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Strife Feature | The Middle-East and the question of Qatar: Political Islam vs Secular Islam?

By Guillaume Beaud

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (on the left), and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates (on the right) are the two main actors behind the Qatar crisis (Credit: Associated Press, Saudi Arabia Press Agency)

Analysing events occurring in the Middle-East and North Africa always requires an analytical grid. Two of the most commonly mobilised are a confessional approach, the Sunni/Shia divide; and a social class approach that emphasises social fractures between traditional elites and civil societies. Initially, most upheavals are better understood through social struggles opposing regime elites and the population fighting for emancipation, welfare and political inclusion. The Arab Spring have generally echoed this analysis. However, my previous article[1] showed that analyses of the Arab Spring suffered from a political instrumentalisation of the Sunni/Shia divide, especially by weakened states and regional powers, to maintain the regime in power. Yet, the overuse of the confessional rhetoric made the Sunni/Shia divide materialize in the collective imaginary.

Nevertheless, the current Gulf crisis and the diplomatic and commercial isolation of Qatar highlights a third analytical grid, too often ignored: the opposition between partisans of political Islam and those of secular Islam. This paper focuses on regional power and political dynamics of the biggest crisis between petromonarchies since the establishment of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in 1981, through the lens of two competing visions of Islam.

 

 The question of Qatar’s relations with Iran is secondary

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt have accused Qatar of an excessive “proximity” with Iran. However, this is largely incorrect; it is rather a pretext to hide their genuine motivations, and it also reflects the nature of their fear.

First, Qatar’s relations with Iran are pragmatic “working relationships”, due to their shared exploitation of a gas field.[2] Second, Qatar’s alleged support to “Iran-sponsored Saudi Shias” in the Saudi region of Qatif has not been proven. In reality, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are trying to mobilise anti-Iran and Sunni-Shia discourses, in an attempt to benefit from the increasing Sunni-Shia polarisation induced by the instrumentalisation of communitarian differences.[3] Yet, this rhetoric finds little resonance amongst other Red Sea monarchies. Kuwait holds an important 30% Shia minority, who entertains a close relationship with the Sunni al-Sabah monarchy, while Oman Kharidjites – the third branch of Islam – have historically acted as a mediating power between Iran and other Gulf states or the international community. Above all, although the UAE are concerned with expansionist Iran, especially since it lost three strategic islands to Iranian authority in 1971[4], the UAE trades in fact more with Iran than Qatar does.[5]  Its primary preoccupation is the fight against political Islam, embodied by the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

The Qatar crisis: Political vs Secular Islam?

In fact, the core issue lies elsewhere, in an inter-Sunni opposition between countries advocating political Islam and those fighting Islamist influence within their political sphere. The current Qatar crisis indeed highlights two distinct blocs.

On the one side, Qatar and Turkey. Since Saudi Arabia distanced itself from the Muslim Brotherhood after the 1991 Gulf War, Qatar is the main supporter of the organisation. Ever since, Qatar has been providing financial resources, political legitimacy and a significant media channel: Al-Jazeera, whose shutdown is one of the Saudis’ current demands. As for Turkey, its uninterrupted support to Qatar should not be reduced to realpolitik and pragmatic Turkish interests arising from the recently established Turkish air base in that country. While these considerations are important, Turkey also shares the vision of an Islam present in the public and political sphere.[6] Erdoğan’s AKP party is indeed an emanation of the Muslim Brotherhood.

 On the other side, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, followed by Bahrein and Egypt. While all Gulf monarchies – excluding Qatar – share a common fear of the instability that the revolutionary tendencies of political Islam may induce, the UAE has been the most prominent counter-revolutionary actor, as it has placed the struggle against political Islam as the priority of both its domestic and foreign policies.[7]

Moreover, Saudi Arabia has always fought the political Islam embodied by the Muslim Brothers. Indeed, although the kingdom is a de jure theocracy, it has been founded in 1932 on a non-negotiable agreement between the Saudi family and the Wahhabi religious establishment, stipulating that Islam would be restricted to culture and education, and would never go near political issues.[8] Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia has recently behaved less radically towards political Islam than the UAE, leading King Salman to lean on Muslim Brotherhood militias in Yemen. Salman indeed favours the Sunni/Shia rhetoric to oppose Iran, tempering his father Abdullah’s former hostility towards the Muslim Brotherhood. 

Historically, the opposition between partisans of political and secular Islam has developed following the Iranian Revolution in 1979. At the time, the Muslim Brotherhood – notably present in Egypt and within Gulf monarchies – sided with revolutionary Iran and its Islamic Republic. Fearing domestic instability, the GCC was established in 1981, officially to protect the Arabian Peninsula from the spread of the Islamic Revolution. However, the 1991 Gulf War marked a turning point: following Saudi Arabia’s military failure to defend Kuwait against Saddam’s invasion, Qatar decided to distance itself from Saudi tutelage and hegemony. It started to diversify its foreign links, building ties with the West – through economic and defence relations, but also by establishing strong artistic, cultural and academic ties – and entertained softer relations with Rafsanjani’s pro-business Iranian government.[9] Since then, Qatar has been seen as an outsider, who has played the card of geopolitical expansion, countering Saudi Arabia’s regional hegemony and supporting political Islam.[10]

 

The Arab Spring: crystallising oppositions 

The Arab Spring and the subsequent Muslim Brothers’ electoral successes in Egypt and Tunisia intensified the opposition of most Gulf monarchies. Indeed, Qatar – especially through Al-Jazeera’s international soft power – and Turkey supported Muslim Brothers across the Middle-East and especially during Mohammed Morsi’s election in  Egypt  in 2012; whereas Saudi Arabia and the UAE played an effective role in Morsi’s overthrow by Marshal El-Sisi in 2013. On one hand, most Egyptian Muslim Brothers found exile in Istanbul. On the other, Saudi Arabia offered asylum to former secular dictators Hosni Mubarak (Egypt) and Ben Ali (Tunisia). The UAE’s radical stance was demonstrated when it broke its relations with Tunisia after the Ennahda Party – preaching political Islam – became the country’s first political force, although the UAE were Tunisia’s second trading partner.[11]

Moreover, Libya has been affected by the Qatar-UAE indirect confrontation since Gadhafi’s overthrow in 2011. Indeed, the NATO-led military intervention induced proxy military opposition, with the UAE supporting non-Islamist militias on the ground, while Qatar assisted groups advocating political Islam.[12] [13] Today, the UAE and el-Sisi’s Egypt strongly back the self-proclaimed Marshal Haftar, who controls Eastern Libya. On the other hand, Tripoli’s “Governement of National Accord”, recognised by the UN and experiencing increasing Islamist influence, enjoys Qatar’s support.

Therefore, following the political breakthrough of the Muslim Brotherhood’s democratic-revolutionary Islamist tendencies and their call to overthrow Gulf monarchies (except Qatar, of course), petromonarchies amplified counter-revolutionary discourses to preserve their geo-economic interests and liberal economies. This also induced virulent domestic debates about the role of religion in the social and political life. Today, Saudi Arabia experiences gradual tension between the State and movements close to Muslim Brothers and Salafism. Thus, Saudi Arabia increasingly exploits the lens of the Sunni-Shia divide, in order to gather the Sunni majority around the monarchy against Iran and Saudi Arabia’s Shia minority. Further interesting point, Morsi’s visit to Ahmadinejad in 2012 demonstrated that the opposition between political and secular Islam could overcome the alleged Sunni/Shia divide.

Donald Trump’s visit at the Riyad Summit strengthened the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and preceeded the isolation of the Qatar and its Cheikh Tamim ben Hamad Al Thani, already isolated on the left side of the picture (Credit: Jonathan Ernst, Reuters)

 

The impact of Trump’s new approach

The shift from latent and indirect tensions to a regional consensus to isolate Qatar is not an isolated decision. At the end of May, the visit of President Trump to Riyadh officialised a change in the US relationship paradigm with the Gulf monarchies. Indeed, the Obama administration was characterized by (1) eroding US/Saudi special relationship, (2) American rapprochement with Iran and with Qatar, who hosts the Al-Udeid air base, the US largest base oversea and an operational hub for coalition strikes in Syria. Donald Trump has taken an opposite stance. His Middle-Eastern “Strategy” could be resumed in opposing Iran and, more broadly, countries advocating the role of Islam in the political sphere. Trump therefore re-initiated close relations with the Saudi Arabia/UAE/Egypt axis. Trump affirmed its unilateral support to Saudi Arabia and concluded a $110bn arm deal with that country.[14] Additionally, Trump firstly met the Russians before his election actually thanks to the UAE as intermediaries. As for El-Sisi, he was the first world leader to congratulate Trump on Twitter after his election. Thus, the shifting American approach towards the Gulf induced (1) a change in the balance of power favouring Qatar’s long-lasting opponents, and (2) the interest for the latter to mobilize the questionnable Sunni/Shia rhetoric when accusing Qatar of proximity with Iran, to align with Trump’s anti-Iran rhetoric.

Guillaume Beaud is a final-year French student reading for a BA in European Studies. His research areas include geopolitics of the Middle-East, Iran, radical Islam and European foreign policy.

Bibliography:

– France Culture: La Question du Qatar, Affaires Etrangères, Christine Ockrent. 10th June 2017: https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/affaires-etrangeres/la-question-du-qatar

– Lacroix, Stephane (2010), « Les Islamistes Saoudiens : une insurrection manquée », Presses Universitaires de France.

– Kazerouni, Alexandre (2017), Le miroir des cheikhs, musée et politique dans les principautés du golfe Persique, Presses Universitaires de France.

 

 

 

[1] Strife Feature | Sunni-Shia Conflicts: From A Trick To A Reality

[2] The so-called « South Pars/North Dome » gas field.

[3] Doug Bandow ‘United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia threaten US interests and Mideast Peace with attack on Qatar’, Forbes, 13th September 2017.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2017/09/13/united-arab-emirates-and-saudi-arabia-threaten-u-s-interests-and-mideast-peace-with-attack-on-qatar/#8e845aa6f60e

[4] Disputed islands respectively known as Abu Musa, the Greater Tunb and the Lesser Tunb, located close to the Ormuz strait.

[5] The Observatory of Economic Complexity, MIT.

[6] Onur Ant and Ghaith Shennib, ‘Saudis are after the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey is in the way’, Bloomberg Politics, 3rd July 2017.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-03/saudis-are-after-the-muslim-brotherhood-and-turkey-s-in-the-way

[7] Ashraf El-Sherif, ‘The Muslim Brotherhood and the Future of Political Islam in Egypt’, Carnegie, 21st October 2014 http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/10/21/muslim-brotherhood-and-future-of-political-islam-in-egypt-pub-56980

[8] Robert Baer, ‘Why Saudi Arabia is helping crush the Muslim Brotherhood’, New Republic, 27th August 2013 https://newrepublic.com/article/114468/why-saudi-arabia-helping-crush-muslim-brotherhood

[9] Kazerouni, Alexandre (2017), Le miroir des cheikhs, musée et politique dans les principautés du golfe Persique, Presses Universitaires de France.

[10] Max Fisher, ‘How the Saudi-Qatar Rivalry, now combusting, reshaped the Middle East’, The New York Times, 13th June 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/world/middleeast/how-the-saudi-qatar-rivalry-now-combusting-reshaped-the-middle-east.html

[11] Marc Cher-Leparrain, ‘The United Arab Emirates have it in for the Muslim Brotherhood’ Orient XXI, 17th February 2017, http://orientxxi.info/magazine/the-united-arab-emirates-have-it-in-for-the-muslim-brotherhood,1724

[12] Giorgio Cafiero, Daniel Wagner ‘How the Gulf Arab Rivalry tore Libya apart’, The National Interest, 11th December 2015. http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/how-the-gulf-arab-rivalry-tore-libya-apart-14580?page=show

[13] Ian Black ‘UAE’s boldness in Libya reveals new strains between west and its Arab allies’, The Guardian, 26th August 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/26/uae-boldness-libya-strains-with-west-arab-allies

[14] Rachel Revesz, ‘Donald Trump signs $110 billion arms deal with nation he accused of masterminding 9/11’, The Independant, 21st May 2017 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-arms-deal-saudi-arabia-110-billion-911-terrorism-international-law-war-crimes-a7747076.html

Image sources

Image 1: Saudi Press Agency via AP

Image 2: https://www.cfr.org/blog/what-trump-gets-right-about-middle-east

Strife Feature | Sunni-Shia Conflicts: From A Trick To A Reality

By Guillaume Beaud

Shia and Sunni worshippers join for a common pray in Kuwait, following the deadly terrorist attack at the Shia mosque in 2015 (credit: Fayçal Yasser, AA, Koweït)

Most Western observers analyse a vast majority of Middle-Eastern upheavals as a Sunni-Shia conflict. Increasingly mobilized since the King of Jordan Abdullah II warned about a “Shia Crescent” in 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. Syria, Yemen and the tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia quickly fell into the Sunni-Shia analytical grid.[1] Since 1979, and more increasingly since the Arab Spring, Middle-Eastern states and non-state actors have abundantly mobilized communitarian differences – through a top-down discourse – to pursue their rational political agenda. Therefore, despite the initial irrelevance of an essentialist Sunni-Shia divide, oppositions have progressively materialized on the ground and in the collective imaginary, morphing from a mean to an end into a “self-fulfilling prophecy”.

Essentialist Sunni-Shia theses are flawed

The death of Muhammad in AD 632 and the issue of his succession marked the theological split between Sunnis and Shias. Nonetheless, the following centuries reflected a low level of conflict between the two communities. There was a substantive mixture between Sunnis and Shias – especially within Iraqi tribes – in the Gulf region, thanks also to movements like the Sufi Brotherhood that built trans-Islamic bridges. Their relations were defined by pragmatism rather than theological ideals, and tensions existed between different schools of Sunnism. These developments made Sunni-Shia confessional differences irrelevant to such an extent that Al-Azhar theologians wondered whether the distinction should be kept and thought about incorporating the

These developments made Sunni-Shia confessional differences irrelevant to such an extent that Al-Azhar theologians wondered whether the distinction should be kept and thought about incorporating the Jafarit school of Shiism as the 5th school of Islam. In the early 1970s, it is important to recall the universalist, left-wing and trans-Islamist vocation of Iranian revolutionary discourses, embodied by the prevailing “Khomeiny-Arafat” rhetoric.

From the 16th century onwards, Sunni-Shia differences started to become instruments mobilized by increasingly centralistic political entities. [2] The Safavid Empire converted Iran to Shiism to oppose the Sunni Ottoman Empire – a political decision without religious roots. Similarly, seeking legitimacy in faith, Saudis made their fundamental pact with Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, father of Wahhabism in 1744. However, Iranian defeats against Russia in the early 19th century induced the idea amongst Iranian intellectuals that Islam engendered Iran’s backwardness. Shiism therefore ceased to be a strong marker of identity until 1979 and was substituted by the Persian/Arab dichotomy. Additionally, the fall of the Ottoman Empire induced ever-growing nationalistic differences across the Near-East, marginalizing Sunni-Shia differences. Moreover, the post-1945 decolonisation era showed the influence of emerging transnational ideologies: an Arab nationalism rooted in anti-imperialism and Marxism. While Baathist regimes embodied this left-wing and secular dimension, Iran under the Shah also demonstrated a strong secularism.

1979 – increasing politicisation of the Sunni-Shia divide

The Ayatollah Khomeini speaks to followers at Behesht Zahra Cemetery after his arrival in Tehran, Iran, ending 14 years of exile, Feb. 1 , 1979. Khomeini prayed for the victims of the Islamic struggle against the Shah of Iran. (AP Photo/FY)

However, the Iranian Revolution in 1979 marked a turning point through two parallel and correlated dynamics. The first was a discourse vacuum that was created following the weakening of Marxism and anti-imperialism, as Arab authoritarianism drew closer relations with the West. Also, pan-Arab mobilisation around the Palestinian question was diluted, as Egypt, Algeria, and Syria – facing internal political problems – were no longer active. The second consisted in a shifting rhetoric enacted by Ayatollah Khomeini, who established Iran’s theological-political system that embodied an expansionist ideal, and supported groups having Shia agendas in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Bahrain. Here, the Sunni-Shia divide was politically mobilized as an Iranian nationalist tool, filling the contextual discourse vacuum described above. In response, Sunni states filled the same vacuum, using Sunnism as an instrument of propaganda and mobilization against Iran.

The 1980-1988 Iran/Iraq war was the first conflict intensively mobilizing the Sunni-Shia divide as a state-led rhetorical tool, with Iran exploiting symbols such as Hussein’s martyrdom.[3] Yet, the Iran/Iraq war was predominantly a war of nationalism and not of religion. Indeed, (1) Saddam’s Baathist regime was a secular movement; (2) Iraqi Shias and Iranian Sunnis did not turn against their respective countries; and (3) during the war and the embargo, most Iranian networks went through Dubai to the Sunni-dominated United Arab Emirates. Rational and realpolitik assumptions dictated Iranian foreign policy and led Iran to build relations with Ghadafi’s Libya and the PLO against Israel. The Sunni-Shia rhetoric was an instrument mobilized by nation-states to legitimize their foreign policies. In fact, if Islam is pivotal since 1979, it is not through a Shia/Sunni conflict, but through two conflicting visions of Islam: political Islam –  then embodied by Iran – against the secular Islam of Baathist regimes.[4]

However, not only societies started to integrate this polarisation into their actions and identity affiliations, but also external actors did the same, either when (1) falling in the trap and analysing oppositions through a biased Sunni-Shia grid; or (2) consciously using this artificial dichotomy for specific political agendas. These dynamics ultimately induced Sunni and Shia doctrinal hardenings. it is the beginning of the self-fulfilling prophecy. The Sunni-Shia divide is not the starting point, it is the mean that tends to become the end.

Iraq since 2003: from American “debaathification” to ISIS

In Iraq, the self-fulfilling prophecy was tragically induced by the United States, falling into the trap of the Sunni-Shia divide. Indeed, American “debaathification” initiated in 2003 structured the Iraqi political system with communitarian affiliations. Shias were encouraged to take control of State institutions, progressively excluding Sunnis, seen as responsible for decades of authoritarian ostracism. Shia President Nouri al-Maliki used this confessional rhetoric to assert power.[5] Sunni frustrations led numerous former Baath officers to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and its strong anti-Shia agenda. Manipulated by propaganda, local and foreign actors, which now define themselves by their religious community, are victims of the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Syria: how Alawis suddenly became Shias

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency on 29 May 2014 showing supporters of President Bashar al-Assad in Latakia (AFP/SANA)

In Syria, the Alawi minority in power is defined as Shia by four actors: (1) Iran and the Hezbollah, to justify their long-lasting involvement in Syria; (2) the Syrian regime; (3) Sunni terrorist movements to boost their recruitment effort amongst Sunni communities; and (4) the international community. In the case of the latter, Western media naively fell into the trap of the Sunni-Shia analysis, while Western states, guilty for having formerly destabilized the region, blamed the so-called Sunni-Shia confrontation. In fact, the Alawis’ affiliation with Shiism – and even with Islam – has always been contested by both Shias and Sunnis, who see Alawism as sectarian and heterodox, adopting flexible religious practices including drinking alcohol, not fasting during Ramadan nor making the pilgrimage. However, Iran nowadays artificially defines Alawis as Shias to legitimize its military presence in Syria and hide its genuine motivations: keeping Assad in power to maintain its strategic depth in the Near-East and its effective supply to the Hezbollah. What originally was an Arab Spring emancipation-fight progressively transformed into a genuine Sunni-Shia religious conflict. In fact, Osama Bin Laden expected religious uprisings to emerge across the Arab World earlier; while the nature of the Arab Spring made him wrong, the self-fulfilling prophecy and the “return of the Sacred” tend to make his observations a posteriori right.

Yemen: a proxy war without religious root

The Saudi-led operation “Decisive Storm”attempts to hide Saudi Arabia’s hegemonic pretentions, through building a proxy war in Yemen through a Sunni-Shia rhetoric (credit: Fayed Nureldin, AFP)

The same process applies in Yemen. The Sunni-Shia divide is mobilized by both internal actors – Houthi rebels religiously affiliated as Zaydi, and terrorist groups, Al-Qaeda (AQAP), and ISIS – and external actors – Saudi Arabia and Iran. To the same extent as Alawism, Zaydism is distant from duodecimal Shiism, in fact being particularly close to Sunnism; Zaydis even pray in the same mosques as the Sunnis. Moreover, Zaydis’ first revolts date from 2004 to 2010, when Yemen was ruled by Ali Abdullah Saleh, Zaydi himself, who later joined Houthis in their fight to conquer Sanaa. Moreover, Zaydis’ first revolts date from 2004 to 2010, when Yemen was ruled by Ali Abdullah Saleh, Zaydi himself, who later joined Houthis in their fight to conquer SanaaThis political about-face demonstrates the irrelevance of the confessional grid. Indeed, initial upheavals reflected a minority who saw its geographical isolation in North Yemen’s mountains transforming into political and economic isolation. Nonetheless, actors developed an interest in mobilising the Sunni-Shia divide, through associating Zaydis to Shias. First, Saudi Arabia’s initiative to build a Sunni military coalition to fight Houthi rebels and exacerbate the Sunni-Shia rhetoric should be understood through two factors. The first is realpolitik: the will to assert its regional hegemony in deciding who rules its main neighbour, to access vital Red Sea shipping routes, in the context of collapsing oil prices and declining American support. The second factor is domestic policy: counter domestic contestation movements through criminalizing its Shia minority, denounced as Iran’s “5th column”, to gather the Sunni majority around the monarchy. Secondly, Iran uses the Sunni-Shia polarisation to increase its regional counterweight against Saudi Arabia, especially in countries with Shia minorities. Thirdly, Houthis benefit from Iran’s so-called “Shia solidarity” to gain military support and political legitimacy. Finally, as in Syria, terrorists benefit from the situation for recruitment purposes. Therefore, Saudi Arabia and Iran transformed the Yemeni civil war into a proxy war, through exploiting the Sunni-Shia divide. While Iran uses Yemen as a Trojan Horse, Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic links with Iran after executing the anti-government Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr in 2016. Once again, the self-prophecy materializes

A self-fulfilling prophecy

In the Middle East, most uprisings lie in economic and political contestation, and conflicts are based on national interests. Yet, the Iranian Revolution revived a tool hitherto set aside by common ideologies and secularism. To hide and pursue their political agenda, actors use the so-called Sunni-Shia divide as an instrument. This analytical grid is progressively accepted by (1) Middle-Eastern communities interiorizing pre-supposed “historical” religious identities; and (2) an international opinion victim of its own interests and of its tendency to analyse oppositions through simplistic confessional differences. The Arab Spring has amplified the states’ confessional rhetoric to counter the one of emancipation. Eventually, this Sunni-Shia polarisation has become a reality. Yet, mechanisms are purely political, in fact, closer to Cold War mechanisms than to those of an irreconcilable theological opposition.

Guillaume Beaud is a final-year French student reading for a BA in European Studies. His research areas include geopolitics of the Middle-East, Iran, radical Islam and European foreign policy.

Notes

[1] King Abdullah II, Interview at the Washington Post, 8th December 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43980-2004Dec7.html

[2] – Cvach, D. & Curmi, B. (2015) Sunnites et chiites: la fabrique d’un conflit, Esprit n°10.

[3] Third imam recognized by the Shias, Hussein’s death during the Karbala battle (680 AD) while fighting the Sunni Omayyad empire has a predominant Shia symbolic significance.

[4] This analytical grid will be largely addressed in the following article

[5] O’Driscoll, D. (2017) Authonomy impaired : Centralisation, Authoritarianism and the Failing Iraqi State, Ethnopolitics.

– The Sunni/Shia Divide, Council on Foreign Relations. Available on: http://www.cfr.org/peace-conflict-and-human-rights/sunni-shia-divide/p33176#!/?cid=otr-marketing_url-sunni_shia_infoguide

– Cvach, D. & Curmi, B. (2015) Sunnites et chiites: la fabrique d’un conflit, Esprit n°10.

– Minority Rights Group, Still Invisible, the stigmatisation of Shi’a and other religious minorities in Saudi Arabia, 3rd December 2015.

– O’Driscoll, D. (2017) Authonomy impaired : Centralisation, Authoritarianism and the Failing Iraqi State, Ethnopolitics.

Image sources

Image 2: Associated Press

Image 3: http://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/features/syrias-alawites-not-deserting-assad-yet-despite-crackdown-526622504

 

Strife Feature | Contemporary Russian foreign policy – Examining the Ukraine crisis

By William Moray

The 2014 Ukrainian Revolution – or Revolution of Dignity – and the subsequent Donbass War (Donbas, in Ukrainian) severely impacted the relations Russia held not only with Ukraine but also the international community. Moscow’s involvement in this conflict holds few secrets. Russian annexation of Crimea and its support provided to secessionist rebels in Donbas provinces has led the USA and its allies to impose a series of sanctions against Russia, in March 2014. Furthermore, the Western press often labels this as an ‘invasion’, which suggests the Kremlin is solely motivated by territorial expansionism. This article will argue that such limited views reflect a lack of understanding Russian politics. This article uses the Ukrainian crisis as a case-study – to examine key factors that arguably drive contemporary Russia’s foreign policy.

The role of ideology

Putin justified Russia’s annexation of or ‘reunification with’ Crimea on 18th of March 2014. Source: Creative Commons BY 4.0 license

According to mainstream Western media and politicians, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its intervention in Eastern Ukraine allegedly serve a renewed Russian nationalism. Such a claim is as easy as convenient. A referendum took place in Crimea on 16th March 2014, during which 96% of the participants voted in favour of a ‘reunification’ with Russia.[1] Subsequently, President Vladimir Putin gave a speech two days later, and the language used has been qualified as ‘legal rhetoric’[2] as it provides a perfect illustration of the multiple Russian national identity narratives. Vera Tolz argues that there are five definitions of the Russian nation: the Union identity, the Eastern Slav identity, the Russian language identity, the racial identity, and the civic identity.[3] Several of these key concepts can be found in Putin’s speech.

For instance, given that Crimea shares a lot with Russia, Putin emphasised the vote’s result as logical. Religious Orthodoxy allegedly provides a basis for ‘culture, civilisation and human values’ which are shared by Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. This claim alludes to the Eastern Slav identity concept, the ‘community of Eastern Slavs’,[4] that people from these three countries allegedly have in common. Putin also qualifies ‘Kiev [as] the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus is our common source and we cannot live without each other’.

Secondly, he describes Crimea as ‘blend of different peoples’ in the same way as Russia itself. This fits in well with the ’Union identity’ which emphasizes the multinational and multi-ethnic dimension of the country.[5] Richard Sakwa also suggests that the word ‘Rossiyanin’, one possible label of a Russian, designates a community of all nationalities living in the ‘Russian Federation and beyond’,[6] a reference to former Soviet states.

Another argument put forward relates to the threats faced by Russian minorities. Putin insists that the Russian community in Crimea became endangered following the Euromaidan Revolution, perpetrated by ‘nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites’. Consequently, it was the duty of Russia to defend this community, in accordance to the ‘Community of Russian speakers’.[7] The Russian diaspora constitutes ‘an inseparable part of the Russian nation’[8] and defending them is a moral obligation. Russians abroad can be designed as either ‘Russian-speakers’ (‘Russkoyazychnye’) or ‘compatriots’ (‘sootechestvenniki’).[9] Putin also uses this argument to threaten Ukraine, as he underlines that ‘Russia will always defend their interests [Russians living in Ukraine] using political, diplomatic and legal means.’ Therefore, Moscow’s support for the pro-Russian rebels was a matter of protecting fellow Russians.

Another element of Russian nationalism is present in Putin’s speech. He blamed the 1954 unification of Crimea with Ukraine as a ‘personal initiative’ made by the then head of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev. This gesture was made at the time to consolidate the union between Russia and Ukraine, on the 300th anniversary of their union. Although Sakwa adds another element, arguing that the Soviet Union’s ‘inside borders’ were administrative and thus held no political or ethnic logic.[10] Nonetheless, even at the time, ceding Crimea to Ukraine had been a source of controversy.[11]

These national identity narratives offer an explanation to Moscow’s policy in Crimea and subsequently, Eastern Ukraine. Based on these claims, Russia did not ‘annex’ any foreign territory. Rather, it merely allowed the ‘reunification’ of a region that historically has been part of the Russian empire since the late 1700s. However, this nationalistic rhetoric is insufficient to properly grasp the motives behind Russia’s foreign policy on this matter.

 The limits of the nationalist agenda

Providing support to the Rebels allows Russia to control any resolution of this ‘frozen conflict’ and prevents Ukraine from joining NATO. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Marlene Laruelle argues that the protection of Russian minorities argument is taken from a nationalistic concept – the ‘divided nation’.[12] However, the true influence of the nationalist ideology in shaping Russia’s foreign policy is profoundly debatable. For instance, Laruelle is adamant that far-right organisations ‘have never directly participated in decision-making processes on foreign policy’.[13] Consequently, the nationalist ideas were ‘a tool of Russia’s foreign policy, not its engine’.[14] Luke March similarly argues the Kremlin’s objective ‘is not the expression of nationalism per se, but its control and utilisation for regime goals’.[15] About Ukraine, Laruelle argues that the Kremlin’s actions were not ideology-motivated. Had ideology been an overarching factor, according to her, Russia would have annexed the secessionist provinces.[16] Instead, the rebels established the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR). These self-proclaimed entities, in the likes of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, or Transnistria, can be qualified as ‘de facto states’, as they possess all the classic attributes of a state whilst lacking international recognition. This process results in a given conflict either to remain frozen, as with the Abkhazian-Georgian example;[17] or to fester, such as in Ukraine. Russia is able to use this situation as a lever to maintain pressure against Kyiv. Therefore, the ‘Divided Nation’ narrative remains a justification used by Putin and will not be applied on all countries which include Russian minorities. For instance, Laruelle is adamant that Moscow will not intervene if states such as Kazakhstan, agree to its rules, i.e. stay under its influence.[18]

In other words, the Russian expansionism witnessed in Eastern Ukraine serves a very different purpose. The next part will demonstrate it is their will to be recognized as an equal partner by the West.

Equality as the ultimate objective

From Moscow’s perspective, NATO and EU enlargement, as well as the ‘Color Revolutions’, are tools used by Western powers to expand their interests in Russia’s sphere of influence, namely the Former Soviet Union (FSU), also known as the ‘Near Abroad’. Yevgeny Primakov – the then Minister of Foreign Affairs – qualified in 1997 the first post-Cold War wave of NATO expansion as ‘the biggest mistake in Europe since the end of World War II’.[19] Similarly, Margot Light states that NATO expansion is viewed after 2000 as ‘a fundamental threat’ to Russia.[20] Regarding Euromaidan, Putin was similarly convinced that it ‘was the result of a US-led operation’. This line of thinking was reinforced by the support provided to demonstrators in December 2013, by US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Senator John McCain during a visit to Kiev.[21] The rhetoric used by Russian officials serves the same purpose, to portray NATO as an aggressive alliance against which Russia legitimately needs to defend itself. For instance, Colonel General Nikolai Bordyuzha, the secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance between Russia and five other FSU states, recently accused NATO of wanting to transform the former Soviet space into ‘another Syria’.

The point here is that one could argue Russia genuinely believed it was ‘the victim, not the aggressor’, in regard to the Ukraine crisis, and that its intervention was an act of self-defence.[22] Laruelle takes a slightly different approach in suggesting that Putin’s objective was to punish Ukraine for two reasons. First, she argues that the new post-Revolution government in Kiev attempted to ally with the West and move away from Russia. Secondly, she claims that during the 2014 Revolution, Ukraine demonstrated poor governance and instability, as proven by the ‘Maidan’, which is defined here as demonstrations resulting in regime changes.[23] Laruelle’s theory is more convincing than the ‘victim, not aggressor’ stance as it also takes into consideration the fact that Russia views Ukraine as a part of the Near Abroad. Therefore, Russia is not just a victim, it also defends its status of great power. These two elements are not in opposition but need to be understood as two pieces of a larger picture – the actions Russia feels it must take in order to prevent a perceived Western infringement in the FSU, its traditional sphere of influence [24].

Russia sees this matter as a question of survival, which requires preserving – or rather re-establishing – its status of great power. Indeed, from Moscow’s perspective, the NATO/EU enlargement does not just pose a threat. It also proves the hypocrisy of the international order the West has been imposing since the end of the Cold War. Russia wishes to be considered as an equal, thus it defends an alternative international order. This disconnect between Western and Russian views of international order was underlined on 28 September 2015, when both the then American President Barack Obama and Putin gave speeches before the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. Obama insisted that ‘liberty’ and ‘democracy’ concepts should be the new pillars of international order.[25] Whereas Putin defended a rather conservative approach, as he insisted on the value of ‘equality’; he also criticised that ‘after the end of the Cold War […] a single centre of domination emerged in the world’.[26] Indeed, Putin has constantly accused the West of imperialist views. This reproach was evident after the wars in Kosovo, Iraq [27] and more recently Libya. The defence of ‘liberty’, according to this view, is merely an excuse to justify aggressive expansionism. By contrast, Russia’s alternative international order seeks to respect sovereignty, promote equality and consequently, to preserve international law.  Ironically, this approach to international order does not apply to Russia’s Near Abroad. Hence Ukraine is in Russia’s view as FSU states are its sphere of influence.

Conclusion

Based upon a nationalist-like rhetoric, Russia’s actions were however not necessarily ideologically-motivated, nor based on a desire to acquire territory. Instead, fear of NATO’s enlargement constituted a more important driving factor, and relatedly, the need to stop Ukraine from moving closer to the West, in order to protect its historical sphere of influence. Russia’s also hoped its Ukraine intervention would serve a greater strategic objective: to restore an equal status vis-a-vis the West.

William Moray is the BA representative for Strife Blog and he has just graduated in War Studies BA from King’s College London. He will read the Intelligence and International Security MA at King’s next September onwards. His research interests include intelligence and the history of intelligence, terrorism, nuclear proliferation and the relations between Russia and the West. You can follow him @WilliamMoray

Notes

[1] Putin, Vladimir, Speech on the annexation of Crimea (18 March 2014) http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20603 This speech is referred to several times in the first part of this essay

[2] Roy Allison ‘Russian “Deniable” Intervention in Ukraine: How and Why Russia Broke the Rules’, International Affairs, 90:6 (2014), pp. 1258

[3] Vera Tolz, ‘Forging the Nation: National Identity and Nation Building in Post-Communist Russia’, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 50, No. 6 (Sep. 1998), p. 995

[4] Ibid, p. 999

[5] Tolz, Forging the Nation, op. cit., p. 996

[6] Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, op. cit., p. 218

[7] Tolz, Forging the Nation, op. cit., p. 1000

[8] Ibid, p. 1001

[9] Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, op. cit., p.219

[10] Ibid, p.230

[11] Stephen White, Understanding Russian Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p.297

[12] Marlene Laruelle (2015) ‘Russia as a “Divided Nation,” from Compatriots to Crimea: A Contribution to the Discussion on Nationalism and Foreign Policy’, Problems of Post-Communism, 62:2, p. 88

[13] Ibid, p.89

[14] Ibid, p.90

[15] Luke March (2012) ‘Nationalism for Export? The Domestic and Foreign-Policy Implications of the New ‘Russian Idea’ ‘, Europe-Asia Studies, 64:3, 402

[16] Laruelle, Russia as a “Divided Nation”, op. cit., p.95

[17] Dov Lynch, ‘Separatist States and Post-Soviet Conflicts’, International Affairs, Vol. 78, No.4 (Oct. 2002), p. 834

[18] Laruelle, p.95

[19] White, Understanding Russian Politics, p. 284

[20] Margot Light, ‘In search of an identity: Russian foreign policy and the end of ideology’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 19:3, p.50

[21] Mikhail Zygar, All the Kremlin’s Men, (NY: Public Affairs, 2016), p. 263

[22] Zygar, All the Kremlin’s Men, p. 292

[23] Laruelle, Russia as a “Divided Nation”, op. cit., p.94

[24] Ruth Deyermond, ‘What are Russia’s real motivations in Ukraine? We need to understand them’ The Guardian, 27 April 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/27/russia-motivations-ukraine-crisis

[25] Remarks by President Obama to the United Nations General Assembly (28 September 2015) https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/28/remarks-president-obama-united-nations-general-assembly

[26] ‘Read Putin’s U.N. General Assembly Speech’, The Washington Post, (28 September 2015) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/28/read-putins-u-n-general-assembly-speech/?utm_term=.e3f0817a207a

[27] White, Understanding Russian Politics, p. 281

Strife Feature – Imagining War in Film: The Algerian War in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Winds of the Aures

By Uygar Baspehlivan

In Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925) or Michael Cimino’s Deer Hunter (1976) after the Vietnam War, the medium of cinema performed as an agent for shaping how war, conflict, and trauma were visualised and resonated in collective memory for years to come.

Cinema – with its potential for access, emotional resonance, and for creating visually-charged meaning – has been significant in the construction and dissemination of cultural ideas and identities and for the molding of specific, nationalized narratives of historical events in the last century.

During the presidencies of Charles de Gaulle in France (whose strict censorship policies meant the state had a monopoly in the representations of Algeria in France [1]) and Houari Boumédiène in Algeria (who, with the National Liberation Front –FLN-  owned and funded almost the entire Algerian movie industry in the 60s [2]), popular cinema functioned simultaneously as a medium of distraction from the post-independence realities both countries were facing, and as a form of nationalist propaganda. In France, this control of the movie industry served to promote a denialist narrative of the struggles and sufferings of the Algerians as well as the dangers faced by the French soldiers in the Algerian War. Similarly, in Algeria, movies of the so-called cinema moudjahid were instrumentalised as means to producing a new post-colonial mythology of the new Algerian nation. In the absence of a strong academic infrastructure or established national history, movies produced by the FLN that told the story of courageous Algerian guerrilla who emancipated the nation from colonial forces became the primary agents for constructing a national history and collective identity. In addition to being a part of FLN’s Islamic Socialist propaganda, these movies also acted as a distraction from problems of corruption, economic crisis and women’s rights that the newly-founded Algerian state was struggling with after its independence.

This article observes how the Algerian war and the colonial experience were perceived and constructed around a binary depicting the visual imaginaries of the colonised and the coloniser.

Umbrellas of Cherbourg

“Umbrellas of Cherbourg”, directed by Jacques Demy in 1967, is a cheerful and romantic musical that portrays the struggles of two young French lovers as Guy – the male protagonist- is drafted to fight in the Algerian war. The movie depicts the love triangle Genevieve (the female protagonist) finds herself in, undecided between waiting for her lover fighting in Algeria or choosing a rich and handsome Roland Cassard who can provide her and her mother with economic stability. As one of the first French movies that attempted to deal with the Algerian War after its independence, the fact that Algeria itself is not even shown in the movie but rather depicted as a distant and exotic place that became an inconvenience and a simple plot point in the love lives of two French lovers is arguably a testament to the reduced status of the war in the French national imagination. War, in post-war French memory, was relevant only to the extent of its effects on the lives of the French, completely disregarding the amount of mutual destruction inflicted during the war.

The Algerian philosopher Mostefa Lacheraf called cinema moudjahid “a pseudo-patriotic exploitation of war heroism…which diverted the people from the new realities”.[3]
The movie’s use of bright colours, fancy costumes and depiction of the domestic space as a place of comfort from the problems outside lent a false optimism and luxury that was contrasted with the unknown space of Algeria, where the main protagonist has to go to “serve his country.” Considering how post-war France was struggling with the influx of Algerian immigrants and refugees entering the country, the creation and representation of a safe, hygienic domestic space established an exclusionist logic where the streets of France are full of Algerian immigrants who are treated as the “outsider”.

Continuing the colonial tradition of representing Algeria without depicting Algerians, observed in earlier famous colonial films such as L’Atlantide (1921) or Le Grand Jeu (1935), the movie treats Algeria as an exotic yet dangerous landscape. The only shot of Algeria present in the movie is when Genevieve looks at a postcard sent by Guy where he is standing next to a Moorish archway.

The only shot of Algeria present in the movie is when Genevieve looks at a postcard sent by Guy where he is standing next to a Moorish archway.

In this representation, Algeria is merely a touristic landscape that is protected by the French soldier. Algerians or signs of Algerian life are non-existent. As Guy Austin interprets it aptly; “Algeria and its population are out of sight, through the empty arch, while the photo itself is framed by Genevieve’s letter written naturally enough in French. The war is framed by a French romance, and exists only insofar as it tells about French lovers; Algerians remain invisible – always off-screen.”[4]

The reduced status of the war becomes clearer when Genevieve reads a letter from Guy where he talks about how a patrol was ambushed by Algerians. However, immediately after this anecdote, he emphasises that there actually “is not much danger in Algeria”. The war isn’t important; it is a minor inconvenience that poses little threat to the protagonist’s life. As the audience, we know that he will survive. Not only the suffering of Algerians, but also the danger the French soldiers found themselves in during the war is disregarded and put aside in the movie.

Winds of the Aures

Winds of the Aures (1966), an Algerian movie directed by acclaimed director Mohamed Lakhdar Hamina which won the Palme d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival, on the other hand, paints a completely opposite picture of the Algerian war that catered towards an Algerian imagination. A war-time drama about the journey of a mother trying to find her son who was kidnapped by French colonial forces, the 90-minute showcase of Algerian suffering acts as a propaganda tool for FLN’s specific form of Islamic Socialist nationalism. As per FLN’s official policy of bringing about “the restoration of the sovereign, democratic and social Algerian state within the framework of Islamic principles[5]”, the movie’s depiction of how religion and collective Algerian activity worked jointly to bring an end to the century-old colonial rule is an endeavour in constructing a direct link between Islam and Collectivism. As the movie starts with the the adhan (the Islamic call to prayer) suppressed by sounds of conflict, symbolising how colonial domination subjugated the Algerian Islamic identity, it aspires to show how Islam and Algeria’s Islamic identity endured despite the efforts of the colonisers. Representing the Algerian villager as pious and devout, Hamina performs a normative identity making that connects the struggle to religion.

The first thirty minutes of the movie keep up with this collectivist narrative and is dedicated to the daily routines of Algerian peasants working in the village and bringing help to FLN fighters. While French cinema largely attempted to empty Algeria of Algerians, this film defied colonial narratives, showcases the daily lives of Algerian villagers working the soil, producing and consuming. It transformed the exotic landscape of French imagination into a territory filled with indigenous people. This representation of collective activity, playing into the FLN’s socialist Islamic identity, functions in creating a mythology of common collective struggle against colonialism.

Rather than a realistic representation of wartime rural Algeria, the movie’s narrative attempts to reproduce, in the words of Mani Sharpe, “a monolithic Algeria as a tabula rasa cleansed of cultural, social, economic, religious and gendered tensions that in reality characterised the post-colonial nation-state.

Unfortunately, Winds of the Aures can’t escape from the nationalist logic of inclusion and exclusion as it fails to reflect the historical reality of the Algerian war that was rife with internal strife and elite intervention.  Disregarding diversity, individuality, and locality in favour of a homogeneous representation of collective peasantry; Hamina uses cinema as an attempt to draw a unified national history. The movie, as it represents a collective struggle of emancipation against the French, therefore, appears to conform to Ella Shohat’s definition of third-world films as using “the expulsion of the colonial intruder” in a cinematic praxis of “national becoming”  This depiction of collective wartime heroism – similar to France – diverts attention away from the economic, political and social realities of post-independence Algeria. The glorification of the movie’s female protagonist, as she goes through hell to save his son, for instance, distracts from the fact that many women lost their privileged wartime status after independence and were forced to return to their Islamic domestic lives.

The emotional resonance of an audio-visual representation becomes a medium through which national and cultural ideas and stories are cultivated and disseminated.

The historical context in which the movie came out is also important, in that cinema is particularly receptive and representative of the cultural environment of its period. A year before the movie was distributed, in 1965, Colonel Boumédiène seized power following a coup d’état. His project entailed a rewriting of Algerian history to provide the country with a unitary national identity. Since there had not really been an Algerian national identity until the 1950s, the peoples living in Algeria found in Islam a central mark of their identity, as it was the element that united them all despite the local differences. Thus, he was able to affirm that Algerians were Muslims and Arabs, a claim that disregarded the wide variety of non-Arab tribes that had lived in Algeria for centuries. This dismissal of the country’s diversity is reflected in the movie itself, which constitutes an attempt to create a unitary, post-colonial national identity, rooted in Islam, in line with Boumédiène’s plan.

The analysis of these two movies reveals that the memory of trauma and conflict can be shaped by nationalist narratives. This constitution and disciplining of memory is primarily exercised by state-controlled or state-censored cinema serving specific narratives regarding the nature, subjects, and motives of the Algerian war. In the end, we observe how both representations of the conflict divert attention from the realities of post-war nation-building. This helps recognise the (re)productive power of visual media in framing and constituting meaning and identity.  The struggle for narrative eminence between Algerian and French filmmakers is a testament to the fact that artistic expression is yet another site for political struggles over power and identity.

Uygar Baspehlivan is a graduate of War Studies at King’s College London. He is about to commence his postgraduate studies in Theory and History of International Relations at the London School of Economics. His research interests include nationalism, critical theory, and film theory.

Notes:

[1] Guy Austin, “Trauma, Cinema and the Algerian War” New Readings 10 (2011), p.18-19

[2] Guy Austin, “Representing the Algerian War in Algerian Cinema: Le Vent Des Aures”, French Studies 61:2

[3] Cited in Guy Hennebelle, “Cinema Djidid”, in Algerian Cinema, p.28

[4] Guy Austin, “Representing the Algerian War in Algerian Cinema: Le Vent Des Aures”, French Studies 61:2

[5] Daho Djerbal, “The National Liberation Front (FLN) and Islam Concerning the Relationship between the political and religious in Contemporary Algeria” The Journal of Sophia Asian Studies No.25 (2007) p.1.

[6] Mani Sharpe, Gender and Space in Post-Colonial French and Algerian Cinema

[7] Mani Sharpe, Gender and Space in Post-Colonial French and Algerian Cinema

 

Strife Feature – Nationalism and Lessons from Russia

By Christopher Morton

In 2008 Russia invaded South Ossetia and in 2014 Russia invaded Crimea – both secessionist provinces of Georgia and Ukraine respectively. On the one hand, these interventions can be viewed as a justified defense of the rights of minority populations in these provinces. On the other hand, both interventions were deemed to be disproportionate acts of aggression towards sovereign states, in contravention of international law, reflecting a policy shift from cooperation with the international community to unilateral action in defiance of it. In this post, I shall consider the understandings that lay behind these actions: in particular, Russia’s shift from imitation of Western norms during the nineties, to increasingly strong opposition to these norms. Fanning this hostility towards the West was a nationalist consensus which was rehabilitated and consolidated under Putin, enhanced by NATO expansion which was deemed unacceptable by the Kremlin. Indeed, the events of 2008 and 2014 in part represented the failures of the West to make collective agreements, particularly on security, which could have allowed co-operation between Russia and the West rather than distrust to become the norm.[1] In the final part of this post, I shall consider some lessons that Britain can take from the development of nationalism in Russia as a stronger nationalist consensus emerges and the notion of British identity is reconstructed post-Brexit.

Levan Gabechava/Reuters/Landov. A column of Russian troops prepares to leave the checkpoint at a bridge over the Inguri River in Western Georgia, in October 2008, after securing the secession of Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia region. Russia went to war in Georgia over the breakaway province of South Ossetia in a move justified by an increasingly nationalist tone from the Kremlin.

Since his election in 1998, Putin has been able to build a political consensus around a single idea of the Russian nation by emphasising the notion of Russia’s messianic purpose[2] and rehabilitating the myths and symbolism of former glories.[3] By placing the idea of Russia as a great power at the centre of his politics, Putin at once appeased hardline nationalists and co-opted those disenchanted by the failures of the nineties and searching for a grander narrative in which to root their identity.  In this way, Putin won the support of the very people whose liberty he would curtail in pursuit of soglasie (stability) and a more managed form of democracy. This same rhetoric was also used to alienate opponents. With Russia now portrayed as defending traditional values against the West, opponents were criticised not only as being against Putin, but as being against Russia itself.

In 2005 Putin was still talking about Russia as “above all, a major European power”, progressing “together with European nations” and in 2006 he stressed the importance of relations with the United States and a willingness “to take new steps to expand the areas and framework of our cooperation”[4]. However, such comments seemed increasingly insincere. In 2006, Dimitri Trenin offered a typical assessment of Russia’s attitude towards America and its Western allies. Essentially, Trenin argued that Russia had stopped caring about how the West perceived its actions. This was confirmed, for example, by Russian cooperation with Iran in opposition to Western sanctions against its uranium enrichment.[5] Putin’s apathy towards Western judgment culminated in the invasion of South Ossetia and has become markedly more hostile since. In 2013, Putin described Western norms as “infertile and genderless” and as overseeing “a destruction of values from above”.[6] Similarly, in a speech after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Putin lambasted the West for their part in inciting and supporting first the Orange revolution of 2004 and then the Maidan protests which led to the overthrow of Ukraine’s Russian-leaning president Viktor Yanukovich.[7] If Russia of the nineties was content to show deference to the West, Russia’s aggressive foreign policy from 2008 confirmed what Putin’s rhetoric suggested: that Russia now identified itself as a leader of the opposition to the U.S-led unipolar world order.

The end of the end of history

It is easily forgotten that in the nineties, Fukuyama’s argument that a convergence towards Western norms was inevitable encapsulated the prevailing mood.[8] After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin, had been sympathetic to the so-called Western idea of liberal democracy. However, subservience to the Western model did not do the good that many had hoped. The economic plan implemented by Russia’s “young reformers” under the guiding hand of Western, neoliberal text books and the IMF, had catastrophic consequences for the lives of normal Russians, with poverty increasing from 2% in 1991 to over 40% of the population by 1998. Furthermore, the “privatisation at any costs” attitude of the Western capitalists and their Russian protégés allowed a business elite, now known as the “oligarchs”, to effectively steal national assets. Through the rigged “loans for shares” scheme, the Oligarchs were able to elevate themselves into the stratosphere of extreme wealth, while all around them, normal Russians struggled.

In the nineties, “shock therapy” privatisation led to wealth being concentrated amongst a group now known as the Oligarchs. President Boris Yeltsin has a meeting with CIS Executive Secretary Boris Berezovsky in the Kremlin. c:Getty Images

All this created a vacuum in which a new sense of Russian identity could be created. Russians had been told that they were no longer allowed to feel pride in the once great Soviet Union. Nor could Russia find any pride in the adoption of a Western model which seemed to have left their country’s interests side-lined as the oligarchs increased their control over an emasculated state. It was into this vacuum that Vladimir Putin stepped as a relatively unknown figure and Yeltsin’s chosen one. Putin saw an opportunity to give the Russian people something to believe in: a proud Russia with a privileged role in international politics; a Russia that would not accept Western hegemony; a Russia that would reclaim its role as a great power by setting out its own vision for the world, rather than passively accepting the religion of the “end of history”. This is what Alfred Evans called Russia’s “strategy for identity management of social creativity”, as opposed to the strategy of “social mobility” which had been pursued under Yeltsin, whereby the norms of nations perceived as having a higher “social status” were adopted, with the aspiration of joining that group.[9]

May’s Britain

We have much to learn from the gradual embrace of nationalism in Russia. Of course, Theresa May is not Putin and Britain is not Russia, the notion that Britain is slipping slowly into a nationalist mentality is unmistakable – the perils of which are illuminated by the Russian experience. As in Russia, the failings of a system which puts the ideology of profit and privatisation before people has left many disenchanted, alienated in their communities and struggling for something meaningful in which to root their identity. As with Russia, British history, whilst not short of glory, cannot be separated from the legacy of colonial oppression, not to mention more recent catastrophic escapades in the Middle East. However, there is a sense of loss at Britain not being able to wield the influence it once did. Finally, Brexit suggests that Britain, like Russia, is rehabilitating a sense of its own historic purpose independent from international hegemony. In place of building a collective identity with its European neighbours and embracing the notion of a deeper union, Britain has chosen to emphasise its own distinct identity, to which pooling of sovereignty is seen as a threat.

Theresa May has adopted an increasingly nationalist tone and has revelled in the perception of her being a difficult opponent for the EU

Even before a snap election was called, Theresa May had sought not to stimulate debate but to shut it down. In one incident, she accused Caroline Lucas “and some Labour MPs” of being “the first to defend our country’s enemies”. Such divisive nationalist rhetoric is not so far removed from Putin’s reference to opponents as “a disparate bunch of traitors”. Theresa May, the Conservative strategists and the right-wing press are now continuing along this line, repeating ad infinitum that Jeremy Corbyn hates Britain and that he sympathises with terrorists. This discourse creates a stark division between those who considered patriots and those more prone to critique the role played by Britain within the international community. In Brexit negotiations, Theresa May revels in her depiction as a “bloody difficult woman”, appealing to the notion of the EU as a threat, or at least an opponent. Just as Putin gains popularity from depicting Russia’s resistance to the West, so too is Theresa May emphasising her resistance of the EU rather than the need to maintain a sense of collective identity and shared interests, even post-Brexit. The result of this strategy is implicit in Angela Merkel’s recent declaration that Britain, along with the U.S, can no longer be relied upon as partners of the EU.

Like the Russians, British people have good reason to be searching for something meaningful in which to root their identity. In a bid to appease the UK Independence Part (UKIP) wing of her party and mobilise those communities left behind by globalisation, the Conservatives under Theresa May have intensified their use of chauvinistic, nationalist rhetoric, whereby anybody who valorises Britain’s national legacy and makes a sharp distinction between “us” and the unworthy “other” is part of the patriotic in-crowd. However, in constructing a new national identity post-Brexit, there are false dichotomies which need to be fervently resisted. Firstly, the populist dichotomy between “patriots” who love their country and traitors who are quick to condemn it:  it is possible to be critical of one’s country, its policies and its history without hating it or “supporting its enemies”. Indeed, critique is a necessary engine of progress. A second dichotomy, as described by Alfred Evans, is between the opposing strategies of “social creativity” and “social mobility”: of course we want to be bold and “creative” in the actions we choose, standing up for our beliefs and, where possible, taking the lead on matters of international importance. However, we also want to be socially mobile, joining groups which share our interests and our values and strengthening the links that facilitate a convergence of understandings and the formation of collective identities that transcend borders.

As MP Jo Cox put it before her brutal murder at the hands of a neo-Nazi extremist, “we have more in common than that which divides us”. By entering into relationships of cooperation and collective responsibility, rather than seeking to impose our will upon others, this is a truth that can be internalised. This is a model which the EU, with all of its flaws and imperfections, represents through its motto: “United in Diversity”.  As the UK leaves the EU, it is all the more pressing that we remember the value of this aspiration, rather than collapsing into egoistic and suspicious nationalism. The breakdown of shared understandings and collective responsibility between Russia and the West serves as a warning as to the dangers that lie ahead for Britain as jingoistic nationalism in political discourse becomes normalised.

Christopher is pursuing his MA in International Relations at King’s College London. Previously, he studied French and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham before working as a teacher in Paris and London.

Notes:

[1] Sauer: 88-89; Mearshimer: 79

[2] Kolst/Blakkisrud: p.277

[3] Laruelle: p.24

[4] Putin, 2005/2006

[5] Trenin: p.3

[6] Putin: 2013

[7] Putin: 2014

[8] 1989: 1

[9] Evans: 401

Bibliography

Trenin, Dimitri; Russia Leaves the West (2006)
http://www.risingpowersinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/trenin4.pdf

Evans, Alfred; Ideological Change Under Vladimir Putin in the Perspective of Social Identity Theory (2015)

Fukuyama, Francis; The End of History? (1989)

Kolsto, Pal and Blakkisrud Helge (2005), Nation Building and Common Values in Russia

Mearsheimer, J. (2014), Why the Ukranian Crisis is the West’s Fault: the Liberal Delusions that Provoked Putin

Vladimir Putin Addresses of the Russian Federation (on Crimea), March 18 2014 http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20603

Vladimir Putin’s Presidential address December 12, 2013
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/19825

Sauer, T.  (2017), The Origins of the Ukraine Crisis and the need for collective security between Russia and the West

Feature image credit: Wikimedia Commons