Revolution! Where next?

When Mohammed Bouazizi set himself alight outside government offices in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, on December 17, 2010, nobody could possibly have thought his actions would spark two, possibly three revolutions in North Africa.

But the uprisings of 2011 have been very real and provoked by what Hillary Clinton called a ‘perfect storm of powerful trends’. When she said it, her words were laced with fear and warning.

What would these uprisings bring? Would they benefit the people of those countries, and more importantly to her, would they benefit America? They will if she manages things well.

But since December 17 last year, we have seen two dictators flee in disgrace, Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt. Now, Muammar ‘Mad Dog’ Gaddafi looks like he will go down in a hail of mercenaries’ bullets and a sea of Libyan blood, which he has been intent on spilling.

Where next?

The big question many people are asking now is where next?

The Economist has had a go at answering the question with the Shoethrowers Index.

It aims to offer predictions looking at each country with these questions:

• How long has the leader been in power?
• What proportion of the population is under 25 and how many people does that make?
• What is the country’s gross domestic product?
• How pervasive is corruption?
• How much press freedom is there?
• How much democracy is there?

They are good questions to ask. The last two are, with the exception of Iraq and Lebanon, easily answered with ‘virtually none’.

The result is that Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iraq and Oman emerge most vulnerable to revolution. Libya is on its way. Yemen may be too, although it will play out more slowly than the others.

Syria, Iraq and Oman are more complicated examples. Clearly we need to add more to the index to get a reliable result.

What follow are less scientific supplementary measures that I propose. Then you get my guess (and it is just that – a guess) of where this all goes next.

(Another disclaimer: below are lots of sweeping generalisations. This is a massively wide ranging post which covers a whole region. Corrections, improvements, suggestions are very welcome.)

Ethnic make up

Which groups make up society is crucial. In Bahrain, the estimated 70% Shia population feel disenfranchised and frozen out of government. They do not have a say and opportunities for work, income, education and beyond are limited. This breeds resentment which is focused on the government which has denied them these things. The Shia have been quick to protest and they have been joined by an out-of-work, disenfranchised group of Sunni Bahrainis who want greater opportunities and a voice. This combination is a powerful opposing force.

In Libya, the neglect of the east has played a part. The region has been underdeveloped for decades and held back by Gaddafi. Now he is reaping what he sowed, and Benghazi in the east is the epicentre of the uprising. Nearly all tribes except his own now oppose him.

Sudan, for example, may well have faced a similar southern insurrection, having faced a two-decade civil war, had it not broken in two. If the disadvantaged ethnic outcasts had joined forces with the disenchanted Arab population, Bashir may have faced a revolt. As it is, he has conceded a third of his territory to avoid this eventuality, among others.

But where a country’s ethnic division is not a simple two-way split but a more complicated patchwork of groups, it can actually have a calming effect.

Take Syria. Here, no one religious group wants to rise up because they have a lot to lose. President Bashir, an Alawite, and his father, did much to keep the peace between the religious groups (sometimes brutally) and to protect the minorities’ social position. Any uprising may erase that work and leave each group with a lot to lose in a nasty, sectarian scramble for power.

These nations are dominated by one group, which has a stabilising effect: Yemen – it has its rebellions to contend with but it is mostly made up of Arabs, roughly 70 per cent of whom are Sunnis. Oman, Libya, Jordan, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE are also broadly one people.

The odd one out here is Mauritania, which by this measure is not so stable. It has a deeply complex ethnic make up which I do not pretend to begin to understand. Roughly, it is Arabs, Berbers and African black ethnic groups like the Pular, Wolof and Soninké. But it has a history of ethnic tensions since independence, which may resurface now and work against the government.

GDP growth

It is not just how wealthy people are (GDP), but what prospect they have of getting wealthy (GDP growth). If an economy is booming, everybody is on the make and chasing the dream of affluent living. Corruption works against this. So too does a government favouring certain groups in society and freezing out others.

It is worth noting that in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, economic growth had been slowing in the last few years. Although Tripoli was full of towers, Libya’s economic growth has come down from nearly 10 per cent in 2005. Tunisia’s good fortune had taken a turn, as tourism incomes slowed and the same was true in Egypt.

Syria is doing well, growth has been around 5 per cent for the last 5 years, and this suggests stability. Oman has been in a relative boom, Qatar's economy in the Gulf is exploding. Bahrain had been doing quite well too, defying the pattern.

But not the UAE or Saudi. And Yemen's growth has been steady, but perhaps not fast enough in a poor nation. Jordan too has seen slowing growth, and the King has been fast to make concessions in a bid to nip protests and an uprising in the bud.

Note also, Mauritania’s economy has been contracting. Algeria has also been struggling.

And in Iran, which saw protests in mid 2009, the economy has gone from a boom of nearly 8 per cent growth in 2007 to just 1.8 per cent in 2009. In the noose of sanctions, it may well be shrinking now. That should worry Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and co.

Leader’s popularity

Longevity does not necessarily mean unpopularity. Some long-time leaders are extremely popular and a people does not always get fed up with its leader.

Often, though, this is because a monarch or supreme leader insulates himself from responsibility by installing a government to do the hard work, such as Iran’s Supreme Leader. King Abdulla in Jordan dismissed his entire government and is clearly working to portray himself as an overseer and guardian of Jordan, not a man intricately involved in the nitty-gritty of government.

Note also how Gaddafi, in his impromptu phone call to state TV, suddenly said he was mostly a symbolic leader.

Popularity is a difficult thing to quantify, and is of course a subjective judgement. There are few or no public opinion surveys in the region to rely upon.

But it is generally accepted that Morocco’s king is a popular character. So too is Bashir in Syria, helped along by the siege mentality (more on that later). Sultan Qaboos in Oman is popular, credited with bringing about what is known in the country as 'The Renaissance’. Despite his longevity he remains revered.

There’s a question mark here though about Bouteflika of Algeria. Is he popular? He’s been around for 12 years. And in Mauritania, General Abdelaziz has only been in power a few years, but his popularity is by no means assured and he has not had time to establish a reputation as a guardian of peace and prosperity.

Foreign influence

This is a minefield. But there are a few things at play here that we can identify easily enough.

U.S. opposition to Syria and Iran’s regimes have helped Bashir and Ahmadinejad cultivate a perception of their countries being under siege by an imperial power and in turn helped the leaders to shore up power. Both have got a clear ‘enemy’ and a justifying narrative, which is absolutely essential to their survival. Bashir and Ahmadinejad are both able to present themselves as part of an axis of resistance to a malign American influence.

It’s something Gaddafi in Libya has done for a long time. Although his cosying up to the West since 2004 has stolen him of this narrative now he tries to put down the revolution. Instead he’s blaming Bin Laden. Flip it on its head, and it means we have the unusual situation of an American president and Bin Laden both backing the same side in Libya!

In Yemen, Saleh’s close cooperation with the U.S., allowing its drone strikes (revealed by Wikileaks) leaves him vulnerable to claims he is an American stooge. But it also means the Americans may work hard to keep him in power. He is important for them in the battle against Al Qaeda. Yemen is home to much Al Qaeda activity and while he may not be an ideal leader, he is reliable. He lets the U.S. carry out drone strikes and gives them good access for intelligence gathering. The Americans won’t want to see him go.

But Saleh doesn’t have a great deal of support in Saudi, and won’t get much help from them. That is no the case in Bahrain, where Saudi soldiers were rumoured to have been on the streets helping to put down the protests. The Bahraini government will be under strict instructions from Riyadh not to concede, I have no doubt.

Across the Gulf, in Bahrain, Saudi, UAE, Qatar and Kuwait, there is some popular unease with the close cooperation with the U.S., but I think many understand that having a great big American military presence brings with it security. The first Gulf War has not been forgotten. Though it does generate some resentment among Gulf populations. Looking at it from the other angle, and it is obvious the U.S. will absolutely not want Saudi to slip into uprising and revolution, or Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE or Qatar. But that’s highly unlikely anyway.

King Abdulla in Jordan has a similar problem to Mubarak. He’s made peace with Israel and become a close ally of the U.S. It’s a situation which leave shim very vulnerable to claims of being a stooge and having sold out. But Jordanians, like many in the Middle East, prize peace very highly in a region that has seen so much war. They understand and have sympathy with his rationale and are grateful for peace. And the King has the backing of the Americans, who will work to keep him in place.

Algeria and Morocco also have cordial relations with the U.S., which appear generally appreciated by their populations as beneficial. And the Americans will in turn try to keep protests to a minimum.

And lets get Iraq out of the way. This is an anomaly. The links between Western and Iraq governments are so complex and so close that things are not so straightforward. We could write books and books on the relationships here and the battle for Iraq being waged by various nations. All we can safely say is that all the leaders are flirting with outside powers and are vulnerable as a result.

Conclusion

If you apply these other less quantifiable and less scientific measures on top of the Economist’s Show Thrower’s Index, you get a good picture of how the region is set.

It shows Oman is the odd one out so high up the list. The leader is popular. The country is ethnically pretty uniform. The country’s economy is growing healthily, in part because of its good relations with the West. These all mean the population will not be provoking a revolution any time soon.

There have been small gatherings amid the regional uprisings, but nothing on a large scale. The only thing that contradicts this is how hard it is to find work for young, educated Omanis. This leaves the youth frustrated and out of work, which could lead them to protest but don’t bank on it just yet.

Iraq is also an odd one out. Its unique experience of the devastating U.S. invasion means while people will demand better government than they have been getting recently, they will not force a full, bloody revolution. There is enough blood being shed already. And outside powers will not want a revolution either. There is enough going on already.

Yemen is rightly at the top. It might not have got as much press as Bahrain, but in both places, the genie is now out of the lamp. The people are on the streets and full of anger after their governments shot their fellow countrymen dead and unleashed their goons. Both face long, drawn out days of demonstrations. Both will have to make significant concessions, and may have to go.

But both also have strong American backing and very powerful forces which want them to stay. The Americans will urge them to tough it out while trying to kill as few people as possible. That strategy may well work.

Saleh in Yemen on Thursday urged his police to protect the protesters. This was, I suspect, suggested to him by the Americans. And the Bahraini government has suddenly found a heart, calling for a day of mourning. We’ll say sorry, but we won’t quit. That is their message, brought to you by America.

Mauritania and Algeria can move up the list. Their leaders’ popularity is not as high as in other nations. Their economies are not booming. Mauritania has a complex ethnic make-up. Algeria borders Libya and Tunisia. Mauritania is a weak state.

My prediction? Yemen may rumble towards a revolt. Mauritania and Algeria are the two other countries at most risk of an uprising. Elsewhere, protests might make governments give concessions, but there will be no more dictators heading to luxury compounds to live out a life in exile.