The new EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton has just made her second major speech to the European Parliament, where she said that Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iran and Somalia were on the top of her shopping list for new policies. The Arab and Muslim world will be impressed at her interest in souvenirs from the souk, but will want to know what she intends to buy.
Rather like Obama’s Cairo speech the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. A nice dish of “maglouba” or “upside down” might go down well, since a lot of positions before seemed to be the wrong way up. Maglouba is a delicious dish from Palestine and Jordan where you invert the rice and the meat in the pot at the last minute to serve it. This is very much in line with what is needed.
Piotr Kaczynski, an EU policy analyst at the Center for European Policy Studies said “Clearly it was a better performance than the last time but for me it was missing elements.” He continued, “She mentions the problems but did´nt say how to address them.” Clearly they should be addressed in Arabic, Pharsi, Dari, Pushtu and Urdu.
Catherine Ashton has the advantage of looking almost like a normal person, which might not so be good for the aristocracy of diplomacy, but might be better for its democratization.
It’s not surprising she told the European Parliament that she will not consult them with a democratic vote every time they select an EU Ambassador. Otherwise they will spend all their time setting up shop and never buy anything.
Moreover since the shopping list is aimed fairly and squarely at the Arab and Muslim world we can’t leave out tidying up irksome Iraq, perennial Palestine or engaging Egypt (better earlier than later).
And the central issue is this: Is fundamentalist militant Islam defeatable, or adaptable, or neither? Because it is causing mayhem, dominating the debate, destabilizingthe Arab and Muslim world and its relations with the West and undermining Islam itself.
However, the primary responsibility for understanding this problem, and working out what to do, rests with the leaders and civil societies of the Arab and Muslim world.
If the EU shows sense and sensibility it should support the policies and economic and social strategies within the Arab and Muslim world that can cope with, mitigate and eventually help resolve the conflicts arising from the collision between Muslim modernization and a Luddite, rejectionist Islamic fundamentalism.
To avoid elevating this conundrum of conflicts to a struggle between Islam and the West, which is the aim of the militants, several key steps are needed:
First, fundamentalist militant Islam must be disaggregated from tribal dissidents, drug barons and organized crime and proponents of sectarian strife. Separate but linked solutions are needed, not to unite a rag-bag of dissidents, opportunists and criminals into a mighty army.
Second, security must be improved, but no-one should believe these problems can simply be militarized and defeated. We need enough security to persuade everybody who will to negotiate. We only need to fight those who won´t. The fighting should be done by local, Arab and predominantly Muslim armies, and not by the West.
Third political Islam including the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the Malaysian Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, the Indonesian Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the ruling Turkish Justice and Development Party must be engaged as political allies of democracy.
The real battle is against underdevelopment and ignorance and their consequences. Do not make war on the symptoms of social ills, but on their causes.
Teach moderation through political responsibility and don’t run like a frightened chicken every time Arabs and Muslims vote for change. Learn to help manage Muslim modernization, especially where it affects EU countries, and stop fighting it. Political Islam is part of Muslim modernization.
The EU must decide. Will you back democracy now, or tread in the same old pooh-pooh? In which case it will fly in your face. Better a clean fresh start and dig your way out of the holes you fell down before.
Terry Lacey is a development economist who writes from Jakarta on modernization in the Muslim world, investment and trade relations with the EU and Islamic banking.
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