Interview: Nabil Fahmy on the Future of the Arab World

This is the second of a two-part interview in which John Bell, the Director of The Conciliators Guild, speaks with Nabil Fahmy, former Egyptian Foreign Minister and founding Dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at The American University in Cairo (AUC). Fahmy shares his views on the state of the Arab World and what is needed for its societies to thrive.

There are almost 400 million people in the Arab World. There are forms of revolution in almost every country. The average person is screaming about corruption and lack of services, economic opportunity, dignity, and respect for the citizen. The basic needs across almost the whole spectrum are not met. People are inflamed.

Do you see hope? What’s your sense on where the Arab World will go? And what are the key actions that need to happen, in your view?

I’ve always shied away from optimism and pessimism. The point I felt most importantly over the last few years is that citizens want to be engaged in the process moving on. For me that’s a very important development; even though it may slow down for a bit, it keeps coming back.

Short term, I think the Arab World will still go through difficult circumstances. And that’s not surprising. What was really surprising, even to me, was that in 2011 we all felt everything was solved. Well, nation states don’t solve their problems overnight. And they don’t solve them this way when the problems are institutional, rather than individual. It’s not about removing a politician. It’s about changing the system.

There are a lot of issues. The issue of change is not just a youth factor, it’s also a modernity versus historical-fundamentalism factor. It’s a factor that relates to authority – individual and institutional-societal authority, which in older societies tends to lie in the society more than in the individual. How do you get used to that (more emphasis on the individual) without the individual ignoring society as a whole?

We are proudly a community that is religious. How does religion factor into politics? I’m a practicing Muslim but I’m not a supporter of bringing religion into political decisions. But it defines my principles and faith. This is an issue that has to be discussed because others in society have a different opinion. I can’t ignore them. And they can’t ignore me. So the commonality here is we defend the nation state and we find a way to work together in that nation state. If you’re challenging the nation state then we have a problem. So, it’s going to take time.

You asked me what is required. A couple of things. One is accountability. People should be accountable for their actions, even in business, public goods and services, and in government, wherever. Secondly, to be held accountable there has to be a degree of transparency. Information has to be available. Thirdly, if you want to establish a system which will give you accountability and transparency, you need checks and balances. You can have a republic or a system that is more federal. It can be a parliamentary system. Any of those would work, even with a monarchy. But there have to be checks and balances.

So those three elements are the keys.

Put them in any system. If I see these elements growing I become more optimistic even if we are not where we want to be. If I see the opposite happening I get worried because I feel that the transitional period will extend.

Let me give you a quick story. One of my grandchildren went to buy a newspaper with me. I bought the newspaper and he looks up at me and he said “what are you doing?” I said, “I’m buying a newspaper.” He was seven. We went home and I told him that he needs to be aware of current events – the stuff that we old guys say. And he looks at me and said, “Newspapers tell you what to read and how much to read. On the Internet you choose what to read and how much to read.” Now that’s not exactly true. But it’s a sense of authority – that this young generation takes decisions and has choices early on. I deal with this young boy today much more with his mind than with his 'muscle'. And in spite of the difference of age we have very amusing dialogue that goes on. If I tried to force him not to do things, it would be a lot more difficult. And that’s what I’m saying: with technology and the youth factor today you cannot manage stakeholders the same way as you could in the past. 

I found what you said just a few minutes ago, about the relationship between the individual and the group in any society (and that’s going to differ from culture to culture) fascinating, and key. It’s something that I and our initiative are going to look at in much more detail. That balance of why and how we belong to a group and how we maintain our individuality within that – that is an issue for every single society. And I think there’s more knowledge to be gained there.

The real problem in the world today is that zero sum games don’t work. And this question about the individual and society is an example. I’m all for individual rights, but you also have responsibilities. And I’m also for society’s rights, but it also means that society has to respond to the individual’s needs.

It’s not either/or.

We have a tendency, because we are becoming more materialistic and digital, to assume it’s zero or one. It goes to the first point you raised earlier: the world is a much more complex place, it’s not either/or.

And people enjoy being part of collectives anywhere. We’ll never stop doing that. The question is how to do so constructively, because, as we also know, collectives can go awry and be hijacked.

And they are much more difficult to manage. There’s no question about that. At the end of the day democracy is extremely messy, but in the long term it is more effective than autocracy.

Good democracy has a built-in learning process which is almost all that we’ve been talking about.

I think there are principles of democracy, and there are the applications of democracy. One always assumes that the application is only the western formula, which I don’t think is correct. And I would argue that I’m not sure there’s a western formula, because if you look at it in larger states vis-à-vis what you see in Europe and you try to apply the individual versus societal rights, while they’re both democracies and market economies, the social component is different.

The emphasis differs between the United States and in Southeast Asia, for instance.

The principle is not necessarily the model, so I repeatedly argue in my world. Is democracy messy? Yes. Get me a better option and I’ll go for it. So I’m going to continue to work towards that purpose because I believe individuals have the right to participate in the process. On the other hand, will this solve our problems without a cost tomorrow? No. So there has to be a realistic, gradual approach from where we’re starting to where we’re trying to go.

And again, it isn’t that we were never there. We were there before. It wasn’t perfect, either. But we had a multi-party system. A vibrant political system. It tended to be a bit elitist, but it was there.

Even in a country as strong and powerful and as democratic as America is today, why did it elect a non-traditional president? I’m not taking a position vis-à-vis the president himself. But he is a non-traditional president and represents himself as such – because people aren’t comfortable with the traditional system.

And I would even add that they’re not comfortable because many of them feel - rightly or wrongly - that that system is not providing for their basic needs.

Even when you have a functioning democracy, if it’s not responsive to the system, to the people, it ultimately has problems.

And many of these needs – sometimes they’re emotional needs - need be attended to. They’re not just a job. But obviously that’s also very important. And ignoring that aspect (the basic emotional needs), which I think unfortunately a lot of internationalists and liberals do, is not going to help. That’s where Mr. Trump or others become more attractive.

In our profession, or former profession, you tend to have a lot of issues, very little time, and you have to prioritize what you’re doing. So you ultimately tend to talk to people who talk like you.

It’s easier and faster.

It may be efficient in the short term, but over time you end up suddenly with a big problem out there.

Where do you see the Arab World going?

Essentially, if it decides to become proactive, takes the initiative and becomes less dependent on others – and I mean both inside and outside the Arab world – it has a better opportunity of succeeding than if it continues to be reactive. The reason I say this is the fundamental problem in the Arab world is a generic resistance to gradual change. Not even to just revolutions. And not just to changes to heads of state, but to accepting that the definitions of power will change. The region needs to talk more about the future than its history. Around 65% of the population is below the age of 30. Technology is changing the definition of geography.

This resistance to gradual change has led to political apathy and stagnation. And ultimately things are kept as they are, and then they burst.

No change - or explosion.

I’m talking even societally. Not only politics.

Do you have any idea why that is?

The fact is, we got away with it for too long. And this wasn’t the case in the past, by the way. If you look at Egypt’s successes and occasional failures, they were all about change. When we led the process of change we were more influential than now. The definition of the modern nation-state was in Egypt.

They (efforts to lead change) weren’t all good things frankly. The 1967 War was a mistake we made. The Muslim Brotherhood movement did not, for instance, come out of Canada – it came out of Egypt. And frankly, I’m not a socialist, so it’s part of the evolving process. There was the Non-Aligned Movement. We had a big role in that promoting decolonization in Africa.

And this was not just a Nasser thing. Look at Sadat. He came in and wanted to shift gears and move more towards the center. More towards the West. He wanted to open up society, he wanted to open up the economy. So he was creating change, and then he had to go to war. Then he decided to go towards peace.

But he succeeded at all of them.

He succeeded at most of them. But what I’m saying is that’s when people were looking at Egypt most of the time. And the determining factor in the region was not the Soviets nor the Americans. Neither of them wanted the 1967 War, or the 1973 War, or the Jerusalem visit.

Home grown.

They’re all homegrown.  And then it moved to Mubarak.

Mubarak decided to build on what Sadat did. So he continued to push the peace process but here settled Egypt back into the middle of the Arab World. So again he created change.

Except for the issue of peace, and that’s more recently, the only Arab country that ever had a Nobel Prize winner was Egypt – and we had four. Sadat, Mahfouz, Zeweil, and ElBaradei. And they’re in different areas. Sadat and El Baradei for peace. Mahfouz for literature. Zeweil for science. The only other Arabs are a Yemeni and a Tunisian committee. Why is this? It is because this is where thought and change occurs (in the Arab world).

But again, look at the Levant. The Christian left there were the more revolutionary. They were the force behind the evolution of political concepts. And I know that these were tied to European colonialists, but in essence these things came out from within.

So what I’m arguing is now with this over-dependency we get eruptions because we don’t like change. And then look at everybody from the Maghreb to Egypt to the Levant and down to the Gulf – every single one of us, no exceptions, over the last 50years has been at different times over-dependent on a foreign power.

What’s the link between that dependency and the inability to have ordered or managed change?

There are two reasons. One, you don’t like incremental change so you get eruptions. That increases with time because of the youth – they want change and they want it quickly. They’re impatient.

The other is the element of weakness: the national security capacity deficiency. That is a function of overdependence on a major power for national security since the early 1950s onwards. The North Africans with the exception of Egypt and Libya tended to focus a bit on Europe. We wanted to start off with the West, but they didn’t take us, so we moved towards the Soviets. And then later we moved towards the West. And now we’re shifting into the middle. You go into the Levant, the Soviets and Russians were more prominent there than the Americans –in terms of Syria. If you go down to the Gulf, of course it’s Europe and the Americans.

This is in contrast with Iran, Turkey and Israel. They have independent national security systems.

They have robust systems. Iran has an independent one. The Turks and the Israelis are not independent but they are robust and can depend on themselves.

My point here is that except for existential threats you end up competing with your neighbours. The Soviets and the Americans are not going to jump into every argument. They’re not going to jump into the issue of small islands, but they will jump in if you try to invade Kuwait.

Why is Israel intransigent? Why are the Turks now raising issues they didn’t raise since the Ottoman era? Why is Iran so aggressive throughout the region? Because in comparison to their neighbours they feel a national security superiority. All the talk of America providing security is mumbo-jumbo. America was always there for big threats. And the Russians proved that with the Syrians.

I’m trying to think of an Arab state that has an independent and/or robust national security system.

Most of the republics have independent security systems. But they’re not robust enough and are deficient in comparison to their non-Arab neighbours. Egypt’s system is independent but at the end of the day we moved towards dependence on superpowers. And as a result of that there remains this overdependence.

I’m not calling for de-linkages of alliances. I’m not calling for being completely independent. I’m just calling for a better balance. I’m not looking for wars with peoples’ neighbours. I’m looking for inherent deterrence so you don’t have wars. And it’s not just the military capacity. The military capacity creates the mindset and if you don’t have that you don’t have the political capacity either. There are five or six conflicts on fire in the Arab World. There is not a single Arab initiative in any one of them.

How is that? You go back 20 years in Egypt and all of our friends in the West were complaining that we were coming up with an idea ever day. And it wasn’t just on conflict resolution. Today in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen - where is the Arab initiative? The same with the issue of terrorism.

Do you hope to see one coming?

Only if governments decide to become more proactive, to depend more on themselves, and to build their own capacities. You have to deal with reality. Reality involves change. These two components (being more proactive and independent) don’t necessarily feed into each other, but they do feed into the stability issue. Why is there instability in Syria for instance? You have Russians hosting meetings on Syria with the Iranians and the Turks without the Syrians or any Arabs.

Other than Egypt, which has been a nation-state for thousands of years before the nation-state was invented in Europe, do you consider the nation-state concept problematic in itself for the rest of the Levant?

Problematic in what way?

Some people say it’s not the right political structure. You might need looser forms. Or is it that many countries in the Arab World are still young and simply need time to develop a healthier, more robust nation state. Of which school are you? Because I know many who would say the borders are the problem. Sykes-Picot is the problem. These are invented nations, they’re not real. And remember, we’re not just talking Egypt. Egypt’s particular and has a national identity that’s very strong.

First of all, there’s no perfect structure for a state. It all depends on the country, whether it has more of a homogeneous constituency or not, you can argue, we should have a federal system, a central system or focus more on ethnicity.

Look at America today with the debate about changing the electoral system. It was established at a time when it was seen as the best way to do it. The Arab World, except for some states like Egypt, and especially in the Levant, the geography was drawn by the European colonials. It’s even less perfect and that’s been around for so long.

That being said, take the African example, the African Union. The AU was established and it suffered from the same consequences of colonialism in the past. It took a determined decision. What happened wasn’t fair (drawing up of states by colonial powers). But reopening that box is much more dangerous than moving on. We will not debate territorial changes. One of the first determinations of the AU was that history is what it is. The borders are what they are.

My position is somewhere in the middle. If you look at the constituencies where the Kurds, Yezidis, Shiites and Sunnis are, it’s not a system where ethnicity and geography are determined together. But frankly that exists also in other places. It’s more complicated to open it up than to accept this as the best available process. And if nation-states say, like in the 60s in the Arab world that they want to become larger states by unifying with others – let them do that. The problem isn’t that the nation-state system isn’t perfect in the Middle East. The problem is that Middle Eastern states aren’t acting in a fashion that provides citizens recognition and satisfaction – and places responsibility on them. It’s a nation-state. You’re going to have to defend this nation. I will give you all of your rights within this nation. That’s the balance. Sykes-Picot, of course, was criticized by all the Arab World. Today the same Arabs are defending the Sykes-Picot borders.

In a way, what you’re saying is confirmed by what’s happening in Lebanon right now. Lebanon is one of the most sectarian societies in the Middle East. Yet you’ve just seen possibly up to half the population on the streets unified under one national identity for the reason that you’re saying: their basic needs are not met and therefore they have revolted. Therefore that hits the core of it: if the citizen is not satisfied materially and otherwise, then they’re going to react. It’s almost a law of nature.

You’re right, but also let me give you a positive example. The EU was composed of nation-states. They decided that working together would be better for them given the competition between East and West and so on. They got to a point where they were all comfortable, and then to a point where they weren’t comfortable. So they’re trying to figure out how to deal with this now. As long as they’re dealing with change, then as nation-states they can make the changes. All I’m arguing is: bring to me a better formula and I’m happy to consider it. But for the present day, I don’t see anything better than the nation-state, but apply it properly.

Much of what you’re saying to me sounds like you put lot of emphasis on the ability to adapt and react to change properly in an ordered fashion. You’re almost saying many structures can work if you look at it in a sensible and clever manner.

Yes, but let me also add to it that given history and given that we’re in a global environment today, another complicating factor are those countries that have been the stalwarts of democracy and the nation-state system are playing double-standards all of the time in their policies. They’re not standing on principle or rule of law. When that happens and you have the deficiencies that I’ve mentioned, and you have resistance to change, it all becomes much more complicated. Locals can’t stand up on principle without having someone at their back. And frankly nation-state building or change take time. It’s not simply putting together a formula.

And that’s part of the problem with the Arab revolutions – they’re too rapid. The expectations are too high.

I’m very glad you said that. What I was about to say is that as complicated as the last ten years have been in Arab World with all the revolutions and eruptions, and I’m not happy with where we are, everyone had made mistakes – the revolutionaries, middle class and authorities – having been a practitioner I was also tremendously annoyed with the societal apathy about (the quality and delivery of) public goods and services.

I remember when I was a diplomat I actually had to create stakeholders back home for policies I wanted to defend internationally. I had to create stakeholders who would come out and say something instead of people simply backing me, because the international community beyond the Middle East sees society asking for them in a democratic system.

I’m sure you’ve heard this, but you also may have witnessed it. In the past, I used to go to a lot of my western friends, particularly the Americans, and if you said “the Arab street,” they’d laugh.

I used to have similar experiences.

And this happened with me on major critical issues, and on minor ones. In 2011, I was not in government, but I still had my old American friends and government friends. They would phone me and ask about the Arab Spring. And when I was foreign minister I was asked by my counterparts: “Okay, we understand what you’re saying. We understand your views. But is the street behind you?” The awakening on the street created pressures on us as government officials to be more accountable and responsive. I always made this point: I’m accountable to the street but I’m not going to follow the street.

And do you think that is now a permanent factor?

No, not yet, it hasn’t settled. But that reference is there. I’ve seen a retrenchment from the street. It’s tired after a decade of this. But just the fact that things breakout now and then in different countries makes people aware that this can happen. I don’t want it to break out. I just want the idea of transparency and accountability to be there.

Revolutions and 'the street' are a huge and highly emotional form of creating accountability.

This same discussion about ‘is the street behind you?’ didn’t only occur between me and west. It occurred between me and the Russians. On my first visit to Russia I met the high officials there. One meeting was two and a half hours. And it went round and round and round. The point from them at the end was, “We like you, we like your approach, but is the street behind you?” From Russia! So, the streets suddenly became a factor. I don’t want it to be a chaotic factor. But I want the issue of accountability to be there.

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Nabil Fahmy is a former career diplomat who served as Foreign Minister of Egypt from July 2013 to June 2014. He is the founding Dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at The American University in Cairo (AUC), where he is also a distinguished professor of practice in international diplomacy.

He is the author of the new book, Egypt’s Diplomacy in War, Peace and Transition, published by Palgrave Macmillan.