himself sensed the contradictory character of the religious phenomenon, and its tendency to confer legitimacy on systems of exploitation, whilst also having a proven revolutionary potential in confronting those same systems of exploitation. See, for example, Rosa Luxemburg, who employed the social liberatory traditions of Christianity in the labour movement struggle. She considered, pace the conservative clerics, socialists more faithful to the original principles of Christianity. Ditto the work of Antonia Gramsci, who grasped the role of religion in the production of hegemonic discourses and the shaping of popular audiences.

Marxism: in the scientific and philosophic domain, critical and liberatory.

Marxism continues to retain its vivacity and remains a reference for the Left. Not as a dry doctrine, but as a philosophical and scientific domain; that is, as both critical and liberatory. Karl Marx opened a field that after more than a century and half of contributions has revealed the mechanisms of capitalist exploitation, whilst outlining the basis for a new society. And this field remains open to new contributions, reflecting both the continuous development of human existence and the new phenomena that the world continues to witness. With the acceleration of globalisation, we have seen new forms of domination, i.e. financial dependence spread via debt, profound transformations in the structure of the working classes with the entrance of science as a direct power in production, and new forms of information technology. And yet, the Marxist field is not limited to the study of just these phenomena. It has to reach and approach the methodology of dialectical materialism itself. Marx’s methodology, developed through his study of the capitalist social formation and its contradictions, assumes that his methodology was not separate from his theory. I argue a contrarian position that states that any scientific methodology is not immune from broader historical developments and the introduction of new sources of knowledge itself, thus making it approximate and partial.

The activation of political work

To be a Leftist today is to defend the political sphere and make people care about politics. The party remains the principle frame through which the Arab Left can stimulate political activity in today’s societies. However, it will not succeed without greater participation from the young and the enhancing of democratic mechanisms within the parties themselves. Further, Arab Left parties must expand into the rural areas and not remain centralised in the cities, whilst at the same time, increasing the participation of women and end the male monopolisation of political space. Finally, we must rebuild the links between the intelligentsia, who are historically the carriers of political work in Arab society.”

A Palestinian historian and public intellectual, Maher Charif received his PhD in literature and humanities from the Sorbonne University, Paris. He has published widely in Arabic and is currently Lecturer and Researcher in Contemporary Arab Studies at the L’Institut Français du Proche-Orient in Damascus, Syria. He was previously a Visiting Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Birzeit University in Ramallah, Palestine. He can be contacted at m.charif@ifporient.org.

Neil Ketchley is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Government. For 2010/2011, he is a Leverhulme Scholar at the L’Institut Français du Proche-Orient in Damascus, Syria.

Shifting Sands is the blog of the Middle East International Affairs Programme at LSE IDEAS, analysing current events in the Middle East and contributing to the ongoing deliberations over policy prescriptions.

Silvia L. Peneva, Editor

Bridging the Gap to a Two-State Solution

By Robert Mason

Gaza has remained under three layers of import control since 2007. Firstly, under banned items classified as ‘dual use’ by the international Wassenaar Arrangement. Secondly, under Israel’s own list for the West Bank and thirdly, under Israel’s list for Gaza which includes compliance with Israeli standards (industrial, environmental, medical and telecommunications). The result is that very few goods (restricted types of goods and minimal volumes) have been allowed into Gaza from Israel which has resulted in a ‘tunnel economy’, whereby Hamas earns its core funding from taxing smuggled goods between Egypt and Gaza. The Israeli government’s banned list was revised from a positive list to a negative list after the 5^th May 2010 Flotilla incident, but still precludes cement and reinforced steel pipes from entering Gaza because they can be used to build bunkers and make rocket launchers respectively. Only international agencies such as the United Nations or the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) can bring in steel and cement to build public projects. Furthermore, only 7% of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s (NRWA) reconstruction projects in Gaza have been approved by Israel (see Dashed Hopes: Continuation of the Gaza Blockade, published by 26 aid agencies http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/VVOS-8BNM9Q/$File/full_report.pdf). In a recent interview with the author Dr Tim Williams, at the Office of the Quartet Representative, he also stated that the Flotilla incident had simultaneously led to both bureaucratic and implementation-related (infrastructure and crossings) problems which Minsters are still trying to resolve. Short term permits are certainly not enhancing the territorial integrity and ease of movement that was envisaged originally in the 1991 Oslo Accords.

There may be few perceived alternatives to the blockade against Gaza; certainly there is a debate about whether increasing Palestinian National Authority (PNA) aid may help ease tensions between Gaza and the West Bank and Gaza and Israel. The dilemma that the PNA faces is whether to continue to fund extra social services in Gaza to illustrate that there are tangible benefits of supporting the PNA over Hamas, or whether severing links and isolating Hamas would work. This is unlikely since isolating Hamas could hand them another electoral victory by default, and certainly allow it to consolidate power and support within Gaza. Gaza costs Hamas US$45 million each month (staff and social services costs), therefore closing the tunnel economy would put pressure on Hamas, but its humanitarian effects could be severe.

A more effective option would be the resuscitation of the Access and Movement Agreement (AMA) which included provision for a territorial link between Gaza and the West Bank, a port in Gaza, an Israeli undertaking not to close the Palestinian airport, an opening of the Rafah crossing, and allowing goods in and out of Gaza. It’s only current application is the control regime at the Rafah crossing operated by the European Union Border Assistance Mission in Rafah (EUBAM). By supporting the Quartet and the PNA in implementing some more of its provisions, in particular the territorial link, Israel will be able to achieve full disengagement with security. The territorial link is important to the PNA for two reasons. It would provide the contiguity that a Palestinian state would require in order to achieve full sovereignty. Secondly, it would link the political and economic hub of the Palestinian state, around Al Quds and Bethlehem with ports and industrial areas in Gaza. The envisaged sliver of land for a road and/or train link may only be 10m wide, but is unlikely to precede a final political agreement. For the third of the population of Gazans that still lives in deep poverty and the many companies that cannot export or import efficiently, this kind of development cannot come fast enough.

Robert Mason is a PhD Candidate at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter.
http://www.eprofile.ex.ac.uk/robertmason


Shifting Sands is the blog of the Middle East International Affairs Programme at LSE IDEAS, analysing current events in the Middle East and contributing to the ongoing deliberations over policy prescriptions.

Silvia L. Peneva, Editor

Poor Obama!

By Bryan R. Gibson

I feel quite sorry for the hand that the Obama administration has been dealt in its first term. After all, he came to office during the worst economic crisis the world has seen since the 1930s, the American economy was virtually bankrupt, America is completely divided politically, and he faces Republican obstructionism. And these are but a sampling of his domestic problems. In the international realm, Obama has tackled a number of issues, but nothing as chaotic and potentially dangerous as the present crises in the Arab world. The crisis that Obama now faces is perhaps the most challenging foreign policy crisis since the Islamic revolution of 1979. A tectonic shift could be taking place in the region with pro-American autocrats being replaced by popular, though potentially radical, governments.Tunisia led the way; Egypt is attempting to follow; Jordan is facing protests, of great concern, now Yemen is also revolting. The latter of these is clearly the most dangerous of them all with the presence of al-Qaida, but that is not my focus here. Moving on, the crisis that President Obama faces is a foreign policy nightmare unlike anything since the Iranian revolution. And just as Jimmy Carter was in 1979, Barack Obama is now in the unenviable position of having to choose between maintaining support for its regional allies or abandon them in the face of popular, grass-root, largely democratic uprisings.

The difficulty for Obama is that the sword cuts both ways. On the one hand, if he chooses to openly support the regimes, America’s influence on the Arab street will plummet and the term “Great Satan” will truly take on a much more encompassing meaning. Indeed, choosing this option is problematic on a number of levels. Most obviously, the United States, which champions itself as the bastion of freedom, will be openly siding with repression, authoritarianism, and dictatorship. These are not quite the qualities that the United States embodies. Secondly, it will undermine all of America's efforts to demonize Iran for cracking down harshly in the aftermath of the June 2009 elections. After all, it would be very hypocritical to condemn the Iranian government and side with the opposition Green movement, while not doing the same with the protests in Egypt. The question really boils down to how much the administration needs the Mubarak regime to protect US interests in the region.

On the other hand, if the Obama administration comes out and supports (even tacitly) the protesters in Egypt, as it belatedly did in Tunisia, it will be sending a clear message to its most steadfast regional allies, namely Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Gulf States, that the United States will not prop up a collapsing pillar. This was exactly what happened in 1979 when the Carter administration backed the Shah to the very end. Meanwhile, they did not open contacts with members of the opposition, which meant that the United States would have absolutely no ability to influence a post-Shah Iran. The United States should not make this fatal error again.

The crux of the problem facing the Obama administration is the unpredictability of post-revolutionary situations. Power struggles are nearly impossible to predict. If you back the wrong candidate, you lose. But who is the right candidate? Certainly in Egypt's case Mohamed El-Baradei himself as a viable, moderate, liberal, and internationally influential candidate to replace Mubarak. But while El-Baradei may be well known internationally, critics of him point out that he is not particularly well known by the rank-and-file protesters, which may pose problems for backing him as a replacement for Mubarak. Nevertheless, the fact remains that as long as Mubarak clings to power, the Obama administration has no choice but to walk a fine line between supporting its ally and throwing in its lot with the opposition.

In the end, the situation on the ground will dictate itself with or without American influence. But whatever tact the Obama administration chooses to take, he runs the risk of deepening the crisis. If he backs the regime, he associates the United States with repression and autocracy. But if he backs the Egyptian people, he sends a clear message to the leaders of the Arab world that America will only prop them to a point. In the end, the line towed by Obama on January 28 when he directly addressed the crisis in Egypt reflects the views conveyed above. In his speech, Obama called “upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protestors,” while cautioning protestors to express their grievances peacefully. “The United States has a close partnership with Egypt and we've cooperated on many issues, including working together to advance a more peaceful region. But we've also been clear that there must be reform – political, social, and economic reforms that meet the aspirations of the Egyptian people.” It is quite clear that Obama recognizes the difficulty of his situation and has decided to take a conciliatory approach to the crisis. In the meantime, Obama’s best bet is to continue his moderate line, urging the Mubarak regime to reform, while conveying tacit support to the people of Egypt, but not openly coming out against the regime. Most importantly, Obama absolutely needs to prepare for the worst (i.e. building contacts quietly with opposition groups), while hoping for the best.

Bryan R. Gibson is a PhD candidate in International History at the London School of Economics and author of Covert Relationship: American Foreign Policy, Intelligence and the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988 (Praeger, 2010).

Shifting Sands is the blog of the Middle East International Affairs Programme at LSE IDEAS, analysing current events in the Middle East and contributing to the ongoing deliberations over policy prescriptions.

Silvia L. Peneva, Editor