00:00:11
Uh thank you very much. Uh so that's that's what you get when you Google
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something. Uh complete exaggeration. Um and halftruth. I think uh I I'm actually
00:00:22
much more humble than that. Uh I uh I do have certain sort of opinions about what's happening in the Middle East. Uh
00:00:28
and I think you know I've reached a stage in life where I believe it's very
00:00:31
important that somebody says it. Uh I haven't heard anybody else say it. So I
00:00:35
decided that it was time that I actually say it. Uh so initially I'd like to say
00:00:40
it's really a great honor to be here today. Uh and before I begin I'd like to
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uh thank Jerry Jerry went for his immense generosity and strength. Uh I'm extremely grateful to Jerry for having
00:00:50
invited me to speak. He spent an afternoon a few months ago uh discussing the Arab world with me and I must have
00:00:56
said something interesting to him uh because he invited me to Wharton. I got very excited. Um I uh I'm actually uh
00:01:03
off off from my job without permission to speak to you today. Um so I'd also
00:01:09
like to thank all the people who've uh helped organize the event. I know the
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immense efforts that go on behind the scenes. Uh I also just come from watching uh
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John Kerry on TV speaking about uh the challenge ISIS in particular presents not just to the Arab world but to the
00:01:26
Islamic world and to uh to well to the US. Uh and I am even more convinced now that he's only got part of the picture
00:01:34
um and that there there are sort of greater forces at play uh and that this isn't simply a military matter. So world
00:01:41
foreign ministers just met in Paris to defeat uh to decide how to defeat the movement called ISIS. Uh uh ISIS is in
00:01:48
my opinion above all an ideological movement which gains its strength by winning recruits and sympathizers across
00:01:54
the Arab world. Uh so how can ISIS be defeated ideologically? Uh so I'm I'm
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assuming that most people in the room want to defeat ISIS in one way or another. Um I I apologize if that's not
00:02:07
the common a common opinion. Uh so as as a UAE ambassador to Moscow, uh I've been
00:02:12
there for six years. U I want to I want to say that I also think of myself as slightly uh um outside of the the narrow
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box of a diplomat. So I think of myself as a liberal uh in the positive and broader sense of the word. Uh secondly,
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I think of myself as an Arab who insists on thinking as deeply as possible about
00:02:30
the Arab world and its future. And uh thirdly uh I think of myself uh as an individual uh with uh a right to uh an
00:02:39
opinion and a right to an existence uh that I define. So um as a liberal, a conscientious thinker and an individual
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uh that's how I would like you to hear me, not necessarily as a as a government
00:02:50
official pushing a specific government line. So I think I'm going to spend about half an hour uh speaking and then
00:02:56
I look forward to questions and answers. So why am I speaking about this topic today? And why do I intend to uh to
00:03:02
speak about it in other places? Well, it's because I I and many others like me
00:03:07
are horrified by the violence shown by ISIS in the name of Islam and in the name of the Arabs. ISIS has slaughtered
00:03:13
its critics, including many among the Sunni Arab community, which it claims to defend. It strangely and arrogantly, I
00:03:20
believe, claims a right to rule over all Muslims everywhere in the world. Uh shows ambition at a minimum. It's
00:03:27
persecuted minorities which every decent Muslim individual should cherish and protect. And it's not unique in that
00:03:33
respect unfortunately because other Islamist movements have done much the same. Uh and indeed one of the points
00:03:39
that I'm I want to make is that other Islamist movements including uh in my view the Muslim Brotherhood also need to
00:03:45
be confronted. So most of the coverage of the reaction to ISIS has been of the West and its
00:03:50
Arab allies marshalling a coalition to defeat militarily ISIS and eradicate it from the territories it claims. Uh and
00:03:58
this is said to take anywhere between three and and and 10 years. But ISIS is much more dangerous as a model in the
00:04:04
minds of my fellow Arabs and fellow Muslims. It's the shell into which any substance can be inserted. And it is it
00:04:11
is this aspect of ISIS that I believe must be fought above all. So, I've got
00:04:15
five proposals or ideas for how one might go about doing this in in a positive sense, in the sense of not just
00:04:21
um eradicating really bad people and really bad ideas, but coming up with something to then replace those very
00:04:27
attractive uh ideas. So, I'm not focusing on the measures that need to be taken to stop
00:04:32
individuals from funding ISIS. And I'm not going to set out economic or political measures such as concessions
00:04:38
to Iraq, Sunny, Arab Minority, or policies to reduce unemployment. It's not because I don't think these are all
00:04:44
important. I just think there are others who can discuss them uh better uh and who have more sort of uh statistical
00:04:52
knowledge that perhaps I I have. So I I prefer to talk about the ideological debate within the Arab world uh and some
00:04:58
of also the things that are not said that should be part of the ideological debate uh and how all of this can be
00:05:03
turned against ISIS and other Islamists. So this is a debate primarily to be had
00:05:08
between Arabs uh and it should be done in terms that Arabs understand. Worrying whether a western society or media will
00:05:16
like what we say to each other distracts us from speaking to each other. When we
00:05:20
talk of moderate Islamists or Islamic democracy, it's often clear that we're
00:05:24
not actually talking to each other in the Arab world. We're talking to an imagined Washington and what we expect
00:05:29
Washington then to tell us. Uh these are not coherent concepts, at least not yet.
00:05:35
and they're not I don't believe very high up on the real list of priorities. Uh so as a Sunni Muslim uh
00:05:41
as distinct from a Sunni Islamist, what are my concerns? I and many of my compatriots are deeply concerned about
00:05:47
number one, our moral state, number two, the violence within our Arab Muslim society. Number three, our theological
00:05:55
leadership. Number four, the role of laymen and people of goodwill in redirecting the path of the Arab and
00:06:01
Muslim world. And number five, the jobs and economy of course. So these five themes, morality, tolerance, religious
00:06:08
moderation, inclusivity, and good government, or what I will call technology, are critical ones for
00:06:13
undermining the appeal of militant Islamist movements like ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood. So in my view, we
00:06:20
should first point out that although they say they will make Muslims more virtuous, they do not. Their perspectus
00:06:25
of forced morality and imposed religious norms is not just illogical, it's also
00:06:30
bound to fail. Second, we should highlight that their program of violence and intolerance is
00:06:36
in contrast to the historical caliphate. It is actually a reductive sketch of Islamic
00:06:41
history. Third, we should tackle the issues of the Muslim clergy who either back the extremists and license their
00:06:48
violence or do not interest themselves uh in the pastoral duties in their pastoral duties to Muslims in and of the
00:06:55
21st century. Fourth, we must tackle the question of how our societies should be guided, what
00:07:01
the right path is to a better future with inclusive government and security for all citizens. And lastly, I believe
00:07:08
we must show that Islamists govern badly. They govern badly not just because of their inexperience, but
00:07:13
because their ideology actually prevents them from governing well. So, let me look first at
00:07:18
morality. Islamists are fond of saying that Islam is the answer. I I grew up uh and this was something that I always
00:07:25
took for granted that it is the answer. This is a motto that was promulgated by the Muslim Brotherhood but also by Shia
00:07:31
militant movements in Iraq. In the last few years, many of us have actually asked what was the question. Islam is
00:07:38
the answer. What was the question? Islam is our religion. Uh and it is a deep and
00:07:42
powerful influence over our lives. And for many of us, it is the answer to our spiritual and existential needs.
00:07:49
However, when it's raified by Islamists and used as a promotional tool for what
00:07:53
I can only say is a lust for power, then I believe that we need to push back until we get more answers at least. So,
00:07:59
one way of pushing back is by asking why Islam is the answer to specific questions and why specifically is it the
00:08:06
answer in their hands. The Islamist explanation never moves beyond vague assurances that all will all be good
00:08:13
when we implement Islam. That still doesn't answer the question why a purely
00:08:17
technical or administrative or biological or societal problem will be solved through piety. In fact, it seems
00:08:24
that utilizing our religion in this way is a disservice to it. The focus of our religion in my view and the view of many
00:08:30
of my fellow Muslims is ethical, moral and spiritual in its essence. Deciding pension fund politics is not the realm
00:08:37
of religion. Nor is economic development directly the realm of religion. There will of course be ethical matters to
00:08:43
take into account, principles of fairness, equity, and and justice. But it is too much to say that there is a
00:08:49
specifically Islamic answer to these matters. The truth is that there are many answers to these questions
00:08:54
depending on how we describe them. I often find it interesting that corruption is cited as one of the vices
00:09:00
that will be stopped by implementing Islam under the Islamists. We are told that pious people
00:09:05
will hold positions of responsibility and that this will bring corruption to a halt. This is wishful thinking at best.
00:09:13
Why not try some tried and tested administrative procedures that will ensure enough transparency to make
00:09:19
corruption much more difficult to hide? My worry is that we are asking too little of our great religion. When our
00:09:25
holy text and our moral principles can be directed towards personal regeneration, we instead demand of it to
00:09:32
convert the publicly pious into the morally infallible. A very difficult task. we can move uh we can more easily
00:09:38
and quickly build administrative systems uh that will perform this function without regard to the moral worth of the
00:09:45
administrator and be of greater uh service to our fellow citizens. What is also worrying is to
00:09:51
see religion's noble goals being used to justify evil and cowardly means. It is
00:09:55
used, for example, to glorify violence, which is something that ISIS's religious
00:10:00
propaganda does all the time. And it can be used to cover up another kind of violence, the violence of bribery,
00:10:06
corruption, and exploitation. It is also a kind of psychological violence that we
00:10:10
do to each other whenever when when we enforce religious standards on each other to the point where we monitor each
00:10:16
other's mental states searching eagerly for moral weakness. The second message I'd like to
00:10:22
talk about is about tolerance as opposed to violence. essentially that ISIS and other movements are reading history
00:10:28
incorrectly and selectively when they claim to be the modern successors of the early
00:10:33
Muslims. There's no doubting the power of the claim that they make. Let me focus on ISIS for a moment. Although
00:10:40
both ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood are Islamist movements and fundamentally I believe hostile to the kind of Arab
00:10:46
society that I want to see. Uh ISIS I think is more worrying for me than the Muslim Brotherhood. Why? The Muslim
00:10:53
Brotherhood is more uh is a more cult-like organization in my view, a fraternity of sorts with all sorts of
00:10:59
tests and demonstrations of absolute loyalty to a religious administrative leadership. It's a closed system that is
00:11:05
mired in its own mythmaking and worldview. ISIS, on the other hand, is an open system. Uh it's violent and
00:11:12
makes an appeal to the basic elements of Islamic history. ISIS intends or seems to intend to
00:11:17
replicate the spread of Islam by the sword throughout the region in a kind of replay of 7th century history. It is
00:11:24
actually a very seductive approach that makes use of many commonly held references. It claims the forms of
00:11:30
ancient Islamic history for itself in a way that many uh Muslims recognize, including myself. The Muslim
00:11:37
Brotherhood, on the other hand, is a modern hierarchy that is not reflected in in the early history of Islam.
00:11:42
ISIS recalls the caiffs and the battles where so many early Muslims proved themselves or sacrificed themselves to
00:11:47
to defeat the enemies of Islam. It appeals to this sense of reenactment and this is where its true danger lies. ISIS
00:11:55
have managed to articulate and reference a misleading and one-dimensional narrative that unfortunately has wide
00:12:02
purchase in our region. I don't think this point actually comes out very often. Uh it's it's described as a
00:12:08
complete distortion of Islam. Uh and I think that that's that's a bit worrying.
00:12:13
Uh many of us will recognize elements within that that actually aren't a distortion uh but a a a very strange
00:12:20
expression of uh Islam. So why does it have this uh wide purchase? Well, I believe because of institutional
00:12:28
pressure that refuses to examine and re-examine the implications of poorly understood beliefs that we have about
00:12:35
our religion, about our history, about present societies, and the ways in which we can improve our lives. Here we Sunni
00:12:43
Muslims need to ask ourselves some critical questions. Why would the form of an Islamic state and the declaration
00:12:48
of a caliphate so excite certain populations on social media? Do do these people know what they are excited about?
00:12:55
Do they understand the difference between the form of an announced caliphate and the substance of daily
00:13:00
murder in the name of our dear religion? Do they realize that ISIS would likely behead them if they were under its rule?
00:13:07
Do they know enough history to realize that in the time of the actual caliphat the the the kaiff Yazid was sent to was
00:13:14
said to spend his evenings in long and friendly discussions with his Christian minister who later became a Christian
00:13:19
saint. or that the caiff al-Mansour sought advice from Hindu astronomers before choosing the time to lay the
00:13:25
foundation stone of Baghdad. It's basically tolerance. ISIS's so-called Islamic State is a perversion of
00:13:31
history, but it is not a completely alien proposition. The set of actions it's taken and the set of references
00:13:37
they make are very well known, I believe, in the Arab world. And that makes it particularly dangerous. This is
00:13:42
where our religious authorities need to step up and devise narratives that attract a new generation of young Arab
00:13:48
Muslims. and to be honest, Muslims from uh from Western Europe where they seem to have a
00:13:54
lot of excitement for ISIS. So, let me turn now to the question of those religious authorities, how they behave
00:14:00
and how they are constituted. My third theme is religious moderation. And for this to flourish, I
00:14:06
believe we've got to address the issue of the Islamic clergy. I believe in free
00:14:09
speech uh and I'm exercising it here. Yet, there are limits to it. Religious
00:14:14
leaders who claim in effect to speak for God have great power to sway people's
00:14:18
minds, especially the minds of those who have not been taught to think for themselves. It's unconscionable and
00:14:24
unacceptable in my opinion that a cleric with the authority is uh with such authority as Ysef Karawi who lives in
00:14:30
Qatar and who has great influence with the Muslim Brotherhood and who I used to watch on on Al Jazzer and and enjoy very
00:14:37
much. uh it's unconscionable that he can be allowed to say as he did in 2009 that
00:14:42
Hitler put the Jews in their place and that the next time will be at the hands of the believers. In the context of
00:14:47
Syria though obviously the Assad regime has done many terrible things to the Syrian people. Those clerics who have
00:14:52
encouraged viciously violent Islamist groups like ISIS have done a great disservice to the Arab world and to
00:14:58
humanity. But it has occurred to me that perhaps militant clerics give license to
00:15:03
these groups because of their own insecurity. Perhaps in turn, this insecurity is a
00:15:08
result of their inab their apparent inability to engage with questions thrown up by modernity,
00:15:13
telecommunications, and globalization. One of the key problems of the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS
00:15:18
narratives is that they are one-dimensional, disconnected, reductive sketches of Islam's history and that of
00:15:24
the modern world. However, this is perhaps precisely why they appeal to existentially disenfranchised young
00:15:30
Muslims. If our traditional religious authorities are unable to recognize that their grasp of Islam's narrative in the
00:15:37
minds of our youth is slipping, then it is for laymen and people of goodwill to take up the battle. Today, we need to
00:15:44
think in terms of Islamic structures and institutions that are more responsive to
00:15:48
people's existential need and of how they can be of service to the people rather than how the people can be of
00:15:55
service to their visions of glory. We need religious leaders who show a concern for the well-being of each and
00:16:01
every individual in their community. We need a religious leadership that thinks about the modern world, that understands
00:16:07
political science and economics, that's well read in the social sciences, that
00:16:10
speaks languages, and that looks at young Muslims, Arabs, Arab or not, as individuals to be educated and cared
00:16:16
for, not as cannon foder in an Islamist onslaught against modernity. My fourth theme is
00:16:23
inclusivity. I don't see democracy as the answer to the Islamists and I would
00:16:26
rather focus on inclusion instead. Here's why. When I saw the protests in Tah Square in
00:16:32
in Cairo in 2011 and protests against Ben Ali in Tunisia and uprising the uprising against Gaddafi in Libya, I and
00:16:39
many of my friends wanted to believe as the Western press did that these protests were an expression of the noble
00:16:45
aspirations of the Arab people, a flowering of the demand for freedom and democracy by the oppressed of the region
00:16:51
and the end of the of Arab exclusion from history. Now in 2014, we see that Tunisia is unsettled and the question of
00:16:58
Islamist control of government is still undecided. Libya is in great trouble uh with the proliferation of arms and
00:17:05
militias threatening the unity of the state. Egypt experienced its non-cool and is at the heart of the battle
00:17:11
between an ideological Islamist worldview and a worldview that I would say is more inclusive in scope. Perhaps
00:17:17
because I've got a some inside information. Uh I'm not sure if it's coming out in the press in the same
00:17:21
manner. Yemen doesn't make the headlines these days, but the economy is suffering
00:17:26
tremendously and various low-level conflicts continue to tear at the fabric of the country. Of course, Syria is the
00:17:31
shame of the Arab world with over 200,000 dead now and a merciless and brutal civil war that has morphed into
00:17:37
the spectre of radical and violent religious extremists dominating more and more territory. So, what's gone
00:17:44
wrong? First, despite the virtues of democracy, it can be divisive, much more so when it is coupled with Islamism. It
00:17:52
can be a puzzle to people new to democracy to understand that winning the election doesn't mean that the minority
00:17:57
has no further role to play and no rights that remain. Many Islamists will welcome democratic elections on the
00:18:04
basis that we are all Muslim societies and that therefore the most Muslim of parties will win and win and win again.
00:18:11
Whereas in my view, the point of designing political systems is that there they be genuinely just and stable.
00:18:17
And this will involve the expression of wider and deeper principles such as the protection of all winners and losers,
00:18:23
majorities and minorities, men and women, so that the chance of renewal always remains a possibility and so that
00:18:29
people can still live in peace and security irrespective of their personal and uh religious
00:18:35
beliefs. Islamist election winners in Egypt and Iraq were not willing to make any such concession. Yet in our society
00:18:41
which is still divided along regional, tribal, ethnic and religious lines, there are many minorities faced with the
00:18:48
threat of suffering from arbitrary power. Many are willing to fight when confronted with the prospect of
00:18:52
democracy. Strangely, as they would fight any change that may threaten their freedom, it's no coincidence that ISIS
00:18:59
was born in Iraq, which is an electoral democracy of just this kind, one which is run by Shia Islamists. Those who
00:19:06
benefit from dividing the country on religious lines and can then appeal to their home base for votes have no
00:19:11
interest in treating citizens on an equal basis regardless of their religion. It's partly because of
00:19:17
Islamist movements I believe that democracy in the Arab world will be so difficult to implement. It's also
00:19:23
because of the lack of institutions that can rise above partisan politics. When every when every minister who is elected
00:19:28
in a country like Iraq evicts the existing staff and replaces them with his or her own partisans, the stakes in
00:19:35
an election or raised very high. Given the social, cultural, and educational realities of our part of the
00:19:41
world, many of us recognize that an introduction of electoral democracy that precedes the development of effective
00:19:48
impartial institutions may exacerbate tribal and sectarian divisions. Even when voting, even the voting in
00:19:54
something as apparently inu innocuous as a regional poetry competition in the Emirates often takes place along tribal
00:20:01
lines. This doesn't mean that western style democratic processes will never uh
00:20:06
take root or or will never happen. Simply that overnight changes in the civil relationships in civil
00:20:12
relationships are fraught with dangers. On the other hands, the Islamist demand that we all obey the utterances of a
00:20:18
shadow shadowy spiritual guide and his businesssavvy henchmen. Islam is the answer to all questions and the conveyor
00:20:25
of those answer answers is a person whose infallibility never seems to be in doubt. What happens when such a movement
00:20:31
is elected? How can it ever be expected to yield up power peace power peacefully? When is the last time that
00:20:37
any movement which saw itself as having a god-given right to rule stood stood down in a in favor of a an allegedly
00:20:44
godless opposition? So the challenge is to find a way to include all citizens and give them a voice without risking
00:20:50
the ripping apart of the social fabric as we've seen happen in a number of Arab
00:20:54
countries so far. The fifth and last theme that I want to address is the issue of of good government. How to
00:21:01
deliver jobs and security. Let me address this first through the uh the lens of technology. The Arab and Islamic
00:21:08
world has an illustrious history with technology. The Muslim world produced some remarkable technological
00:21:13
achievements in the areas of mathematics, astronomy, geography, and medicine. Modernday Islamist movements
00:21:20
are not as open-minded. They want to accept the technological product, but refuse the
00:21:25
premises upon which the technology came into existence. We are always in search of a pure and idealized past where
00:21:33
ethics, morality, and the path to the good life were clearly set out and where the right choice choices were always
00:21:39
clear. Introducing an environment that would allow us to flourish technologically means that we would have
00:21:44
to open the doors to inquiry and the best inquiry is free inquiry. Given that our current theological masters are not
00:21:51
ready yet to face the puzzling questions of science and modernity, they prefer to
00:21:56
dictate against the inquiry but to accept the product of the inquiry. And thus we have the injunction against
00:22:02
innovation, invention, importation of foreign and alien ideas. What's the what
00:22:07
is the area of application of this injunction? Who decides its limits? The reality is that this injunction may be
00:22:13
in of limited scope in theory. However, the way it is taken up by various groups
00:22:18
in the Muslim world is less selective. This is a point I'd like to emphasize as
00:22:23
it's critical for the future of the Arab world. Technology is the product of
00:22:27
inquiry and is premised on the creation of a free space of inquiry. Without the freedom to inquire, to question, to
00:22:33
challenge, we have no ability to create. However, inquiry cannot be limited to those areas permitted by religious
00:22:40
authority. Inquiry quickly quickly escapes its master's grip just as radicalism does. This inquiry is limited
00:22:47
more by religious injunction and ideologies of religion than political censorship. So does this attempt to
00:22:53
limit our interaction with the immoral world of inquiry mean that we will be saved from evil? I don't believe so. In
00:23:00
fact, we are doubly disadvantaged. Firstly, it puts us in a place where we will find our lives produced and
00:23:06
manipulated by other people's designs of technology. I don't think that's
00:23:10
something that we're we're aware of in in the Middle East. Not having produced
00:23:13
technology, we don't we can't directly see the effect of technology. And
00:23:17
secondly, we lack the ability to create it ourselves. We want the project uh product, but we reject the principles
00:23:23
that led to the creation of the product. Uh I was shocked a few years ago to hear
00:23:27
that the spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood again Yusf Karadawi said that God had produced the West to
00:23:34
provide Muslims with technology and thus there was no need for us to create it ourselves. at the very least an
00:23:40
incoherent approach uh and an unambitious approach. Uh it seems that when it is a western invention, we do
00:23:46
not have the moral burden of the consequences of the product. We're merely its weak and weakened object.
00:23:52
What does make sense is that this approach will increase the tension in the Arab and Muslim worlds between those
00:23:58
who insist on going backwards in time and those who are in the present time. This tension is reflected in the battle
00:24:05
between radicalism and progressive thinking and between those who want to stop still, who want time to stop still,
00:24:12
and those who recognize that life is about mastering change on a daily basis. This is not a moral issue. It's simply
00:24:18
the logic of contrasting existences and and world views. Uh as well as physical technology, let me speak briefly about
00:24:26
political technology. You'll be pleased to know that the time I spent in Russia,
00:24:30
which is coming up to six years, uh uh has been put to good use. Uh as I'm out
00:24:36
of the way of home politics, I enjoy the privilege of letting my mind wander. The
00:24:40
Russians often refer to political technologies in their public discourse. This is interpreted in the West as a
00:24:46
euphemism for political manipulation. And so this may or may not be the case. uh but it did prompt me to think of
00:24:53
political systems as intentional systems by which I mean systems that are intended to produce certain outcomes. So
00:24:59
rather than dividing the world up into those that are democratic and those that are authoritarian, I began to see
00:25:04
political system more in terms of the outcomes that they were likely or in some cases guaranteed to produce. So one
00:25:11
interpretation of the demonstrations in Tahir Square in 2011 is that the protesters were demanding political
00:25:16
change, the fall of Mubarak, democratic elections, the victory of youth over age. Another view of the events says
00:25:23
that people were demanding firstly social justice, secondly an end to corruption and thirdly jobs. So what
00:25:29
they got was the Muslim Brotherhood. I was puzzled by the enthusiasm that the Egyptian Muslim
00:25:34
Brotherhood demonstrated in the pursuit of political power. I simply couldn't
00:25:38
understand what they wanted to do with political political power in case they won. As we all know, they already had
00:25:44
tremendous social and cultural power through their compelling, the reductive uh and vague narrative that Islam is the
00:25:50
answer to any problem. They also had this wide social network and and they took care of uh many many poor people
00:25:57
which obviously helped them in the elections. In order to better understand this matter, I looked at the election
00:26:02
platform of Muri, a candidate Muri at the time, and compared his platform to those of other parties. So my reading of
00:26:08
the Muslim Brotherhood's agenda was the following. They wanted to correct the
00:26:12
moral state of the Egyptian people first and then that of others later. They wanted to enforce Sharia law. They
00:26:18
wanted to root out corruption. And they wanted to ensure social justice, however
00:26:22
vaguely defined. Uh I spent um a number of hours uh trying to track down specifically a definition of social
00:26:29
justice and I couldn't find it in Arabic or in English to be honest. So how did
00:26:33
they propose to achieve all of these aims? The moral state of the Egyptian people and others was to be corrected
00:26:39
with personal piety. Sharia law was to be enforced by a pious parliament. Corruption was to be eradicated by the
00:26:46
piety of government administrators. And social justice was to be the outcome of overall and generalized piety. This is
00:26:53
not a caricature of their approach. It is the legacy of years of insisting that Islam is the answer without delving into
00:26:59
how and why piety, Sharia law, prayer, devotion and the range of religious exercises that are actually central to
00:27:06
our lives as Muslims, how this was going to translate into ad administrative and
00:27:10
economic excellence, moral excellence perhaps, but in a state of failed economics and dis disastrous public
00:27:17
services. So in conclusion, piety and holiness are key to our lives as Muslims, but they are not systems or
00:27:24
technologies of governance. Having spoken about these five themes that I believe must be
00:27:29
emphasized in the fight against radical Islamism, I'd like to say something uh
00:27:32
about my own country and its political system. I'm slightly biased in this matter. With the events of the Arab
00:27:38
Spring and the loud calls for immediate democratization or Islamization, many of us in the UAE
00:27:44
asked ourselves the following question. Did it make sense to risk or sacrifice what we have achieved up until now for
00:27:51
an idealized democratic polity or for an Islamist state? Either of which could unleash destructive forces that we know
00:27:58
are within us. So why do I say this? For two primary reasons. Firstly, in establishing the
00:28:05
Emirates, our leadership overcame divisions and antagonisms that were deeply rooted in tribal nomatic culture.
00:28:11
These features of our society uh and this is being very honest are never too far from the surface. These a feature
00:28:19
common to all Arab societies. The fact that we managed to overcome these obstacles of distrust and competition
00:28:25
for limited resources and build an economic success in our region is to be commended. Once upon a time, we in the
00:28:32
Emirates could have been like Libya today, a war zone of militias and Islamists and smugglers and terrorists.
00:28:38
But we in the UAE are the product of a judicious understanding of what we have within our historical tribal selves and
00:28:44
what we could become. Changing our system by a radical reordering of existing relationships is highly likely
00:28:51
to lead to people falling back on traditional allegiances of family, tribe and blood to the detriment of the social
00:28:58
cohesion that we have today. We also know what happened in in country after country in the Arab world.
00:29:04
Extremists are better at grabbing power than moderates. Moderates take an accommodating system for granted. Rather
00:29:11
than being radical and revolutionary, our approach has been to uncover our own potential and to reveal to ourselves
00:29:17
what is already present. I'll go further and propose that key features of the UAE
00:29:22
system can form the basis of positive development in other parts of the Arab world. Why? Let me return to the five
00:29:29
themes which I began this talk with. Morality, tolerance, moderation, inclusiv inclusivity, and technology.
00:29:35
First, I'd say that in contrast to the Islamist relentless and often hypocritical focus on moral virtue, we
00:29:41
in the UAE recognize human weakness. Though we set high standards for standards for ourselves, we recognize
00:29:48
that perfection is an attribute of Allah and not of people. There is a remarkable
00:29:52
readiness to forgive errors and move on. This translates into the rise of the entrepreneurial class amongst Imirati
00:29:59
youth as well as a lenient or at least a more lenient approach to other people's
00:30:03
moral conduct. We believe these matters are a choice for the individual. We do not engage in moral witch
00:30:09
hunts. Secondly, I'd like to say that the UAE's rulers are decidedly tolerant
00:30:13
Muslims and certainly not Islamists. The Islamist assumes that he is right and that you are wrong. The president and
00:30:21
founder of the UAE, his highness Zed, God rest his soul, made clear his opposition to movements like ISIS. My
00:30:27
quote, "In these times, we see around us violent men who claim to talk on behalf
00:30:31
of Islam. These people have nothing." whatsoever that connects them to Islam.
00:30:35
They were apostates and criminals. He also, interestingly, rejected the Muslim Brotherhood's agenda. Uh he met with the
00:30:42
Brotherhood's leaders in the 1970s and refused their proposal to set up an office in the capital Abu Dhabi. When
00:30:47
asked why, he responded, "If you are the Muslim Brothers, then who are we?" In our approach, all are included
00:30:55
as long as they include others. This key feature translates into the Allied notion of tolerance.
00:31:01
If we are prone to error and we do not ex exclude those who are different, this expresses itself as a deep tolerance and
00:31:07
acceptance of other ethnicities and others faiths. We have over 190 nationalities in the UAE and and over 70
00:31:14
churches, I'm told. Mosques are full and churches are full. Thirdly, the UAE
00:31:19
takes action to suppress religious hatred and extremism by maintaining rigorous control on the content of
00:31:24
clergy sermons. Having uh been a frequent attendant attender of of Friday prayers, I understand why they uh
00:31:32
control the clergy sermon so well. It also hosts the international center of excellence against violent extremism in
00:31:39
in Abu Dhabi. The center is engaged in capacity building and best practice exchanges encountering all forms of
00:31:45
violent extremism. In order to further promote peace in Muslim communities, the UAE announced uh in 20 uh in July of
00:31:52
2014 the establishment of the Muslim Council of Elders uh an independent international body of scholars from
00:31:58
Muslim countries promoting the core tolerant values and practices of our faith. Fourthly, our system is both
00:32:07
consensus and leadership driven. The UAE does have some explicitly democratic mechanism allowing for formal voting and
00:32:13
voicing of opinion. However, more significantly, the UAE has social and cultural mechanisms and platforms for
00:32:20
debate, analysis, polling, idea testing, and consensus building. These are not immediately uh visible to the outsider
00:32:27
and even sometimes the insider. Uh however, they are there and they do exist and they are effective. Going
00:32:34
forward, there will inevitably be a need to further develop and refine these indigenous systems of signaling. Uh and
00:32:40
that will be done and done by us. Consensus is allied with leadership. Historically, the leaders of the tribes
00:32:46
of the region were men who had proven themselves by natural leadership abilities. It's the combination of commu
00:32:52
communal uh consensus and strong decisive leadership that uh move us forward as a society. As a society, we
00:33:01
face the uncertainty of the future not as a source of anxiety and an excuse for autocracy, but rather as a challenge and
00:33:08
with determination. Fifthly, we're not afraid of technology. We focus on getting
00:33:13
things done in a manner that can be measured in the welfare of our people. This means that we focus on
00:33:18
technological innovations and and this will sound strange but I I I do think of it as a technological innovation. The
00:33:24
rule of law to begin with uh efficient judicial systems, administrative effectiveness which is something that is
00:33:31
uh focused on to an extreme uh level. uh schools and a variety of schools and diversity in the uh in the provision of
00:33:40
schools. Uh functioning and adequate health system. I think we can probably improve there. Airlines that connect us
00:33:46
with the world and show us how dependent we are on the rest of the world. Government as a platform provider and an
00:33:53
economy that is open to outside investment and is freeing itself from dependence on oil. These are some of the
00:33:58
key features that explain the success of the UAE over the last 40 years. The first steps first step involves
00:34:04
leadership with a vision for what is possible and the second step is the vital work of building and reinforcing
00:34:10
trust between key members of society. This work of trust building cannot be underestimated and and to be honest when
00:34:17
I look around at the other countries of the Middle East uh I can only interpret what's going on as a lack of trust
00:34:23
between different communities. I often think how we need to think of uh ways in which we managed in the uh late 60s and
00:34:31
early 70s to build trust between the differing groups of the Emirates and perhaps share that experience with uh
00:34:36
some of our neighbors. So we want our fellow uh this so this work of trust building can't be underestimated. I said
00:34:42
we want our fellow Arabs to engage in the same step-by-step approach that we have followed always reaffirming and
00:34:48
demonstrating goodwill to each other. So in conclusion uh I tentatively put forward the idea that we in the Arab
00:34:56
world are pursued by a variety of fundamentalisms by rigid ideas and preconceived notions of what people are
00:35:03
like and of what the outcomes should be. And it is these dogmas that distract us
00:35:08
from building our societies today uh as well as tempt us with the possibility or
00:35:13
the seeming possibility of instantaneous utopias that may we may want but need to
00:35:19
work towards. ISIS is the proof we all needed in Sunni Islam to recognize that there are and must be different
00:35:25
interpretations and that layman of goodwill are obliged to enter the fray. Laymen and women need to wrestle
00:35:33
back Islam from the embrace of violence. ISIS makes a mockery of all the values that we believe and know Islam to
00:35:38
embrace. So if there are three thoughts that I'd like to leave you with today.
00:35:43
Number one, we in the United Arab Emirates believe wholeheartedly that the Arab world has the capacity and the
00:35:48
knowledge to create a path of intellectual and economic productivity uh and that violence is the least
00:35:53
effective means of achieving what the silent majority wants, an Arab world that is at peace with itself and
00:35:58
confident in its position in the community of nations. Number two, most young Arabs prefer the Emirates model to
00:36:05
that of the Islamists. The 2014 Arab Youth Survey showed not for the first time that when asked what country their
00:36:12
countries should emulate, Arab youth named the UAE above all other countries, above the US, above the UK, above Turkey
00:36:18
and Iran. Thirdly, I'd like to say that we Muslims and the Muslim communities of
00:36:23
the Arab world in particular have within us the capacity to reformulate our approach to ourselves firstly and then
00:36:30
to the rest of the world and thereby to share the beauty of our great religion with all. And in conclusion, I'd like to
00:36:36
thank you for having given me this opportunity to speak to you today.