July 2016

Volume 1, Issue 13

Diplomatic Collaboration

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Letter from the Editor

Chief Publisher Eugène Matos De Lara

Dear Readers,

Chief Editor Eric Wilkinson

Director Jillian Fernandez

Academic Advisors Arne Ruckert Dave Van Ginhoven Jennifer Haire Joseph Roman

Associate Publisher

On the heels of momentous changes in the world of international relations this past month, the July issue of Border Crossing takes up the task of reexamining aspects of international bodies like the United Nations or European Union that have found themselves under greater scrutiny in recent weeks. Can existing international legal frameworks effectively respond to people displaced by environmental disaster? How has the economic tact of the European Union impacted its stability? How might the diversity within Islam be recognized and mutual tolerance between Islamic denominations fostered? Can the historic diplomatic divide between Saudi Arabia and Iran be bridged? Finally, in the inescapable wake of Brexit, what can be said of the effectiveness of EU public diplomacy? These are among the question broached in this month's issue.

Maïté Girard English begins this month's issue exploring how existing international law addresses the issue of those displaced by environmental catastrophe. The humanitarian need to assist the displaced inevitably runs up against the sovereignty of states that might receive them, and their control over immigration. English outlines the debate and pursues possible legal solutions.

Amelia Baxter

Associate Editors Mete Edurcan Guillaume Lacombe-Kishibe Kristina R. Proulx

Contact us By email: bordercrossing.info@gmail.com (submissions)

In person: 19 rue le Gallois, Gatineau, Quebec, J8V 2H3 Canada

www.diplomatmagazine.nl

Written before the referendum in the UK, Anis Bajrektarevic's analysis of the economics of the European Union is even more prescient today. Bajrektarevic contends that the European Union has lost much of its economic vitality by sacrificing its historic compromise between capital and labour to pursue a neo-liberal economic approach. Nonetheless, Bajrektarevic finds hope in a new generation of young Europeans – an astute observation given the age demography of the UK vote.

Turning the discussion towards “Quantum Islam” Murray Hunter and Azly Rahman shift focus from formal international institutions to movements and ideologies. Islam undoubtedly has many faces, and reconciling these diverse dispositions with the existence of each other is no small feat. In examining the teaching of the Qu'ran in detail the authors lay the groundwork for a grand ecumenical project.

Speaking of competing articulations of Islam, our next author, Manal Saadi, takes aim at old grievances between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The standing of both countries on the world stage is changing from the status quo of decades. Saadi skillfully examines this evolution of the armslength relations between the two countries and their new respective places in the world.

This month's issue closes appropriately with Tess Altman and Chris Shore's “Paradoxes of EU Public Diplomacy,” a reflection on how the EU relates with the peoples within its member states. On the heels of the Brexit vote in the UK this analysis is of enormous value as the esteem of the EU among those living within it has been cast into doubt. The pointed examination of particular policy initiatives and their successes and failures provides a starting point for a discussion on how the EU can improve this standing.

With the eyes of the world on organizations that bind us together, this month Border Crossing takes a look at those institutions which cross borders.

Enjoy!

Eric Wilkinson

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Contents ENVIRONMENTAL DISPLACEMENTS: A LEGAL DEBATE FOR A PROTECTIVE INTERNATIONAL STATUS 6

Maïté Girard English

EURO(H)OPE OR EURO(R)OPE? - GIVE FUTURE GENERATION A CHANCE 9

Anis Bajrektarevic

QUANTUM ISLAM: TOWARDS A NEW WORLDVIEW 13

Murray Hunter and Azly Rahman

SAUDI – IRANIAN FUTURE: 3 GAMES – 3 SCENARIOS 16

Manal Saadi

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PARADOXES OF EU PUBLIC DIPLOMACY Tess Altman and Cris Shore

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Environmental Displacements: A Legal Debate for a Protective International Status Maïté Girard English is a well accomplished scholar who holds a Bachelors of Social Sciences. English is now beginning her Masters Degree at the University of Ottawa.

Maïté Girard English Anthropocene studies are eminently central to the urgent issues immersed in climate change and are indispensable to understand its causes. Physical-geologic transformations caused by climate change are no longer to be ignored and gladly they are stepwise integrated into a wider range of studies. In fact, ecological degradation is broached from a variety of contributions, and all analysts are unanimous: there is an urge to react. However, the capacity to act remains a matter of political will, as we have seen throughout the years with actions like the United Nations Framework Conventions on Climate Change, and global strategies will have to be embraced since the effects of climate change are certes a matter of all. In particular, this raises the problem of state sovereignty and how individual states’ interests could potentially constrain global instruments that will fight climate change. Yet, from what we have seen at the COP 21 negotiations of 2015 in Paris, multilateralism can overcome this as it demonstrated commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while developing programs of adaptation and providing financial support for developing nations to develop clean energy (UNFCCC, 2015). While Paris has provided hope

for fighting climate change, there are former consequences like displacements of people affected by environmental crises that require certain cross-national actions, but are not delineated by an international legal framework. In fact, the absence of a juridical status for this sort of relocation is a divisive issue that needs a particular attention, for a lack of international protection eventuate.

The Need for a Juridical Definition While migrants generally depend on the goodwill of states, those who are categorized as refugees are governed by conventions. However, regarding migrations for environmental causes, there is a need to ask how we can organize states’ responsibilities and obligations inasmuch as there is neither oppression nor violence from the state of origin. Legal vocabulary becomes then critical since it directly impacts international protection for environmental displaced people, but there is currently a lack of consensus on a global scale toward a definition to adopt for a status. Consequently, the question of characteristics of human rights remains unanswered. A juridical categorization for “environmental migrants” is a stringent exercise in itself because based on the specialization of the international actors interested,

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functional definitions will differ. For example, environmental analysts may resort to alarmist speech whereas migration specialists might be more sceptical concerning the inclusion of environmental issues as the only source forcing the movement of people in certain cases (Morel & Moor, 2012).

To arrive at a definite categorization of ecological displacement and a better understanding of why it has yet to be legally defined, an overview of the causes and types of displacements needs to be provided. Environmental sources forcing the relocation of people include, but are not limited to: gradual changes linked to the increase of greenhouse gases; climate changerelated catastrophes; and the collapse of vital physical infrastructure as a result of an environmental crisis. The urgency of the crisis will then be considered for selecting the types of actions that need to be taken: the cadence of the environmental conditions’ degeneracy will orient the displacement (McNamara & Gibson, 2012). That being said, the requirement for a temporary or a permanent, internal or transnational, forced or voluntary resettlement will impact the legal categorization. When citizens flee from their home for either social or political reasons, protection is no longer provided by the state and

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displacement becomes an objective for international action. In the case of international migrants, intrastate reinstallations are feasible and will remain a responsibility of the home government. For example, with regard of toxic contamination or gradual environmental change causes, the onus is placed on the home state to assist their citizens. However, permanent displacement is unavoidable in certain cases. Tuvalu, a small archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, has become the ultimate example of this scenario with its fate intertwined with the problems associated with rising sea levels due to climate change, such as coastal erosion or saline infiltration. The physical disappearance of a state like Tuvalu is now conceivable and the matter of which has become a global issue.

The Complexity of Legal Procedures As much as in some cases environmental causes cannot bring forth for themselves the entirely issue of the relocation needed, they offer an insight of the ambiguity concerning a definition for a legal status, which is not yet in force. Albeit the disagreement over delineating the term, unanimity for the removal of the term refugee implies among researchers, since the victims of climate changes are not prone to violence or oppression from their state and do not meet the 1951 Geneva Convention’s criteria for refugee status (Terranova & Herzog, 2013).

Furthermore, environmental migrants do not meet the conditions for the right of political asylum. The collective aspect of displacement must be taken into consideration in this process. If there is a need to permanently relocate outside the country, these legal procedures are not congruent with the individual having the right to asylum or bearing refugee status.

Simultaneously, statelessness could not be an outcome, for persons displaced by environmental crisis have not been deprived of their institutions, languages, or culture. That this

remained will add a level of complexity to managing such a mass movement. Thus, given the uncertainties that lie behind arriving at a legal definition of movements of environmentally displaced persons, satisfactory legal protections may not be possible and without legal status, international organizations do not have the mandate to protect such ‘migrants’; they are in a sort of ‘legal limbo’ (Cournil, 2010).

The relationship between affected countries and the country of origin plays a role in obtaining legal status.

Indeed, since the state of origin is not persecuting a part of its population, the obligation to support the environmentally displaced is restricted. According to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, individuals seeking relocation have the right to seek protection, but no country has the obligation to recognize and endorse them. The state’s only obligation is to accept applications for immigration. Under these circumstances, sovereignty is paramount and it remains central to the debate on resolutions to protect environmental displaced (Legoux, 2010).

Conclusion Attempts have been made by legal analysts to remedy this situation and to offer a protection for environmental displacement. Due to the principle of state sovereignty, the accession of a constraining instrument is unlikely to occur. However, scholars have suggested a few possibilities including the modifying of existing rights, amending the Geneva Convention, and establishing new measures to specifically protect ‘environmental migrants’. Apropos, the University of Limoges is putting forward the creation of a Convention on the international status of environmental displaced (Convention sur le status international des déplacés environnementaux). (Bétaille, 2010) It

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is a new Convention powered by a Global Agency for Environmental Displaced. It would be based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, and propose the use of a global fund. Parallelly, the Hodgkinson project offers the creation of a Convention, for ‘Persons Displaced by Climate Change’, but praised an ad hoc Convention as well as the integration of intern displacements (Cournil, 2010).

It is thus possible to understand that the indeterminacy of the legal status of displaced persons due to environmental changes concerns the various causes of displacements, these being natural but anthropogenic. The type of movement, voluntary or forced, internal or external, and temporary or permanent, is also the initiator of this protective ambiguity.

The inability to find an international consensus on a legal term then bullies environmental displaced persons’ rights, and even if solutions are called into being, the sovereignty of states remains a limit to a coherent definition of the situations to qualify.

References 1 Bétaille,

J. (2010). Des “réfugiés écologiques” à la protection des “déplacés environnementaux” éléments du débat juridique en France. Hommes et migrations , 144-155.

2 Cournil,

C. (2010). Émergence et faisabilité des protections en discussion sur les « réfugiés environnementaux ». Revue Tiers Monde , 35-54.

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Legoux, L. (2010). Les migrants climatiques et l'accueil des réfugiés en France et en Europe. Revue Tiers Monde , 55-67.

4 McNamara,

K. E., & Gibson, C. (2012). Mobilité humaine et changement environnemental : une analyse historique et textuelle de la politique des Nations Unies. Cultures & Conflits , 43-60.

5 Morel,

M., & Moor, N. (2012). Migrations climatiques : quel rôle pour le droit international ? Cultures & Conflits , 61-84.

6 Terranova, G., & Herzog, N. (2013). Géopolitique des réfugiés climatiques. Outre- Terre , 91-97.

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UNFCCC. (2015). UN Climate Change Newsroom.

Consulté le 04 28, 2016, sur United Nations - Framework Convention on Climate Change: http://newsroom.unfccc.int/ unfccc-newsroom/finale-cop21/

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Euro(h)ope or Euro(r)ope? - Give future generation a chance Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic, Geopolitics of Energy Editorial Member, Chairperson for Intl. Law & Global Pol. Studies.

Former legal practitioner and the president of Young Lawyers Association of BiH Bar (late 1980s). Former MFA official and career diplomat (early 1990s). Research Fellow at the Institute for Modern Political-history analyses, Dr. Bruno Kreisky Foundation as well as the Legal and Political Advisor for CEE at the Vienna-based Political Academy, Dr. Karl Renner (mid 1990s). His previous book "Geopolitics of Technology – Is There Life after Facebook?" was published by the New York’s Addleton Academic Publishers. Just released is his newest book" Geopolitics – Europe 100 years later."

Anis Bajrektarevic The EU of social welfare or of generational warfare, the continent of debt-bound economies or of knowledge-based community? Is the predatory generation in power? Why the only organized counter-narrative comes as a lukewarm Mouse Mickey – between Anonymous and Pirate party, from the Wiki-leaky to Snowden-picky.

Europe’s redemption lies in the reaffirmation of the Lisbon Strategy of 2000 (and of Göteborg 2001), a tenyear development plan that focused on innovation, mobility and education, social, economic and environmental renewal. Otherwise a generational warfare will join class and ethnic conflicts as a major dividing line of the EU society in decline. * * * * * Back in the good old days of the Lisbon Strategy (when the Union was proclaimed to be the most competitive, knowledge-based economy of the world), the Prodi and Barroso Commissions have been both repeatedly stressing that: “at present, some of our world trading partners

compete with primary resources, which we in the EU/Europe do not have. Some compete with cheap labor, which we do not want. Some compete on the back of their environment, which we cannot accept…”

What has happened in the meantime?

The over-financialization and hyperderegulations of the global(-ized) markets has brought the low-waged Chinese (peasant converted into a) worker into the spotlight of European considerations. Thus, in the last two decades, the EU economic edifice has gradually but steadily departed from its traditional labor-centered base, to the overseas investment-centered construct. This mega event, as we see now with the Euro-zone dithyramb, has multiple consequences on both the inner–European cultural, socioeconomic and political balance as well as on China’s (overheated) growth. That sparse, rarefied and compressed labor, which still resides in the aging Union is either bitterly competing with or is heavily leaning on the guest workers who are per

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definition underrepresented or silenced by the ‘rightist’ movements and otherwise disadvantaged and hindered in their elementary sociopolitical rights. That’s how the world’s last cosmopolitan – Europe departed from the world of work, and that’s why the Continent today cannot orient itself (both critically needed to identify a challenge, as well as to calibrate and jointly redefine the EU path). To orient, one need to center itself: Without left and right, there is no center, right?!

To orient, one need to center itself, at first Contemporary Union has helplessly lost its political ‘left’. The grand historical achievement of Europe – after the centuries–long and bloody class struggle – was the final, lasting reconciliatory compromise between capital and labor. (E.g. tightening the ‘financial screws’ while unemployment kept its sharp rise, was a big mantra of the French, British, German and Italian political center-right in late 1920s and early 1930s.) It resulted in a consolidation

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of economically entrepreneurial and vibrant but at the same time socially just and beneficial state. This colossal civilizational accomplishment is what brought about the international recognition, admiration, model attraction and its competitiveness as well as inner continuity, prosperity and stability to the post WWII Europe.

In the country of origin of the very word dēmokratía, the President of the Socialist International (and that time Nation‘s PM) has introduced to his own citizenry the most drastic cuts that any European social welfare system had experienced in the last 80 years. The rest of official Europe (and the rest of ‘unofficial us’) still chews the so-called Greek debt tirade as if it is not about the very life of 12 million souls, but a mare technical item studied at secondary schools’ crashcourse on macro economy.

The present-day Union, aged but not restaged, is (in) a shadow of the grand taboo that the EU can produce everything but its own life. The Old Continent is demographically sinking, while economically contracting, yet only keeps afloat. Even the EU Commission, back in 2005, fairly diagnosed in its Green Paper Confronting demographic change – a new solidarity between genera-tions that: “...Never in history has there been economic growth without population growth.”

Except for rather brief moments of wars and famines, every next generation of Europeans has, ever since the age of Industrial Revolution,

enjoyed a higher standard of living than its parents. An average newborn European could expect to have more money, to live longer, and to spend more at leisure. These days are clearly over, especially for the EU-15: the median income has remained stagnant over the past 25 years.

Meaning that the real median household income in 2014 is less than it was in 1989. Like never before, the EU today has its best educated workforce ever. At the same time, the EU financial sector is the least regulated ever – a process that coincided with the end of Cold war.

Thus, many economists, like Nobel laureate Solow, claim that the socalled financial industry has negative impact on economy and larger society.

Therefore, no wonder that over 100 million Europeans are hitting the poverty line; that the rates of functional illiteracy, suicide, extremism and drugs abuse are on an alarming increase. The numbers of unemployed, underemployed or underpaid /working–poor are constantly gro-wing. (Simply, the unemployed is not a free person, but an excluded and insecure, obedient and backward-minded, aggressive and brutal individual.) The average age of the first labor market entry is already over 30 in many MS – not only of Europe’s south. The middleclass is pauperized and a crossgenerational social contract is silently abandoned, as one of its main operative instruments – the Lisbon strategy – has been eroded, and finally lost its coherence.

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To worsen the hardship, nearly all European states have responded wrongly to the crisis by hammering down their respective education and science/R&D budgets. It is not a policy move, but an anti-visionary panicking that delivers only cuts on the future (generations).

(E.g. the EU investments in renewables have been decreasing ever since 2008. Still, today, the EU budget allocation to agriculture subsides is 10 times bigger than to R&D.) No wonder that our cities at present –instead of blossoming with the new technologies– are full of pauperized urban farmers: a middle class citizenry which desperately turns to mini agriculture as the only way to meet their nutritional needs.

Silenced Youth with Bluetooth Is the subtle, unnoticed generational warfare, instead of the social welfare already going on?! Recent generational accounting figures illuminate a highly disturbing future prospect for the EU youth. Decades of here-us-now disheartened consumerism corroded the EU’s community fabrics so much that, cross-generationally speaking, the present is the most socioeconomically egotistic European society of all times.

Elaborating on the known ‘ageing argument’ of Fukuyama, I earlier stated that: “…political, social and economic changes including very important technological breakthroughs, primarily occurred at generational intervals…Presently, with demographically collapsing European societies, of three or more

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generations active and working at the same time, the young cohort (of gogetters) will never constitute more than a tiny minority. Hence, neither generational change nor technological breakthrough (which usually comes along) in future will ever be that of our past: full and decisive.”

Conclusively, many of the Third World countries are known by having predatory elites in power that continuously hinder the society at large and hijack their progress to its narrow ends. The EU might easily end up with the predatory generation in power.

On the other hand, Europe has never witnessed its own youth so apolitical, apathetic and dis-engaged in last 250 years– as their larger front of realities has contracted into the sporadic and self-disfranchising protests over the alleged, but isolated cyber freedoms or over decontextua-lized gay-rights â la Lady Gaga, only. No wonder that the idea of taxing the next generation at twice the current rates seems – unchecked and unnoticed – gaining the full ground.

Interestingly enough, in the times of a tacit generational warfare, any consolidated fight for a social and generational cause is completely absent. The only organized revolt of European youth comes as a lukewarm demand for a few more freedoms to download internet contents (Anonymous, Pirate party, Wikileaky, Snowden-picky, etc.) or through colorful sporadic campaigns for de-contextualized gay and other behavioristic rights. Despite their worsened conditions, the young

Europeans didn’t come even close to the core of representative democracy – e.g. to request 20% seat- allocation for the below-30 age cohort in the European and national parliaments – as one of the effective means to improve their future prospects.

Demographically, socio-economically and politically marginalized, European youngsters are chronically underrepresented since exceptionally few MPs and MEPs are below age of 30. Where is a coherent alternative?

Or as Fukuyama noted in his Future of History essay: “Something strange is going on in the world today. The global financial crisis that began in 2008 and the ongoing crisis of the euro are both products of the model of lightly regulated financial capitalism that emerged over the past three decades…most dynamic recent populist move-ment to date has been the right-wing…where the left is anemic and right-wing populist parties are on the move… This absence of a plausible progressive counternarrative is unhealthy, because competition is good for intellectual debate just as it is for economic activity. And serious intellectual debate is urgently needed, since the current form of globalized capitalism is eroding the middle-class social base on which liberal democracy rests.”

The troll of control: No prosperity via austerity What is the additional pervasive effect of (any) crisis on democracy?

9/11 is just one in series of confirmations (e.g. from the ‘Nixon shock’ to the ongoing Greek/Euro

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debt saga) that any particular crisis may turn beneficial to those seeking the nontransparent power concentration.

Once a real democracy starts compromising its vital contents, it corrodes degenerates and turns formal. Many contemporary examples show us that for a formal democracy, it is not far from ending up as an oppressive autocratic dictatorship with either police or military or both residing outside a strict civil and democratic control. A real democracy will keep its financial establishment (as much as its armed organs, and other alienation-potent segments) under a strict popular democratic scrutiny and civil control through the clearly defined mechanisms of checks and balances.

That is the quintessence of democracy. (E.g. Without any electoral dependence on EU governments or EU voters, and following its pre-given mandate of unconstrained authority and means – the ECB quickly produced over € 1,000 billion to refinance the banks.

Dislike its twin, the US Fed, the ECB does not hold on any social mandate.

Who should care about the European integration, based on social welfare, public services, job creation and labor protection, enveloped in a democratic, transparent atmosphere of full accountability and universal, especially cross-generational, participation?)

“There has been little willingness to strengthen civic watchdogs of international financial institutions, which might provide a more accurate

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service than the commercially driven credit-rating agencies that performed so disastrously in the financial crisis…” – laments the FRIDE Institute Director, Richard Youngs in his luminary book: Europe’s Decline and Fall. Indeed, is there any rating agency for ethical bankruptcy, for a deep moral crisis affecting all societal segments around us? The ability to comprehend our common destiny, to show our cross-EU empathy and solidarity is also hitting its record low. The southern/peripheral member states are already pejoratively nicknamed as PIGS by the bank analysts and bond traders (an illmade, but increasingly circulating acronym referring to Portugal, Italy/ Ireland, Greece and Spain).

Currently, the end game of the socalled Euro-crises seems to reveal that the financial institutions are neither under democratic control nor within the national sovereignty domain. (E.g. 20 years ago, the value of overall global financial transactions was 12 times the entire world’s gross annual product. By the end of 2012, it was nearly 70 times as big.) How else to explain that the EU –so far– prefers the unselective punitive action of collective punishment on the entire population/s (e.g. of Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, etc.) – meaning: to control, then it is keen on a thorough, energetic investigation of responsible individuals – meaning to: resolve? So far, Iceland remains the only country that indicted and sentenced its Prime Minister in relation to the financial crisis.

From the democratic, transparent, just, visionary and all-participatory, a holiday from history- model of the European Community, the EU should not downgrade itself to a lame copy of the Federation of Theocracies – the late Ottoman Empire.

This authoritarian monarchy is remembered as a highly oppressive and undemocratic although to a degree liberal and minority-right tolerant feudal state. The Ottoman Federation of Theocracies was of a simple functioning system: with the Sultan’s handpicked Grand Porta (verticalized/homogeneous monetary space of the EMU and ECB, moderately restrained by the Council of the EU) that was unquestionably serviced by the religious communities from all over the waste Oriental Empire (horizontalized/heterogeneous fiscal space of the EMU, in which every state freely exercises its sovereignty in collecting taxes and spending), unless otherwise prescribed off-hand by the Sultan and his Porta (ECB and IMF).

Ergo, negotiating on the coined “Euro-zone debt crisis” (debt bound economies) without resta-ging the forgotten Lisbon strategy (knowledge-based Community), while keeping a heavy tax on labor but constantly pardoning financial capital, is simply a lame talk about form without any substance. Clearly, it is a grand bargain of a tight circle behind the closed doors about control via austerity, not a crossgenerationally wide-open debate about vision of prosperity.

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Über-economic neo-Nazism ?

Is it possible to make every European (or at least the EU) country a Germany and run a surplus?

Apparently, Chancellor Merkel – named and treated in many corners of Europe as Über-Mutti – can afford to cut German domestic line to growth, since the sources of its growth lay outside its borders: What is the world for China, that is the EU for Germany – an inner export lake! In the 1920s and 1930s, the same austerity project did not just fail; it served as one of the fundamental precursors that dragged Europe and the world into the WWII. More the German Center Party was insisting on austerity, the weaker left became (rapidly melting socialdemocrats and communists), and the more the Nazis gained support. In the 1930 elections, the Nazis got 18.3% of the electorate and thus became the second-strongest party in the Reichstag. Promising in his demagogic public outbursts distant job and VW car to every German – consequently, a domestic spending, Hitler and his Nazis were actually the only parliamentary party advocating against austerity. No wonder as the painful ‘social haircut’ – austerity continued, they took 43,9% of the German vote already by 1933, and soon after formed their own government. This was the end of austerity in the largest economy of the continental Europe, but also end of peace and respect of otherness on the continent.

On the other side of globe, it was the Japanese government which applied

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austerity more consistently and passionately than it was applied anywhere else. In 1932, the architect of the Japanese austerity program, its Finance Minister Inoue was assassinated. Between 1932 and 1936, Japan experimented with different civilian governments of unconvincing weak liberal economic policies. Finally, in 1936 civilian government has collapsed beyond any reparation, and practically opened the road for a silent putsch of the imperial military junta. Delayed solution is always a bad solution: A way out of the austerity-triggered recession has been found in the accelerated Japanese armament and expansionism– both which the local business elites in their desperation finally supported.

In his luminary text Why a Bad Idea Won Over the West (The Austerity Delusion), Mark Blyth rightfully claims: “Austerity, not inflation, gave the world National Socialism.” When the world’s four largest economies all tried to cut their own rational to sustainable growth and prosperity – all four of them simultaneously, at the same time, the result was not missing.

It was a painful contraction, rigid protectionism, spiraling violence, Munich capitulation, and a triumph of the iron fist of fascism. From damp to camp, from bank to tank, and now back?

Tomorrow never (D)Lies Despite a constant media bombardment with cataclysmic headlines, the issue is not what will happen with the EURO or any other socio-economic and political

instrument. The right question is what will happen with us – as means are always changeable and many, but the aim remains only one: the selfrealization of society at large.

Indeed, the difference between a dialectic and cyclical history is a distance between success and fall: the later Lisbon (Treaty) should not replace but complement the previous Lisbon (Strategy). It is both a predictive and prescriptive wording: either a status quo of egoism, consumerism and escapism or a concept of social dynamism resting on a broad all-participatory base. To meet the need is/was always at our reach. But, to feed the greed and cover inertia, no wealth will ever be enough. On the part of young generation, the Petar Pan-ism (as a form of escapism) should be overcome. Contrary to the dominant consumeristic narrative, the next generations should accept the fact that growing up does not necessarily means giving up, but getting in and shouldering the share to its own life.

attributes “around a half” of the inequality gap, which economist usually prefer to associate with factors such as globalization and Hi-tech drive, might originate from the decline in labor organizations. No wonder here, since workers unions have historically performed a pivotal role in achieving essential freedoms and liberties. Besides the wealth asymmetries, the erosion and disappearance of unions means a lost social cohesion and solidarity within the groups naturally sharing same interest. This inevitably opens the space for the far-right, extremism and religious fundamentalism, as we witness it today.

2 “Growing

working-class disillusionment with leftwing parties, visible in all western democracies, is probably not unconnected to the declining numbers of politicians from the least well-off parts of society who have experienced similar lives,” says political scientist Patrick Lehingue.

“Consider that in 1945, 25% of French members of parliament had been labourers or employees before election; that has now fallen to 2.1%. In 1983, 78 mayors of municipalities with more than 30,000 inhabitants had once been labourers or ordinary office workers (these still account for the majority of the population). Now there are only six.” So much to say about representative democracy.

Even TNY Times laments on the topic. In there Noam Scheiber writes: “More than 50% of Americans think the state should redistribute wealth through more taxation of the rich. Only 17% of the rich, unsurprisingly, share that view. Ergo, the way western democracies work today means that the minority opinion prevails without any real debate. Nowadays, an upper class well aware of its own interests can afford to be relaxed, since public debate is so dominated by distractions whipped up by the media that it holds and owns, which further help divide the rarefying working-class against itself.” With the system that exposes so many, while it well pampers only a few, is so entrenched, all that remains is apathy and brewing anger that are always to expect when societies move to the right.his is fully in line with the findings of French economist Piketty who authored ‘brutality formula’ to explain economic inequality: r > g (meaning that return on capital is generally higher than economic growth). Wealth and income inequality – by his claim – is not a historical novelty, but it is getting worse, with radical, lasting socio-economic and politicomilitary implications.

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Restaging the Lisbon Strategy and reintroducing all of its contents in a new cross-generational contract is not just Europe’s only strategic opportunity, but its grand generational and historic responsibility as well. Or as Monnet once explained this logic of necessity: “Crises are the great unifier!”

Notes 1 As

an old wisdom goes: There is no substitute for organizing. Even the IMF rapporteurs are admitting in this Bretton Woods institution’s report that “lower unionisation is associated with an increase in top income shares in advanced economies” between 1980 and 2010. They further clarify this correlation: “Weaker unions can reduce workers’ influence on corporate decisions that benefit top earners” and “increase the income share of corporate managers’ pay and shareholder returns.” This report

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On the opposite side of Europe, Britain has endured the longest fall in workers’ living standards since the Victorian era, one of the worst among EU countries; the most farreaching cuts to public services and social security in generations; and the weakest economic recovery in a century. It was the UK Labour party (not the Conservatives) that kept a burden on mid and low incomers, while cutting the wealth tax. Today, Britain has the lowest taxation of its rich of any G7 economy.

Reference 1 Lisbon

European Council (2000), Employment, Economic Reforms and Social Cohesion: Towards a Europe based on Innovation and Knowledge, Brussels COM 5256/00 + ADD1 COR 1 (en) 2 International

Monetary Fund (2015), Power for the People, Finance and Development, IMF Vol. 52, No. 1 (March 2015), Washington DC 3 Lehingue,

P. (2015), “Nous ne sommes pas représentés!” (We aren’t represented), Savoir/Agir,

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Bellecombe-en-Bauges, 2/2015 Scheiber, N. (2015), 2016 [presidential] hopefuls and wealthy are aligned on inequality, The New York Times, 30 March 2015

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Bajrektarevic, A. (2005), Our Common Futures: EUROMED Human Capital beyond 2020, Crans Montana Forum, Monaco, Dec 2005 11

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European Commission (2005), Confronting demographic change – a new solidarity between generations, Brussels COM 2005 94f of 16 MAR 2005 (page:5)

Neiman, S. (2014), Why Grow up? Subversive thoughts for an Infantile Age, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NY 12

Fukuyama, F. (2012), The Future of History, Foreign Affairs Magazine 91(1) 2012

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Bajrektarevic, A. (2012), No Breakthrough at the Rio+20 Summit – Geopolitics of Quantum Buddhism, GHIR 4 (2) 2012, Addleton Publishers NY

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Fukuyama, F. (2002), Our Posthuman Future, Profile Books

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Blyth, M. (2013), The Austerity Delusion – Why a Bad Idea Won Over the West (The Austerity Delusion), Foreign Affairs Magazine 92(3) 2013 9

Piketty, T. (2014), Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Belknap Press

Youngs, R. (2011), Europe’s Decline and Fall – The struggle against global irrelevance, Profile Books Ferguson, N. (2005), Colossus – The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, Penguin Books (page 221) Bajrektarevic, A. (2005), Green/Policy Paper Submitted to the closing plenary of the Ministerial (and the statement of the Slovenian Chairmanship summarizing the recommendations and conclusions of the OSCE Ministerial Summit Prague 2005), OSCE Documents/EEA 2005/05/14857/En

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Quantum Islam: Towards a new worldview MURRAY HUNTER is an Australian academic, entrepreneur, researcher, and writer who has spent more than 35 years within the region. He is a contributor to a number of international news sites around the world. DR AZLY RAHMAN is an academician, long-time columnist for Malaysiakini, an author of seven books on Malaysia and the complexities of hypermodernity and globalisation, and teaches courses in Global Politics, Culture, American Studies, Education, and Philosophy. He currently resides in the United States.

Murray Hunter and Azly Rahman Introduction In concluding our essay on TawhidicSingularity as a new philosophy of Islam, we proposed that Muslims need to interpret the core teaching of One-ness from a kaleidoscopic perspective. We asked readers to reflect upon the applicability of Chaos or Complexity Theory to view Islam as an organic and living religion inviting its believers to look at the concept of One-ness as the manifesting of Many-ness. In this essay, we go deeper into the discussion of the soul of the Quran itself and how Muslims could perceive and read it as a postmodern text with multiple-level meanings based on his/her unique life experiences. We wish to propose the worldview of “Quantum Islam,” as a new way looking at this cultural belief system. We invite readers to think of Islam as more than just unquestioning faith and rites and rituals but as an evolving text to be made alive. The idea of a “living Quran” is a means of perceiving and feeling one’s existence as a world of interconnectedness. This world of

deep personal connectivity is a world of the physical, emotional and spiritual self as it exists in the realm of the Universal self as a world designed as a Quantum being in itself.

Multiple Universes and the Quran Islam is about what cannot at present be explained intrinsically through the science we know today.

The Qu’ran is a deeply layered book of meaning. However, the majority of Muslims have tended to take literal views. The Qu’ran has also foreseen many scientific discoveries and defined the nature of our realities.

Such a view of the cognitive and metaphysical nature of the text has been dominant at a time when Islamic philosophy was being conceived, especially in the debates between scholars trained in Greek philosophy with those trying to rid the influence of rationalism in epistemologizing the meaning of existence.

The Qu’ran and Hadiths have shaped the worldview of 20% of the world’s population. But Islam today is viewed as a singular reality, embedded in

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‘Arabism’ and ‘hellfire’ paradigms, coercing Muslims to follow literal views, within a ‘carrot and stick’ enlightenment and fear syndrome.

As a consequence Islam has not been the means to a higher level universal wisdom that the Qu’ran can facilitate, if read with this understanding.

Allah rabb al-àlamin, the Lord of the Worlds indicates a multiverse with parallel realities. There are parallel universes mentioned within the Qu’ran that we don’t have access to.

These worlds are widely talked about within the Qu’ran, the world of the jinns, as in the verse ”And the jinn race, we had created before, from the fire of a scorching wind” Qur’an (15:27) The 99 names of Allah also suggest multi-existential paradigms.

Challenges of constructing this multi-universal view The first challenge is to escape the unipolar world and live in, and transcend to the multipolar world the Qu’ran describes. i.e., atoms can be both a particle and wave and thus be

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in multiple places at the same time.

True realities are multipolar dynamics, rather than unipolar statics.

Thus, to understand the complexity of the environment, we must develop both our personal self-awareness and social awareness. So where reality is multi-layered and kaleidoscopic, layered and deeper meanings can be derived from the chaotic environment we exist within through contemplating the layered intricacies and meanings within the Quran.

Muslims viewing the text of the Qu’ran as a living and evolving one, can find a meaningful guide to life and the universe, which we propose is what Quantum Islam means. What one sees with the naked eye, a phenomenon to be studied is just a level of Reality that we construct cognitively. However as one reads deeper into the meaning of the Quran, one may find the signs and symbols manifesting themselves in newer ways, which we digest and make meaning of through our selfawareness or spirituality.

The second challenge is that we must understand that we are not at the centre of the world. We must override the assumption that modern humankind has adopted in that humans can control nature and nature is here to serve us. What we think and the assumptions behind our very thoughts may not actually resemble reality, and may not be the truth.

Once we shed this egocentric view of the world, we come to realize that we cannot control nature and we must nurture nature. In the Quran it is said: ”Say: He is Allah, He is One, He is

Eternal He Begets not nor is He begotten and there is none equal unto Him” Surah Ikhlas 112.

Muslims engaged in a cognitive and metaphysical reading of the Quran may propose that human existence is both physical and conceptual, and that as a Platonic view would content, we are both Forms and Appearance, and that if the self is an invention/ creation to manifest the “truth”.

There is a larger truth of “being and nothingness,” in another world of the “unseen,”. This is the idea of corresponding reality of existence.

Islam proposes that this view of Quantum state of beingness can only be understood if one understands the meaning of “selflessness” or the “destruction of the Ego,” and to allow the self to be liberated from the confines of a physical and mechanistic world.

The third challenge is to read the question from a “culturally-neutral” perspective. This means stripping the notion that all that is Islam is Arabic and with fallacy, to believe that religious belief is not cultural. This is to begin to believe that to be a Muslim, one need not aspire to be or to become an Arab. If Islam is a universal truth, it is not ‘Arabcentric’, and many of the rites and rituals cannot be universal, if for example, Islam was to the truth on another planet like Mars. What would Islam be like without the cultural anchors that have grown around it and almost strangled the truth? If, as the last message of Prophet Muhammad would content --- that Islam promotes a universal message

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of peace – and be viewed as the “final revelation,” and that only 20% of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims are speakers of the Arabic language, what has been the consequence of Islam as religion that has been too much caught in the semiotics of Arabism?

Simply put, why is being Muslim today synonymous of being or looking Arabic?

The three challenges above, namely that we are living in a multipolar world, that our existence is not central to the Universe, and that religion is a cultural construct to present ways for Muslims to view Islam differently. The Quran, in its very first few words of revelation, “Read … in the name of thy Lord who created Thee …” is a clear enough proposition for believers in this religion to “read oneself and to read the world on is living in.” It is an invitation for readers to not only “read the world” but also to “write” a story of one’s life, based on one’s own worldview and to unshackle oneself from being defined by others.

The challenges above are existential in nature, given by the Quran to the readers.

“Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day, there are indeed signs for men of understanding; Men who remember Allah, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the creation of the heavens and the earth (with the thought) Our Lord! Not for nothing have you created (all) this. Glory to you! Give us salvation from the

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suffering of the fire” Qur’an (3: 190-191) The Ummah as Singularity in Multiplicity The Ummah is an interconnection of oneness, not segregated tribes who are at war with each other.

We are left to reflect upon the multiplicity of worlds that were created and understand that we are only a tiny part of it.

This opens up wisdom, develops humbleness, and increases empathy towards there being something greater than ourselves. The quintessential and foundational chapter of the Quran, Al Fatihah, or The Opening offer this idea of mercy, peace, gratitude, and wisdom in choosing between Good and Evil. It introduces the reader to the idea that the path of righteousness or the “Siratul Mustaqim” is the path of peace that will guide human beings in this journey through the bountiful and merciful world created by The Lord of the Universe. This path is a challenging one, as we can see that even the world “Islam” can be used to strike terror in others as well as create untold magnitude of destruction. The emergence of the ISIS “Islamic State of Syria and Iraq” or ISISL, The Islamic State of Iraq and Levant” or the Daesh (Darul Islamiyah) and the globalization of terror has is an example of how the word of Islam and the tawhidic message of peace can be misrepresented and be a guide to the path of “those cursed” as the last verse of the Al Fatihah reads.

This takes us into the “tawhidicsingularity” realm of Islam with the idea of Gnosticism factored into the belief system – of the ‘alam al-ghaib’, the concealed dimension of reality We are told within the Tawhid to submit to Allah and be part of the greater universe. Yet the behaviour espoused by Islam scholars today tends to deem that OUR humanity is at the centre of the universe. It puts humankind above the natural laws of the universe, in a state of arrogance, detested in the Qu’ran itself.

Today we see many political Islamic ideologies that seek to dominate all.

This is contrary to Allah’s scheme of things within the Qu’ran.

The continual return to referencing Allah as the Merciful and the Compassionate reminds us of the need for humility, not hostility and cruelty to humankind.

Choice is open to humankind within the teachings of the Qu’ran. This implies man can choose the realities he wants to exist within: I control what I perceive I control what I think I control how I act I am responsible for the consequences.

(13:11) This must occur beyond the bounds of ego-centric consciousness and the assumption that there is only one possible reality.

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The action upon literal translation of the Qu’ran is a denial of the true realities that the Qu’ran lays out in front of us. Literal scholarly understanding of the Quran has shackled our understanding to the cultural metaphors that have bounded Islam to its Arabness that we see today. This has blinded us to seeing the deeper dimensions of Islam and the messages of transformation towards Tawhidness. The Quran is a dynamic book, talking about change.

It’s been interpreted as static dogma and doctrines, losing the central message about our journal of transcendence to the state of Tawhidness.

The paradoxes of metaphoric and material universes The paradoxes of the Qu’ran advise humanity not to be too self-excessive and egocentric. Our greed, and other negative emotions, narcissism and other neurosis, addictions, pleasures, accumulation of wealth, and how we treat others is a quantum introspection that we are taught within the Qu’ran, in order to assist us seeing other realities (universes), that we have choice to enter and exist within.

Only through this open awareness can we experience the realities of the world around us, learn to submit to the greater universe around us, which is called Allah. Our essence of purity through the state of spirituality is the only paradigm we can use to understand the deep meaning of the Tawhid and its greatness, far beyond any person, society, or time.

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Thus the Tawhid provides humanity with a meaning of life; that of being part of a greater existence; a worldview that accommodates not only the multiple worldviews of existing belief system but also respects the process of constructing emergent new ones.

The introspection of a literal Allah is a neurosis that blinds us to Allah’s true greatness and our true appreciation of this. This is the true reality.

In Islam, worldviews such as that proposed through Sufism takes Muslims away from the ordered mechanistic world view. The world can be seen for what it is, complex in almost mystical ways, as even the laws of nature itself can be seen beyond cause and effect, beyond karma which is too simplistic to explain reality. This is the Quantum view of Islam, which can also be found in the way Buddhism views the self, Reality, and existence. Buddhist ideas such as the self as non-existence and constantly evolving as the “being and becoming bodhisattva” journeys towards “nibbbana or Nirvana,” and constantly being aware of the impermanence of the self and the ephemerality of physical beings, and to live a principle of “non-attachment to this mechanistic and material world,”, and finally to view that life is a process of samsara or the evolution towards liberation, perpetual happiness, and next to enter the realm of “being and nothingness” – this view is where the similarity of Quantum Islam and core

metaphysical teachings of existing cultural philosophies lie.

Perception and feeling become more important than any form of quantitative measurement in understanding reality. The Qu’ran itself is not a quantitative work. It is a compendium of propositions inviting readers to think of multiple interpretations of the meaning of texts, subtexts, and cultural contexts.

It is a postmodern text that has not proper arrangement or a sense of story of creationism. In other words, it is not a structured story about the metaphysics and physics of creation and Man’s place in the universe. The Quran, in short is merely a set of annotated readings inviting the reads to deconstruct meanings. It is a book about representations of alternate realities in which even the “speaker” or “narrator” of this grand text utilizes shifting pronouns in telling stories and passing down decrees.

Reality and Quantum Islam The perception of reality is about awareness as the Qu’ran teaches. It is about how individuals transcend the universe through a journey towards a destination and seek the final reality.

Mathematics breaks down in any view of reality, i.e., mathematics cannot explain 10% of infinity.

Science cannot explain reality; as if we look at an atom we are not sure whether it’s a particle or a wave.

There is a duality to everything, i.e., atoms can be in more than one place at the same time. Half of what we look at is in decay, so the “Schrodinger’s cat “is both alive and

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dead at the same time. There is a duality of consciousness that we must understand. It is both psychic and physical, full of emotion and emotionless, black and white, good and evil, hot and cold, attracting and repelling. Reality is thus an interconnectiveness of nature and a web of relationships between humanity and spirituality, that makes up a unified whole within us.

The form of our realities is the product of our observation of this. A tawhidic consciousness is therefore so important in our interpretation of reality.

Prof. Anis Bajrektarevic indicates that it: “corresponds with the Buddhist Yogacara assumption that all perceptions do leave traces which make future similar perceptions more probable/plausible – origins of the potentialities within the quantum realm.” Finally, professor concludes: “This is why mankind kept practicing a prayer.”

Seeing this is the order within the chaos that shrouds our minds by focusing too much on the poles of the existential paradoxes. Paradoxes can only be understood through balance.

Then one can see the truths within people, relationships, and events.

Many Islamic writers resorted to using poetry to enhance the understanding of non-linear world.

The Qu’ran talks of a transition to a level where the duality of mind and body cannot be distinguished. We shift into a singularity where there is

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no time, no space, just a transcendence or universal oneness.

We transcend the four dimensions that we understand into further dimensions which the Qu’ran speaks of but we have no direct prior experience. This is the state called Syurga.

The direct experience of reality is a psychic and emotional breakthrough to what Islam calls Al-falah.

The only tool needed to see reality is a tawhidic transcending awareness, which is the key to openness and seeing something greater than our selves.

This is why we rely on rituals such as Zikir (where prayer is incorporated) which builds up higher levels of consciousness. Zikir should help us create an empty mind so all thoughts are cleared to enable us to see the greater universe free of our own egocentrism.

This is where insight come from as we experience ‘eureka manifestations’ of both personal and universal nature. Einstein wrote of this epiphanic moment in his journey to construct the “theory of relativity,” Our intellect is developed through our experience, which gathers knowledge and interprets meaning for us. The heart of all knowledge for a human is experience. For example, we cannot know what it is like to scuba dive, without actually scuba diving. 100 hours in a classroom cannot give you the same knowledge as a few minutes under the water.

Without experiencing the universe we are blind. This blindness can only be overcome through being open and empathetic to the world around us.

Blindness to the universe is a human neurosis.

Science, sense, and soul A quantum view of reality puts an end to materialism. It is within this paradigm Quantum Islam that one need to look at reality in a different light, taking into consideration that life is not entirely founded upon Materialism.

The Tawhid espouses us to transcend materialism. The non-physical element of our life is our existence, not material things, only their images and symbolic meanings within our minds. This triggers our emotions which create Al-fasad realities for humankind, bringing humans to a level of personal destruction through greed, etc.

This also has repercussions in thought and future actions, and can be considered ill-intentions, contrary to what the Qu’ran espouses. This is our mystical jihad of finding our true uncorrupted existence.

The worldly realities mediate and shrivel over our Tawhidic consciousness, which tells us what is right. Going against what is right is sin and our physic destruction.

Tawhidic consciousness is the true universal wisdom, just as quarks within atoms possess energy which has its own consciousness described for example, by physicist such as Freeman Dyson. Like quarks, we

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have the capacity to make free decisions.

The non-physical, all embracing empathetic and compassionate mind is what we can develop through Tawhidic guidance. This takes us into the realm of Allah and Syurga.

Allah exists within our higher levels of consciousness, as we are told many times within the Qu’ran.

The narratives of the Qu’ran are concerned with both individual and social (universal) consciousness, the yin and yang of our existence.

This has great implications which haven’t been discussed within the Islamic world. Most are restricted to reading from the literal universe of the Qu’ran, and clinging to this unipolar universe.

To see reality, we must discard the concepts of language and images.

Structure gives bias and shackles our ‘knowing’.

Higher intellect cannot be obtained through the processes thinking within mechanistic realities. This blinds us to the understanding of the essential nature of the universe. With a literal understanding of the Qu’ran we are in a paradigm lock within a singular universe of nature. Without paradox, we cannot see meaning, as paradox is the only way we can interpret.

Paradox is the language above all other languages, the only way we can create benchmarks within our mind, in order to interpret the universe around us.

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However, these paradoxes are ruled by personal emotions, of which we both project and introspect with the dualities that define our world. It is within these dualities that we define ‘good’ and ‘evil’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘virtuous’ or ‘sinful’.

Islam and particularly the Tawhid is a field of potential. It is a reality beyond our materialistic reality, and our consciousness which is intertwined with our ego-self. The Tawhid can only be entered into, discovered, or become an awareness through humility on the inside and compassion filtering to the outside, without the ego-self bounding us back to our materialistic existence.

understanding of what god is, beyond how this concept of a creator is understood. A Kuhnian shift in Islamic metaphysics and ontological evolution is needed, as how the idea of a Heisenberg Principle of observing Objectivity was conceived.

Muslims need to explore the semiotics of believing itself and venture deeper into the meaning constructing the meaning of reading their “book of readings”: The Quran.

This dimension is a field of human and universal purity, full of wisdom; al-Falah. Islam is really about how we transcend the lower earthly dimensions of ourselves into the higher dimension of Tawhid-purity.

This is Quantum-Islam; the potential to be, the choice that has been given to all humanity within the Quran.

Conclusion Exploring idea of Quantum Islam, as the name suggests, requires the mind of the Muslim to engage in the phenomenological and metaphysical experience of conceiving worldviews beyond the mechanistic view of the personal and physical self and move toward a higher plane of quantum physics and metaphysics. In other words, Muslims should raise the level of understanding Islam from mere doctrinal and cultural to philosophical and muti-universal and multidimensional. This requires a new

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Saudi – Iranian future: 3 games – 3 scenarios Manal Saadi, of Saudi-Moroccan origins, is a postgraduate researcher in International Relations and Diplomacy at the Geneva-based UMEF University. She was attached to the Permanent Mission of Morocco to the UNoG and other Geneva-based IOs, as well as to the Permanent Mission of the GCC to the UN in Geneva.

Manal Saadi There is no need to argue on Saudi Arabia and Iran as the two biggest regional powers in the Gulf, the rising tension between the two countries who are engaged in proxy wars in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and somehow Bahrein had installed a climate of Cold War.2.

How did we get there?

Saudi Arabia existed since 1932 as a Sunni country and the birthplace of Islam. Its history of creation is so unique, mesmerizing and fascinating.

Iran, has a glorious past, with various empires that conquered the Arab-Islamic world at certain period of time.

While the Shah was in power, Iran’s relations with the Arab Gulf States were normalized, Iran’s navy used to act as the policeman of the gulf.

The situation has changed when the Iranian Islamic revolution occurred in 1979, with consequences on both countries and on their relationships. Iran’s Ayatollah wanted to export their respective model and undermine

Saudi Arabia that Iranian officials see as corrupt and unworthy due to its relation with the United States and the West. The Shia country is also supporting Shia communities in the Gulf which is seen as a direct threat to Saudi Arabia.

Not only the leaders of the Iranian revolution see Saudi Arabia as a corrupt country, but they also see them as treacherous and disloyal.

The reason behind is more than a Shia-Sunni rivalry; it is important to contextualize the order before the Islamic revolution; an oil embargo was occurring in the world where Iran’s leaders wanted to stop selling oil to Western powers. They called upon Saudi Arabia to do the same in retaliation toward countries who helped Israel in the « Yom Kippur War », but Saudi Arabia didn’t stop selling its oil, and decided to increase the price of the barrel to destabilize the economy of the Western countries that helped Israel, without disturbing their strategic alliance with the United States.

Today, the relationship between the two countries is delayed.

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The succession of events from 2011 where Iran wants to seize the opportunity of a possible vacuum of power during the Arab Spring, by supporting the Shia protests that erupted in Bahrein and the idea of a Shia Islamic republic, has proved the ability of Saudi Arabia and the GCC to sends its troops into Bahrain. Was it a symbolic gesture, or a warning for Tehran?

Then it cames to Yemen, Iraq and Syria, where today Saudi Arabia and Iran are engaged in a proxy war. The Iranian Nuclear deal with the P5+1, the uncontrolled situation in Yemen, the Hajj crush where Iran claimed more than 400 dead citizens, The execution of 27 Sunnis by the Iranians, the execution of Nimr al Nimr (a Shia Sheikh) by the Saudis, the attack of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, then the cuts of the diplomatic ties between the two countries, and the intensification of the rivalry.

What is for the future to expect?

3 games 3 scenarios Accommodation game: In this scenario, Saudi Arabia and Iran will have to sit in the table of

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negotiation and find a compromise.

But how can two rival countries negotiate? common interest if there is any or a mutual threat?

Iran and Saudi Arabia are both rich countries, with large access to natural resources, big territories and their economic model is based on oil. If there is no common interest between the two powerful states in the region, the creation of ISIS constitute a threat to both governments. Iran doesn’t want a powerful Sunni group in Iraq and Syria and ISIS is threatening the Gulf monarchy. However, Tehran and Riyadh seems to have no intention to lower the temperature and talk again for a potential solution toward the defeat of « Daesh », and the rivalry between them is distracting attention from the war against ISIS. If a mutual threat is not enough to push for negotiations what can be the other solution?

As a consequence of the Iranian deal, the Saudis seem to be fed up with the shock therapy that the United States is exerting in the region at a point that they refused a seat in the Security Council. Saudi Arabia is today looking for new partnership with different countries, the latest highest meeting of the GCC has proved the lack of confidence of the Saudis regarding their alliance with the United States.

With the intensification of tensions between Riyadh and Tehran, the Americans show no will to interfere and defend the interest of their historical ally, and Saudi Arabia is

being exacerbated by the Washington-Tehran reconciliation.

in the region, the history has proved it.

Recently Saudi Arabia’s King Salman met the Chinese President in Riyadh where they signed a memorandum of understanding on the construction of a hightemperature gas-cooled reactor that can help the growing energy demand for electricity and water desalination in the Monarchy. This will also evolve the beginning of a nuclear program in Saudi Arabia.

Actually, Since 2006, The monarchy was projecting to construct and promote a peaceful nuclear capacity program within the GCC, and in 2007 the six Gulf States studied with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) the feasibility for a regional nuclear power, with the assistance of France. Saudi Arabia started singing many international agreements for a nuclear cooperation with different countries as France, Argentina, South Korea, China.

During the cold war, the Soviet Union and the United States were expending their ballistic missiles, the Cuban missile crises and the threat of a nuclear war between the two blocs that can destroy Russia and the United States and may be the world, had generated the need for negotiations to find a compromise. Khrushchev was going to dismantle the offensive weapons in Cuba and in exchange the U.S made a public declaration that it would never invade Cuba without a direct provocation, but it also said it would dismantle its missiles from Turkey and Italy. The outcome of the negotiations between the two blocs resulted in the establishment of a hotline between the Kremlin and Pentagon and the beginning of the « detente » period.

Recently, in June 2015, Russia and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement for cooperation in the field of nuclear energy including the design, construction, operation of nuclear power, education and training and other aspects related nuclear reactors. Now, what if Saudi’s decide to weaponize the use of nuclear? It will have subsequent effects in the region and will lead to an arms escalation of WMD. Nevertheless, if this situation is unwanted, it can bring back stability

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The struggle of power in the region between Saudi Arabia and Iran is already leading to an arms escalation, and it might be possible for both countries to start a weaponization of nuclear facilities, it doesn’t matter who will start first, as long as the other will follow.

Pakistan never wanted a nuclear bomb until India got one. Achieving parity with a rival country would lead to sit in the table of negotiation and the achievement of a compromise. Iran can promise not to get involved in Yemen and in Bahrain while Saudi Arabia would pull-out its intervention in the Syrian

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conflict, and Iran would join the war against ISIS. Destruction game: The year 1979 marked the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Iranian theoretical or « spiritual » leader was aiming at exporting the ShiaIslam brand to Shiites minorities within the Middle East, this constitute a threat for the powerful Sunni-Monarchy, as it can undermine the existing equilibrium in the region. The Iranian clerics were urging the Shiites communities of the gulf States to rebel against their rulers, and demonstrations started in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iraq.

A year later, Iraq attacked Iran, and the two countries engaged in a war that was serving the interests of Iraq, and the Gulf countries, more precisely Saudi Arabia; despite the support by western countries, this war undermining the West’s interests in terms of oil flows disruption. Saudi Arabia with Kuwait were financing Iraq, and the United States was indirectly supporting the Iraqi government by cutting off Iran’s supplies. The Iranian revolution, followed by the war installed a climate of increasing rivalry between the powerful Shia and Sunni countries. With the recent uprising of the Arab Spring, the situation intensified.

Since the conflict in Syria and Yemen seems to offer no political solution, a climate of cold war is installed in the region between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The 3rd round of the Geneva peace talks about Syria, included the participation of delegates from the Saudi-backed opposition, the delegates from the Syrian government, the High Negotiations Committee and other opposition figures to discuss a possible ceasefire, relate of prisoners, humanitarian aid deliveries and the threat posed by ISIS. The problem is that neither the opposition nor the actual Bashar’s government wants to negotiate with each others, and neither Saudi Arabia and Iran are willing to bury the hatchet in Syria.

With the Iranian nuclear deal, the reconciliation between Iran and the west and the failure of finding a solution in Syria and Yemen, the tensions between the two powerful nations in the regions are reaching their peak. One should not forget that the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was sufficient to cause the first World War; and today a small incident in the region can have large consequences. Both nations are exacerbated from each others, we can imagine a small event going wrong in Syria or Yemen leading to a direct war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

A war in the region can erupt at any moment, it is certainly the least preferable scenario, but the most likely to happen if the tensions between the two regional powers are not softened. A direct conflict between the two influent States would undermines the west interests, the oil prices, and the

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economy of the world and will shift a regional war to a Third Word War. In one side, the United States with the European powers would back Saudi Arabia and the other Arab Golf States; on the other side Russia would back Iran and Syria militarily and financially. Who will be the winner? We can’t tell, but a War is very expensive for both countries and for their allies, especially for Russia that is now suffering economically from its intervention in Syria. What is certain is that a Third World War can leave the economy, culture and politics of Iran and Saudi Arabia completely destroyed, and would change the actual « World Order ».

Conversion: Since the Arab Spring, Iran started increasing its military presence in the Middle East. In Iraq, it has sent its soldiers to fight alongside the Iraqi Army, in Syria the Iranians are financially supporting the Assad’s government, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen are backed by Iran. Can Iran’s rising power destabilize the region stability and create a conversion of power?

As my professor Anis Bajrektarevic well summarized on the Gulf and its surrounding intellectual scenery: “as it solely bridges the two key EuroAsian energy plateaus: the Gulf and Caspian. This gives Iran an absolutely pivotal geopolitical and geo-economic posture over the larger region – an opportunity but also an exposure! ...Nearly all US

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governments since the unexpected 1979 Shah’s fall, … have formally advocated a regime change in Teheran. On the international oil market, Iran has no room for maneuver, neither on price nor on quotas. Within OPEC, Iran is frequently silenced by a cordial Saudi-led, GCC voting”. Therefore, only now, the United Nations sanctions against Iran are formally lifted, which reconnected Iran to the global economy. The European embargo on Iranian oil is to come to an end and the Iranian banks will re-establish connections with the European banking system and private companies would be able to operate with no fear of a western sanction.

Nowadays, Iran is representing a diverse emerging market in the fields of manufacturing, retail and energy.

The public sphere was demonizing Iran for decades, but with the Rouhani government Iran is converting to a charming country.

Jawed Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, gives the image of an open country for negotiations, that is looking for long term solution and for stability in the region and in the world, but also a country that is trying to improve the economical and political situation of its young citizens.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is suffering from a huge deficit in its public financing for the first time.

With the crash of the crude prices, the deficit in the resource-rich Monarchy is more than 20% of the

GDP that is according to Saudi Arabia’s finance minister around $120bn. To balance the budget, the kingdom needs an oil price of 100$ a barrel, its decision to keep the production high caused the plunge of the oil prices.

The decision of OPEC with the influence of Saudi Arabia to keep the production high, is going to burden the U.S shale oil and put the U.S gas industry under pressure, which can undermine the relationship between the two allies in the region.

The emergence of a prosperous Iran at the international level could serve as a pattern in the region, and shift the attention from the petrodollar monarchy to the « charming » country not far from it.

While today Iran is improving its image in the public opinion, changing from the « devil » to « the sexy lady », Saudi Arabia’s model of « Wahhabism » is more and more connected to Islamic extremism and is blamed of causing terrorism.

Iran can use its new charisma plus its energy resources to attract the west, improve the situation in the country, offer a stability in Iraq and Syria and fill all the gaps where Saudi Arabia has failed.

The two regional powers are playing a poker game… Will the winner take it all?

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Paradoxes of EU Public Diplomacy

Tess Altman is a PhD Candidate in Anthropology at University College London and visiting scholar at the University of Melbourne.

Her research explores how NGOs and volunteers engage with people seeking asylum who are living in the Australian community in a restrictive policy environment.

Cris Shore is one of the few anthropologists who have been studying “the makings of politics” and has put forward creative bridges connecting anthropology, political science, organisational studies and sociology. Shore is currently Chair of Anthropology and Head of Department at the University of Auckland (New Zealand), after lecturing at the Goldsmiths College, University of London (UK), between 1990 and 2003.

Tess Altman and Cris Shore Introduction Changes in the latter half of the twentieth century have profoundly altered the international landscape and affected the trajectory of diplomacy (Brown 2001: 3696).

These changes have contributed significantly to the rise of the term ‘public diplomacy’, a concept that has garnered increasing attention in academia and policy circles in the US, Europe, and beyond. The curious observer may legitimately wonder whether this popular term is just a rebranding of old methods or reflects substantive changes in the practice of diplomacy. To investigate this question, we examined the European Union, an actor that officially embraces public diplomacy, delegation to Australia and New Zealand. To examine how the EU has appropriated and adapted the concept of public diplomacy, we examine ethnographic data from two of the delegations most geographically distant from Europe: Australia and New Zealand. Our analysis is based on over 18 months’ research, including one month of participant-

observation at the New Zealand delegation in Wellington (Altman 2008a), and 21 interviews with EU staff in Brussels and in the EU delegations in the Asia-Pacific region (Benson -Rea and Shore 2012).

The Concept of Public Diplomacy At its simplest, public diplomacy refers to government attempts at engagement and dialogue with foreign publics or, as the US State Department (1987 : 85) defines it, ‘government-sponsored programs intended to inform or influence public opinion in other countries’, the chief instruments for which include ‘publications, motion pictures, cultural exchanges, radio and television’ (Public Diplomacy Association of America 2013).

Edmund Gullion, a career diplomat and former dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, coined its modern meaning in 1965. Gullion defined public diplomacy as ‘the influence of public attitudes on the formation and execution of foreign policies ... encompass[ing] dimensions of international relations beyond traditional diplomacy’ (in Cull 2006).

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While some have called this ‘old wine in new bottles’, from the literature we identify four distinguishing features of public diplomacy: 1 It is a shifting and ambiguous concept, constantly shaped by wider changes such as globalisation, developments in information and communication technologies including social media, and the growing sophistication of marketing and ‘branding’ techniques (Gilboa 2008).

2 The concept is increasingly used by both state and non-state actors to frame and legitimise their activities. Non-governmental organisations, corporations, supranational bodies and other international actors have become adept at utilising it for the purposes of advocacy, network building and shaping social and political norms.

Public diplomacy may, in fact, be an even more important tool for relatively new global actors who lack the cultural capital of nationstates conferred through a long history of diplomacy and nationbuilding.

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3 It is an ideal that recasts statecraft as an inherently more inclusive, participatory and dialogical engagement with foreign publics than that envisaged by traditional diplomacy.

4 It is a form of soft power that seeks to influence norms and identity through the ‘communication of narratives’ (Cross and Melissen 2013: 5). Yet curiously, although the literature defines ‘soft power’ as a key feature of public diplomacy, much of this same literature, as the quotes from Nye and Melissen illustrate, fails to seriously engage with questions of power or its asymmetries and effects.

The EU and Public Diplomacy EU officials have publicly stated that ‘in Europe public diplomacy is viewed as the number one priority over the whole spectrum of issues’(Paschke 2000). In 2009 the Commission publi shed a ‘Handbook of Public Diplomacy’ setting out guidelines for its delegations to follow (RELEX 2009). The role of the delegations, it declares, is to: communicate the EU’s policies and programmes around the world; identify and maintain relationships with key local opinion formers, the media and other influential figures; and engage in general outreach to the public (RELEX 2009: 3). To implement this communications strategy, the Commission proposes moving from purveying neutral facts and figures to a more discursive approach that encourages delegations to centre

on ‘themes, narratives, and illustrative cases’ (Rasmussen 2010: 275). Delegations are asked to ‘brand their activities’ along these themes. For example, 2013 was decreed the ‘Year of Citizens’ while 2014 is the ‘Year of Reconciling Work and Family Life’.

Balloon Over Canberra The European Union delegation to Australia was established in 1981 and accredited to New Zealand in 1984 and is currently the largest delegation in the Pacific region (EC 2010a). Perhaps the most high profile public diplomacy action in Australasia to date is the “Balloon over Canberra.” pictured below. The EU delegation to Australia used public diplomacy techniques to raise its profile and assemble what we might term ‘technologies of visibility’ and ‘agents of European consciousness’ (Shore 2000: 26– 28). The balloon story and its posting on YouTube were part of a coordinated effort to bolster the image and identity of the EU among Australian citizens. In his delegation ‘Ambassador’s blog’, the former Head of delegation proclaimed how ‘proud’ he was to have ‘officially launched the EU hot air balloon, which will fly for the next four years over Canberra and the region’. The launch of the balloon, he declared, was the ‘celebration of a solid relationship between the EU and Australia’ (Julien 2008: 3).

That the Canberra delegation should spend $100,000 Australian dollars annually to fund such a flamboyant yet seemingly banal

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publicity stunt merits more attention than one might think. As Michael Billig (1995) noted long ago, objects and activities that appear mundane or ‘banal’ are often powerful semiotic and symbolic vehicles for conveying ideological messages that operate below the radar of critical consciousness. However, in the case of the EU balloon, such comparisons hardly seem appropriate. Whereas national symbols work to forge a public space based on the notion of the nation as an ‘imagined community’, (Anderson 1983) EU initiatives aimed at promoting European identity and consciousness seem clumsy, contrived and curiously ineffective by comparison (Schlesinger 1994; Strath 2002).

Most local informants we asked interpreted the balloon imagery not as some free-floating signifier denoting ‘soaring heights’ or ‘great vision’ but rather as symbolising lack of direction and failed communication.

The main message communicated was just how distant from, and out of touch with, ordinary Australians the EU appears to be. The key to a successful public diplomacy initiative, it would seem, is to use imagery and symbolism that tap into popular norms and tropes or, conversely, that create controversy: something distinctive that sparks interest and debate. The EU balloon initiative achieved neither.

New Zealand Under the Radar Our second example is drawn from the EU delegation to New Zealand, which is one of the smallest EU

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delegations in the world. Run by a Charge d’Affaires who reports to the Canberra-based Head of the Australian and New Zealand delegations. The EU office in Wellington must report to Canberra as well as Brussels, meaning it is double-bound by protocols.

However, due to its small size and distance from Brussels headquarters, it is also in the unique position of being able to slip under the radar. This lack of monitoring combined with the personal agenda of the former Charge d’Affaires saw it undertake some unusual public diplomatic initiatives centred on the themes of teaching, education and mentoring.

One such initiative was to pioneer New Zealand’s first ever ‘EU Schools Curriculum project’. Written for Year 12 students by New Zealand teachers commissioned to carry out the work, and reviewed by curriculum experts linked to the Commission-funded EU Centres Network (EUCN 2009a), this initiative gained support from the New Zealand Ministry of Education and came into force in 2010. The module involved emphasizing the historic ties between Europe and New Zealand and New Zealanders, as well as the benefits of EU memebership. EU membership and its associated criteria are nowhere presented as subjects that New Zealand students should examine critically. No questions are posed about whether the EU’s model of ‘democracy’, ‘modernisation’, and ‘freer labour markets’ are universally applicable or beneficial

to New Zealand; these things are framed as an unquestionable good and a benchmark to which all countries should aspire. There is also little if any mention of the Eurozone crisis and the civil unrest that the EU’s austerity measures have provoked within Europe.

From the New Zealand government’s perspective, the EU curriculum was a ‘partnership’ to which both parties contribute equally and whose purpose is to strengthen New Zealand society and economy. From the perspective of the EU representative, however, the EU curriculum project had a different aim. Its rationale was to strengthen New Zealand’s global brand and to present the EU to ‘young New Zealanders’ as an aspirational model: that is, as a strong leader on the global stage and a champion of democracy and human rights. This discourse of benevolence places the EU symbolically far above New Zealand and gives it a moral mandate to mentor, shape and educate its children to be receptive to EU norms and values. New Zealand is placed in the same category as an ‘aspiring member state’. This comparison, and the frequent jokes that were made within the Wellington delegation about New Zealand being the EU’s ‘long lost member state’ (Altman 2008a, fieldnotes) echo the asymmetrical and hierarchical nature of the relationship that EU public diplomacy typically seeks to construct as a partnership.

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Conclusion We have deliberately focused on two examples of miscommunication as these are more useful for thinking through the disjunctures that can occur in EU communications policy, and the different forms of intervention that EU public diplomacy takes. It is precisely these disjunctures and paradoxes that the delegations often seek to obfuscate, yet analysing why they occur is key to understanding how modern public diplomacy works.

The EU balloon initiative was primarily about visibility and brand recognition, and was divorced from its political context. Media theorists have long argued that cultural consumption is not a passive but a dynamic process in which meanings are actively shaped and negotiated by readers or viewers. In short, the targets of EU communications campaigns will bring their own interpretive lens to bear on the visual images and cultural texts they are presented with. The acknowledgement that publics are co-creators of meaning is at the very heart of the normative ideal of public diplomacy—yet in this case, this is exactly what was ignored.

Secondly, the EU schools curriculum initiative was also unsuccessful in delivering its intended message. This example also illustrates how underlying power imbalances influence the delivery of EU public diplomacy.

The New Zealand delegation’s EU schools curriculum initiative sends

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out conflicting messages. On the one hand, the initiative is presented as a partnership with the New Zealand government, and seeks to emphasise the strong positive ties between the EU and New Zealand.

On the other hand, the curriculum transmits messages which have an un-reflexive bias regarding the benefits of EU membership, and which unquestioningly promote the ideological framework of free market trade liberalisation.

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