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‘Time to wake up’

Jun 12,2014 - Last updated at Jun 12,2014

In the world of academia, like in many others, when a matter becomes pressing and the feedback and role of all concerned becomes necessary, we organise a retreat.

We take a day or two off, invite all involved and meet behind closed doors to address the matter head-on and come up with implementable measures and solutions.

What is needed now is a retreat for leaders of all MENA countries, from Morocco in the west to Iran in the east, and from Yemen in the south to Turkey in the north.

The aim should be to address the disorder and chaos tearing the region apart.

A retreat is not a conference or a summit, for conferences and summits in our part of the world are largely ceremonial and public-relation events. Nothing gets done in them.

Nor is it a workshop, for workshops are technical and hands on.

What is required is a retreat, a comfortable space where all concerned sit down and conduct business with honesty and in earnest, airing their differences and capitalising on common interests — invisible to the media and free from the pressures of false courtesies and petty protocols.

At present, our region is in real danger. What we are witnessing now is much worse than all we have witnessed in recent memory. In many ways, it is unprecedented.

Since the advent of the ominous Arab Spring, three-and-a-half years ago, several countries not only became disorderly and lawless, instead of becoming free and democratic, but got fragmented and dysfunctional.

Yemen, Libya, Syria and Iraq are cases in point. Egypt and Tunisia are in between, and other seemingly “stable” countries could follow suit if collective action is not taken.

During the past three-and-a-half years, many erroneously assumed that if harm was done, it was done to and inside individual countries. Now that several borders are eroding and that conflict is spilling over, those holding such complacent views need to reconsider.

The harm and damage are done to the entire region.

The news in the past two days about the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) swiftly capturing Mosul and Tikrit in Iraq, in addition to territory already captured in Syria, should be a wakeup call to all.

No country is safe in the region, and what happens in one country affects the neighbourhood and beyond.

In this context, the retreat is needed to address two specific issues: what should be done collectively to rein in and dismantle extremist and terrorist organisations like ISIL, Jabhat Al Nusra, Al Qaeda, the various militias in Iraq, Libya, Yemen and others, based on concrete, workable and sustainable plans; and agree on a binding protocol of collaboration rather than interference.

ISIL, Al Qaeda, Jabhat Al Nusra and many other terrorist groups are not functioning in a vacuum, though they are definitely benefiting from the vacuum created by the weakening of traditional Arab states, like Iraq in the 1980s and Syria, Libya and Yemen before 2011.

These organisations and others are getting support from countries within and beyond the region. Such support must cease.

Worse, and this is a crucial dimension of the matter, many countries in the region, big or small, are subtly or blatantly interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, under all kinds of pretexts and motivated by all types of prejudices and animosities.

Such interference also has got to stop.

Those who are instigators of interference today may easily become subject to it tomorrow. The wave of disorder and violence that is already picking up momentum and spreading in the region will not spare any the minute it is let loose.

The most important principle governing relations within an individual country and within the region is and should be coexistence.

As learned from many civilised societies in today’s world and throughout history, difference and diversity are assets, not a liabilities, a cause of strength not of weakness.

Much needs to be done in our part of the world about respecting and cherishing ethnic, demographic, religious, linguistic and cultural differences and diversity. Two points, however, need to be stressed here.

The peoples of our region are united in wanting stability, liberty, rights, tolerance, coexistence and democracy. They are against prejudice, friction, division and conflict.

The peoples of our region also want development, progress and good livelihoods. They find it ironic and unacceptable that, while a decade ago they were moving in those directions, today they are regressing.

The leaders of countries in this region, those with shaky regimes and those whose regimes may become unstable anytime, should learn to talk to each other and work together in order to live up to their peoples’ expectations.

If they do not, they may be facing, as after the Arab Spring, either another tsunami of popular discontent or the tsunami of extremists.

Time to wake up.

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