North Africa and the Near and Middle East

William Bain Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). I congratulate him on his speech and his generosity in leaving time for others to speak.

I follow the sentiments of the hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips), my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander) in saying how fitting it is that, on this day, when the people of Egypt start to go to the polls in their parliamentary general election, we are holding this debate on the future of the middle east and north Africa.

I shall restrict my remarks to the situation in Syria and Bahrain. I hope it is helpful to the House for me to take us back to the origin of the protest on 18 March, when Syrian Government forces detained 15 children for spraying anti-regime graffiti on a wall. When civilians took to the street to protest against that heavy-handed crackdown, the same security forces brought the uprising to a brief and brutal conclusion by killing four protestors. The next day, thousands more people took to the streets.

To date, Syria continues its ruthless practice of violently extinguishing protests, no matter how peaceful, as a precondition to any engagement with the opposition parties. The UN estimates that 3,500 protestors have been killed since the protests began. The non-governmental organisation Freedom House estimated that in 2010 between 2,000 and 2,500 political prisoners in Syria were held. It described Assad’s regime as an “ossified dictatorship”.

Until the early part of this year, Syria had perhaps somewhat successfully portrayed an image of stability to the media in the west. In an interview in The Wall Street Journal on 31 January, President Assad asserted with some confidence that Syria would not fall victim to the same fate as the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia. He said:

“Where there is divergence between your policy and the people’s beliefs and interests, you will have this vacuum that creates disturbance. So people do not only live on interests; they also live on beliefs”.

The ideology of the Syrian people to which Assad referred in that quote was the opposition to Israel. Syria and Israel have clashed militarily on a number of occasions. However, he failed to recognise that the people’s beliefs transcend religion and that Syrians believe in genuine economic and social reform and in democracy and equality.

At an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Indonesia last week, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that the situation in Syria could soon result in civil war. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has taken the view

“that it already looks like one.”

It is difficult to refute that argument when recounting the unfathomable cruelty that Assad has waged against his own people. However, unlike the Libyan opposition, whose strategy appeared haphazard but who were coherent and single-minded, the Syrian opposition are unfortunately splintered. There have been some interesting diplomatic developments. The Turkish Prime Minister recently said:

“It is not heroism to fight against your own people.”

His criticism is particularly significant, as he previously referred to his Syrian counterparts as “his brothers”. The Turkish President, Abdullah Gul, last week noted that Syria had reached

“the point of no return.”

Where to now for Syria? Michael Broning, director of the east Jerusalem office of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a German political foundation, has noted:

“Syria has recently experienced annual economic growth rates of around 5 percent, but the country is still plagued by staggering unemployment, increasing costs of living, stagnating wages, and widespread poverty.”

The UN estimates that in eastern Syria alone 800,000 people live in extreme poverty, owing to a sustained period of low rainfall. When he succeeded his father Hafez in 2000, Assad moved towards economic liberalisation with the creation of a stock market and the opening of the banking sector to private banks, yet Syria is rated 144th out of 183 countries in the World Bank’s latest report on the ease of doing business. Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at Oklahoma university, considers the prospects for economic development to be bleak, noting recently:

“Eventually things will fall apart.”

Unlike with events in Libya, the Arab League has been reticent in its approach to the uprising in Syria. Although the causes of the Arab uprisings in recent months are deeply complex and entrenched, in some cases, they stem from a culmination of decades of repression and underdevelopment. Although the eventual catalysts differ from state to state, the long-term causes appear to be consistent: high inflation, rising food prices, mass unemployment, absence of social mobility and human rights abuses. Economic and social reform in the middle east is arguably as important as political reform in the shape of overthrowing autocrats.

Like Syria, Bahrain is an example of an unrepresentative regime—a 70% Shi’ite majority is governed by a Sunni, pro-US regime. Indeed, some commentators have argued that the US has been reticent in its stance on Bahrain, relative to its sharp condemnation of other Arab autocrats, but the US Secretary of State said recently that the tumult in Bahrain serves Iran’s interests. She said:

“Meaningful reform and equal treatment for all Bahrainis are in Bahrain’s interests, in the region’s interest, and in ours—while endless unrest benefits Iran and extremists.”

Last week the Bahrain independent commission of inquiry cleared Iran of being the hidden hand behind the Shi’a protests, which in itself is encouraging, but under no circumstances should we see the heat taken off the Bahrain Government. Last week’s report also surprised many middle east commentators for its candour and acceptance of the Bahrain Government’s accountability. The report contains a number of damning indictments of the security forces’ conduct, including: the admission of deaths of 35 protesters; the admission of lethal force being used against protesters, leading to civilian deaths; the admission that torture was pervasive among those detained and led to five deaths; the admission that female prisoners were threatened with rape; and, most importantly, the admission that the reforms must now be rapidly implemented to inhibit the litany of human rights abuses that mark the spring uprising in Bahrain. But that acceptance of culpability has also to be followed by purposeful reforms to ensure that the victims of human rights abuses receive justice, and that safeguards are established in law to prevent any repeat. The BICI report details evidence that imprisoned protestors were beaten, whipped, hooded and subjected to electric shock treatment, and those findings must lead to real change.

Dramatic changes are also needed to the economy in Bahrain. Unemployment stands at 15% and youth unemployment is at 20%—and that, too, is reflective of other states in the Arab region. In Libya, unemployment is at 30%, and in Yemen, where President Ali Abdullah Saleh last week signed the deal to transfer power, it stands at 35%.

We have a new generation of young people who are unwilling to accept the inequality experienced by past generations, and it falls to the international community to ensure that the brave efforts of protestors in Manama and elsewhere throughout the middle east have not been in vain, and that the promise of the Arab spring is not squandered this winter.