I was a participant at the annual Sir Bani Yas Forum, organized by the Emirati Foreign Ministry, which concluded on Sunday. The forum is distinguished by the quality of its subjects, in addition to the participation of elite politicians and intellectuals from across the world.
It convened at the Qasr Al-Sarab resort in the Liwa Desert of Abu Dhabi, and ran for three days. If it had not been held under Chatham House rules, I would have been able to inform you of many of its controversial discussions, as they are truly significant.
One thing I can say without violating the forum’s rules is that all discussions tackled Arab and regional developments. Various comprehensive subjects were addressed, and discussions included scientific and intellectual debates that reflected people’s differences.
It is no surprise that the region’s crises are linked. Chaos in the Afghan capital Kabul travelled 7,000 kilometers across Asia and Africa to Libya’s capital Tripoli. Why has this contagion traveled across two continents, Asia and Africa, without passing other countries along the way, such as Malta, the closer neighbor?
What countries struck by crises have in common is backwardness. Failure and chaos unite Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and other countries. They have the same characteristics, which are linked to belief, tribes and history.
Although each country has a different cause, these crises remain similar. Disturbed societies all have problems related to governance, power and rights. When countries and their leaderships collapse, chaos erupts due to a vacuum as there is nothing left of the state. One can die of cholera in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, or of thirst in the Yemeni city of Taiz, or of cold in the Syrian city of Aleppo — all due to the system’s weakness or collapse.
However, disintegration is not a characteristic exclusive to the Middle East, as some say. For example, Iraq is a country that’s a combination of different blocs, like the Republic of Yugoslavia which broke apart after Tito’s death. The difference between these two examples is in the countries surrounding them. In the case of Yugoslavia, the Europeans looked after the divided republics and, upon the United Nations' help, supported them and granted them legitimacy after a war that didn’t last long.
In Iraq, however, the country’s official frameworks did not break down due to America’s moves to solidify it. But societal ties were broken down, resulting in ethnic and sectarian divisions, which further disintegrated society into smaller circles.
The region’s defects make intellectual gatherings the natural place to discuss alternatives to fighting.
