Tue, Dec 08, 2020 page4

• Monarchies rise from ashes of Arab Spring

  • AFP, DUBAI, United Arab Emirates
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  A decade on, the turmoil of the Arab Spring which shook oil-rich Gulf states has left a very different legacy, emboldening and empowering their conservative monarchies.

  The collapse or decline of traditional Middle East powers such as Syria and Egypt has allowed the Gulf to establish itself as the region’s new center of gravity, and the Gulf nations have seized the initiative, accelerating the transformation of their societies, building futuristic metropolises and breaking conventions with diplomatic initiatives, including establishing ties with Israel.

  “The weakening of traditional Arab centers of power due to the Arab Spring ... has made the Gulf, for the first time in modern history, the center of Arab power,” Kuwait University assistant professor of history Bader al-Saif said.

  The Arab world was convulsed by popular uprisings in 2011, with street protests in several nations against despised regimes. Egypt’s and Tunisia’s dictators were toppled, but the revolutionary wave descended into bloody civil war in Syria, Libya and Yemen. In Egypt, the army retook power in 2013, followed by a brutal crackdown. Cairo, previously the Arab world’s cultural capital, became a byword for abuses and grinding poverty.

  Once feared and powerful, Syria, as well as Iraq — shattered by the US invasion of 2003 — became synonymous with devastating conflict, refugee camps and foreign meddling.

  The Gulf was not entirely spared the tumult seen elsewhere, with protests rocking Oman and Bahrain — the latter put down principally with Saudi Arabian assistance, but the chaos elsewhere threw the soaring wealth and prosperity of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar into stark relief, as expatriates were lured by glittering skyscrapers and lavish tax-free packages.

  The Arab Spring was an “eye-opener” for Gulf nations, close partners of the US, as they witnessed Washington’s inaction when Egypt’s and Bahrain’s regimes were threatened.

  “[They realized] they needed to take matters in their own hands and that there is no continuous security guarantee from the US,” al-Saif said.

  The Arab Spring was just the watershed moment, he said, adding that Gulf nations had already been eyeing greater influence well before 2011.

  “The Arab Spring didn’t start this trend, it accelerated and brought it out into the open,” said Abdelkhaleq Abdallah, a politics professor in the UAE, where, along with Qatar, the trend was most noticeable.

  Fearing that 2011 uprisings could reach their kingdoms, the Gulf Cooperation Council reached out to Jordan and Morocco, giving them financial support to help fund social reforms in a bid to maintain stability, observers said.

  Saudi Arabia had the greatest financial firepower as the world’s leading oil exporter and its influence among Muslims, whose two holiest sites are in the kingdom.

  However, it was Qatar that “turned the Arab Spring to its advantage,” Abdallah said, playing an outsized part with rolling coverage of events by its al-Jazeera broadcaster, followed by the empowerment of Islamist movements, notably in Tunisia and Egypt.

  The UAE benefited, too, presenting itself as a regional safe haven and attracting investment to Dubai, one of the nation’s seven emirates which was badly hit by the global economic crisis in 2010.

  While other Middle East nations faced instability and poverty, Qatar prepared for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the UAE sent an astronaut into space and Saudi Arabia held the G20 presidency.

  As their influence grew, the trio vied for supremacy, Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute researcher Emma Soubrier said.

  Several Arab nations, most prominently Saudi Arabia and the UAE, in 2017 cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of backing Islamist movements and fomenting unrest through al-Jazeera.

  Doha has always denied the charges.

  In Libya, the UAE backed Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar against the forces of the UN-recognized government, which it accused of colluding with Islamists, and receiving support from Turkey and Qatar.

  Soubrier said the intervention, without the backing of the UN, marked a turning point.

  “A message was sent to Western partners that the Emirates were now a regional power capable of guaranteeing their interests, by military strikes if necessary,” she said.

  Saudi Arabia has been involved in its own overseas entanglement since 2015, leading a coalition in Yemen, including the UAE, that supports government forces against Houthi rebels backed by its archrival Iran.

  The Gulf has also gone against the grain diplomatically, in the case of Bahrain and the UAE, which normalized ties with Israel in September — upending decades of Arab boycott.

  Unlike the region’s former powers, and modern Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have rejected the notions of “pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism” revitalized by the Arab Spring, Saudi Arabian researcher Eman Alhussein said.

  “Nationalism is not exclusive to the Gulf region as it has been gaining momentum around the world,” Alhussein said, adding that raw power is now more important than sentiments on the fabled “Arab street.”
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