Sean Foley: The New 'Disorder' of Hope
[Sean Foley is an assistant professor of history at Middle Tennessee State University in the US and a Fulbright scholar at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation in Malaysia. He specialises in the contemporary history of the Middle East and political and religious issues throughout the Muslim world and Southeast Asia. To view more of his work, visit seanfoley.org.]
In 1935 Lieutenant-Colonel Hodgen, the British political agent for Kuwait, wrote to the British foreign office about a new and popular form of communication in Kuwait and the other Arab monarchies along the coast of the Persian Gulf: Arabic radio broadcasts emanating from Egypt. He observed that the new form of communication "is not only significant" but also "contains very great possibilities for both good and harm".
His warnings proved to be prophetic. In the 1950s, Egyptian radio broadcasts in Arabic helped to inspire young activists and military officers to challenge Arab autocratic regimes allied with the West in much the same way that social media and other new forms of mass media have done this year in the Arab world. The seemingly strong pro-Western monarchies in Egypt and Iraq fell to popular revolutions.
But the Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf region (what we know today as Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) survived by making large investments in radio and television broadcasting, harnessing the support of social and tribal networks, and tapping the unique 'legitimacy' afforded by the fact that these states, along with Morocco, were the only governments in the Middle East that could claim a continuous tradition of governance predating World War I. Steadily rising revenues from oil and gas production also helped to maintain stability....
The United Arab Emirates and other Arab monarchies in the Gulf that have escaped unrest are now contemplating a large financial aid package for both Bahrain and Oman. Further complicating politics in the Gulf are the millions of expatriate workers. Their presence is an important political issue in some Gulf states, and if these workers were forced to leave the Gulf quickly, they would spark a massive humanitarian crisis that dwarfs the one currently afflicting North Africa....
Read entire article at Al Jazeera
In 1935 Lieutenant-Colonel Hodgen, the British political agent for Kuwait, wrote to the British foreign office about a new and popular form of communication in Kuwait and the other Arab monarchies along the coast of the Persian Gulf: Arabic radio broadcasts emanating from Egypt. He observed that the new form of communication "is not only significant" but also "contains very great possibilities for both good and harm".
His warnings proved to be prophetic. In the 1950s, Egyptian radio broadcasts in Arabic helped to inspire young activists and military officers to challenge Arab autocratic regimes allied with the West in much the same way that social media and other new forms of mass media have done this year in the Arab world. The seemingly strong pro-Western monarchies in Egypt and Iraq fell to popular revolutions.
But the Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf region (what we know today as Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) survived by making large investments in radio and television broadcasting, harnessing the support of social and tribal networks, and tapping the unique 'legitimacy' afforded by the fact that these states, along with Morocco, were the only governments in the Middle East that could claim a continuous tradition of governance predating World War I. Steadily rising revenues from oil and gas production also helped to maintain stability....
The United Arab Emirates and other Arab monarchies in the Gulf that have escaped unrest are now contemplating a large financial aid package for both Bahrain and Oman. Further complicating politics in the Gulf are the millions of expatriate workers. Their presence is an important political issue in some Gulf states, and if these workers were forced to leave the Gulf quickly, they would spark a massive humanitarian crisis that dwarfs the one currently afflicting North Africa....