CAIRO: Veteran British journalist and Oxford professor Timothy Garton Ash delivered an urgent call for cooperation between Europeans and Middle Easterners on Tuesday night at the American University in Cairo.
He sees the alienation of Muslims in Europe and the lack of interaction between the two regions as the major challenges facing this potentially beneficial partnership, a partnership embodied most recently in the Eurpoean Union’s EuroMed Neighborhood Policy.
Ash’s background as a scholar of European history distinguishes him from many media figures. Instead of the passing and inflammatory references to the Crusades heard from US President Bush and many others, Ash grounds his analysis in the long history of relations between European and Middle Eastern peoples. He also tends to bring events such as the 732 AD Battle of Poitiers into his analysis, rather than sticking to 20th century events, as many journalists do.
Ash called for a significant increase in cultural, economic, educational and political communication between the two regions.
“[We need] a whole network of relationships of different kinds across the Mediterranean, he said. “What will be the effect [of these connections]? I don’t know. Though overall he is optimistic about such interactions.
Ash started off by outlining the EU’s key interests in the Middle East: energy, trade, and stability in the countries bordering Europe.
He also discussed the Arab Human Development Report’s assertion that about a fourth of Arabs under the age of 25 want to immigrate to Europe.
“If young Arabs don’t see life chances at home, they’ll go to other places, he said. “We need young, energetic people, but a huge inflow is not good.
He went on to define the obstacles facing the development of EU-Middle East Partnerships. “We are doing a very bad job of making or enabling European Muslims to feel at home in the EU, he said.
Terrorism is the most extreme result of this alienation, but it can also result in xenophobia among all Europeans, and attitudes that are, according to Ash, “tearing our society apart.
Ash also thinks that many Europeans and Middle Easterners make incorrect assumptions about each other. “I sometimes think that the West is a myth of the East, he continued, bringing a new light to the post-colonial assertion that Middle Eastern states are a creation of the West.
“In this part of the world you’ll be told that the West has a plan to destroy this place. From inside [the West] there are a number of actors, most of whom aren’t capable of creating a good conspiracy.
Despite this assertion, Ash still received many questions from the audience about European-US-Israeli conspiracies.
Ash also acknowledged that the history of colonialism creates negative dynamics. “If you’re talking in a British or a French accent, you certainly know that, he said, in his carefully enunciated Oxford accent.
Ash went beyond criticism to offer a number of suggestions for further cooperation. He was careful to speak only of the world he knows, and advised only the European Union’s actions, avoiding speaking for Middle Eastern people or leaders.
First, he said, the EU must create a coherent, unified foreign policy, and simplify its overly bureaucratic policies and regulations. “Despite similar interests, states don’t think together, he said.
Secondly, he called for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and between Israelis and the greater Middle East. This peace, in Ash’s opinion, is key to improving global politics and should come in the form of “two viable, secure states.
Ash wants a “shared approach to encouraging change, including economic and political aid from Europe and exchanges between European and Middle Eastern scholars. “I’m extremely depressed at the number of Egyptian students in European countries, he said.
He believes that exchanges will remedy some of the misunderstandings that cause Muslim Arab alienation in Europe. “We’re in a very strange period in Europe, where secular atheists have overnight become experts in Islam, he said. “They are propagating an essentialist version of Islam which I think is wrong and extremely counterproductive.
Before returning to Oxford, Ash will stay at AUC for a couple of days to meet students and visit classes.
Ashis an award-winning journalist who writes for The Guardian, The Independent, and The New York Review of Books, among other publications. He is a professor of European history at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and a Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. His latest book, Free World: America, Europe, and the Surprising Future of the West, documents changes in world politics and their historical roots.
