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crisis
will exacerbate this trend, especially in that the Middle East oil
economy will be hard hit by the downturn in oil revenues. The growing
gaps within states and between states and societies cannot go unfilled
forever. Leadership successions are particularly critical moments in that
they expose these gaps and invite political actors to fill them. The
calculations of what we have referred to as veteran or old guard, MB-style
Islamists are most probably based on exactly this reading of the situation
and ultimately those calculations could prove to be correct.
In sum, the real challenge may not be the rise to power of radical
Islamists or violence committed by them, but the perpetuation and even
strengthening of authoritarian rule as a
result of moderate Islamists
becoming strategic partners of at least some elements of incumbent
regimes. Authoritarianism is bad enough, but an Islamist authoritarianism
would be even worse, for the countries themselves as well as their
neighbours and indeed for much of the rest of the world. Thus, an EU
strategy predicated on the continuation and acceptance of the status quo is
flawed by the real possibility that the status quo is not sustainable and that
the likely outcome of its change is yet more negative, in that non-
democratic elements would be further entrenched, to say nothing of their
possible anti-Western agenda. What then, might
the EU do in the face of
this potential threat, as well as the more commonly considered one of
Islamist radicalisation owing to political frustration?
The present EU approach
It is easier to say what the EU has not done to confront Arab
authoritarianism and the potential threats of re-radicalised Islamism or an
Islamist–authoritarian incumbent alliance, than it is to identify a coherent
strategy and associated actions. It joined the US in effectively rejecting the
outcomes of elections in Egypt and Palestine in 2005–06 by failing to stand
against governmental intimidation of the MB in the former and by tacitly
supporting the disastrous American-backed initiative
to enable Fatah to
conquer Hamas in Gaza militarily. It continues to be party to the isolation
of Hamas and the effort to buy support for Fatah in the West Bank.
Throughout the Arab world, it has chosen to work with authoritarian
governments and to offer assistance without democratisation or even
liberalisation preconditions. Condemnation by the European Parliament of
human rights abuses in Egypt are simply so many words, as the European
Commission’s approach to the country remains unaffected by the officially
expressed sentiments of its nominal legislative authority. An effort to reach
I
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out
to young, democratic Islamists has not been mounted. Those
approaches that have been made to Islamists are primarily through their
elected members of parliament, which necessarily limits the range of non-
violent Islamists with which it interacts.
This brief overview of timid EU actions towards the Middle East and
North Africa (MENA) suggests that it has no overt, self-conscious strategy
to directly facilitate democratisation there, either with or without the
assistance of Islamists. Clearly, it does not see itself as a possible midwife of
a transition based on a possible pact between
reformers in government and
moderate oppositionists, crucial in the latter camp of which would
necessarily have to be Islamists. There is no sign that the EU is even aware
of this potential path away from entrenched authoritarianism, which may
actually be the best hope for peaceful, moderate democratisation in the
region.
Why then has the EU failed to be more proactive, to utilise its
substantial material and diplomatic resources
to counter authoritarianism
and to reward Islamists for pursuing peaceful political change through
democratic means? Certainly, there are historical and structural reasons.
Suspicion of Islam, to say nothing of Islamism, is deeply engrained in
European publics and has been further heightened by Islamist violence,
and at least in some European communities, by the presence of immigrant
Muslims. For politicians,
let alone bureaucrats, to ignore this sentiment is to
court a threatening backlash. But even without the complicating factor of
suspicion or outright anti-Muslim sentiment, the fundamental EU way of
doing business is state to state. The negotiations on joining the EU and even
those conducted with ‘new neighbours’ are held between the EU and the
governments of the respective countries. EU foreign assistance is virtually
entirely delivered to governments or to apolitical cultural organisations. As
regards the MENA, the primary difficulty confronted by the EU since the
Barcelona process began in 1995 has been to reconcile Arab states’
hostilities towards Israel and EU policies deemed to be supportive of it. The
excessive state-centred formalism
of EU relations with the MENA, which
also results from the quasi-sovereign nature of the EU itself (a factor that
limits its flexibility and heightens its sensitivities towards issues of
sovereignty), renders interactions with non-state political actors
problematic. That the most powerful of these non-state actors today are
Islamists simply exacerbates the problem.
Regrettably, the obstacles to a more flexible, non-state-centric EU
approach to the MENA do not end there. A more subtle, nuanced