Every day for some months in 1935, Abdolhossein Sepanta dutifully made the dull commute from Bandra to Andheri in Bombay. By this time the financial capital of India and home of Indian cinema were familiar to Sepanta, a young poet and journalist from Tehran who attended theatre school in his youth. He had studied and worked in India for a number of years, taking on assignments as a writer and translator. He had also scripted and made three of the earliest Persian-language sound films (‘talkies’) in collaboration with a studio in Bombay. The first of these had been Dokhtar-e Lor (Lor Girl, 1933), a costume drama featuring gypsies, bandits and government officials.

Those daily train journeys in 1935 marked a departure of sorts, as Sepanta had just fallen out with his initial collaborator Ardeshir Irani of the Imperial Films Company, the pioneer of Indian talkies. So he was travelling instead to the leafy studios of a rival production house, which had agreed to back his next passion project. Released in both Iran and India, his films are a fascinating early example of co-productions in the East. His experiences are also indicative of the remarkable difficulties of making cinema in those years.

Even if cut short, Sepanta’s time with Imperial Films was significant. Originally having arrived in India in 1927 with a desire to understand the Zoroastrian history of Iran, he wrote for publications of the Bombay-based Iran League – an organisation that aimed to keep ties alive between Indian Zoroastrians and their old land Iran. Sepanta was introduced to the prolific producer Irani in 1932, who had just produced an Urdu film Daku ki Ladki. ‘Seeing the film, plus the friendship between my employer (Dinshah Irani) and Ardeshir Irani gave me the perfect opportunity to interest Ardeshir in producing a film in Persian language’ Sepanta is quoted as having written in his memoirs.

An ambitious Ardeshir Irani (possibly) did not need much convincing. He had raced against more established competitors to make the first Indian talkie Alam Ara in 1931 – exporting films to Iran would be another feather in his pheta. Episodes from the Persian epic Shahnameh as well as Islamic fantasy tales from One Thousand and One Nights were already part of the public imagination in Bombay, given their adaptation by the popular Parsi theatre. When motion pictures emerged, a number of these became recurring themes in cinema too; among them Shirin va Farhad and Leili va Majnun. So the two set off making familiar yet exotic films for both the Iranian and Indian markets.

Irani, described by Sepanta as an excellent film editor, offered him technical advice, along with books on script writing and directing. Directed by Irani, Sepanta wrote and played the lead in Lor Girl. Together, they persuaded Roohangiz Saminejad, wife of an Iranian staff driver at Imperial Films, to take on the female lead during a time when few women were willing to appear on screen. Her lilting Kermani accent, while playing a Lorestani character, had to be explained in a plot point; nevertheless it appealed to audiences and some even mimicked her lines.

As the first ever Persian talkie, Sepanta felt it should stir patriotism among viewers. He conceived of a hero Jafar, a government agent investigating bandits who, it is implied, thrived during the Qajar era. His search leads him to a coffee house where he meets and falls in love with a dancer, Golnar. Golnar is a heroine ahead of her time: she thwarts unwanted advances of men, flirts proactively with Jafar and pulls off daring escapes and rescues. The two set off together to find the chief bandit Gholi Khan’s hideout and succeed in killing him. Fearing for their lives, they sail to Bombay port and later, having learnt of a secure and prosperous Iran under Pahlavi rule, return to Iran. The film’s alternative title ‘Iran of yesterday and Iran of today’ speaks directly to its underlying message of advancement under Reza Shah.

Lor Girl is the only Sepanta film to have survived. It featured luminous costumes, a two-minute dance sequence, a flashback, several songs and gun-battles, all contributing to its success. Khuzestan had been recreated in Chembur, then a verdant, far-flung part of Bombay. When the couple flees to India, there are glimpses of the Gateway of India, Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and Rajabai Clock Tower. Despite its talkie credentials, intertitles were inserted to inform of time lapses and plot details. Following the film’s enthusiastic reception – the applause in Cinema Mayak was so loud one movie critic felt ‘the floor of the theatre tremble’ – Irani handed over direction to Sepanta for the next releases, Ferdowsi (1934) and Shirin va Farhad (1934).

By now, the young writer had brought in Fakhri Vaziri from Iran, who worked in an acting school, and gave her a break on screen as Shirin. To meet and convince Vaziri’s parents, he even brought along his own mother, wife and son. The partnership with Irani withered after Sepanta was disappointed with his share in the returns; he joined other Indian studios to direct his next costume dramas. Vaziri accompanied the director on the humid train commutes to film Cheshman-e Siah (Black Eyes) with Shree Krishna Films, which released it in 1936. Based on Nader Shah’s invasion of India, this film was perhaps Sepanta’s most publicised, especially aimed at India’s Parsi viewers as a special release for the kadmi New Year holiday.

The director’s most positive experience was in Bengal, telling the love story Leyli and Majnun (1937) with the East India Film Company, which had access to advanced cameras and sound equipment. Through detailed meetings with the studio, he learnt about pre-production. Vaziri co-starred in this film too, which was reported by the Times of India to have an ‘Oriental atmosphere’ and ‘probably the best Persian talkie made in India or Iran.’ On returning to Iran soon thereafter, his filmmaking hopes suffered as distributors tried to purchase the films cheaply, and government support for cinema was not forthcoming. Instead, he resumed journalism and eventually made home movies with an 8mm camera. His cinematic contributions are not forgotten; acknowledged as father of Iranian sound films, his Lor Girl is a subject of academic and general interest, and the Iranian Film Festival in San Francisco (est. 2007) is titled Sepanta Awards.

The story of Sepanta’s efforts between 1933 and 1937 is, importantly, the story of how two cultures enriched each other. It is unfortunate that despite popular release in Iran and India, only one of the five films remains available for viewing. Still, as Irani’s Alam Ara appears to be lost forever, Lor Girl preserves the legacy of two important artists and is a thing to be cherished.

Ranjita Ganesan is a Mumbai-based journalist who writes on subjects of culture and the arts for the Indian daily Business Standard and has contributed to outlets including Reuters and Hindustan Times. She recently completed the MA in Iranian Studies at SOAS

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This article appears in the Iranian Cinema issue of The Middle East in London.

Ganesan, Ranjita. ‘Indian camera, Iranian heart’ The Middle East in London 15, no. 2 (February–March 2019); 5-6.

Although much imaginative prose writing can be found in Arabic literature of the medieval and pre-modern periods, it is not until the second half of the 19^th century that we can speak of an ‘Arabic novel’ in the sense in which we usually understand the term. The rise of the form is associated with the movement of literary and cultural renewal known as the nahda, initially centred mainly in Egypt and Syria/Lebanon, which combined an attempt to rediscover the classical Arabic cultural and intellectual heritage with the importation of Western literary forms into the region for the first time. Much debate has taken place about what was the ‘first Arabic novel’, a strong contender for the title being a monumental work entitled Leg Over Leg by the Lebanese Faris al-Shidyaq, published in 1855. Al-Shidyaq’s work had no direct successors, however, and despite a number of other early attempts at novel writing, it is probably only with the series of some 23 historical novels produced by the Lebanese/Egyptian Jirji Zaydan between 1891 and 1914 (still widely read today) that the novel can be said to have moved into the mainstream of Arab cultural life.

Following Zaydan, a number of different strands quickly began to appear in the Arabic novel, as novel writing started to spread to other areas of the Arab world. A significant landmark was the publication in 1913 of Zaynab, by the Egyptian Muhammad Husayn Haykal, which combined a contemporary Egyptian setting with a romantic plot on Western lines, and which marked the beginning of a strong romantic strand. The increasing interest in the form is evidenced by the institution of a novel-writing competition in the early 1930s, which was won by Ibrahim al-Mazini with a work entitled Ibrahim the Writer: the semi-autobiographical nature of this work is apparent from its title, and this characteristic was shared by many novels of the first half of the 20^th century.

The credit for introducing a truly ‘realistic’ trend into the Arab novel probably belongs to the Egyptian Tawfiq al-Hakim, whose rambling two-part novel entitled Return of the Spirit depicts the life of an Egyptian family during WWI. Novel writing also attracted other prominent intellectuals, including the Egyptian Taha Hussein, whose fictionalised autobiography The Days, the first part of which was published in 1926, remains among the best-loved publications of this early period. This realistic trend was continued by Naguib Mahfouz, the only Arab winner to date of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1988), whose Trilogy, first published in 1956-57, chronicles in loving detail the life of a lower-middle-class Egyptian family in the period between the two World Wars. Mahfouz’s career remains a unique one among Arab writers, not only in terms of its length and productivity (he continued to produce works of interest until well into his seventies) but also because his novels often seem to reflect changes in the prevailing literary mood in Egypt; towards the end of his life he developed an increasing appetite for experimentation, and his work (almost all of which is available in English translation) has exerted a considerable influence on subsequent generations of Arabic writers.

It has frequently been remarked that turning points in Arabic literary history have gone hand-in-hand with political developments, and the appearance of a new ‘social realist’ trend in the early 1950s – following the 1948 war in Palestine and the Egyptian Free Officers’ Revolution of 1952 – is a case in point. In 1953 the Lebanese author Suhayl Idris thrust into prominence the idea of ‘commitment’ (a term derived from Jean-Paul Sartre) and for a time this trend dominated writing throughout much of the Arab world. It is perhaps best exemplified by ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sharqawi’s novel Egyptian Earth, first published in 1954 and later turned into a film by Youssef Chahine. The feeling of optimism induced by the Nasserist Revolution, however, was short-lived, and the mood of increasing disillusion sweeping through the region was brought to a head by the Arab defeat in the 1967 (‘Six Day’) war with Israel.

The previous year, 1966, had already seen the publication of the Sudanese Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North – a classic of ‘post-colonial’ writing that has been described as ‘the most important Arabic novel of the 20^th century’ – and of the Egyptian Sonallah Ibrahim’s seminal novella That Smell. Of these two works, it is Ibrahim’s, with its distinctive ‘minimalist’ style, that is widely regarded as encapsulating the prevailing mood of disillusion, and the following years saw the emergence of a group of writers and poets – centred on, though not confined to, Egypt – who are commonly known as the ‘Generation of the Sixties’ and whose work reflects, directly or indirectly, both the shifting politics of the region and a search for new means of expression. This period is also notable for an increase in publications from parts of the Arab world with little previous tradition of novel writing in Arabic – not least in the countries of North Africa, where French rather than Arabic had been the language of choice of many imaginative writers until the 1950s or 1960s.

More recently, the novel in Arabic has seen the emergence of a new generation of talented authors, fuelled, at least in part, by the establishment of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) in 2008, and by an associated increase in opportunities for translation into other languages. Its course has been heavily influenced by the so-called ‘Arab spring’ of 2010 onwards, as well as by the explosion in the use of social media as a vehicle for literary activity. As a result, alongside a continuation of novels in traditional form, new styles and directions are emerging (among which the ‘dystopic’ novel represents a particular trend), reflecting not only the turbulent state of the region today but also evolving attitudes to the Arabic language and traditional literary formats. Significantly, four IPAF winners to date have been drawn from the Arabian Peninsula, an area with no tradition of novel writing for most of the period under discussion.

Against this somewhat rosy picture of the state of the contemporary Arabic novel, we should remember that political and religious censorship continues to constrain publication in many parts of the region, and many writers are unable to publish their work in their own countries. Small readership numbers also mean that the financial rewards for both writers and publishers are limited, and few writers are able to make a living from literary activities alone. Despite their achievements, therefore, Arabic novelists continue to face major challenges.

Paul Starkey is Professor Emeritus at Durham University, a former Vice-President of BRISMES and Chair of the Banipal Trust for Arab Literature. He has translated many novels by contemporary Arab authors and won the 2015 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for Youssef Rakha’s The Book of the Sultan’s Seal (Interlink, 2014). His translations include Mustafa Khalifa’s The Shell (Interlink, 2016), Mahdi Issa Saqr’s East Winds, West Winds (AUC Press, 2010), and Adania Shibli’s We Are All Equally Far From Love (Interlink, 2013). He has also published widely in the field of modern Arabic literature, particularly Egyptian literature. He is author of Sonallah Ibrahim: Rebel with a Pen (Edinburgh University Press, 2016), Modern Arabic Literature (2006), and From the Ivory Tower: A Critical Study of Tawfiq Hakim (Ithaca Press, 1987) and was co-editor with Julie Meisami of the Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature (Routledge, 1998)

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This article appears in The Novel in the Arab World issue of The Middle East in London.

Starkey, Paul. ‘The Arabic novel: a general introduction’ The Middle East in London 15, no. 1 (December 2018–January 2019); 5-6.

‘The Iran sanctions have officially been cast’ tweeted President Trump three months after he signed an executive order in May announcing the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. He went on to boast the return of ‘the most biting sanctions ever imposed’, as if sounding the death-knell of the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries.

Although the announcement did not take many by surprise, the irony was not lost on one key observer, Wendy Sherman – the senior US negotiator of the JCPOA – who quipped recently that she had always expected ‘the greatest challenge to the deal’s success would be violations by Iran, not the political machinations of the president of the United States.’

Iran and the US indeed seem to have reversed roles now: Iran’s isolation at the nuclear table in the last round now contrasts with the US swimming against the tide of international opinion. Disappointment, if not disbelief, was quick to come, not least from other counterparts to the JCPOA – the countries of the EU, Russia and China – who swiftly reaffirmed their strong commitment to it.

By contrast, US officials have reiterated the Trump administration’s determination to permanently rein in Iran’s ‘nuclear ambitions’, limit its ballistic missiles programme and scale down its regional influence. By the final stage, which kicks in on 4 November, curiously coinciding with the 39^th anniversary of the US hostage-taking in the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979, the aim of the sanctions is to reduce Iran’s oil exports ‘down to zero’.

Given the fraught and long history of economic sanctions in Iran, the question looming now is whether this time they are more likely to be effective – whether in changing the regime or its behaviour.

The last time Iran’s oil exports were reduced to negligible levels through an extensive economic boycott was in the mid-20^th century, when the oil industry was nationalised by Iran’s popular Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. The backlash, a successful blockade of Iran’s oil by major powers led by Britain, turned out to be arguably a textbook ‘success’ story in the history of sanctions. It brought the industry to a virtual standstill, destabilised the economy and deprived the nationalist government of badly needed funds and domestic energy. This paved the way for the infamous US-instigated coup, which restored the Shah to power in 1953. Such has been the hangover from these tumultuous years that it took half a century for Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State, to acknowledge in 2000 that the coup was a clear ‘setback for Iran’s political development’ and a basis for ‘why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America’.

Such remorse, if it can be considered that, did not, however, close the door on more Iran sanctions. Under Obama, and as a key element of his strategy for ‘engaging with Iran’ during 2010-15, the EU and US unilateral sanctions had mixed results. Under these comprehensive sanctions – also described as ‘the most crippling sanctions in the history of sanctions’ by Joe Biden, the US Vice President – oil exports contracted by two thirds, sinking to below one million barrels a day. The wider macro impact was equally harsh with stagflation setting in: inflation reached a height of 35 per cent in 2013 and GDP contracted by nearly 6 per cent in 2012. Unsurprisingly, the ordinary folk bore the brunt. There was widespread private sector failure and growing unemployment. Ironically perhaps, and contrary to the sanctions’ principal objectives, these years saw the economic and political hold of the public sector and parastatals strengthened. Meanwhile, Iran insisted on its sovereign rights to continue with a peaceful nuclear programme. Things, however, changed after 2013, when Iran’s internal political dynamics gave way to the reformist administration of Hassan Rouhani.

So what is different this time?

Though promising to be even more biting, there are clear differences. For a start, the sanctions regime is not backed by UN Security Council resolutions and thus lacks international legitimacy. This means Iran’s isolation will be far less complete with her key trading partners, such as China and Turkey, already announcing that they will abide by ‘legal’ sanctions only.

To be effective though, the sanctions de facto – and not de jure – status will decide the outcome. This is especially true of the European firms, for whom the battle for secondary sanctions will ultimately be decided in the boardrooms and in cognisance of their shareholders’ interests rather than the political machinations of their home governments. This explains the significant stream of exits from Iran’s markets already announced by large firms. A reminder that in an interconnected world where the US economic sway extends far and deep across the globe, it is hard even for European giants such as Airbus and airlines, energy companies and banks to risk the ire of the US Treasury. Whether we consider the deal bruised or buried, the ultimate success of sanctions is, therefore, likely to depend on how others behave – just as much as on Iran’s responses.

But domestic conditions also play a key role, and this is where the US seems to be banking its hopes for ‘success’.

For months, Iranian cities have been rocked by widespread protests ostensibly against harshening economic conditions. These outbursts have weakened Iran’s reformers by undermining their monopoly on hope. Hardliners, it seems, have been offered a new lifeline and can now claim their disregard for the nuclear deal was justified from the start. The economic impact has been widely felt already, with the Iranian currency going into free fall since speculations about the US nuclear withdrawal kicked in. The spectre of inflation is now back.

Ultimately for sanctions to be ‘successful’ from the US perspective, they must succeed in either bringing about a regime change in Iran or a change in its behaviour. Historically though sanctions have a less than convincing record of achieving regime change (as in Cuba, Myanmar and Zimbabwe).

Can they pave the way for a negotiated settlement? This is yet to be seen, but one thing is clear: the ‘Trump doctrine’ of pushing one’s foes to the brink in the hope that they will blink first is in unchartered waters in Iran.

An earlier version of this article was published by the Project Syndicate website

Hassan Hakimian is Director of the London Middle East Institute and a Reader in the Department of Economics at SOAS. He is President of the International Iranian Economic Association (IIEA) and Series Editor for the ‘Routledge Political Economy of the Middle East’

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This article appears in the Iran issue of The Middle East in London.

Hakimian, Hassan. ‘Sanctions are back – with a vengeance’ The Middle East in London 14, no. 5 (October–November 2018); 5-6.

China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) programme has been welcomed in the Middle East. OBOR’s land-based and maritime silk roads cross both over and through the region. The land-based road passes through Istanbul and Tehran, as well as through Gwadar, while the maritime road goes through the Mediterranean and Red Seas and into the Gulf of Aden.

While China is an unlikely ally to Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria – they are often in political and ideological disagreement – China’s secret strategy is neutrality and, more importantly, money. Chinese money and resources are making a difference across the region: in Iran, in which China is constructing the Tehran-Isfahan high-speed railway; in Turkey, which is the middle corridor of the OBOR project and in which China is constructing the Baku-Tblisi-Kars railroad; as well as in Egypt, with the Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone; in Oman, in the construction of Duqm; and in the potential reconstruction of Syria. It is hoped that the large influx of Chinese foreign direct investment will spur economic growth through enhanced industrial production and trade.

China’s aims for OBOR are so ambitious that it has sought to integrate the programme with other countries’ medium-term development plans. For example, OBOR is considered an important part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and Jordan’s Vision 2025. Saudi Arabia’s plan is poised to diversify its economy away from oil. Jordan’s Vision 2025 is more complex, encompassing over 400 policies and including lofty aims such as strengthening institutions and sustainability. Both plans underscore the aims of boosting both GDP and human capital.

Chinese foreign direct investment welcome

In a region that often struggles ideologically against the influence of the United States, China’s promise of non-interference and funding for important development projects is very attractive. Despite the concerns of states like Saudi Arabia that are opposed to China’s strengthening of Iran through the OBOR programme, the region, which is attempting to build up infrastructure, appears mostly glad to receive Chinese capital. In countries like Oman, Chinese investment may amount to more than half of all foreign direct investment (FDI); in the region, China accounts for almost a third of FDI.

A period of low oil prices has led to slower growth in the oil-producing economies of the area, and, as a result, such nations experienced increasing budget and trade deficits. For countries like Algeria, which derives 90 per cent of its income from oil exports, lower oil prices translate directly into much leaner times. What is more, countries that do not produce oil often export labour to oil-producing nations, so the knock-on effects spread lower growth to the rest of the country. Unemployment is a big issue in the region. Additional funds, especially for projects that can help the Middle East gain a wider base for economic growth, can help the region resist oil price volatility. This is another major reason that China’s investment from OBOR is so welcome.

China gains from the investment as well

In exchange for its participation in building up infrastructure in the Middle East, China obtains valuable outlets for employment of its construction firms with a potential for a long-run return on investment, with the hope of building up new export markets. This is particularly beneficial to Chinese firms since the Asian nation is seeing an overall slowdown in economic growth that has led to lower rates of fixed asset investment (read: infrastructure). As real estate and fixed asset investment in China have wound down, obtaining new sources of growth has been a key focus for the Chinese government. President Xi appears to have two major policy aims in this regard – building up domestic consumption and promoting the OBOR plan.

China also gains the ability to enhance security through economic development in the volatile region. The region is essential to Chinese investment in energy and infrastructure, and is viewed as an important crossroads between Asia and Europe. The security of this region can help to stabilise Xinjiang, home to Uyghur separatists that China views as a threat to security and an important node on China’s belt and road. To the extent that China can reduce the potential for terrorist training of the Uyghurs in Syria and Iraq, it can boast some success. China is also using the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to increase military and counterterrorism cooperation in the Middle East, linking with the observer states of Afghanistan and Iran and dialogue partner Turkey. Economic involvement through OBOR, coupled with intergovernmental cooperation established through the SCO, work to combat terrorism in the area.

Still, risks exist 

The beneficial nature of the OBOR project doesn’t imply that China’s plans for infrastructure development in the Middle East are without risk. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, security risks in the Middle East are highest in Egypt, while most Middle Eastern countries present a higher credit risk than the average OBOR country, with Syria at the top of the list. Currency risk is also high in many Middle Eastern nations. In addition, China lacks any strong policy orientation in the region, as China remains wary of taking sides.

As a result, success is not guaranteed. China will have to regularly assess its risks and re-evaluate its position in OBOR projects. I have written elsewhere about China’s general lack of due diligence in determining the viability of projects. Returns are expected to be paid out over the long term, and some of these returns may end up being negative. The projects themselves may not generate sufficient profit, or security risks could forestall their success. Who absorbs the losses depends on who is holding the debt or equity in each project. In some cases, Chinese state-owned banks hold policy bonds, and if these experience losses, the Chinese financial system will take a hit. If foreign investors hold the debt or equity, they will stand to lose.

Indeed, the IMF’s Managing Director Christine Lagarde has warned that OBOR projects should be carefully selected, as there is a risk of driving up debt. The main concern is that the large scale funding that goes into infrastructure investment will leave developing countries in a poor financial situation, possibly with little to show for it. To prevent this, China must guard against encouraging overspending in invested countries.

For the Middle East region, OBOR could certainly provide a boost. If risks halt construction, they are unlikely to have the intended effect, and will present yet another obstacle that the region has to endure. Truly, the project is ambitious in scope, and a realistic assessment of the overall gains from its diverse manifestations in each invested country won’t be possible until five or ten years down the line. Although at present, the project appears to promise a win-win situation for both the Middle East and for China, whether OBOR will be the most successful undertaking in history or the biggest failure has yet to be seen.

Sara Hsu is Associate Professor of Economics at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She has published over six books, including one on the topic of Chinese informal finance entitled Informal Finance in China and a Chinese-language book on Chinese shadow banking, in addition to fifteen journal articles on the Chinese economy and financial sector. She also writes about current events in the Chinese economy in Forbes, The Diplomat, the Nikkei Asian Review, East Asia Forum, China Brief and China World

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This article appears in the China and the Middle East issue of The Middle East in London.

Hsu, Sara. ‘China’s One Belt, One Road initiative’ The Middle East in London 14, no. 4 (June–July 2018); 5-6.

With the advent of the Egyptian Presidential election (26-28 March), more accurately described as a de-facto referendum, one can start to piece together the primary features of El-Sisi’s next term. The behaviour of the regime before the elections, during which a number of presidential candidates either dropped out or were forced to withdraw through a combination of intimidation and direct repression, is a good indicator of the level of tolerance that the regime is likely to exercise toward the opposition, even within its own ranks. The eliminated candidates included Ahmed Shafiq, the ex-Prime Minister and air force commander who was forced to withdraw and remains under house arrest; Sami Annan, the ex-Chief of Staff who was arrested and is currently in military prison; and Ahmed Konsowa, an army colonel who is currently serving a six-year sentence for declaring his candidacy while in active service. These flagrant interventions by the regime in the electoral process caused the prominent Human Rights lawyer, Khaled Ali to withdraw his candidacy. This was followed by the arrest of Abdel Monem Abou El Fothouh, the head of the ‘Strong Egypt’ Party, after he gave a number of TV interviews critical of the regime. He was added to the terrorist list and is accused of liaising with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Given the behaviour already observed, one could argue that the expected level of repression in El-Sisi’s second term is bound to increase. The regime has already started to move against the legal opposition parties that have no connection to the Brotherhood. Apart from arresting its head, the regime also arrested the Secretary of the ‘Strong Egypt’ Party, Mohamed El Qassas, and the party is currently under threat of dissolution. Moreover, Islam Maraei, the Secretary General of the Social Democratic Party, was arrested from his home on 15 June 2017 and sentenced to three years in jail. This was preceded by a wave of arrests targeting members of the opposition parties, with charges including insulting the President and spreading false news. In addition to the above, in February 2018 the office of the Attorney General issued a statement warning against ‘the forces of Evil’. This terminology was used by the President and has no legal definition. The statement instructed the different District Attorneys and General Councils to monitor and arrest those ‘forces’, in true Orwellian fashion.

The expected increase in repression and restrictions against the legal opposition will continue to stifle political life in the country. El-Sisi, unlike Mubarak, does not have a mass civilian party that would allow him to ‘crowd out’, rather than repress, the legal opposition. This leaves the regime with limited options when dealing with the opposition, since its ability to stage-manage the political environment, in a manner that would maintain a democratic veneer, is limited.

The military elite has demonstrated a high level of cohesion around El-Sisi as their candidate of choice. This manifested itself in their reactions to the candidacy of Shafiq and Annan, both ex-military brass. Shafiq was quickly placed under house arrest and pressured to withdraw, while Annan, the ex-Chief of Staff, was rebuked by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in a short statement in which he was accused of violating military rules and attempting to create ‘discord between the people and the military’.

The swiftness and harshness of the reaction to the candidacy of both men reveals the level of support that El-Sisi commands amongst the top brass, despite signs of an internal struggle between El-Sisi and the powerful General Intelligence Service (GIS) – which some speculate was the cause of a recent reshuffle of the GIS leadership. The reasons for struggle are difficult to discern, however El-Sisi’s desire to consolidate control over all the organs of the state is likely at the root of this conflict, especially considering that the GIS had grown very powerful and independent under the leadership of the late Omar Suleiman. Nevertheless, El-Sisi will undoubtedly rely heavily on military support, thereby suppressing the establishment of a civilian ruling party, to the detriment of the political process.

In the realm of the economy, if the current trend continues one would expect an increased role for the military establishment, which has aggressively expanded its commercial activity over the past four years to the detriment of the private sector. The most notable example of which is the prominent role that the military has played in major infrastructure projects, like the new Suez Canal and the new administrative capital. This expansion will continue the trend of marginalising civilian elites, both in the economic and political spheres. When combined with a continuation of the neoliberal economic policies advocated by the IMF, which are likely to increase the pressure on the lower and middle classes, these policies are bound to fuel discontent, a critical element in the mass protests that erupted in 2011.

To counter the growing insurgency in the country, which has lately claimed a number of devastating attacks – the most memorable of which claimed the lives of 305 worshipers in a Sinai mosque in November 2017, El-Sisi has relied on the use of heavy weaponry, airstrikes and collective punishment techniques; this strategy, which shows no signs of adaptation to include methods of asymmetric warfare, has largely proven ineffective. The latest example is the ‘Comprehensive Operation’ launched in February 2018, after El-Sisi issued a directive to the armed forces to use brute force to cleanse Sinai after the mosque attack. If this approach is not adapted, if repression is not reduced and the Sinai tribal elites continue to be excluded from the counter-insurgency strategy (mostly due to a reluctance to arm the tribes and the military’s inability to protect the local population from reprisals by the insurgents), then the insurgency is likely to continue to grow.

Thus, one can argue that El-Sisi’s second term is expected to be more repressive than his first. The regime is expected to move more decisively against the legal opposition, lowering the chances of internal reform and increasing political polarisation. When combined with the increased role of the military, in both the economic and political spheres, the chances for developing a reformist wing within the establishment remain limited. In the realm of security, the insurgency will, most likely, evolve, becoming more lethal as the regime continues to alienate and repress the local population. Finally, if the current economic policy – which enriches the military elites at the expense of the middle and lower classes as well as the civilian elites – continues, then it will fuel mass discontent, a critical element in the eruption of the mass protests that began in 2011. As such, one would expect increased acts of resistance, which will likely be met with a robust, violent response by the regime. Resistance is likely to stem from the working class (due to deteriorating living conditions), as well as university students and other grassroots movements that the regime has not completely subdued. Such a response will either succeed in repressing the resistance for a short period, or fuel it further, leading to an increasingly radicalised opposition and prolonged periods of instability and mass protests.

Maged Mandour is a Political Analyst who writes openDemocracy’s ‘Chronicles of the Arab Revolt’ column, which covers the affairs of the Arab world with a special focus on social change in the post-Arab Spring Middle East. He is also a writer for Sada, the online journal for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Follow him @MagedMandour

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This article appears in the Egypt issue of The Middle East in London.

Mandour, Maged. ‘What to expect from El-Sisi’s second term?’ The Middle East in London 14, no. 3 (April–May 2018); 5-6.

The 6 December announcement by US President Donald Trump to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the US embassy to the city has thrown Middle East politics into renewed turmoil. Political and religious leaders around the world have condemned the move, with hundreds of protests organised in major cities across the globe. Spiralling demonstrations throughout Palestine itself have been met with violent repression – at the time of writing nine Palestinians have been killed in these clashes, with thousands more wounded or arrested. Palestinian political leaders have pledged to boycott relations with US officials in the wake of the decision, and widespread calls from across the political spectrum are demanding a break with the moribund strategy of a US-sponsored negotiations process. Reminiscent of the Second Intifada of the early 2000s, Palestinian media has presented non-stop coverage of all of these protests and debate. There can be little doubt that the ramifications of the US announcement will be felt for many years to come.

Yet a major issue that has received little attention in commentary around these developments is the wider regional context: most particularly, the increasingly open political alliance between Israel and the two leading Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While not a new development – it has been a longstanding objective of US Middle East policy for decades – it is one that has received a major push in the wake of the Arab uprisings that spread across the Middle East from 2010 onwards. An unprecedented shift in the relations between these three states is evident over the past few years, marked by a growing convergence on the key political questions facing the Middle East region.

Most significant to this emerging political alliance has been the question of Iran. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have waged an increasingly bellicose campaign against Iran’s regional influence. In the wake of the Arab uprisings, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have sought to project themselves as the key hegemonic powers throughout the rest of the region. The US has provided strong support for this effort, including the endorsement and arming of the Saudi-led war against Yemen that began in 2015, as well as conspicuous encouragement of the Gulf states in their attempts to steer political transitions in other Arab states. All of this has been fully aligned with the orientation of the new US administration.

Reinforcing this political convergence between the two Gulf states and Israel, numerous military, diplomatic and commercial ties have become evident over recent years. In late March 2017, Israeli newspapers reported that Israeli and UAE pilots flew alongside one another during the Iniochos exercise, a joint military training session held in Greece between 27 March and 6 April. This was not the first time such joint exercises took place. In August 2016, Israel and the UAE also met at the US Air Force’s Red Flag aerial combat exercise in Nevada. The public nature of these exercises points to the increasingly brazen openness of military coordination between Israel and the UAE – something that would have not been possible a few short years ago.

Relationships between Israel and Saudi Arabia are also increasingly public. Israeli media reported in mid-2015 that the two countries had held five clandestine meetings since early 2014. In June 2015, the then-director general of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dore Gold, spoke together with retired Saudi general Anwar Eshki in a public event at the US-based Council on Foreign Relations. Eshki, who has served in the Saudi foreign ministry, also led a delegation of Saudi academics and businesspeople to Israel in 2016 where they met with leading Israeli politicians and military figures. Similarly, in May 2016, former Israeli National Security Advisor Yaakov Amidror held a public discussion with the former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Such public appearances could not have happened without the approval of the Saudi ruling family.

Moreover, regional negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia almost certainly took place as part a 2017 decision by Egypt to transfer two islands in the Red Sea to Saudi control. The proximity of these islands to Israel, and the fact that they could affect Israel’s shipping routes, means that the agreement represents – at least at a de facto level – Saudi consent to the 1979 Peace Agreement between Egypt and Israel, which guaranteed Israel full maritime rights in the Red Sea.

Such military and diplomatic relations between Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are further strengthened by commercial ties – most notably in the security, surveillance and high-tech sectors. Israeli media and the international business press have documented the sale of Israeli security and military hardware to both Gulf states over recent years, including the participation of Israeli firms in Abu Dhabi’s mass-surveillance system, Falcon Eye, installed throughout the emirate in 2016. Even Israel’s largest private military company, Elbit Systems, is reported to have sold missile defense systems to Saudi Arabia through its US-based subsidiary Kollsman Inc.

Whether these new regional partnerships played a direct role in giving a green light to Trump’s Jerusalem announcement is not yet public knowledge, but they were undoubtedly an important factor within the calculations of US policymakers and Trump himself. The fact that Trump’s son-in-law and special advisor, Jared Kushner, had engaged in months of shuttle-diplomacy between Riyadh, Tel Aviv and Washington in the lead up to the announcement makes Saudi advance knowledge extremely likely. Despite a verbal condemnation, the Kingdom has made no attempt to utilise its considerable financial and political influence to pressure the Trump administration to reverse the decision.

In this context, the widely-reported existence of a new US ‘peace plan’ negotiated with the support of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman presents a major challenge to Palestinian politics. Such a plan is said to differ little from the current territorial status quo – formal recognition of a Palestinian state on parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip currently controlled by the Palestinian Authority (PA), denial of the right of return of Palestinian refugees, and continued Israeli control over border crossings and the Palestinian economy. In the current environment it would be extremely difficult for the Palestinian leadership to give their consent to any new deal. Nonetheless, given the considerable political and financial connections between the PA and the Gulf states, we can expect that significant pressure will be brought to bear on the Palestinian leadership to accept any proposed deal. Indeed, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has made almost weekly visits to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states through the latter part of 2017 – presumably linked to the behind-the-scenes negotiations around such a plan.

All of this points to how the emerging Saudi-UAE alliance with Israel will profoundly shape the future of the Palestinian national struggle. The single major obstacle to Trump’s Jerusalem announcement and any attempt to force a deal on the Palestinian leadership remains the aspirations of the wider Palestinian population – including the millions of Palestinian refugees scattered across the Middle East. Whether Palestinian rights are ultimately subordinated to the interests of this new pan-regional alliance remains an open question.

Adam Hanieh is a Reader in Development Studies at SOAS, University of London, and an advisory board member of the Centre for Palestine Studies (SOAS). His most recent book is Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East (Haymarket Books, 2013)

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This article appears in the Palestine issue of The Middle East in London.

Hanieh, Adam. ‘Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates: new regional alliances and the Palestinian struggle’ The Middle East in London 14, no. 2 (February–March 2018); 5-6.

It is now almost seven years since Tunisia led the way in the Arab Awakening by forcing an end to the autocratic Ben Ali regime and introducing a democratic political system in its place. It has not been an easy transition given the security crisis that Tunisia has faced in recent years – partly because of the worsening chaos in neighbouring Libya but also due to some apparently intractable problems, both political and economic, that the country must still confront.

Surprisingly, given the attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis in mid-March 2015, the subsequent attack on tourists in a beach hotel in Sousse at the end of June in the same year, and a lethal attack on the presidential guard in Tunis the following November, the security situation now seems to be under control. Tunisia’s police and army have been re-equipped and retrained with American and British help to such a degree that the British government removed its travel warning to tourists about the dangers of travel to Tunisia at the end of July.

Terrorist violence now seems confined to the periphery of the state: there are ongoing attacks in the Jebel Chaamba border region around Kassarine, and in March 2016 there was an attack by the Islamic State (IS) on Ben Guerdane in the deep south, close to the Libyan border, for example. Now IS and other extremist groups in Libya are more concerned with survival as the Libyan National Army – in reality an Eastern Libya militia coalition under Khalifa Haftar – moves into Tripolitania. But the threat has not entirely gone away, even if IS has been expelled from Sabratha; an estimated 8,000 young Tunisians are believed to have joined IS, mainly in Libya but also in Syria and Iraq.

The economic conundrum

The most immediate yet chronic crisis, however, is over Tunisia’s ailing economy. Most of the consequent unrest is centred on Tunisia’s impoverished southern region, at Gabes, the centre of the phosphates industry, where protests have caused losses of $2 billion in production since 2011, and in the province of Tataouine, which contains oil and gas fields. Since May 2017, one thousand protesters have been living in a makeshift camp at al-Kamour, close to a pumping station on a major gas pipeline, demanding more jobs.

The government has tried to respond and the Prime Minister, Youssef Chahed, offered new infrastructure and 900 new jobs when he visited Tataouine, only to be shouted down with demands for 3,500 new jobs with oil companies and $50 million in local investment. Foreign companies operating in the south are unsettled; although ENI professed unconcern, OMV removed 700 non-essential staff, whilst Perenco halted production and Serinus Energy’s oil fields were closed down.

The economic problems in northern Tunisia are far less intractable; the Sahel and the Tunis regions have always been better developed, but the wealth they generate has never seeped down to the south. The result has been that, since the Revolution, the south has also become the domain of the informal sector, relying on the chaos in neighbouring Libya and the smuggling of consumer goods and vast amounts of refined fuels, which has created a new business elite there. These southern elites have no interest in challenging the traditional economic elites of the north, despite the claims of some commentators. And while the majority of the southern population remains excluded from the wealth this new informal sector generates, they have learned that only protests and demonstrations guarantee government concern and response.

Shortly after the demonstrations broke out in May, Tunisia’s President, Beji Caid Essebsi, announced that he had instructed the army to intervene to protect Tunisia’s natural resources. His move was interpreted as an attempt to face down the protesters and, even worse, as a threat to the army’s traditional neutrality in political matters; rarely has the army been ordered to intervene in the domestic scene – an arena normally left to the police. His initiative, however, highlighted the other great concern that Tunisians now feel: what they see as a toughening political environment.

Politics – back to the future?

Nidaa Tounes’s victory in Tunisia’s legislative elections in late October 2014 and its leader, Beji Caid Essebsi’s accession to the presidency have raised a series of knotty questions over the country’s political future for the party has been widely seen as a vehicle for the old political elites of the Ben Ali era. In addition, the party has added to political instability because, as President, Caid Essebsi had to stand down from his position within the party, but he has tried to get his son to replace him instead.

The parliamentary party has now split, with 16 of its members forming a new party, bringing Tunisia’s total number of political parties to 262! More importantly, it has lost its parliamentary majority with al-Nahda replacing it as the largest party. Al-Nahda, however, has not claimed the premiership, preferring instead to preserve Nidaa Tounes as political point man and coalition partner. Even in the cabinet reshuffle in September the Islamist movement did not try to expand its ministerial presence and tolerated the return to ministerial rank of two former Ben Ali personalities.

The President, however – who also dislikes Tunisia’s mixed parliamentary-executive presidency system seeking an executive presidency instead – has not returned the compliment, describing al-Nahda in a speech in September as ‘a disappointment’ for not shedding its Islamist image entirely to become a national conservative party instead. He has repeatedly challenged it; forcing through the Administrative Reconciliation Law to rehabilitate thousands of former regime administrators and businessmen, delaying municipal elections, yet again, from December to March 2018, removing the ban on Tunisian women marrying non-Muslim men and threatening to change family law as well to allow women equal inheritance rights to men. Although secularists and feminists have hailed the latter two initiatives, not least the Algerian writer, Kamel Daoud, in the New York Times, the aim has really been to unsettle al-Nahda.

Civil Society – the true alternative?

Yet, despite the growing authoritarianism in Tunisia’s formal public life, the real vitality of the revolution remains inside civil society. That is an arena that the revival of the ancien régime through Nidaa Tounes cannot touch, even though it may try to do so. Thus, although the Instance Verité et Dignité, Tunisia’s own Truth and Dignity Commission instituted to provide transitional justice to 62,000 victims of the former regime, has been attacked by the President who dislikes its head, Sihem Bensedrine, and sees it as a challenge to his own chosen formulation of the reconciliation law, it had, by the start of March 2017, settled 23,000 of the cases brought before it. It is, therefore, inside the realm of civil society that the real success of the Tunisian revolution lies.

George Joffé is a member of the The Middle East in London’s Editorial Board

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This article appears in the Tunisia issue of The Middle East in London.

Joffé, George. ‘Tunisia: seven years later’ The Middle East in London 14, no. 1 (December 2017–January 2018); 5-6.

The notion of national or civilisational ‘exceptionalism’ was first used in connection with the USA to explain everything from its propensity for democracy to its apparent resistance to secularisation. The concept of ‘Islamic exceptionalism’ has a more recent pedigree dating back to the 1990s with the publication of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations. Yet the idea that something sets ‘Muslim societies’ and politics apart has an intellectual genealogy which arguably goes back to 18^th-century Orientalist scholarship identified by Edward Said. While this exceptionalism is often cited by critics of Islam as the main reason for its failure to adapt to secular modernity, it is simultaneously celebrated in Islamist discourse as a manifestation of an ‘alternative modernity’. Indeed, proponents of Islamism have enthusiastically endorsed the notion that Islam is exceptional in being a total system in which religion and politics are inseparable, thus reaching the same conclusions as Islam’s detractors. It is mainly for this reason that they regard secularism as a harmful form of cultural imperialism imposed by the West.

Broadly speaking, the notion of ‘Islamic exceptionalism’ is based on three overlapping premises. Firstly, in civilisational terms it is argued that the emergence of Islam constituted a sharp break from the past producing a culture which was in religious and political terms unique compared to those which had preceded it in late antiquity and thus lacking any commonality with other civilisations such as Byzantium, Persia and/or medieval Europe. Of course, this account compliments the traditionalist Muslim vision of the emergence of Islam that emphasises its sudden appearance as a miraculous event which owed nothing to the Jahiliyya (ignorance or barbarism associated with pre-Islamic Arabia) which preceded it. Moreover, this vision assumes that the religion/culture is predominantly scriptural and essentially self-referential. This ‘scriptural determinism’ meant that philology was the main tool of analysis of ‘Islam’ for almost two centuries. Again, we should note the parallel with contemporary ‘fundamentalists’ who are also effectively scriptural determinists in their understanding of a pure Islam stripped of foreign cultural accretions and based on the literal word of God.

A second dimension of exceptionalism is asserted in the realm of imperialism and violence. In this sphere, it has been argued that the novelty of Islam resided in the synthesis of a universal empire with a universal religion. Whilst there had been universal conquerors before (e.g. Alexander the Great), they did not bring a religion; and whilst there had been universal religions before (e.g. Christianity), they were not connected to the idea of a universal empire. Thus jihad was a form of missionary warfare. In some of the more conservative critiques of Islam, as well as in Salafi-Jihadi ideology, Mohammad’s example of a warrior who engaged (according to some accounts) in over 80 military campaigns during his lifetime is seen as a model for a warrior-religion which glorifies violence and imperialism.

The third sphere of exceptionalism is located in the realm of politics and law. Here it is argued that Islam is unique in the ways that it relates to politics because of the status of Mohammad as both Prophet and statesman. Moreover, it is asserted that the sharia is not simply a religious law, but one which represented a set of social, economic, cultural and political practices which governed every aspect of life. These features prevented an autonomous space for politics and law to operate and have often been cited to account for the failure of secularism as well as the ‘democracy gap’ in the ‘Muslim World’.

Since the 1980s, the assumptions outlined above have been critiqued by scholars who have tried to promote a more nuanced understanding of Muslim-majority societies from a broadly materialist perspective. Fred Halliday, Sami Zubaida, Roger Owen, Aziz al-Azmeh and others have argued, in different ways, for an approach which sees the ‘Muslim World’ first and foremost as part of the Third (or non-European) World and subject to the same world historical processes from colonialism to the era of socialist planning to the much more eclectic contemporary combination of crony capitalism and rentierism, both of which are seen, from these perspectives, as the main factors accounting for the persistence of authoritarianism. Other critiques have exposed serious flaws in the scriptural/philological based approach – especially its reliance on the scholastic traditions of the ulama as a privileged, at times exclusive, source of knowledge about Islam to the detriment of less scriptural expressions of the faith and culture. These critiques led to the partial demise of the notion of Islamic exceptionalism, at least in academia, though it continued to persist elsewhere – especially in the world of US-based think tanks and in the discourse of the far right.

The 9/11 attacks saw a revival of Islamic exceptionalism and the notion of a ‘clash of civilizations’, which was eagerly adopted by the far right in Europe and the USA. This trend was boosted by the chaos after the Arab uprisings and the rise of the so-called Islamic State (IS), both of which seemed to confirm the ‘democracy-gap’ and ‘violence’ theses outlined above. ‘Maybe the Orientalists were right in the first place!’ a friend morosely quipped to me a few years after the uprisings began, by which time several countries had either reverted to authoritarianism or descended into brutal civil wars. Indeed, this period saw a number of publications which have, implicitly or explicitly, revived the notion of Islamic exceptionalism. These include: Noah Feldman, The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State (2008); Patricia Crone, God’s Rule (2004); Michael Cook, Ancient Religions, Modern Politics (2014); Wael Hallaq, The Impossible State (2012); and Shadi Hamid, Islamic Exceptionalism (2016). These studies have restated – in a more sophisticated and updated form – some of the premises of Islamic exceptionalism summarised above, often with great intellectual force and analytical clarity. Moreover, they cannot simply be written off as illegitimate forms of Orientalism having often been produced by scholars who see themselves as working outside (and sometimes against) that tradition. These works are important in that they have emphasised some of the distinctive features of ‘Muslim politics’.

But it remains debatable how cogent, empirically or philosophically, an approach which emphasises the difference of Islam to the point of ‘exceptionalism’ is. Such an approach discounts the complexity and diversity of Muslim-majority societies both historically and in the contemporary world. Indeed, recently published empirical studies of secularism in these societies – such as one edited by Akeel Bilgrami, Beyond the Secular West (2016) and another edited by Mirjam Künkler et al, A Secular Age Beyond the West (2017) – show that they have exhibited a range of religion-state arrangements and multiple secularities which defy essentialist notions of typically ‘Islamic’ religion-state relations, often inspired by the view that Islam knew no separation between religion and state.

The revival of the notion Islamic exceptionalism has, nevertheless, underlined the challenge of forging approaches to understanding the politics of the ‘Muslim World’ without sliding into cultural essentialism on the one hand or reductive ‘difference blind’ materialist analysis on the other.

Hadi Enayat is a visiting lecturer at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, Aga Khan University, London and a member of the Editorial Board of The Middle East in London magazine

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This article appears in the Secularism issue of The Middle East in London.

Enayat, Hadi. ‘The persistent challenge of “Islamic exceptionalism”‘ The Middle East in London 13, no. 5 (October–November 2017); 7-8.