In Harmonium

Posted By Marc on July 8, 2008

On June 11th, former Syrian Information minister Dr. Mahdi Dakhlallah raised a number of very interesting questions about why the former cradle of Arab cultures (which he defines variably as Mesopotamia, the Nile, Syria and Lebanon) had failed to modernize as effectively as the Gulf States (see MEMRI Special Dispatch #1976, July 7th, 2008). Of the ten questions he asked, I found his 8th to be the most interesting

#8 Why have the Gulf states managed to adapt themselves to the technological and social reality of modern times, while at the same time preserving their traditional Arab culture (e.g. dress), while Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt have adopted only trousers, shirts, and ties?

I would not claim to be an Middle Eastern expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I believe I may have come up with a skeleton of an answer or, to put it more accurately, an “explanation”.

If we compare the Gulf States with Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, certain key demographic factors show up. First, look at the relative populations (all from the CIA World Factbook):

• Egypt – 81,713,517 (July 2008 est.)
  0-14 years: 31.8% (male 13,292,961/female 12,690,711)
  15-64 years: 63.5% (male 26,257,440/female 25,627,390)
  65 years and over: 4.7% (male 1,636,560/female 2,208,455) (2008 est.)
• Lebanon – 3,971,941 (July 2008 est.)
  0-14 years: 26% (male 526,994/female 505,894)
  15-64 years: 66.8% (male 1,275,021/female 1,380,131)
  65 years and over: 7.1% (male 128,002/female 155,899) (2008 est.)
• Syria – 19,747,586
  0-14 years: 36.2% (male 3,679,473/female 3,467,096)
  15-64 years: 60.5% (male 6,119,459/female 5,822,376)
  65 years and over: 3.3% (male 310,838/female 348,344) (2008 est.)

Compare this with the Gulf States

• Bahrain – 718,306 note: includes 235,108 non-nationals (July 2008 est.)
  0-14 years: 26.4% (male 95,709/female 93,747)
  15-64 years: 69.8% (male 288,957/female 212,706)
  65 years and over: 3.8% (male 14,224/female 12,963) (2008 est.)
• Kuwait – 2,596,799 note: includes 1,291,354 non-nationals (July 2008 est.)
  0-14 years: 26.6% (male 351,057/female 338,634)
  15-64 years: 70.6% (male 1,172,460/female 659,927)
  65 years and over: 2.9% (male 46,770/female 27,951) (2008 est.)
• Qatar – 928,635 (July 2008 est.)
  0-14 years: 22.8% (male 108,063/female 103,887)
  15-64 years: 72.9% (male 463,942/female 213,137)
  65 years and over: 4.3% (male 29,515/female 10,091) (2008 est.)
• UAE – 4,621,399 note: estimate is based on the results of the 2005 census that included a significantly higher estimate of net inmigration of non-citizens than previous estimates (July 2008 est.)
  0-14 years: 20.5% (male 484,102/female 462,405)
  15-64 years: 78.6% (male 2,663,702/female 970,672)
  65 years and over: 0.9% (male 26,244/female 14,274)
  note: 73.9% of the population in the 15-64 age group is non-national (2008 est.)

A couple of things fairly jump out of these population figures. First, the Gulf States have both a lower general population and a much higher median age. Second, the Gulf States also have a fairly large ex-pat population which accounts for a fair amount of people in the economically productive 15-64 age range.

In and of itself, these demographic points might have little effect where it not for several other factors. First, and in many ways the most obvious, is the oil revenue for the gulf states which is currently estimated to hit around 1.3 trillion dollars US this year (including all the GCC states). Second, the oil revenue is expected to peter out over the next century. Third, all of these states are, at least culturally speaking, political “Big Man” organizations.

Now “Big Man” politics refers to a very specific type of organization where politics in a culture is tied directly into kinship groups and “authority” is related to constant “display”. Political conflict may or may not spill out into open warfare, but the constant form of conflict is via display and gift-giving. Think of the Potlatch of the North-West Coast of British Columbia as an example (or read Marcel Mauss’ The Gift for an overview). The basic feature of this type of organization is that the “Big Man” must take care of all those who support him (or her) by frequently putting on lavish displays that benefit their supporters. So we have an interesting situation in the Gulf States – a “Big Man” culture, a relatively low population, a large revenue that they know will disappear in the future.

Let’s add a few more factors into the mix. “Big Man” politics may be “old” (in the sense of being a very early form of political organization), but that says absolutely nothing about the intelligence of the people who operate in that system. And, in the case of the Gulf States rulers, we see some very intelligent people who are quite well aware of the negative effects of a massive wealth influx on a population (Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries is an excellent example of how not to deal with this). They are also quite aware, unlike the by-gone rulers of Spain, that the revenue source is finite and will disappear and that they must come up with some alternate revenue stream that will continue to generate resources after the oil money is gone.

Dubai is probably the most innovative in terms of their solution. They have taken another “old” organizational form and adopted it: the Port of Trade (cf Polanyi, Ahrensberg and Pearson Trade & Market in the Early Empires). Ports of Trade are small “nations” (originally city-states) that survive by acting as exchange points and neutral ground between larger “empires” and, also, by re-manufacturing goods. For ancient examples, think Tyre, Sidon, Knossos, and Carthage, while for more modern versions, think Singapore and Hong Kong.

Now, Ports of Trade are a very interesting organizational form. They are inherently both “conservative” and, at the same time, wildly “innovative”. They are “conservative” in the sense that they must maintain a stable marketplace and that means a fairly stable social organization. They are “innovative” in that they must always be at the cutting edge of technology. At the same time, Ports of Trade also offer one of the most fertile social forms for individuals to rise in the social order – they are essentially merchantile but, at the same time, almost “clan” oriented (in the sense that merchant “houses” are somewhat of an analog for clans). In a number of cases, and Venice is a prime example of this, they combine merchantilism, “clan”/house organization and Big Man politics together. In short, they are a good “fit” for the Gulf States to evolve into. One final point is that a shift to being Ports of Trade is not new for these states – many of them used that form thousands of ears ago (see Bibby Looking for Dilmun).

Let’s return, now, to the question of Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. All of these countries have much larger populations than the Gulf States and much smaller per capita revenues. Second, all of these states are, with the possible exception of Lebanon, land focused. Third, the efforts to modernize these states started well before those in the Gulf and the model they adopted was that of the mass produced society – basically an industrial form of organization.

Now, historically, this actually made a lot of sense. All of these states have had a long (5000+ year) history of strong centralized governments with fairly rigorous social control mechanisms. An evolution from one form of centralization to another is fairly simple – the social forms, in the sense of an Authority Ranking social relationship (From Alan Fiske; see here for an explanation), are already part of the culture. Furthermore, all of these states were involved in fairly substantial conflict in the last century and, if you look at the military technology of the times, that meant mass armies.

But a society centered around Authority Ranking relationships just doesn’t do very well in the current Information Age, which is skewed much more heavily towards a reciprocity system (Equality Matching in Fiske’s terms). It is simple to adopt the outward form of modernization, the “trousers, shirts and ties” of Dr. Dakhlallah’s question, but it is much harder to shift the basic form of social relationship. Could it be done? Probably, at least in the case of Syria and Lebanon which both have a history of trade. I suspect that it would be much harder for Egypt. Is it likely to be done? At the present time, my uninformed suspicion is that the only one of the three that might be able to do it without massive social dislocation, is Syria, and I am not sanguine that it will happen.

Category: Anthropology
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