Robin Wright (Simon & Schuster, 2011)

(Reviewed for International Affairs) Veteran US newspaper correspondent Robin Wright has released a timely, enthralling, yet somewhat inconsistent venture into understanding the tumultuous dynamics around events in the Middle East and across North Africa.

The author initially explores the origins of the Arab uprisings venturing that they were produced by a “confluence of at least four factors: education, raised expectations, demographics, and communication technology”. Yet while these reasons are touched upon and explored this is by no means a straight forward account and Wright’s central and most controversial thesis surrounds the dynamics of what she describes as the ‘counter-jihad’. This reflects a slightly US-centric approach concerned with al Qaeda-like threats as the author suggests that “the counter-jihad will define the next decade as thoroughly as the extremists dominated the last one”. Wright later declares that America’s most basic challenge is “comprehending the post-jihadist phase”.

Beyond the story of people trying to overthrow authoritarian rule Wright explores what she sees as “a struggle within the faith itself to rescue Islam’s central values from a small but virulent minority”. Wright describes what she believes to be the result

 of this struggle; the modernisation of an Islam that is ready for the 21^st century and not tied to rigid principles from the 7^th

century. The new circumstances Wright alludes to are at the heart of movements that reject both moribund authoritarian rule and the attempts of a extremist minority to replace them. Wright writes that “Islam is a comfortable space and a legitimate vehicle to search for solutions compatible with global trends; it is no longer about creating an ideal Islamic state or even voting for Islamic parties”. Her case studies into Islam and global trends include television reality shows such as “Young Imam” where ten aspiring clerics compete to show off their Islamic knowledge and values to win cash, cars and electronics. However Wright’s analysis is often too anecdotal and personality driven to support her fascinating hypothesis, there is also the issue of regular caveats that draw the sting out of some of her bolder claims. Wright’s dismissal of Islamic parties (pre-their success in Tunisian elections) is muddied by the rather amorphous statement that “Islam will almost certainly play a major role in transitions”. What is more Wright is unclear as to whether her ideas are an analysis of the Islamic and/or the Arab world.

Wright describes the most “vivid” case of the counter-jihad as the Iraqi Awakening movements rejection of al Qaeda’s attempt to impose its own system of rule in Anbar province in 2007. However the diversity and complexity surrounding the concept of the counter-jihad is highlighted by the fact that in this case it was in defence of tribes, what Wright describes as “still the basic source of identity and protection” in many parts of the Middle East, not the forces of modernisation. Wright even hedges her analysis of al Qaeda’s decline warning that the movement is “not dead, even with Bin Laden’s death ten years after 9/11, but it is increasingly passé. In the post-jihadist era, the movement is out of touch with both events and its audience”.  An Egyptian poet makes the memorable quip that “al Qaeda is as significant to the Islamic world as the Ku Klux Klan is to the Americans”. Interestingly Wright investigates how the al Qaeda ideology is being treated as a medical condition in Saudi Arabia, the country responsible for the largest number of Arab foreign fighters in the Iraq. We learn that the Care Rehabilitation Centre (ironically built by the Bin Laden family construction company) has a 10% failure rate when patients return to terrorist activities following their ‘graduation’ from the programme.

The author is on much safer ground in her analysis of the discontented youth that are driving the revolutions, what Wright describes as “Generation U – the Muslim young under age thirty who were unfulfilled, unincluded, underemployed or underutilised, and underestimated”. These are a tech savvy demographic who explore new political space such as the production of YouTube campaigns that are picked up by international broadcasters and relayed back to Arab countries by the plethora of new satellite stations and the web. By contrast moribund state television channels have consistently failed to counter this narrative by banning reporters or reverting to old fashioned and often amateurish propaganda.

Wright touches on the important role the WikiLeaks cables played in revealing the unsustainable opulence of the Arab world’s dictators. While US diplomats questioned the sustainability of “rising inflation and high unemployment, the conspicuous displays of wealth and persistent rumours of corruption” in countries like Tunisia, none predicted the pace and depth of the changes that are continuing to occur. Indeed a US diplomatic cable described the Egyptian “Arab Sixth Movement” as “outside the mainstream” with “unrealistic” goals. It took 18 days to unseat Mubarak. Wright’s account of events in Egypt reads like a political thriller, however it can be said to be too Tahrir Square focused and is very much a selective, not comprehensive, narrative that makes the partial revolution seem far cleaner than it really was.

Wright’s fascinating examination of the role of women in the Arab Spring is a book in and of itself. The author examines the “pink hejab generation” who are chiselling away at centuries of restrictions. Women, “against overwhelming odds…have been increasingly creative…leading street protests, mobilizing millions of signatures on petitions to change laws, energetically building civil society, and creating the first generation of women to run for public office”. Iran is dealt with through a thorough and well told story of the life, death and legacy of the famous female protester, Neda Agha Soltan, described as the “face of the opposition”. Neda’s death redefined martyrdom in a country that “used martyrdom as a tool to export its ideology” and to reinforce its own domestic legitimacy.

The book is an enjoyable read but does sometimes feel like two stories bolted together. The first is a powerful journalistic appraisal of the underpinnings of the Arab Spring and in particular the impact of the counter-jihad on its narrative. The second part is an investigation into the transformative power of culture in expressing resentment and acting as a catalyst for political change. Some of Wright’s belief in the power of these catalysts seem a bit farfetched; rappers, for instance, are described as ”now among the most potent new messengers of political change,” while hip-hop is apparently “a microcosm of the Islamic revival’s fourth phase”.  It is perhaps a happy coincidence that the cries of the Arab youth, described by the author’s examination of rap, poetry, comics and new media, have exploded into the far greater and more transformative dynamics of the Arab Spring.