Category Archives: Development

Democracy … the West … and Islam: Part One

"Arab Spring", Development, Islam: Introduction, Islamic History, Qur'an, Yemen


Yemeni man voting; photo by Hani Mohammed/AP

By Samira Ali BinDaair, Sanaa, Republic of Yemen

This essay is an attempt at shedding some light on the relationship between democracy, Islam and the Western world and in the process dispelling some of the misconceptions about the chasm between Islam and democracy. It is nowhere easy for the entire society to have unanimity on any given issue let alone such a complex one as what constitutes good governance and the best political system to be adopted. The Arab world has tried it all but I would like to point out that any system when transplanted and adopted without the necessary conditions for its success is bound to fail, leading to the condemnation of the system rather than analysis of the causes of failure in implementation.
Democracy as a pure concept

I would like to start with the concept of democracy which some Muslims have rejected on the basis of its emanating from the West within secular governments and secular ideas. However, if one examines the concept in its pure form it simply means rule of the people by the people for the people. To demystify it further, what it simply boils down to is that people have a voice in national affairs and choice of their leader and by virtue of the same fact are able to remove the leader through general consensus and legal means if the leader proves to be incapable of living up to the responsibilities entrusted to him/her. Continue reading Democracy … the West … and Islam: Part One →

IRIN on Iraq

Development, Gender and Sexuality, Iraq, Iraq War

[Webshaykh’s Note: There is an excellent report on the progress in humanitarian aid to Iraq over the past decade on the website of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Click here to access the full report and updates.]

BAGHDAD/DUBAI, 22 April 2013 (IRIN) – Ten years after US forces took over Iraq, opinions on the progress made are as polarized as ever.

On one side, the Iraqi and American governments argue, the gains have been significant.

“Despite all the problems of the past decade, the overwhelming majority of Iraqis agree that we are better off today than under Saddam’s brutal dictatorship,” Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki wrote in a 9 April opinion piece in the Washington Post, marking 10 years after the fall of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Paul Wolfowitz, who served as the US Deputy Secretary of Defence between 2001 and 2005, wrote the same day in Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that given the hardships under Hussein, “it is remarkable that Iraq has done as well as it has thus far.”

Others are more circumspect in evaluating these gains, looking to the 1980s – under Hussein’s rule – as a time when Iraqi society was much further ahead.

“By all measures and standards, there has been a deterioration in the quality of life of Iraqis as compared to 25 years ago,” said Khalid Khalid, who tracks Iraq’s progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the UN Development Programme (UNDP). “The invasion comes on top of sanctions that came before it and the Iran-Iraq war. It’s one continuous chain of events that led to the situation Iraqis are facing now.” Continue reading IRIN on Iraq →

Is Informationalization Good for the Middle East?

Anthropology/Sociology, CyberOrient, Development

By Jon W. Anderson, Arab Media & Society, Summer, 2013

Nearly all studies and most opinion about new media and information technologies in the Middle East have held that they are a boon in an environment of information-averse regimes, state-controlled media, and limited communications. New media, in this reckoning, open communications to new voices, foster an expanded public sphere,[1] break the molds of old patterns not only of communication but also of thought,[2] or modify media ecologies[3]—all of which erode state monopolies and shift balances from state-cultivated models of citizenship to citizens’ taking charge.[4] Skeptical voices have been few, redundantly focused on multiple means of censorship to offset the benefits of new media, or cautioning against jumping to conclusions about new media impacts.[5] Early pessimistic assessments of the prospects for informational freedom in the digital age have been largely assimilated, such as Kalathil and Boas’ demonstration that the malleability of the Internet is also available to authoritarian states,[6] while more recent, more global, and more famous critiques have yet to influence research priorities in the Middle East.[7] None of these has strayed far from global views of epochal, structural transformation in open networks beyond noting lingering Middle East exceptions, especially lagging numbers of participants by comparison to other regions and to the rest of the world. Regionally as well as globally, open communications, network flows, and other notions of informationalization generally seem to be embraced as an unalloyed good by most analysts, if not by all actors. Continue reading Is Informationalization Good for the Middle East? →

The Yemen Spring nipped in the bud? Where do we go from here?

"Arab Spring", Ali Abdullah Salih, Development, Yemen


Yemen’s future; photograph by Rayman al-Hamdani

By Samira Ali BinDaair

The Yemeni version of the Arab spring has not received the attention it deserves in international media where most of the attention has been focused on reporting events and the conflicting politics of the different actors on the Yemeni scene; nothing much has been said about the dynamics of the youth revolution in the squares. The countries in the region have not taken the youth-propelled Spring seriously either, conveniently referring to it as fueled by political differences. While hundreds of youth were being brutally massacred, these nearby countries simply procrastinated in efforts to put real pressure on the regime. They played the cards they obviously held seeing that they were the financiers of the regime and the powerful tribal lords in Yemen.

In the later stage of the Spring, there were feeble attempts to persuade the regime to relent, while in another breath making it conditional upon the dismantling of the change square, so that the upheaval did not spill over the borders to ignite dormant fires, in which flames were being extinguished successfully so far. Then there was the long saga of “will he sign or will he not sign?” with the Gulf Initiative which had gone through so many changes with the claim that the red carpet had to be removed slowly lest the regime turn into a ferocious bull that might go charging and throw the country into civil war. There was some truth in that argument seeing that the regime was armed to the teeth, with the military being a family business rather than a national army for the protection of the country from outside aggression. The US in its battle with al-Qaeda had chosen Yemen as the main battleground for this, with all the paraphernalia of unmanned drones, rigorous security screening. All the while, it was training the military and supplying the most sophisticated weapons as part of its anti-terrorist agenda. Therefore to draw a parallel, the US had powerful cards to play with the regime, for as the saying goes,”he who pays the piper calls the tune”. However, despite the murmurs about the regime using the weapons intended for the fight with the al-Qaeda on Yemeni civilians, the regime suffered no penalties for such abuse. Perhaps the US too saw some advantage in keeping the power balance intact, uncertain as it was of the new emerging powers and their loyalties. Continue reading The Yemen Spring nipped in the bud? Where do we go from here? →

Tahrir: Take 2

"Arab Spring", Development, Egypt, Travel

First, it was the fall of Mubarak; now comes the second act: the pending removal of President Morsi, who has managed to do more damage to the image of the Muslim Brotherhood than Nasser, Sadat or Mubarak could. The people massed peacefully in Cairo’s Tahrir Square have had enough of a candidate who pretended to be independent but over the past year has increasingly been linked to the intolerant policies of the Brotherhood. Five ministers in Morsi’s cabinet have resigned, including the Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou, who was furious that a man linked to the tourist massacre in Luxor in 1997 that killed 62 people had been appointed as a governor in Luxor. The announcement by the army giving Morsi an ultimatum to satisfy the demands of the protesters has all but assured that he will not survive. A formal coup in unlikely, but the pressure on Morsi to resign may do the trick.

The major concern in Egypt is not about democracy but the economy, which has crashed with little prospect for recovery under Morsi. The continuing unrest, coupled with fear of the rising influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, has decimated the tourism industry, which is a major impact on the local economy. In 2008 almost 13 million tourists visited Egypt, bringing in some $11 billion to the Egyptian economy. Today hotels are near empty and tourism is virtually non existent. Conflict at the luxury Semiramis Hotel in Cairo in March caused many tour operators to cancel bookings there. When the tear gas settles, the Pyramids will still dot the horizon in Gizeh, but in all likelihood Morsi will be out of a job soon. Continue reading Tahrir: Take 2 →

Humanitarianism (?) in Lebanon

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Development, Ethics, Lebanon, Syria


bread provided by NGOs to Syrian refugees in the aid kit in Wadi Khaled (Akkar); photograph by Estella Carpi


A practitioner and a researcher assess humanitarianism in today’s Lebanon

By Fiorenzo Conte and Estella Carpi

In our combined effort of providing the perspectives of the practitioner and the researcher, we would like to take as a point of departure Italian scholar Roberto Belloni’s theses according to which humanitarianism, on the one hand, ends up being the short-term substitute for development, and, on the other, tends to reproduce the same cleavages it tries to overcome.

Humanitarianism as a short-term substitute for development

While conducting research and grounded humanitarian work in Lebanon, we have noticed how humanitarianism, while providing increasing quantity of aid, avoids addressing the root causes of Lebanese chronic poverty, administrative anarchy and recurring war-like events. Predominantly Western and Gulf countries have focused their attention on managing the symptoms of the malaise without effectively addressing its causes and hence engaging in the long term.

The humanitarian needs in Lebanon are surely huge for both Syrian refugees and long neglected Lebanese host communities. With the massive influx of Syrian refugees since August 2011, the Lebanese community, living in the poorest regions, has felt the pinch. Indeed, many residents are currently trying to tackle increased expenditures and a drop in income caused by a variety of factors: the closure of the border and the consequent inaccessibility to Syrian cheaper goods through the usual border-cross smuggling; fierce competition in the labor market that has been increased by the presence of Syrian workers; a deteriorating security situation; and reduced access to the agricultural lands strewn with landmines (1).

The situation for Syrians is similarly grim: according to a recent report, more than 50% of Syrian refugees and Lebanese returnees live in substandard conditions, as Lebanese host communities are no longer able to absorb new flows of refugees in their houses. Continue reading Humanitarianism (?) in Lebanon →

Agricultural policy in Yemen’s highlands and lowlands

Agriculture, Anthropology/Sociology, Development, Folklore and Proverbs, Picturing Yemen (by Varisco), Yemen


Terraced fields below al-Saraha in valley of al-Ahjur; photograph by Daniel Martin Varisco

by Zaid Ali Alwazir, La Voix du Yemen, June 9, 2013

Agricultural policy describes a set of laws related to the local farming and imported agricultural products from abroad. These laws are supposed to be implemented to get certain results such as utilizing the land, operating it or stabilizing prices of imported and local products.

Since the start of the “youth revolution” in Yemen, talks about the political and economic reforms got increased without focusing on “the agricultural economy” as if it was not part of the general “economy”. Therefore, no attention was paid by reformers to this issue since their talks had been focusing on “the material economy” such as “taxes”, “Zakat” and others.

“Agricultural economy” is not given the required attention despite the fact that agricultural development would feed the budget with more income, boost up farmers’ capacity to give more and optimize their living standards to ensure their welfare. Continue reading Agricultural policy in Yemen’s highlands and lowlands →

Yemen’s National Dialogue Behind Closed Doors

"Arab Spring", CyberOrient, Development, Yemen

by Sama’a al-Hamdani, Atlantic Council, June 17, 2013

Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference (NDC), which began on March 18 and just reached the halfway point of its six-month mandate, was conceived as a core part of the transition process and is intended to bring together Yemen’s diverse political, social, geographic, and demographic groups to address the most critical issues plaguing the beleaguered country. Unfortunately, the way the dialogue was developed, designed, and directed created intrinsic flaws that may undercut its success. Some argue that the large number of participants and the lack of genuine representation outside of political parties are the reasons it is doomed for failure. Others feel that the process is advancing too quickly, leaving honest reconciliation out of the equation. One of the other major concerns is the lack of clear communication with the Yemeni public, transparency of the proceedings, and oversight of expenditures.

Although some Yemen experts remain pessimistic about the future of the country, they refrain from critiquing the dialogue because the outcome is still unclear and many perceive the dialogue as the only way to prevent a descent into civil war. Particularly because the process is opaque and because there is genuine skepticism about the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) transition agreement and the dialogue itself, the NDC should pro-actively report on all working group and plenary proceedings, publish all records and modifications, and disclose all financial contributions and allocations. This is the time to measure the discrepancy between the dialogue’s stated intention and the reality on the ground, if there is hope for effective progress. Continue reading Yemen’s National Dialogue Behind Closed Doors →