22 minute read
Issue 1789- February - 28/02/2020
Why We Chose the Name Majalla
There are many stories behind Majalla, which will be published on Saturday, February 198016, that we will share when the time is right. But today, in this article, I will tell you how we came to choose the name Majalla (Magazine), the sister publication of the Arabic international daily, Asharq Alawsat.
As always, whenever we decide to launch a new publication, everybody collaborates to come up with a list of suggested names. At the beginning of last year (1979), we chose the name Majallet Asharaq Alawsat (Middle East Magazine) through a secret ballot. And although some of us had objections over the length of the name since it is composed of three words, we were convinced that this name had several benefits. Most importantly, it is wellknown and Arab readers would recognize it wherever they are in the world. This would increase the magazine’s popularity and help us to sell advertising space.
In July last year, when we approached our friend Mohammad Saeed Taib, CEO of Tahama, with our decision to launch a weekly political magazine named Majallet Asharaq Alawsat, he stood up and refused to sit back down until we gave him our word to change the name, adding that Tahama, which was in charge of advertisements in Asharq Alawsat newspaper, does not approve the launch of another publication with a similar name and from the same publishing house.
Abdul Kareem Abu Al Nasr, editor-in-chief of Majalla magazine, was the only person to have the list of suggested names, so he presented them while proposing a compromise which would keep us happy without causing upsetting our friend Mohammad Saeed Taib. It was a magical solution and we agreed to it without hesitation. Abdul Karim suggested that we get rid of the first and last words so the name becomes Asharq, while keeping the slogan, Arab international magazine. We then wrote an article introducing the new magazine.
Last September, Abdul Kareem and I were looking into some private matters regarding Asharq magazine when the phone rang. It was Mohammed Marouf Al-Shaibani, assistant general manager in charge of the Riyadh office, warning against naming the magazine Asharq as another weekly magazine had been published in the eastern part of the Kingdom under the same name. He explained that if we were to publish our magazine it would lead to dangerous confusion regarding distribution and subscription in Saudi Arabia and he ended the call by telling us that he had sent us a full report on the matter with a copy of the Asharq magazine attached.
I asked Abdul Kareem, “what should we do now?” He replied with amazement, “we will publish a magazine, of course, otherwise what am I doing here!” I then suggested, how about we add «Al» to «Majalla» to make «Al-Majalla».
by Hisham Hafez
olitics P
Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Passes Away at 91
How the War Hero, Statesman and Patriot Served Egypt till His Last Breath
by Majalla-London
While Gamal Abd El Nasser and Anwar El Sadat held differing ideologies and endorsed diverging foreign policies, they both had a lot in common. Both came from modest backgrounds and persevered through the ranks of the military, both had strong charisma that captivated people in both Egypt and the Arab world and both cared deeply for their country. While late President Hosni Mubarak had a much more reserved persona than his predecessors, he too endured an impoverished life to become a high ranking officer in the military and he too had a deep love for Egypt that can never be put into question.
MODEST BEGINNINGS, HIGH AMBITIONS
Mubarak was born on May 4, 1928, in the northern governorate of Monufia. Hailing from a poor background, he sought a career in the military as a means of climbing the social ladder. As a result, he enrolled in the military academy when he was a teenager, but soon his talent would see him move towards the Air Force Academy. As his early military career took place during the late 1940s and early 1950s, the young Mubarak witnessed crucial events in Egypt’s history, namely the first Arab-Israeli War in 1948, the 1952 Egyptian Revolution which saw the removal of King Farouk and Gamal Abdel Nasser’s ascendency in 1956. Like many Egyptians who lived during this time period, a great sense of patriotism and kinship towards fellow countrymen was instilled into the young Air Force officer. He was officially commissioned by the Air Force in 1950, and his immense skill in flying fighter jets saw him become a flight instructor for the academy. It was also during the 1950s when Mubarak met the love of his life, Suzanne Thabet, a young woman who came from a privileged background. In spite of this, her parents allowed her to wed Mubarak having recognized him as an ambitious young man who would become something big someday. They were right, as his hard work and perseverance would see him become the Air Force Chief of Staff in 1972.
OCTOBER: HIS FINEST HOUR IN THE AIRFORCE
As the commander of the Egyptian Air Force, Mubarak had the difficult mission of kick-starting the surprise attack on Israeli forces during the October 6 War. Mubarak knew that he was in charge
A file photo dated on March 2007 ,23 shows Former President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak attends a meeting in Ankara, Turkey. (Getty)
of a make or break moment for the Egyptian military, if done right the rest of the forces would be able to carry out their operations. But if any mistakes were made on the Air Force’s part then the Egyptian military’s entire strategy would falter. Fortunately, under his command, the first airstrike was a success and served as an important turning point in the war. While the effects of the war were not immediate, it was a major factor that led to both Egypt and Israel sitting down at the negotiating table, and after years of diplomatic effort, Egypt regained the Sinai Peninsula which it had lost in the aftermath of the 1967 War.
ASCENDING TO THE PRESIDENCY
His efforts during the war did not go unrewarded, in 1975 President Sadat named him as the new Vice President of the Republic. As Vice President, he oversaw a major transformation for Egypt as Sadat was trying to steer his country away from its previous socialist policies and embrace more open market policies paving the way to major economic growth in the country. He also oversaw Sadat’s efforts to reconcile with Israel, something that resulted in Egypt’s temporary expulsion from the Arab League. Just as October 6, 1973, was a major milestone in Mubarak’s life the same date in 1981 would be another one. During a military parade commemorating the war, a number of Islamist terrorists murdered President Sadat sending shockwaves across the country and the Arab world. Suddenly, Mubarak’s life was turned upside down as in a matter of hours he transitioned from Vice President to Egypt’s new President. While Mubarak might have dreamt of succeeding Sadat, never in his life did he want his succession to be as graphic as this. For the next 30 years, Mubarak served as President of Egypt. As a leader, Mubarak expanded upon Sadat’s economic policies making Egypt a great place for businessmen and entrepreneurs, and his leadership resulted in unprecedented levels of economic growth during the 1990s and 2000s. He also tried to tackle some of his society’s ills, as he enacted policies to alleviate the problems of overpopulation. His wife, Suzanne, also founded an initiative that aimed to reduce the country’s levels of illiteracy. As president, Mubarak also played a major role at the international stage. He had warned Saddam Hussein against invading Kuwait. Hussein did not heed these warnings and proceeded to occupy Kuwait in 1990. Immediately afterward, Mubarak led the emergency Arab League meeting which ended in a rejection of Hussein’s operations, and it was at that moment when Mubarak and the Arab League had to take a major decision. While the thought of Arab armies fighting each other was and still is undesirable, the Arab League made the choice to begrudgingly aid Western militar
ies in repelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Under Mubarak’s command, the Egyptian military was one of the major coalition forces that participated in Operation Desert Storm. Mubarak would also play a major mediating role in the peace talks between Palestine and Israel during the 1990s and 2000s
MUBARAK’S PATRIOTISM, HIS LEGACY AND BEYOND
In 2011, major protests around Egypt called for Mubarak to resign as president. Although he was President of the Republic, there was another title he had and valued much more: patriot. As such, Mubarak decided to listen to his fellow Egyptians and resign from his post, ending a three-decade-long tenure becoming
the country’s longest-serving president. Even though so many other leaders in his position would have fled and sought refuge in another country, Mubarak’s love for his country caused him to remain living in Egypt amongst his people. His post-presidential life wasn’t easy as he faced a trial over alleged corruption charges, but he was cleared of these charges in 2017 and was able to live the remainder of his life in harmony. Mubarak made virtually no public appearances since his resignation, but in October 2019 a YouTube video from a channel called Mubarak archives was uploaded. The 25-minute-long video showed the retired Mubarak reflecting on his memories of the October War and the struggles the military endured during 1973. It was as if the late President felt that his time on this earth was coming to an end, and so he wanted to leave behind one final message to his people and the youth of Egypt. During his lifetime, Mubarak went from an underprivileged young man to Commander of the Air Force, to war hero and President of the Republic. While he will always be remembered for making lasting impacts while occupying those posts, his greatest legacy will always be his patriotism and love for Egypt
From L to R, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, US President Bill Clinton, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah II of Jordan pose for the family picture at the end of the Sharm el-Sheikh Middle East summit 17 October 2000. (Getty)
Egyptian president Anwar al Sadat (1981 - 1918) speaks with Vice President Hosni Mubarak while they travel from Cairo to Alexandria in the Egyptian presidential helicopter, 1977.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (R) shakes hands with jet pilots during a visit to a military dependency, 29 April 1991. (Getty)
olitics P
Coronavirus Adds New Layer of Iranian Isolation Allied Countries Cancel Flights and Suspend Visas in a Vote of NoConfidence in Tehran’s Efforts at Containment
by Joseph Braude
Iran’s long list of adversaries has grown by one more as coronavirus has spread rapidly throughout the country, infecting even senior officials. The outbreak has added a new layer of isolation, as major Iranian allies and trading partners have cancelled flights and suspended visas. Meanwhile, despite reassuring rhetoric from President Rouhani, Iranian
Iranian Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi (L) wipes his sweating as he speaks on his tests positive for coronavirus as he holds a press conference with Iranian Government spokesman and Spokesperson for the Prevention and Struggle for Corona, created by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Ali Rabiei (R) in Tehran, Iran on February 2020 ,24. (Getty)
officialdom evinces signs of escalating alarm.
CLOUDS GATHER AS CORONAVIRUS CASES MULTIPLY
Over the last ten days, Iran has won the unenviable distinction of hosting the largest number of coronavirus cases outside of China, where the virus is believed to have originated. President Hassan Rouhani attempted to play down the extent of the threat and reassure Iranians not to be afraid of coronavirus. Indeed, he went so far as to blame Tehran’s “enemies” for exaggerating the threat, saying «we should not allow America to add a new virus, named disruption of social activities and immense fear, on top of coronavirus. This is a conspiracy that we are witnessing and you also can see in foreign propaganda.»
Yet even as Iranian officials were seeking to reassure the public and the international community that the virus was contained, the leader of the Iranian government’s task force charged with containing coronavirus, Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi — who had urged the public not to overreact to the virus only days earlier — announced in a homemade video that he himself had tested positive for the disease. So far the Iranian Ministry of Health admits that 95 Iranians have tested positive for the disease, but Western health researchers suspect the total may be as high as 18,000.
IRANIAN ISOLATION DEEPENS
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, February 25, in Washington, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. was «deeply concerned» that the Islamic Republic government «may have suppressed vital details about the outbreak.» Pompeo went on to decry the Iranian government’s policy of censoring unflattering news and to urge «all nations, including Iran, [to] tell the truth about the coronavirus and cooperate with international aid organizations.”
Few nations appear prepared to take Tehran at its word that the virus is under control. The UAE took the extraordinary step of banning all flights to and from Iran. According to the Emirati General Civil Aviation Authority’s statement, “effective immediately… all passenger and cargo aircraft traveling to and from Iran will be suspended for a period of one week, and could be up for extension.”
Perhaps equally surprising, the Russian government, which often behaves as a de facto Iranian ally, announced it was effectively barring Iranians from entry into its territory. On February 26, Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova announced Russian authorities planned to cease issuing visas for regular and transit travel to Iranian citizens. Despite the calm reassurances from Iranian officials, such drastic steps from friendly or neutral governments are difficult to interpret as anything other than a vote of no-confidence in Tehran’s efforts at containment.
AN UNDERWHELING RESPONSE
Indeed, from what can be observed from afar, those efforts have done little to merit confidence. In one crucial measure of the trustworthiness of Iranian reassurances, independent flight trackers have confirmed that Iran’s Mahan Air airline, a partially owned subsidiary of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, has continued flights to four Chinese cities in the past three weeks despite consistent denials by Iranian officials. China, of course, has been the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak with uncounted tens of thousands of infected cases.
Iranian officials themselves have begun behaving in ways that suggest they are considerably more alarmed than their rhetoric indicates. On Monday, within the halls of the Majles, Iranian legislators voted against the general outlines of the government›s proposed budget bill and to cease all further deliberations over fears that lingering in the building risked exposure to the virus. One anonymous MP told Iranian press that «if the Majles had approved the general outlines of the bill, the parliamentary regulations would force the MPs to hold two consequent Majlis sessions per day», which would have meant congregating further and risking infection.
olitics P
The Strongest Military Is an Inclusive One
Why Equality Wins Wars
by Jason Lyall
What makes an army successful in battle? A few factors come to mind: strength in numbers, tactical acumen, the type of political institutions at home. New technologies, including artificial intelligence, drones, and hypersonic weapons, might also tip the balance. But one of the most important determinants of battlefield performance is consistently overlooked: equality among soldiers, regardless of their ethnicity.
How societies treat their constituent ethnic groups can make the difference between stunning success and crushing defeat once the shooting starts. As I argue
Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga women fighters speak together during a training session by German military officers during the German Defence Minister›s visit at a facility on the outskirts of Arbil, the capital of the northern Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region, on August ,21 2019. (Getty)
in my new book, the last two centuries of warfare show that inclusive armies—meaning that all ethnic groups represented in the military are considered full citizens of the state they are serving—enjoy far greater success than non-inclusive ones. When armies are drawn from marginalized or repressed ethnic groups, by contrast, performance suffers. These divided armies typically spend as much time coercing their own soldiers to fight as they do actually waging war against the enemy.
The last two centuries of warfare show that inclusive armies enjoy far greater success than noninclusive ones.
Ethnically divided militaries end up trapped in straitjackets of their own design. They also offer a warning: military power flows not from soldiers’ weapons but from the relative status of those who wield them. With populism and xenophobia on the march globally, militaries that succumb to these currents will find themselves vulnerable to armies— and societies—that preserve hard-won inclusion. PATCHWORK ARMIES We tend to write about armies as anonymous machines, faceless and uniform, but the reality is much more complicated. Diversity, particularly in terms of ethnic makeup, has characterized military organizations for centuries. Since 1800, the typical army has counted soldiers from five different ethnic groups in its ranks. Napoleon’s Grande Armée contained more Poles, Germans, Italians, and Dutch than French soldiers during its fateful 1812 march to Moscow. The nineteenth-century armies of Qing China integrated Han, Mongol, and Manchu populations and relied on numerous local auxiliaries. France, Italy, and the United Kingdom all built colonial armies in which their own soldiers were minorities. During World War II, Nazi Germany deployed more than two million non-Germans from at least 20 different ethnicities on the eastern front. The“Russian” Red Army was no less diverse. Its 45th Rifle Division had soldiers from 28 ethnic groups when it decamped at Stalingrad in 1942. How such armies perform on the battlefield depends on whether they can manage the diversity in their ranks. And since armies reflect the states that send them, the answer comes down to how the states in question treat their constituent ethnic groups. Some construct inclusive national identities that afford equal political status to all. Others, however, exploit ethnic divisions and discrimination as tools of rule. In more extreme cases, states impose a strict hierarchy of citizenship and belonging, with “alien” populations violently relegated to the bottom. When states go to war, these arrangements carry over into their militaries, where ethnic inequalities are extremely corrosive. Soldiers drawn from marginalized or repressed ethnic groups will be reluctant to fightand die for a regime that subjugates them. They are also more likely to bond along ethnic lines tocollectively resist or subvert their superiors. Military commanders, sensing these dangers, often take steps toprevent indiscipline—they may rig the ethnic composition of their units to prevent soldiers in the same ethnic group from banding together, or they may simplify their tactics to foreclose opportunities for these soldiers to defect or desert to the enemy. Some even resort to mass violence against their own soldiers to compel what they cannot command. Yet such measures exact a steep toll on battlefield performance. Saddled with disgruntled soldiers, left with a reduced menu of tactics, and forced to divert resources to sanctioning their own soldiers, divided armies enter battle at a significant disadvantage to their more egalitarian foes. Put simply, diversity without equality is dangerous. THE COST OF INEQUALITY To measure just how costly military inequality is, I built a data set, Project Mars, that maps ethnic division in the ranks of nearly 300 armies in 250 conventional wars since 1800. I then evaluated how well these militaries performed in battle, tracking how many casualties they suffered and inflicted, whether they were prone to mass defection or desertion, and whether they deployed specialized units known as “blocking detachments” to shoot their own retreating soldiers. The results paint a clear picture. States that treat all soldiers the same way regardless of ethnicity typically field powerful militaries; belligerents with ethnically divided armies are much less effective. Unequal militaries have a 75 percent chance of suffering more casualties than those inflicted on the enemy, compared with a 25 percent chance for more
olitics P
egalitarian belligerents. Mass desertion, a fairly rare occurrence in diverse but egalitarian militaries, is a near inevitability in highly unequal militaries. Mass defection, too, is more common when militaries don’t treat all their soldiers equally. And as inequality among soldiers rises, armies become far more likely to field deadly blocking detachments.
History is littered with cautionary tales of fighting while divided. Consider, for example, the crushing defeat of a -60,000strong Mahdist army by a much smaller Anglo-Egyptian force at Omdurman, in what today is Sudan, in 1898. That lopsided victory is typically ascribed to the superiority of Western military technology at the time, above all an early type of machine gun that decimated the Mahdist forces. But that account misses another critical factor: the sky-high inequality in the ranks of the Mahdist military. The leader of the Mahdist state, the khalifa, ruled atop a narrow ethnocracy and had unleashed repeated waves ofviolence against his own people. His military was largely composed of repressed ethnic groups and tribes, half of which deserted or defected well before Omdurman. Special units of regime loyalists forced the reluctant soldiers that remained into battle. Small wonder, then, that they fared so poorly. Inequality affects even individual units. During the brutal Battle for Moscow in October 1941, German troops encircled the 38th and 108th Soviet Rifle Divisions. The two divisions, trapped side by side, were roughly the same size and had comparable weapons. But only the 108th managed to fight its way out, losing nearly three-quarters of its soldiers in the process. The 38th was overrun and destroyed so completely that it was struck from the official Soviet roster of units. The main difference between the two? The more successful 108th was mixed but mostly Russian in its ethnic composition, whereas the 38th was drawn almost exclusively from repressed national groups in the North Caucasus. A PERSISTENT THREAT What may seem like an artifact of a bygone era of mass industrial warfare in fact determines battlefield success to this day. Consider the wars raging across the Middle East and South Asia. The spectacular failure of Sunni-dominated Iraqi Army units to fend off the advancing troops of ISIS, in 2014 and 2015 can be traced to soldiers’ grievances over the marginalization of the Sunni populace under then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Likewise, the Syrian Army, led principally by Alawite officers, has been gutted by tens of thousands of desertions and defections among the majority-Sunni rank and file, who resent their second-class status in President Bashar al-Assad’s narrow ethnosectarian vision of Syria. And the Afghan National Army continues to suffer rampant desertion owing to interethnic abuses in its ranks and suspicion among non-Pashtun soldiers of the pro-Pashtun-leaning government in Kabul. These pitfalls will remain as long as ethnicity is a salient cleavage easily exploited for political gain. Even Western democracies, including the United States, are not immune: the tribalism, populism, and white nationalism taking hold in these societies may at some point relegate certain identity groups to second-class status, including in the military.
26 28/02/20 Memebrs of the Army›s 369th Infantry Regiment prepare to march with fellow soldiers, boy scouts and various other military aligned groups in the 369th Infantry Regiment Parade in Harlem on May ,18 2014 in New York City. The parade, which takes place on the historic Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, looks to celebrate the contribution African Americans and Puerto Ricans have made to military. (Getty)
Elsewhere, that outcome is much closer: China’s repression of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet and India’s new anti-Muslim citizenship bill are both examples of ambitious but risky efforts to recast citizenship along rigid ethnic lines. If these governments persist, their efforts will sooner or later affect their militaries, too.
Ethnic politics will also shape the use of next-generation technologies in future conflicts. Adversaries will be able to microtarget disgruntled soldiers with social media, encouraging and facilitating their defections. Rigid command-and-control structures, designed to prevent indiscipline by marginalized or repressed soldiers, will be a particular disadvantage against fast-moving, artificial intelligence–driven enemies. But AI might also allow the commanders of divided armies to better monitor potentially disloyal soldiers. To prevent desertion or defection, leaders might track their troops with biometric devices and restrict them to certain geographic areas, policed by drones or other automated systems. Such technologies would not only create a credible threat of punishment, forcing soldiers to fight
harder to avoid sanction; they might also embolden leaders to risk new wars. Factoring in the effects of ethnic inequality could give states a leg up in future conflicts, affording predictive insights into an adversary’s potential military performance. Unlike other factors, inequality is relatively easy to assess from the outside, largely through open sources such as social media, which can provide clues almost in real time. With sufficient information, military planners could supplement their traditional data—on the enemy’s equipment and organizational structure—with ethnic inequality scores for individual units. They could then pinpoint units prone to break under pressure or those that will standand fight, helping to shape campaign plans before a war begins. Commanders could use similaranalyses to evaluate the resilience and combat power of local proxy forces, newly rebuilt militaries in allied states, and even insurgent organizations such as the Taliban or ISIS.
The lesson for modern militaries is clear: every military is a risky experiment in social engineering, and centuries of warfare point to the power of inclusion for turning that experiment into a success. Equality creates lethal armies; inequality weakens them from within. Bigotry and racism are selfinflicted wounds that undermine national security. At a time of rising uncertainty in world politics, U.S. policymakers would do well to deepen their commitment to a diverse and equal military. Inclusion is not only a good in itself but a means of bolstering the nation’s military power in stillunimagined wars.
