In spite of reports of a political row between Libya and Qatar over accusations of Doha’s financial and military support for Libyan Islamist factions, bilateral economic ties remain deep, and in some cases are strengthening. By providing assistance during the revolution, Qatar is poised to make inroads in the strategic energy and projects sectors.

During the revolution, Qatar provided liquidity to the cash-strapped NTC, allowing it to pay salaries and other expenses. In late March 2011, Qatar offered to help market one million barrels of oil for the NTC, delivered fuel shipments and offered loan guarantees to facilitate the purchase of refined products.

With Libyan oil assets – even those under rebel control in the east – under sanction at the time, the Qatari move represented a significant gamble – one that has paid off with reports of a pro-Qatari attitude in Tripoli regarding future oil deals.

The scale of current Qatari investments in Libya stands at about $10bn, much of which date back to the late Gaddafi period. Significantly, two major Qatari-Libyan joint ventures have been given the green light in spite of NTC announcements that they will review investment projects initiated by the previous regime. These include:

• A $2bn 3,000 square meter development of hotels, residential complexes and entertainment facilities that is a joint venture of Barwa Real Estate Company, a subsidiary of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, and Libya’s state-owned Libyan Development and Investment Company; and

• “The Waterfront” a luxury residential complex outside of Tripoli being developed by Al-Libya Al-Qataria (ALAQ), which is a joint venture of Qatar’s Diar Real Estate Investment Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority, and Oyia, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Libya’s Economic and Social Development Fund.

Qatar Airways was among the early airlines resuming service to Libya, and currently operates Doha-Benghazi flights four times weekly. Sheikh Hamad’s second official act of 2012 was to appoint Sheikh Mohamed bin Nasser bin Jassim al-Thani, a member of Qatar’s royal Al Thani clan, as ambassador to Libya.

On top of strengthening economic ties, polling data suggest that Qatar retains a deep reserve of popular support in Libya for its role in shoring up the revolutionaries with diplomatic, military and financial support. 94% of Libyans responding to a recent IRI poll in eastern Libya rated Qatar as “highly favorable,” the highest score of any nation.

I have been meaning to write a post on the new Arabic-English translation/discussion service, Meedan, that just launched its public beta version the other day.     It’s a service that allows Arabic and English speakers to discuss current events on a bilingual platform that brings in translations of blog postings, news stories, and user comments.  A very exciting and ambitious project, that has the potential to become a significant agent for cross-language exchanges.

But how, you ask, can they afford to shell out for all this translation?  The key bit is an innovation that lets users and members of their team of translators correct draft translations that are originally done by machine translation.  The idea is that with more content and users cycled through the system, the mechanical translation program will learn and improve.  So check it out!

On Thursday, AP’s Ali Akbar Dareini reported that Khamenei had retracted his statement, barring volunteers from traveling to Israel to fight.  Dareini spun this news as a rare public rift between a militant Ahmadinejad and the more cautious Khamenei:

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei‘s ban sought to tone down calls by allies of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to toughen Iran’s stand against Israel.

But it also exposed hidden rifts between the supreme leader and the president five months before elections in which Ahmadinejad, whose popularity has been waning, is seeking a second term.

Today, we have a third AP  story on Iranian officials “strongly disputing” that Khamenei’s words implied a ban:

The Iranian officials said Khamenei’s words should not have been interpreted as a ban on such volunteers, but meant that any Iranians would have great practical difficulty in reaching Gaza because of Israel’s offensive.

So what’s going on here?  And why such vigorous parsing of the rahbar?  A couple points:

1.   There is a tradition in Iran dating back to 1979 of this type of mass-mobilizing of volunteers for deeply-held causes; this reached it’s zenith during the Iran-Iraq war where Iran used religious appeals to mobilize tens of thousands of ordinary citizens  for its human wave assaults on Iraq.   More recently, however, these mass-mobilization campaigns have become stylized media events, with western media playing their part and filling in the blanks with the enemy du jour.   Here’s an almost identical story from 2006, where a different group claimed to have tens of thousands of suicide bombers at the ready to strike at America if it attacked Iran.

2.   If there were some sort of scheme to transport lightly-trained Iranian fighters to Israel it would be a stupendous failure.  The Iranian government knows this.  Human wave assaults were only marginally effective in the Iran-Iraq war — a conflict where the two sides shared a long border and were relatively equally matched.  My reading of the third AP story, then, is that Khamenei wants to affirm popular anger at Israel, but also tell his would-be bombers that they’ll need to find their own ride to Tel Aviv.

3.   Let’s also put this in a regional context.  In Afghanistan, you have an almost identical story:

More than a thousand Afghans signed up on Thursday to say they wanted to go and fight Israel in the Gaza Strip, many of them blaming the United States which has some 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, for supporting the Jewish state.

In Egypt, Michael Slackman reports how state-sponsored sheikhs are using anti-Semitic hate speech in an attempt to divert public anger away from the regime.   Marc Lynch also catalogs the numerous other protests and resulting crackdowns going on in the  “moderate” Arab states.   Taken together, what we have are Middle East  governments, both pro- and anti-US/ Israel,  desperate to appear like they are doing something about Gaza.   In Iran, this is taking a familiar form: the stylized, and by now routinized,  public display of militant volunteerism.

UPDATE: Khamenei’s original statement is here via Iran Coverage.

Got back to Cairo a few days ago and have been re-adjusting to the cold. Cairo winter is not a fun time. Even though there’s a high in the low 70s for some reason it feels bone chillingly cold, and the flat I’m temporarily living in has no heating.

But I just went to check out a nearby cafe and was greeted the winning combo of space heated air and pensive soft rock on the stereo. There was WiFi, and I and was overtaken by the urge to blog. So here we are. I know its not much, but its a start. Check back tomorrow for something substantive.

photo by Jennifer Peterson

Continuing on music, this fun mix from last year (seems like forever ago) recently popped up on my Itunes.  I made it as a podcast to go along with a great article by Jennifer Peterson on sha3bi music played at mulid (saint’s day) festivals in Egypt.   In other Egypt news, I came across this downtown baladi bar database via Avantcaire.  It’s part of a beer marketing campaign to cash on baladi chic.  I have to admit the campaign makes me hanker for a Stella even though I’m back in the US at the moment with a couple Belgian beers at hand in the fridge.  And this is despite the fact that the Stella site violates  one of my biggest pet peeves which is that hideous font that tries to make English words resemble Arabic script.

Here’s the mix:

United Arab Emirates: Media hub strategy bears fruit

EVENT: A new federal media law scrapping jail terms for press violations is nearing approval.

SIGNIFICANCE: The law formalises a decree issued last year by Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. The United Arab Emirates is realising gains from a decade of investments aimed at developing into a global media hub.

ANALYSIS: The new law is part of a decade-long effort to boost the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) domestic media production and attract foreign media firms. Dubai is now the venue of choice for global media companies seeking a foothold in the region. Sponsoring and advertising in these media advance its strategic goals of becoming a world business and tourism destination (see UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Disaffected threaten Dubai model – May 8, 2008).

Its status as the physical base for media outlets also gives the state coercive political power over content, which it uses on occasion. This is a major success for the UAE’s state-driven development model, and has prompted the wealthier emirate of Abu Dhabi to take similar steps to centralise and promote media. A secondary goal of the media drive is to foster a unified Emirati identity and to strengthen civil society. However, this is hampered by conservative elites and a near total dependence on foreign workers.

Dubai initiative. Dubai led the media hub push with the launch of the Dubai Media City (DMC) free zone in 2001. Since launch, DMC has attracted many global media players including Reuters, BBC World, Associated Press Television News, CNN, and MBC. The free zone is managed by TECOM Investments, a company almost completely owned by the Maktoum family, and managed with the help of several consulting firms. Its primary goals are to:

• attract foreign media companies to base in the UAE; and

• drive Emirati media production.

Media advantages. A free zone base offers foreign media workers and firms a number of advantages:

• Income is not taxed.

• Journalists are clustered together, making networking easier.

• It offers high quality infrastructure — fibre optic networks, office, and studio space.

• The travel hub makes it easy to dispatch journalists to hotspots.

• There are no restrictions on hiring foreign employees.

• Absolute (100%) foreign ownership is allowed (compared to 49% outside free zones) (see GULF STATES: GCC states vie to attract investment – January 9, 2008).

• The regulatory environment is tailored to streamline bureaucracy.

• It is connected to other free zones: in addition to DMC, TECOM investments also runs Dubai Internet City, Dubai Studio City, and other related free zones.

UAE advantages. Benefits to the UAE from developing into a media hub are also numerous:

• New revenue streams from licences, administrative fees, and profits from government-controlled companies continue the UAE’s diversification away from energy.

• Advertising and sponsorship promote the UAE’s real estate, finance, and tourism sectors. For example, CNN’s Marketplace Middle East programme is produced in DMC, and its main advertiser is Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), a free zone for financial services and investment firms.

• It offers soft power opportunities: media coverage can introduce the UAE to foreign audiences, help counter negative stories, and frame coverage of international events.

• The government has significant leverage over journalists and content. Journalists’ visas can be revoked for offending Emirati elites. The Pakistani satellite channel Geo TV was recently threatened with expulsion from DMC if it did not drop two political talk shows. It was also temporarily pulled off the air during the Pakistani emergency rule period in November 2007, presumably under pressure from Islamabad.

• It resonates well with the UAE’s attempts to brand itself as a ‘hub between East and West’.

Senior royalty, including Prime Minster Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum and more recently President Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, see developing domestic media as a way to promote national cohesion and the development of civil society.

Dubai emulation. Dubai’s success with DMC has prompted its wealthier neighbour Abu Dhabi to take a similar tack. Over the last two years Abu Dhabi has centralised its state-owned media assets into a single holding company, the Abu Dhabi Media Company. The centrepiece of this effort was the April launch of an English language daily broadsheet named The National.

Outlook. However, these efforts face a number of challenges:

• Local talent. Due to a dependence on foreign workers, developing vibrant domestic media with an Emirati voice is not proceeding as fast as hoped. A main goal in launching The National, for example, was to develop a venue for in-depth local reporting that would promote civic identity. Yet the paper has been unable to attract local talent and is staffed almost entirely by Western expatriates. Its coverage has been far less hard-hitting than pre-launch hype suggested.

• Continuity. Most expatriate media employees do not stay long term. Turnover is high, hurting standards and continuity. This is exacerbated by regulations that allow companies to create visa problems for employees who leave to work for a local competitor. Such rules lower incentives for good performance and impede the career development of talented workers.

• Inflation. Rapid inflation, especially in the property market, is eating into living standards, making the UAE, particularly Abu Dhabi, less attractive to foreign workers than even one year ago (see UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Inflation threatens hub ambition – June 16, 2008).

• Media freedom. The political pressure exerted on Geo TV has cast doubts on the credibility of government commitments to media freedom. There is little national consensus on where the limits on free speech lie or what constitutes libel. While freedom of speech is officially enshrined in law and prison terms for press violations were abolished in 2007, journalists can be harassed or expelled when their work offends powerful interests or if they impose political costs on the government, as with Geo TV. While forming such norms on media and expression is a complex process for any nation, it is further complicated in the Emirates by:

1. the nation’s youth and recent integration;
2. dependence on skilled and unskilled foreign labour;
3. rapid economic growth over the last 30 years; and
4. wide disparities in lifestyle and community standards among emirates, particularly between the glitzy cosmopolitan Dubai and more socially conservative emirates such as Sharjah or Ras al-Khaimah.

An aggressive media strategy has helped promote the UAE as a tourism and business hub. This is dependent on an ability to attract skilled foreign workers and media companies, which could falter if wages do not keep pace with inflation or property prices skyrocket. Efforts to use media to foster civil society or create a stronger social fabric will take longer and be less successful.

CONCLUSION: The UAE authorities and powerful business concerns will continue to foster positive coverage by bankrolling friendly media such as The National. The government will use its coercive power over content if key political or economic interests are threatened, but will do so sparingly to avoid alienating its lifeblood of foreign media workers and companies.

This is an electronic version of an article published in The Oxford Analytica Daily Brief

Robert Vitalis re-trained himself in African American Studies to better advance the book’s main argument, that ARAMCO brought 1930s America’s Jim Crow social and labor practices with it when it opened its drilling operations on Saudi Arabia’s east coast.  In place of the standard narrative of ARAMCO bringing the kingdom into the modern world, he argues that progressive Saudis, whose writings he likens to Booker T Washington, had to drag the oil company into the 20^th century through a series of strikes and labor actions that had previously been minimized or unreported.

He digs up a ton of great stuff on the gaggle of Arabist-spies that ARAMCO employed in its government affairs shop ready to turn any given Saudi royal from a ‘forward-looking reformer’ to a ‘profligate drunk’ and back again depending on how the political winds were blowing.

Very well-written book.  It makes other books on Saudi read like the Hardy Boys, and is also a very important historical reference point for current labor practices in the Gulf.

The proposal for an “interests section,” which falls short of a full U.S. Embassy , has been conveyed in private diplomatic messages to Tehran , and a search is under way to choose the American diplomat who’d head the post, the officials said.

BUT:

The senior administration officials said the plan to open an interests section in the Iranian capital isn’t a move to closer government-to-government ties.

Rather, they say, it is an effort to reach out to the Iranian people, many of whom are far less anti-American than their leaders are.

Among other things, the U.S. diplomats in Tehran would facilitate cultural exchanges; issue visas for Iranians to travel to the U.S.; and engage in public diplomacy to present a more charitable view of the U.S.

My guess is that framing this as not a “government-to-government” move is the result of a compromise solution to internal Bush administration debates between Iran isolaters and engagers.  But do they not realize that, for Iran’s leaders, these sorts of activities are not welcome?

As Karim Sadjadpour demonstrated in his report on Khamenei, Iran’s top leader most fears domestic nonviolent subversion from a nexus of foreign powers and internal dissidents.   This fear best explains the pattern of detentions of Iranian-American scholars and NGO workers, which sadly entered a new chapter today.

The US does little to assuage these fears. Prominent voices routinely call for regime change in Iran, and as recently as last year, Radio Farda, an American public diplomacy radio station broadcasting to Iran, was running extended specials on the history of the “color” (read: “velvet”) revolutions in the former Soviet Union.

Given the recent history and Khamenei’s worldview (to say nothing of 1953), something tells me that efforts to “reach out to the Iranian people” will be read a little differently in Tehran than in Washington.

I wholeheartedly support opening an interests section or a full embassy in Tehran, but its primary function should be to support political negotiations aimed at ending the explosive standoff between our two countries.  Public diplomacy, consular, and cultural exchanges could come in concert with political movement, but given the sensitivities surrounding US cultural influence in Iran, I doubt Tehran would see a cultural/consular interest section as desirable or even benign.