The Indirect Effects of the Various Revolutions Throughout the History of the Region

The Political and Economic Shifts in the Middle East

The Indirect Effects of the Various Revolutions Throughout the History of the Region

     When we look at the world today, we see an ever changing political spectrum across the globe. Countries that were once the most isolated in the world have now become open to change. In the Middle East, we have seen dictators fall, and revolutions end. However, we often forget about the other nations that are still run by dictatorships, or Monarchies. We know what happens to the nations that are essentially "revolutionized" by the people, but what are the political and economical implications of all this to the other nations who were not part of the arab spring? And what does it mean for the rest of the world today?

      Let's begin with the political and economical history of these nations to understand what is happening in our present. The Middle East prior to the age of Colonization was an area of nomadic tribes people who traded with one another. Each group had a regional leader, but it was hard to maintain laws and economic order being nomadic. As time passed people began to settle in the fertile areas amongst the desert. These different tribes slowly grew into Kingdoms. It would take another entire blog post to describe the history of the Middle Eastern settlement patterns. Essentially, the different kingdoms were taken over by different groups throughout history, at certain points all of it would be under control by one group such as the Assyrians, Babylonians, then the Persians. The most recent "imperialistic" empire would be the Ottoman empire, the Persian Empire, and the Sultanate of Egypt. During World War One, these three empires were the major powers in the Middle East. All of which were extremely conservative, socially, and economically. They were not fond of foreign visitors, and international trade was considered taboo. (Unless it was Persian Carpets). The only area that resisted the Empires, was modern day Saudi Arabia. 

      Following World War One, and World War Two, we saw the Empires fall apart, or shrink in size, due to the uprising of different groups and the support of the international community (The newly formed United Nations). Due to different conflicts and new royal families the political geography of the Middle East changed into what we see today. 

In brief Summary, the Ottoman empire split into Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, into totalitarian dictatorships. Persia changed it's name into "The Islamic Peoples Republic of Iran," in which the Emperor, would now be known as the Shah, and had the power to sign, create, or veto bills as he pleased, but there was a lower house which represented the people, and had a Prime Minister.  The Sultan of Egypt was over thrown, and the "Republic of Egypt," was created. (Not much of a republic, as the President had power for life.) And the tribal areas, were then United into Saudi Arabia, while certain royal families kept their own kingdoms, such as Jordan, UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Yemen, and Qatar. Of course we cannot forget this was the beginning of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that has is continuing to this day, as the land was a British Protectorate, and handed over to the Zionists. 

It was at this point in time many different, political and economical changes occurred. Post WWII, but Pre-1960's, we saw a fairly liberal Middle East, lenient on its citizens, and allowing domestic trade to occur without government involvement. And since the area wasn't dominated by three major empires, trade began to flourish between the different nations of the Middle East. This did not last for long, In 1954, Texco, BP, and other big oil corporations shifted their viewpoint onto the Middle East, and since these counties were essentially run by governments which need not listen to the wants and concerns of the people, a lot of the nations especially Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, began exploiting and selling their oil land to American Companies. This is the beginning of the Modern Arab political and economical map.

     As time went on the arabic people started noticing something. "Why was America, and other Western nations, profiting off of their land?"  Herein began the conservative revolution of the Arab World. Around the 1960's and 70's, the same time as the height of the cold war, a lot of Arabic nations overthrew the dictators or shah's and installed new governments, which were Pro-Arab Nationalist, or (Anti-Western), in the hope of a new government that would respond to the peoples needs.  This created "prosperity" for a minor amount of time, wherein American companies no longer had access to Iranian oil, and in Saudi Arabia, they had to pay new tariffs and taxes in order to access it. This form of economic and foreign policy ideals are very conservative. However the way in which it was dealt with, was rather liberal as the government was in complete control of how much they sold, or kept. 

      But how long did this new revolution last? Answer is, in relative terms, not very long at all. Basically what happened in most of the countries is that they shifted from an old dictator, with a very liberal attitude towards foreign policy and and conservative economic policies, to a new regime with conservative domestic, and foreign views, and a liberal economic style. So what happened internally, the people began being oppressed, religious minority rights were put on hold, women's rights became non-existent, and money would poor into the upper governmental class, not to the people as they had originally hoped for. These were specifically occurring in countries, like Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Tunisia. 

      This style of economics lasted for about 40 years until the present day, when we saw the Arab Spring occur, and new styles of government have taken over. The Arab Spring began with a mostly bloodless and quick revolution in Tunisia in late 2010 and early 2011. Rebels in Egypt grew significantly more powerful shortly after the revolution in Tunisia. The Egyptian revolution was more violent than the Tunisian Revolution, but it successfully ousted former President Hosni Mubarak after several weeks. The Libyan civil war began immediately on the heels of the Egyptian Revolution, and considerably more violent. Libya is still undergoing its government transformation, but appears to be aiming at a more Islamic government than Gaddafi had led. Additionally, Yemen has also replaced its government after months of violence and protests. Yemen's revolution took place alongside the Egyptian Revolution, but was not nearly so dramatic. The Syrian Revolution is ongoing, and has been about as bloody as the Libyan Revolution. At the moment it appears that the fighting in Syria could go on for a very long time.

    The nations that did succeed however, have new interim governments. This is where the topic really gets down to the crux of it all. How do these nations how did rebel, effect the other nations around them that did not rebel. Let's take a look politically, socially, and economically. So out of all the countries that revolted what happened? Egypt, has a new government under the muslim brotherhood, with pro-islamic policies, and arab nationalistic foreign and trade policies. Tunisia's new constitution promotes trade and friendship with other nations, it also allows women to vote, and installed a new democratic government, with term limits. Proving to be one of the most successful revolutions in the region. Syria's conflict is ongoing, and Libya's new interim government recently chose to use Sharia Law as their basis for governmental policy (traditionalist conservative.) So what happened to the other nations that did not revolt? Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey (Which recently saw some protests), Jordan, Bahrain (which crushed its revolt), Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, and Oman. First off, the most clear effect, is the fact the un-revolutionized economies, are doing much better than the revolutionized economies. It seems that the policies that these countries had put into practice for so many years, remained effective through tough times. In fact, it can even  be possibly assumed that since once family of governmental leaders can make spontaneous political changes, this flexibility helped them weather the economic storm that the arab spring caused. 

Take a look at this chart:

Rank	Country	GDP Per Capita[4]	GDP (PPP) Total ($US B)[5]
1	Qatar	$ 102,700	$ 101.2
2	Kuwait	$ 40,700	$ 150.2
3	United Arab Emirates	$ 42,000	$ 200.4
4	Israel	$ 31,000	$ 245.3
5	Oman	$ 23,900	$ 69.43
6	Bahrain	$ 21,200	$ 22.85
7	Saudi Arabia	$ 20,400	$ 581.3
8	Turkey	$ 16,067	$ 1189.9
9	Lebanon	$ 16,000	$ 46.03
10	Iran	$ 12,900	$ 876
11	Egypt	$ 6,000	$ 470.4
12	Jordan	$ 5,300	$ 33.06
13	Syria	$ 4,600	$ 102.5
14	Iraq	$ 3,600	$ 96.6
15	State of Palestine	$ 2,900	$ N/A
16	Yemen	$ 2,500	$ 58.2
17	Gaza Strip	$ 2,494	$ N/A

1. ^ CIA - The World Factbook GDP Country Comparison (Per Capita PPP)
2. Jump up^ CIA - The World Factbook GDP Country Comparison (PPP)

What does it tell us? It clearly demonstrates that the countries that did not revolt are currently doing better (economically speaking) than the other nations. Why is that? Since the newly created arab nationalist governments refuse to negotiate, trade with, or associate with a lot of the western countries, their economies crash, because the trade is extremely limited. And since their economic style is more left wing, meaning controlled by the government, it's not possibly for individuals or corporations just to pick up a phone and exchange commodities internationally. That's where they differ from the top 10 countries on the above chart. Those nations, while most being ruled by a royal family, have conservative style economies, in which the government plays lesser of a role, and certain rich families own the oil, chemical, and construction industries that dominate the areas economy. That's why when the revolution occurred, they just shifted their markets to the west, which their government actually permitted.     That's what's going on economically. But what is going on socially, and politically. How did these nations put down, or receive no threat of rebellion even though they are such "evil" dictators in the eyes of the west. (...Yet even though they're considered evil, the west still trades with them...hypocrisy at its finest.) What we have seen is a gradual shift towards liberalism over domestic issues within these countries. For example; although Qatar is ruled by one royal family, the country has zero taxes, but the health care system is all government run, and completely free, pills for chronic medical conditions are free, nursing homes for the elderly are free, education is all free, welfare is provided in substantial amounts to the small amount of homeless, and women are allowed not to wear the traditional hijab. Or Saudi Arabia, to avoid the revolution they liberalized a lot of their domestic policies, for example women in even the most traditional province (Ha'il) are allowed to have their faces uncovered (a big step, although it may seem minor), they have also began a tourism industry to stimulate the economy of local businesses, and they also have began allowing the practice of other faiths, and sects of islam. Crime and Punishment has also eased, the idea of losing limbs, or your life is extremely rare, even for religious offences which is what the countries laws are based upon. To understand let us watch a few clips of a documentary that the Saudi Government allowed the BBC to create, where they went into the most traditional area of Saudi Arabia and filmed the daily lives of people there.  (Clips 1:30, 6:30, 14:40) 

As you can see the Saudi Kingdom is much more lenient than the average person understands it to be. As are many of the other nations in the Middle East, besides the ones you hear about in the news.

During the time of the revolution the Saudi Kingdom, Jordan, Dubai, Kuwait, and the other monarchies liberalized a lot of their domestic policies to avoid the revolt they were seeing with their neighbouring nations.

Instead of the news focussing on these good happenings, the media focussed on the revolt in other nations. These policies actually stimulated the economy of the region. This is one of the reasons we are so ignorant towards these matters. It's also interesting to note, that these prospering arab nations also have some of the highest standards of living in the world, and although human rights watch, and other western based organization site these countries as negative, the people within it are often surveyed if they are in favour of democracy, or a more western liberal based democracy, and majority say no. Why? Speed! They complain directly to the government, and laws directly change through these complaints. There is no medium like we have in Western Liberal Democracies. It is also funny enough, that these countries also directly impact the economies of the U.S and other powerful western nations. When the charges of their petroleum goes up, and they prosper guess who has to pay the price? Answer is, all the nations depending on them.
     Now that we know of the causes, the revolutions, the effects, and the political shifts, what can we take from all this? In my opinion the countries that have revolutionized and continue to revolutionize are falling into the same trap, they can never fully satisfy the needs or functions of the government to the complete satisfaction of the people. When they revolutionize they put into power radicals, who harm their economy through nationalist policies that sound fantastic to the people at the start but by the end of it, turn out harming the average citizen. The nations who did not or have not been affected by the revolutions as much as the others, who have stuck to their traditions and changed over the course of time are doing much better, than the others as they are slowly changing to suit the needs of their people and the world. These nations with these families in power, I'm sure will one day slowly change into a democracy or some such variation, but that will come with time, and will best suit the needs of the people when they actually want it, or when the economy needs it. We can learn from these nations that there needs to be a balance. Nothing can be extremely liberal, because too much governmental control limits trade and harms the economy, but a too traditionally conservative nation harms the people by letting workers get exploited, and socially dividing people through rights violations. The countries in the middle east who survived the arab spring, economically, and politically speaking are the ones who best balanced themselves, an example that not only the other Arab countries can learn from, but the media in the west should note as well.