Author: Joe Gill
Affiliation: Independent Journalist
Organization/Publisher: Middle East Eye
Date/Place: April 2, 2021/UK
Type of Literature: Opinion
Word Count: 1749
Link: https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/collapse-middle-east-order-underway-new-generation-rising
Keywords: Colonial Regimes, Transition, Middle East
Brief:
Joe Gill discusses a recently published book on the Middle East entitled “The Middle East Crisis Factory” written by two activists, Iyad El-Baghdadi and Ahmed Gatnash. The main argument in this book is that the political systems in the Middle East are in the process of decline, and there is no hope for people trying to change the current political systems. The authors of the book believe that transition in the region might, like Europe, take decades, and such change will not be smooth and easy. El-Baghdadi and Gatnash reject the historical use of military intervention in the Middle East as well as the blanket use of sanctions because economic sanctions cause great suffering for ordinary people. Instead, they propose a more efficient approach; they believe there should be “smart sanctions,” targeting specific individual leaders’ assets. Another alternative to intervention is universal legislation to bring individual officials to court. Joe Gill argues that “The Middle East Crisis Factory” suggests that many insights such as colonization and occupation do not always come from outside, since dictatorships’ ways of dealing with their population are also a way of continuation of colonial regimes.
By: Fadi Zatari, CIGA Senior Research Associate
