Middle East and North Africa

Lord Luce Excerpts

Friday 11th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Luce]

My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Baroness. She and a number of other noble Lords follow events in the Middle East very closely. I thank the Minister for the steady and wise advice that he gave to the House, based on his long experience. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, who also has a wealth of experience and with whom I have worked in a number of seminars on the Middle East, for her measured speech.

I am very glad that the Foreign Secretary has taken the initiative and gone to the Middle East. It gives me an opportunity to reinforce the point that we need diplomats of high quality there. I am sure that we have some. We need diplomats, not businessmen, who will report back accurately, who are in touch with the communities in those countries and who will serve our country in that way.

I confess that I first went to the Middle East in 1947, when I was 11. I went via Cairo, when King Farouk was on the throne, to Khartoum. It is extraordinary to think that, in the 63 years that have passed, there have been only three leaders in Egypt: Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak. That also shows the importance and the strength of the army, with which it is vital that we keep in touch.

Egypt had some experience of trying democracy in the years before the Second World War, but most people in Egypt today have not had the privilege of that experience. It is worth reminding ourselves of the famous conversation between Nehru and Nasser. Nasser boasted to Nehru: “I put my extremists in prison. What do you do with yours?”. Nehru replied: “Actually, I put mine in Parliament”. Perhaps there are lessons to be learnt from that.

The events of the past few days have shown a positive signal of the growing desire of so many people of whatever background in the Middle East—poor, middle-class or professional—for better-managed economies, less corruption, more freedoms and systems of accountability. Modern technology has acted as a catalyst to help release these volcanic tensions. Incidentally, I hope that this technology will play an important role in the coming months and years in helping the people of the Middle East choose a way forward.

We know from the events of the past few days in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan and elsewhere that in the struggle to find a more acceptable form of government will be a hard and rocky path. I think it was Aristotle who said that it is a part of probability that many improbable things will happen. Unfortunately, so many countries in the Middle East do not have leaders of the quality of Mandela to help them get through the difficulties in the years ahead. I hope that some will emerge.

What should our approach be? I will share one or two reflections. First, we need to recognise our respective histories. Yes, we have recently had our own empire. I am the son of a colonial governor and was the last British administrator in east Africa. When I met President Mubarak for the first time in Ismailia, he said: “Ah, here is the last British imperialist”. I also know that our empire is well and truly over, and we must look to a different and more modest future. In a way, I thank God that we do not have to tell the rest of the world what to do; we seem to have enough problems here. However, we remain an active partner in the Middle East; we have to be so.

We must recognise that other countries in the Middle East have had great empires; I refer to the Persian empires, the Turkish Ottoman Empire, Egypt and Mesopotamia. It follows that we have to be very careful, as noble Lords have already said, not to insist that other countries adopt our form of democracy. It was a considerable surprise to me to discover that Robert Peel, in a debate in the House in 1850, said that,

“you will not advance the cause of Constitutional Government by attempting to dictate to other nations”.

I do not think that he can have forecast what happened in the years after that, but how right he was. President Obama was also right to say at the UN in September 2009:

“Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside”.

Therefore, we have to encourage evolution, not revolution. We have to encourage systems of accountability that are rooted in those countries’ traditions, history and culture. As the noble Baroness has just said, we have to watch with interest the debate about democracy versus theocracy, drawing lessons from the fact that in Indonesia and the Philippines Muslims participate in fairly straightforward democratic systems. Then, we observe the experience of Iran. I am reminded of the words of the late Lord Hailsham here; if you try to create heaven on earth, you will end up creating hell on earth.

In contrast to Iran, we have the lessons of Turkey and the inspiration of Ataturk in the 1920s. That has led to a country that today is secular but Islamic. It is, I think, an example to the rest of the Middle East, and I hope that it will adopt a very strong role in the affairs of that region in the years ahead.

Like other noble Lords, I believe it is right to say that there is no one solution for each of these countries—they are all different. Some are republics or autocracies; others are monarchies of different kinds. Even in the Gulf, in places such as Kuwait and Bahrain where there are two Chambers, there is the evolution of some kind of constitutional monarchy. Some are not learning the lessons of Lampedusa—that, in order to remain strong, you must adjust. Therefore, real stability, which is a British interest, will come only if the aspirations of the people of the Middle East are satisfied through peaceful evolution. As the Minister said, we have to work unilaterally, like an instrument in an orchestra, with the European Union, the United States, other organisations and our friends in the Middle East. We have to engage in dialogue, where we are asked to do so, with leaders, armies, civic society and emerging political parties, including Islamic political parties. Let us learn the lessons of Algeria, where an Islamic party was elected, Parliament was then abolished and there were 10 years of bloodshed and civil war.

I want to say a word about the overall strategic position and refer, first, to the Israeli/Palestinian issue, which remains a top priority. The failure to reach any agreement is a kind of cancer that poisons so much else, as well as poisoning the prospects of stability in the Middle East. It goes on deteriorating and is a powder keg. There is a kind of ineluctable slide downhill. We all know that the best solution for both the Israelis and the Palestinians is a two-state solution. However, the Palestinians are hopelessly divided, with pretty weak Arab support from the remainder of the Middle East. The Israeli Government of today, although not necessarily previous Israeli Governments, show no interest whatever in moving forward. In contrast, it is developing settlements, totally against international convention and law. The United States is not consistent in its vigour in pursuing peace in that area. The longer this lifetime dispute drags on, the more the prospects of stability will suffer. Abba Eban of Israel was right when he said that you make peace by talking to your enemies. Ahtisaari, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, was also right when he said:

“Peace is a question of will. All conflicts can be settled, and there are no excuses for allowing them to become eternal”.

I also want to say a word about the Gulf. Here, I should mention that it was my father who negotiated our withdrawal from the Gulf on behalf of HMG in 1971. I welcome the present Government’s approach to the Gulf. The countries in that area are our longstanding friends and they value personal friendship. It is exceedingly important that Ministers make regular visits to the area and get to know all the leaders. However, it is also important that we engage with the Gulf leaders through the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf on the big issues that affect them and us. One is Iran, that great nation of 70 million people, which we have not yet discussed very much today. We know from the evidence that many there are aspiring to a freer way of life. How do we work towards regional security? We have to talk to the Gulf leaders on that.

We also have to talk to the Gulf leaders about Yemen and the Horn of Africa. I express the hope that the Government are looking on Yemen and the Horn as a region of profound instability and that they see a need for a cohesive approach towards Yemen, the Gulf of Aden, with its piracy, and Somalia. We have important trade through the Gulf of Aden. We see piracy increasing —they have more than 700 hostages—with ransoms higher than ever. In Yemen, we see a weak Government with competing elites; we see tribes and regions increasingly autonomous; and we see three secessionist movements. We also see a deteriorating economy, with oil running out and shortages of water. We are all familiar with the scene in Somalia—an ever-weakening transitional Government and Puntland as the base for piracy. In my remaining remarks, I wish to mention the key points that I think we should follow there.

There must be a balance between our approach to helping the security of that region and our approach to helping the development of that region. If the West and the Arab neighbours simply support strengthening security, that will only help to radicalise the population and alienate some of the vast diaspora who live in this country and other parts of Europe and America. On Yemen, we need to persuade the GCC, Saudi Arabia and the group of 20 Friends of Yemen to work towards helping to develop the Yemeni economy. On Somalia, there is one ray of hope, which is that there were elections in Somaliland last June and the elected President wants to develop a free democratic part of Somalia. That country must be given every encouragement—and I am very glad that the Secretary of State for DfID has been there in the past couple of weeks—in developing its health and education, in training in public service and in facilitating the provision of skills by the diaspora from this country to Somaliland. All that will help to consolidate strength in that country.

I end by referring briefly to Sudan, where my father was the last to pull the flag down in 1956. If he were alive today, he would feel extremely sad. However, we should welcome the positive efforts of both the northern and southern Governments to get a peaceful resolution to the long-standing tragedy of the divide between north and south. I hope that we will keep our hand in in working with the African Union and the region to help to solve the other problems of Abyei and the borders, and citizenship rights and so on, and perhaps in the long term offer them the prospect that, if they satisfy certain conditions, they will be able to enter the Commonwealth.

We must remain an active partner in the Middle East but a modest one, not an imperial power.