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VOLUME 1 FALL 2019 ISSUE 1

T H E U N D E R G R A D U A T E J O U R N A L

O F M I D D L E E A S T S T U D I E S

طسو3ا قرشلا تاساردل ةيعما&ا ةلج"ا

A F K A R : T H E U N D E R G R A D U AT E J O U R N A L O F M I D D L E E A S T S T U D I E S

Volume 1 Fall 2019 Issue 1

Editor in Chief

ALEXANDER C. BURLIN, New York University Abu Dhabi

[email protected]

Managing Editor MOSTAFA KHALED EL SADEK, American University of Cairo

[email protected]

Editorial Board YASMIN ASHRAF ELSOUDA, SOAS University of London

YARA EL ZAATARI, Lebanese American University

RAKAN ABONEAAJ, Brown University VICKY PANOSSIAN, Lebanese American University

NADA AMMAGUI, New York University Abu Dhabi

ANTHONY GEMAYEL, Lebanese American University

GABRIELA JANIEC, SOAS University of London SALONI JAISWAL, University of Chicago JESSICA MOLINA, New York University Abu Dhabi MALAK ABDELKHALEK, American University of Cairo

Advisory Board

Dr. JUSTIN STEARNS, Arab Crossroads Studies, New York

University Abu Dhabi Dr. HANAN SABEA, Sociology, Egyptology and Anthropology, American University in Cairo Dr. SAI ENGLERT, Politics and International Studies, SOAS

University of London

VIVEK GUPTA, History of Art and Archaeology, SOAS

University of London

MYUNGIN SOHN, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Yale University RUSTIN ZARKAR, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New

York University XINYI WEI, Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University

About Afkar: The Undergraduate Journal of Middle East Studies is an international, peer-reviewed, and student-run academic journal focusing on the study of politics, history, culture, and society in the Middle East and North Africa.* The journal offers undergraduate students an interdisciplinary platform to publish original research and welcomes submissions from a wide range of fields within the humanities and social sciences, including history, political science, anthropology, sociology, literature, art history, religious studies, and geography. Afkar was created to encourage undergraduates to undertake primary research on the Middle East and North Africa and contribute to the growing body of literature in Middle East studies. It aims to connect undergraduate students from around the world and facilitate critical scholarly debate, discussion, and exchange between different universities and centers of study. Afkar is published biannually, with one fall and one spring issue.

Contact For general inquiries, please contact [email protected]. For submissions, please contact [email protected]. For more information, please visit our website https://afkarjournal.com/ or follow us on twitter: @afkarjournal. We are also available on Facebook.

Submission Guidelines Afkar welcomes three kinds of submissions: research articles, short essays, and book reviews. Authors should either 1) currently be enrolled in an undergraduate program, 2) submit a manuscript that was composed during the author’s undergraduate studies, or 3) submit a manuscript for which research was conducted during the author’s undergraduate studies. Afkar reviews submissions only with the understanding that these have not been published elsewhere. Submissions should be emailed to [email protected]. A full description of our submission guidelines is available online at https://afkarjournal.com/submission-guidelines/.

Disclaimer Afkar is an independent project and publication. The views expressed in this issue are solely the responsibility of the contributing authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial or advisory board.

Cover Image Reconstitution of Muhammad al-Idrisi’s (d. 1165) map Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi Ikhtiraq al-Afaq, made by German cartographer Konrad Miller (d. 1933) in 1929. The map was originally created by al-Idrisi for King Roger II of Sicily in 1154. The map is in the public domain, and available from Wikimedia Commons. *Afkar relies on a broad definition of “the Middle East and North Africa” that includes Iran, Turkey, the Caucasus, Sudan, and Mauritania. It also welcomes manuscripts related to Muslim Central and South Asia, as well as those discussing communities, politics, and histories that are closely interrelated with the aforementioned region(s).

Table of Contents

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS .......................................................................................... 1

MICHAEL KEEN. Terror in the Inner Niger Delta: Jihadism, Ethnic Conflict, and Virtuous

Violence in Central Mali ............................................................................................................ 3

CALLUM PRINTSMITH. Sino-Omani Relations in the Age of the Belt and Road Initiative:

A Win-Win Opportunity for the Sultanate? ............................................................................. 21

HAYA CHEMAITILLY. Sectarian Politics and Public Service Provision: The Case of

Electricité du Liban .................................................................................................................. 33

PIETRO MENGHINI. Nonviolence in Islam: Jawdat Saʿid and the Path of Adam’s First Son

.................................................................................................................................................. 49

Afkar: The Undergraduate Journal of Middle East Studies 1, no. 1 (Fall 2019): 1–2

Letter from the Editors

After almost a year of working on launching Afkar, we are proud to present our inaugural issue for Fall 2019. Below, you will find four articles that are all based on undergraduate research. Covering topics such as terrorism, governance, revolt, and development, these articles were chosen for the coherency of their argument, the quality of writing, and the originality of their research. With them, we hope to set a precedent for future issues and pave the way for increased publishing opportunities for undergraduate students working in the field of Middle East studies.

When we started conceptualizing Afkar last year, the goal was to encourage undergraduates to undertake primary research on the Middle East and North Africa and contribute to the growing body of literature in Middle East studies. During the initial meetings of the editorial board, we frequently discussed the lack of institutional support for undergraduate research and publication. As part of our undergraduate studies, many of us had been taught to read critically and write clearly. Few, however, had experienced their education as research-oriented; often times, written assignments were limited to analyses or syntheses of secondary sources. Although primary source analysis is arguably the most important skill for any academic, our collective sense was that archival research, fieldwork, and other forms of primary data collection are rarely emphasized. Moreover, when this work is carried out—as in the case of honor’s theses, for example—it is rarely taken seriously, with few to no existing publications that will feature undergraduate writing.

Much seems to indicate that support for undergraduate research is a particular issue in Middle East studies. While many other disciplines offer a range of undergraduate conferences, publications, and other institutional structures that support and push students to learn and

practice research, students in Middle East studies have few venues to build networks, workshop papers, and publish their writing. Initiatives such as the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Undergraduate Research Workshop and the formerly annual conference by the Georgetown University-Qatar Middle Eastern Studies Student Association (MESSA) are exceptions that prove the rule. Notably, opportunities for undergraduates are even more limited for students based in the Middle East region.

Following our review of thirty-five submissions for the inaugural issue, it is clear that undergraduate students in Middle East studies do show a keen interest in carrying out original research. From economics to anthropology, many try to use their undergraduate education to develop research skills and make original contributions to their field of studies. Nevertheless, the extent to which one is able to do so is largely dependent on institutional support. For many authors who submitted manuscripts for review, financial limitations and institutional restrictions on research had presented serious obstacles and sometimes meant that the quality of work was significantly impacted. For others, arguments and analyses could have been strengthened by fieldwork or access to archival data.

More support is necessary for undergraduate research in Middle East studies both in terms of conferences and workshops and grants and fellowships. While Afkar is primarily focused on tackling the issue of limited publishing opportunities, the journal also aims to support undergraduate research more broadly. In the future, we are aiming to publish a database on scholarships, grants, and other opportunities available to undergraduate students in Middle East studies. This would particularly help those who are based at universities that lack internal support systems for undergraduate

Letter from the Editors

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research. Moreover, we also aim to build a stronger network for students in Middle East studies and facilitate scholarly debate, discussion, and exchange between different universities and centers of study. Indeed, one of the most rewarding experiences of working on this project for the past year has been connecting students from all around the world to learn from each other about the challenges and opportunities that exist in different undergraduate programs.

Afkar will also allow undergraduate students in Middle East studies to familiarize themselves with the academic publishing process early on in their academic career. For many members of our editorial board, working on this issue was the first time conducting editorial work in an academic context, and the project has allowed all of us to learn more about the various steps involved in academic publishing, from review to copy-editing. We hope that this was also the case for those of you who submitted manuscripts to this issue, and will be for those who submit in the future. As a journal, we strive to not just give students an opportunity for publishing manuscripts, but also to receive feedback on academic writing and familiarize themselves with the process of academic publishing more broadly.

In line with our belief that knowledge production in Middle East studies tends to center scholarship produced in Europe and North America, Afkar has sought to work closely with universities and academics in the Middle East and North Africa to promote the inclusion of local research and facilitate growing scholarly networks in the region. More than two-thirds of our editorial board is comprised of students attending universities in the Middle East, and most members of our advisory board are either based in the region or alumni from regional universities. As our capacity continues to grow our goal is to further increase our support of local research, including by accepting non-English submissions.

In many ways, the first year of Afkar has been marked by a series of challenges. In preparing to launch our first issue we struggled with everything from the logistics of soliciting papers to transliteration and copy-editing. One of the main questions we have had to face is the nature of undergraduate research. What characterizes this type of research? What standards should it be held to? How can we best provide appropriate feedback for undergraduate submissions? These are all questions that we will continue to think of in the upcoming years, as we hope to develop a more refined strategy for reviewing, editing, and publishing undergraduate work.

Outweighing this year’s challenges, however, was the enthusiasm, motivation, and hard work that went into creating Afkar. Indeed, this journal is first and foremost a testimony to the existence of a strong will amongst both students and faculty to develop new platforms for undergraduate research and increase the available support for students in Middle East studies. Thus, before inviting you to explore the inaugural issue we would like to thank everyone involved in this project—including editors, advisors, and contributing authors—for the countless hours you have put into this project over the past months. If it were not for you, this issue would not have been possible.

Volume one of Afkar marks the beginning of what we hope will be a high-quality publication for undergraduate research in Middle East studies. We are already planning for the second issue, thrilled to see what will come out of this project in the future. But for now, we hope you enjoy the writing of our four inaugural authors: Michael Keen, Callum Printsmith, Haya Chemaitilly, and Pietro Menghini.

Alexander C. Burlin

Mostafa Khaled El Sadek


Terror in the Inner Niger Delta: Jihadism, Ethnic Conflict, and Virtuous

Violence in Central Mali

MICHAEL KEEN, Emory University Abstract In 2015, jihadist fighters affiliated with groups originating in northern Mali began to assert themselves in central Mali’s Mopti Region and have since carried out many armed attacks not just against the Malian state, but also against ethnic militias and civilians. This article explores how jihadist groups became new actors in preexisting conflicts over economic and political relations between different ethnic groups and state actors in central Mali. I argue that traditional theories of both terrorism and ethnic conflict are by themselves incapable of explaining the ongoing system of violence in Mopti Region. The events following 2015 are better understood in the context of the communal sharing and authority ranking relational models of virtuous violence theory. By highlighting the social consequences of violence, this theory can also be applied towards resolving the interlocking conflicts in Mopti Region. Finally, I discuss how the factors behind the success of jihadist groups in central Mali relate to those present in other conflict zones across Africa. Based on this comparison, I argue that the conflict in Mopti Region risks becoming a blueprint for jihadism and terrorism that is highly transferable to other conflict zones in the coming years. Keywords: Mali; Katibat Macina; Dan Na Ambassagou; jihadism; terrorism; virtuous violence theory; ethnic conflict Michael Keen is currently a Robert T. Jones Fellow at the University of St. Andrews studying in the Department of International Relations. He earned a dual bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern and South Asian studies and Arabic studies from Emory University in 2019. His upcoming book Azawad’s Facebook Warriors: The MNLA,

Social Media, and the Malian Civil War, 2012-2015 (New York: Peter Lang Publishers, 2020) examines the social media discourse of members and officials of the Tuareg-led separatist movement that staged an armed uprising against the Malian state in 2012.

Michael Keen

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On January 8 and 16, 2015, unidentified armed men attacked Malian military outposts and the village of Dioura near Ténenkou in the southwestern part of central Mali’s Mopti Region, killing a dozen soldiers. Media reports claimed that witnesses heard the attackers chanting “God is great” and “there is no god but God” in Arabic.1 More specifically, press accounts soon linked the attacks with a purported jihadist group called the Macina Liberation Front,2 ostensibly under the control of Hamadoun Kouffa.3 Kouffa was a preacher turned jihadist who had led the assault by jihadist groups against the city of Konna in Mopti Region in January 2013 during the Malian civil war. On July 18, 2015, a few months after the Dioura attacks, armed men from the pastoralist Peul community attacked the village of Mondoro more than 200 miles to the southeast. The village was inhabited by Dogon, an ethnic group whose members primarily cultivate land, and the attacks resulted in the death of six people.4 Although the events of January and July initially appeared to be unrelated—local officials dismissed the Mondoro attack as merely an “inevitable” confrontation between herders and farmers5—the violent jihadist campaign against the Malian state and cycles of intercommunal violence between herders and farmers have expanded and merged into a single system of violence in Mopti Region, and the death toll from these interlocking conflicts has grown to far outstrip that of the better-known conflict in northern Mali.

This article examines how jihadist groups became new actors in preexisting conflicts over economic and political relations between different ethnic groups and state actors in central Mali, all overlaid on a backdrop of ecological stresses induced by changes in rainfall patterns straining old norms of communal resource access and management. I argue that traditional theories of both terrorism and ethnic conflict are by themselves incapable of explaining the ongoing system of violence in Mopti Region. The events following 2015 are better understood in the context of the communal

sharing and authority ranking relational models of virtuous violence theory. By highlighting the social consequences of violence, this theory can also be applied towards resolving the interlocking conflicts in Mopti Region. Finally, I discuss how the factors behind the success of jihadist groups in central Mali relate to those present in other conflict zones across Africa. Based on this comparison, I argue that the conflict in Mopti Region risks becoming a blueprint for jihadism and terrorism that is highly transferable to other conflict zones in the coming years. The Inner Niger Delta: Geography, People, and History Central Mali’s peoples and history have been shaped by the unique geography of the area. The Niger River—which flows roughly southwest to northeast from its sources in the highlands of Guinea—dramatically turns in northeastern Mali, from there flowing roughly northwest to southeast until it empties into the Gulf of Guinea from Nigeria (see figure 1 below). Just south of this “Great Bend,” in central Mali, the river forms what is dubbed the “Inner Niger Delta”—hundreds of kilometers of alluvial floodplains, wetlands, and marshes. The level of the Niger River rises and falls each year in accordance with the rainy and dry seasons. The annual flooding of the wetlands means that the Inner Niger Delta is remarkably fertile and can support a great deal of production of both crops and of animals. In 2012, Mopti Region—the administrative division of Mali into which most of the Inner Delta falls—accounted for 40% of Mali’s rice production and 20% of its millet and sorghum production. 6 It was also the country’s leading region for livestock raising, despite comprising only 6% of Mali’s land area. Due to the major seasonal changes in the river’s water levels, the same land can be used or transited by both agriculturalists and herders at different times of the year. Typically, herders pasture their

Terror in the Inner Niger Delta

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animals on pastures outside the flood zone during the rainy season, but during the dry season they lead their herds to pastures within the flood zone, where their animals graze on a nutritious plant that grows underwater when the area is flooded during the rainy season. Access to these pastures and the right to move herds across the land to reach them is regulated not just by the laws of the Malian state but also by a set of customary laws dating back to the nineteenth century.8

Central Mali is populated by a large number of ethnicities. Members of ethnic groups are often identified with certain occupations; for example, Peuls (also referred to as Fulbe or Fulani) are known as pastoralists, Bozos are fishermen, and Songhai and Dogon are farmers.9 In practice, things are not quite so simple, and members of any given group may practice many different forms of economic activity. Nevertheless, the identification of ethnic groups with occupations is widespread and means that economic conflicts are sometimes

framed in ethnic terms, as will be discussed below. Today, the majority of the Inner Niger Delta’s people are Sunni Muslims, and, despite the formally secular nature of the modern Malian state, Islam is an important component of the identity of most residents of the Inner Delta.10 However, Islam is more important to some groups than others. Different communities converted to Islam at different points, and the region as a whole embraced Islam significantly later than other areas of West Africa.11 For example, Peuls in central Mali place the introduction of Islam to their community at the end of the seventeenth century, but some Peuls, as well as members of other ethnic groups such as the Bambara, remained non-Muslim for centuries longer.12 Even in the present, many members of certain ethnic groups, such as the Dogon—the single most numerous group in central Mali—are non-Muslim, holding on to traditional beliefs. In the early nineteenth century, after centuries of fragmented political authority, the Inner Niger Delta was unified by Seku

FIGURE 1. Map showing the location of Mopti Region in relation to the Niger River.7 Note: The

borders for Mopti Region are approximations, and only for illustrative purposes.

Michael Keen

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Amadu, a charismatic Peul Muslim religious leader with links to Sufi orders and the Sokoto Caliphate of northwestern Nigeria. Seku Amadu’s new state became known as the Macina Empire, and its ruling elite was dominated by Peuls. Under the Macina Empire, Islam thoroughly penetrated Peul society. The empire’s bureaucracy consisted entirely of ʿulamaʾ—Islamic clergy—and Islam guided the state’s ideology; for example, the empire’s administration, called the Diina, sponsored Qurʾanic schools and traveling preachers to spread Islam to the common people.13 In addition to firmly entrenching Islam amongst the inhabitants of the Inner Delta—especially among Peuls—the Macina Empire formalized and codified customs to manage resource access. Territories for rice cultivation and pasturing were defined, fishing rights were allocated, and regulations were set down to clarify who could access which pastures when, and via which routes. For example, specific Peul clans were granted the right to graze their cattle on delineated seasonal pastures and to charge access fees to those wishing to transit the land.14

Since Mali gained independence in 1960, the Malian state has persistently sought to restructure the traditional systems of resource access and play a larger role in regulating land use and arbitrating disputes, with mixed success.15 State-sponsored interventions, especially in the form of land ownership reforms, have consistently favored cultivated agriculture and those who practice it—mainly Bambara, Songhai, and Dogon—over pastoralism and pastoralists.16 Decade by decade, the state has clawed for itself an ever-larger role as an arbiter in conflicts over land use at the expense of traditional authorities.17 Despite these efforts, the Malian state does not have a major on-the-ground presence in rural areas of the Inner Delta, and the provision of services such as infrastructure, health care, and education is nonexistent in many areas. A lack of state presence, especially in terms of rural access to the central justice system, means that the state has not been able to

eradicate customary systems regulating resource access. By many rural residents of central Mali the state is seen as distant, abstract, and—due to the corruption and overbearing attitude of state officials deployed to the area—predatory and threatening.18 At the same time, the state’s expansion has undermined traditional authorities, and, as a result, most non-state systems are not fully functional. Many traditional leaders of ethnic communities have also moved to towns and cities in the region, leading members of their communities in rural areas, especially the youth, to question their authority, thus further weakening traditional systems.19 As a result, state authority and traditional customs maintain an uneasy coexistence in central Mali. In addition to political pressures, the systems regulating resource access in central Mali have increasingly been stressed by environmental factors. In one way, these systems have always been subject to changes in the environment. During years in which the Niger River’s flood has been small—such as during the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s—herders have sought to move their animals to formerly submerged pastures earlier in the year in order to arrive before other herders. This has led to conflict both between different groups of herders and between herders and farmers, as earlier transit of animals over cultivated land is more likely to interfere with the harvest and damage crops.20 Over the last few years, however, climate change has led to drastic changes in rainfall patterns in the region, severely impacting traditional systems of resource access. According to a local climatologist, some parts of Mopti Region today receive only half as much rain as they did during the 1960s, putting enormous pressures on the livelihoods of many local people and groups.21 In particular, drought reduces soil productivity, leading cultivators to attempt to make up the deficit by expanding onto new land—including land formerly used as pasture—again leading to farmer-herder conflicts.22 Especially since


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2015, conflict has broken out over access to water and land, and, due to the identification of ethnic groups in the area with an economic occupation, this conflict has been cast in ethnic terms.23 Violence in Mopti Region: Origins and Actors The MNLA, Ansar al-Din, and MUJAO

The current violence in central Mali has its immediate roots in the Malian civil war, which formally lasted from 2012 to 2015. The war began in January 2012 with a rebellion in Mali’s three northern regions (Timbuktu, Gao, and Kidal)24 led by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a secular, mainly Tuareg25 group seeking the independence of northern Mali. The MNLA was joined in its rebellion by Ansar al-Din (“Partisans of Religion”), a group with an Islamist ideology and possible links to al-Qaʿida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).26 By April 2012, the two had defeated the Malian military in the north, and the MNLA declared the independence of northern Mali as Azawad.27 In June 2012, however, the MNLA and Ansar al-Din had a major falling out over the formal role of Islam in Azawad, and fighting erupted between them. Following the separation from the MNLA, Ansar al-Din became more explicitly committed to an AQIM-inspired jihadist ideology and the implementation of AQIM’s interpretation of Islamic law in the territories under its control. As part of this process, Ansar al-Din was also joined by new jihadist groups, most notably the Movement for Jihad and Tawhid in West Africa (MUJAO).28 Together, these jihadist groups decisively defeated the MNLA and seized military control of most of the north. The civil war, however, was not just contained to the North but spread into central Mali as well. In 2012, the MNLA had occupied the northern part of Mopti Region before being replaced by the Ansar al-Din-MUJAO alliance. Most of northern Mali and part of Mopti Region remained under jihadist

control throughout the remainder of 2012 as the Malian government was occupied by an ongoing military coup and the international community dithered about mounting a response. Initially, neither the MNLA nor the Ansar al-Din-MUJAO alliance succeeded in establishing a presence outside the main towns of the northern Mopti Region, despite attempting to recruit locals into their ranks.29 In January 2013, however, the alliance attacked the city of Konna in Mopti Region, breaking through the Malian army’s front lines and threatening to push further south, possibly even to the capital, Bamako. Faced with the prospect of AQIM-linked groups seizing control over all of Mali, France intervened militarily with Operation Serval, which swiftly repelled the jihadists and pushed the war back into the north. Although the period of war in central Mali was relatively brief, it would have a significant impact on the region in the subsequent years. As previously discussed, the Malian state presence in central Mali was always tenuous at best, especially in rural regions. The fighting in 2012 and 2013 caused many government officials to flee their posts for the relative safety of the city of Mopti or areas further south, and many of them have neither returned nor been replaced.30 The loss of these officials has crippled state presence in much of Mopti Region, and unsurprisingly left the state even less capable of mediating conflicts over resource access in central Mali. At the same time, as discussed above, the state’s historical expansion into the area had come at the expense of local systems of governance, and it was not always possible to simply fall back on traditional systems when state officials left in 2012-2013. Thus, by the end of 2013, a critical power vacuum had emerged in much of rural central Mali. Katibat Macina, JNIM, and Dan Na

Ambassagou

While central Mali saw a period of low violence following the French intervention in January 2013, the power vacuum created by the withdrawal of the state during the civil

Michael Keen

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war was eventually taken advantage of by newly formed local jihadist groups. In January 2015, these groups—whose identities were initially somewhat unclear—mounted their first attacks against Malian soldiers in central Mali. Many more attacks soon followed targeting not just Malian security forces but also other state officials, state institutions (such as schools), and local community leaders who opposed the jihadists. The Malian press quickly labeled Hamadoun Kouffa, a locally known Peul preacher with alleged ties to the leadership of Ansar al-Din, as the leader of the jihadists.31 While the media portrayed these jihadists as operating under a new group called the Macina Liberation Front (MLF), the nature of this organization was, and has remained, extremely unclear (no evidence existed of a political or military command structure, and the group never claimed responsibility for local attacks or produced videos or other media content).32 Instead, in May 2016, an official communication appeared by a group which referred to itself not as the MLF but as Katibat Macina, again led by Hamadoun Kouffa. The group claimed to be part of Ansar al-Din.33 In March 2017, Kouffa himself appeared in a video announcing the creation of a new jihadist umbrella group in Mali, Jamaʿat Nusrat al-Islam wa-l-Muslimin (JNIM; “The Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims”), which subsequently pledged allegiance to al-Qaʿida’s central command and was officially recognized as al-Qaʿida’s Malian affiliate.

While Katibat Macina, along with several groups operating primarily in northern Mali, is supposedly an official part of JNIM, little suggests that the group has been formally integrated into either al-Qaʿida’s or JNIM’s command structure.34 Aside from the extent to which Katibat Macina is centrally controlled and integrated vertically into JNIM and al-Qaʿida, certain characteristics of the group are known. As the name suggests, the group is dominated by Peuls, most of whom have been recruited from rural areas of Mopti Region and had low social standing. Much of the group’s

rhetoric is built around the need to “return” to the era of the Macina Empire, and Kouffa has frequently praised the Macina system, framing it as a golden age for local Peuls characterized by a just system of resource access.35 Indeed, the group is highly critical of the status quo in central Mali, which they perceive as disadvantaging most Peuls. It heavily criticizes the Malian state and its ally France for imposing foreign norms and morals on the Muslims of the Inner Delta. In this context, it also attempts to provide basic services—including a justice and education system—in many areas of the rural Mopti Region where the state has no presence or has been driven out by Katibat Macina’s attacks.36 Moreover, the group is also critical of parts of the Peul community. For one, it rhetorically attacks Peul elites for having sold out their people and frames itself as a means for people to liberate themselves from unjust social hierarchies.37 As fighting between Katibat Macina and Malian security forces continued through 2015 and 2016, a third set of violent actors soon entered the scene: non-Islamic ethnic militias. Many of these ethnic militias emerged from the primarily agricultural Dogon community, which, while not an absolute majority, is the largest single ethnic community in Mopti Region. While some of the Dogon are Muslim, most have maintained traditional beliefs, and these groups did not frame themselves as “jihadists” or “Islamic fighters.” Instead, most Dogon self-defense groups were initially formed by Dozos—traditional Dogon hunting societies38—as anti-jihadist responses to localized conflict eruptions. With time these groups got more organized, and in late 2016, a number of them merged to form a new group, named Dan Na Ambassagou (“Hunters Who Trust in God”).39 Dan Na Ambassagou reportedly has a military-style command structure with ranks and units and commands hundreds of fighters throughout Dogon areas.40 With Dogon militias entering the political and military arena, violence in Mopti Region became more explicitly embedded in ethnic


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tensions. Because, as mentioned above, most jihadists are recruited from the Peul community, the anti-jihadist stance of Dan Na Ambassagou and its likes has often been cast in ethnic terms, as Dogons versus Peuls. Nevertheless, ethnic tensions do not just arise due to the Peul involvement in jihadist movements. In addition to maintaining security and defending their communities from jihadist attacks, Dan Na Ambassagou and other Dogon militias have also been motivated by economic concerns, responding to increasing tensions regarding resource access, especially in terms of land usage. In this context, they have framed their operations in terms of mobilizing agriculturalists against pastoralists and have mainly targeted Peul villages and civilians. While similar forms of economic and ethnic motives for violence in central Mali can be traced to the 1980s,41 earlier instances of fighting took place at far lower levels. Following the Malian civil war, the rise of jihadist movements, and the growing impact of climate change on resource access, the spread and intensity of ethnic violence have escalated drastically.

The relationship between the Dogon militias and the Malian state is somewhat more complex. Malian government leaders have consistently called for the dissolution and disarmament of the Dogon militias, especially after the latter was found to have committed atrocities against civilians. In March 2019, Dan Na Ambassagou was formally banned after it was accused of killing more than 125 Peul civilians in the village of Ogossagou.42 Prior to the Ogossagou massacre—which raised such national and international furor that it led to the resignation of the government of Malian prime minister Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga—the Dogon militias, and especially Dan Na Ambassagou, had clashed with Malian security forces in several instances over the course of 2018, albeit with far fewer casualties. Nevertheless, despite its official stance against Dan Na Ambassagou, the government has yet to take serious action against the group.43 In fact, strong evidence

exists of links between the Malian military and the Dogon militias, and many civilians in Mopti Region have accused the state of providing military weapons to the Dogon militias.44 At a minimum, elements within the Malian military see the Dogon militias as useful in securing areas of central Mali where the state has no presence (despite the Dogon militias’ less-than-stellar record in actually fighting jihadists). The leader of Dan Na Ambassagou has even publicly stated his men have worked alongside the Malian military in just such a role.45 However, the formal policy of the Malian government remains the disarmament and demobilization of the Dogon militias, and the two sets of actors have different goals. In this way, Katibat Macina, Dogon militias, and Malian security forces are all actors in a single mutually reinforcing system of violence in central Mali, in which each group has fought with the other two.46

Applying Theories of Terrorism and Ethnic Conflict to Central Mali In international media and scholarship, violence in the central Mali region has often been framed as either “terrorism” or “ethnic conflict.” There are many reasons why this terminology is appropriate. Although there is no universally accepted definition of terrorism, many common definitions understand terrorism as violence intended to intimidate or coerce civilian populations.47 When this definition is applied, all three sets of violent actors in central Mali can be said to have engaged in terrorism. Indeed, the brunt of the fighting in Mopti Region has been borne by civilians, and civilian deaths in Mopti Region have come to far outstrip casualties from fighting in other areas of the country.48 This reality is a shared responsibility, and members of each of the three main sets of actors involved in the conflict have been accused by international rights groups of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.49 Similarly, there is certainly an ethnic component to this

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violence, evident in the rhetoric of both Katibat Macina and the Dogon militias. Nevertheless, violence in Mopti Region is more complex than this. Due to the belief on the part of Dogon militias and state security forces that Peuls automatically support jihadist groups and the identification of ethnic groups with economic occupations, it is no longer possible to effectively separate violence motivated by differing interpretations of Islam (i.e. jihadism), violence motivated by ethnicity, and violence motivated by competition for resources. In this context, traditional theories of terrorism and ethnic violence have largely been unable to completely explain events in Mopti Region. In the case of terrorism, most established theories seek to explain terrorist violence in one of two ways. First, some theories paint terrorism as a product of underlying psychological conditions. As Walter Laqueur, a proponent of the psychological conditions model, wrote, “all terrorists… suffer from some form of delusion and persecution mania.”50 Alternatively, other theories frame terrorism as a strategic choice, a tool in the service of political goals. Shibley Telhami, one advocate for the strategic choice model, argues that terrorists are not psychologically abnormal but that groups adopt terrorism “as a method to serve their ends,” ends that are typically political in nature.51 Nevertheless, both of these paradigms run into problems when applied to the context of central Mali. One such problem arises in analyzing Katibat Macina and similar jihadist groups. While little empirical data on individual members of jihadist groups in central Mali exist, the extant data—mainly consisting of interviews conducted by NGO researchers with youths formerly involved with jihadist groups, some of whom were in government custody at the time of the interview—does not indicate any sort of systematic psychological abnormalities or predilections on the part of central Malian jihadist recruits.52 It is similarly difficult to ascribe Katibat Macina fighters’ use of terrorist strategies in central

Mali to clear-cut political goals. First, it is uncertain whether or not Katibat Macina actually exists as a unified group rather than a loose collection of fighters, as there is no evidence of a clear military or political command structure.53 Second, even assuming Katibat Macina is a unified group and is responsible for most or all attacks in Mopti Region attributed to jihadists, the group does not publicly claim responsibility for its attacks, nor does it release videos or other media, undermining the idea that it seeks to leverage its attacks for political goals.54 Third, and most importantly, when former members of central Malian jihadist groups—including those who left voluntarily and those who were captured by security forces—were interviewed by a team of Malian and European researchers working for an NGO, they overwhelmingly claimed that they joined these groups primarily to protect themselves and their families and secondarily to increase their social standing in their communities.55 While Katibat Macina’s purportedly has an overarching political goal, namely the establishment of an Islamic state in Mali and the application of the group’s interpretation of Islamic law in daily life, this does not appear to have influenced recruits.56 Thus, in the case of Katibat Macina, the strategic choice approach must be complemented by a more expansive theory.

Similarly, neither the psychological conditions model nor the strategic choice approach can comprehensively account for terrorist acts committed by fighters from the Malian state and the Dogon militias. First, the high number of participants makes it unlikely that perpetrators of terrorist actions from either of these two sets of actors suffer from psychological conditions such as delusion and mania. Second, it is unlikely that attacks against civilians carried out by the Malian state is part of the government’s political strategy. Malian military authorities have repeatedly condemned atrocities against civilians in central Mali, and taken measures against members of its own security forces when these have been


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suspected of perpetrating such atrocities.57 Any attempt to apply the strategic choice approach to the attacks against civilians thus inevitably relies on retroactively divining from security forces’ terrorist actions goals that Malian military and Malian state officials at all levels themselves deny. The strategic choice approach is perhaps best applied to the Dogon militias, as their attacks against Peul civilians appear to be part of an explicit strategy to achieve their goals of “protecting Dogons against potential jihadist attacks.”58 The Dogon militias seem to view Peul civilians as potential jihadist supporters and believe that terrorism can coerce the Peul civilian population into abandoning their support of the jihadist groups. Terror against civilians could arguably also be used to intimidate and deter Peul pastoralists from using Dogon lands. Nevertheless, as we will see below, there are other dimensions to these acts of terrorism that can only be understood outside the strategic choice approach. Traditional theories of ethnic violence are similarly incapable of alone explaining the system of violence in Mopti Region. These theories typically incorporate three sets of causes.59 The first sees ethnic violence as instrumental and claims that people participate in ethnic violence because they believe it is in their personal interest to do so.60 The second views ethnic violence as fundamentally emotional, suggesting that ethnic violence is driven primarily by emotional impulses and emotional antipathy towards another ethnic group.61 Finally, the third set of causes for ethnic violence found in the literature, albeit somewhat less frequently, is obligation—people perpetrate ethnic violence because they believe their social ties oblige them to do so.62 To some extent, the combination of instrumental, emotional, and obligatory motives traditionally explored in theories on ethnic violence can account for violence perpetrated by the Dogon militias and jihadist groups. Nevertheless, by definitionally focusing on ethnicity as a cause for violence they do not adequately account for other factors in

informing public motivations on all sides of the violence, such as the importance of promoting or combating religious ideologies. Neither do these theories capture the importance of economic struggles over resource access. Finally, theories of ethnic conflict are completely unable to explain acts of violence committed by the Malian state. As discussed above, Malian security forces operating in central Mali are not organized along ethnic lines or dominated by any ethnic group from the area. Virtuous Violence and Central Mali Since traditional theories of terrorism and ethnic violence are unable to fully explain what motivates perpetrators of violence in central Mali at the group and individual level, a broader theory of violence is needed. Here, virtuous violence theory, articulated by Alan Fiske and Tage Shakti Rai, offers a number of useful lenses through which to examine violence in central Mali. Fiske and Rai argue that perpetrators of violence overwhelmingly believe their actions are morally justified and engage in violence to advance four types of universal social relationships or relational models, which they call communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing.63 Of these, this article will focus on communal sharing and authority ranking.64 Communal sharing derives from the idea of group unity, which, as Fiske and Rai put it, “is directed toward caring for and supporting the integrity of in-groups through a sense of collective responsibility and common fate.”65 More pointedly, for those “motivated by [communal sharing] unity, violence is morally praiseworthy if the victim is perceived as a potential threat or contaminant to the in-group.”66 Authority ranking, for its part, is motivated by hierarchy, “creating and maintaining linear ranking in social groups.”67 Violence motivated by authority ranking is deemed morally acceptable if it is directed against those who are a threat to what the perpetrator sees as the ideal hierarchy in social

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relationships. The principle holds for hierarchies composed of both individuals and groups. In addition to the relational models, Fiske and Rai propose six constitutive phases, referring to the ways in which each relational model “generate[s], shape[s], and preserve[s] the social relationships a person needs.”68 The six constitutive phases are: creation, “violence that is intended to form new relationships”; modulation, which change “the nature of an existing relationship in a way that does not create a fundamentally new relationship”; protection, violence deployed to protect the perpetrator and the perpetrator’s relationship partners; redress and rectification, violence designed to restore a relationship to its ideal state by punishing a transgressor; termination, violence intended to forever end a relationship; and mourning, violence “in response to the loss of an important relationship.”69 Each of these constitutive phases can be motivated by and contribute to any of the four relational models. All three of the main sets of perpetrators of violence in central Mali have acted in accordance with both the communal sharing and authority ranking relational models. For example, former members of Katibat Macina who spoke with members of an NGO stress that they joined the group primarily because they sought to protect their communities as the state cannot or will not do so. As one former member put it, “since the state left, we have had to protect ourselves as best we can.”70 The decision of these recruits to join Katibat Macina is an explicit fulfillment of the protection constitutive phase and an implicit fulfillment of the redress and rectification constitutive phase of the communal sharing relational model. By joining a group dedicated to violence, the recruits preemptively demonstrate their willingness to participate in violence to defend members of their in-group—their local community (protection). Moreover, because Katibat Macina is not a strictly defensive group but also carries out offensive operations against its perceived opponents, recruits who ostensibly join to

protect their communities also implicitly signal their willingness to carry out offensive operations against their communities’ enemies in response to perceived threats (redress and rectification). In line with the theory proposed by Fiske and Rai, both constitutive phases strengthen the unity of the in-group.

Authority ranking motivations behind Katibat Macina are somewhat more subtle, but they exist in multiple forms. At the individual level, some former members said they were motivated to join the group by the prospect of group membership helping them rise within their communities.71 For these recruits, joining Katibat Macina fulfills the modulation and potentially creation constitutive phases of the authority ranking relational model. By committing themselves to perpetrate violence against third parties, they seek to modulate their hierarchical relationships with other members of their community and potentially create new social hierarchies in which they benefit from their status as specialists in violence. At the group level, Hamadoun Kouffa, the purported leader of Katibat Macina, has rhetorically attacked Peul elites in Mopti Region for their corruption,72 and his group has targeted many traditional Peul leaders who refuse to pay taxes to jihadist groups.73 Attacks on traditional Peul leaders fulfill the redress and rectification constitutive mode of the authority ranking relational model, as the group perpetrates violence to punish those who have transgressed against the group’s ideal hierarchy by refusing to pay taxes. The punishments are designed to restore the hierarchy and warn other would-be transgressors. At the community level, Katibat Macina has attacked local agriculturalist communities, especially the Dogon, in tandem with its attacks against state forces and institutions. Combined, these attacks serve to challenge through violence the Malian state’s longtime preference for cultivators over herders, expressed through land policy, in favor of a more egalitarian or even opposing hierarchical relationship between cultivators and herder


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communities.74 These attacks thus constitute the modulation constitutive phase of authority ranking because Katibat Macina uses violence to challenge the farmer-herder hierarchy. While Katibat Macina justifies its actions through the language of Islam and jihad, the group operates according to multiple logics. In this context, Fiske and Rai’s relational models offer a complementary understanding of the group’s everyday operations. Dogon militias, and especially Dan Na Ambassagou, also perpetrate violence in accordance with the communal sharing and authority ranking relational models. Both Dan Na Ambassagou and the militias that preceded it (and continue to exist in parallel) were explicitly founded as a community self-defense group intended to repel jihadist attacks.75 Individuals who joined Dan Na Ambassagou under these auspices thus sought to fulfill the protection constitutive phase of the communal sharing relational model, signaling their intent to perpetrate violence to protect members of their in-group. At the communal level, Dan Na Ambassagou has attacked Peul villages and civilians outside the areas under the effective control of jihadist groups. These attacks constitute the redress and rectification and protection phases of communal sharing. By killing Peul civilians, Dan Na Ambassagou militiamen punish third parties for attacks on the militiamen’s in-group (redress and rectification) and eliminate perceived potential threats to the in-group (protection). At the same time, these attacks also fulfill the redress and rectification phase of authority ranking by punishing Peuls for challenging traditional herder-farmer hierarchies in central Mali. Dan Na Ambassagou has also frequently engaged in armed confrontations with the Malian state, even if the levels of violence accompanying these confrontations have thus far been significantly lower than those associated with Dan Na Ambassagou’s attacks on civilians.76 These confrontations fulfill the modulation constitutive phase of authority ranking as Dan Na Ambassagou seeks to challenge the Malian government’s

imposed hierarchy placing Malian security forces above Dan Na Ambassagou as legitimate purveyors of violence in central Mali. Finally, Malian security forces have also perpetrated violence in central Mali to further the relational models of communal sharing and authority ranking. For instance, in May 2018, Malian security forces summarily executed 12 civilians at a weekly cattle market in the village of Boulkessy after a Malian soldier was killed in an attack nearby.77 The killing of civilians in Boulkessy is an example of violence used to fulfill the redress and rectification and protection constitutive phases of the communal sharing relational model, the community, in this case, being the Malian military. By killing nearby civilians and falsely accusing them of having been terrorists,78 the Malian soldiers sought to avenge their comrades (redress and rectification), eliminate potential threats to the in-group (protection), and induce those outside the in-group to desist in attacking members of the in-group (protection), thus demonstrating their commitment to the in-group’s unity. The Boulkessy massacre was not an isolated incident, and international rights groups have documented a pattern of violent reprisals by the Malian military against local civilians.79 In this context, Fiske and Rai’s theory can be used to cast light on some of the motivations behind the soldiers’ actions. Moreover, this theory can also be applied to the confrontations between the Malian state and Dan Na Ambassagou. In attacking the Dogon militia, the military seeks to punish it for its transgressions against a perceived hierarchical agreement between the two groups that Dan Na Ambassagou would operate only in areas where the army was not.80 Moreover, the Malian military seeks to restore the honor of its in-group by demonstrating that it is capable of maintaining security in areas under its control without assistance. In this way, the confrontations with Dan Na Ambassagou fulfill the redress and rectification constitutive phase of both the

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authority ranking and communal sharing model. Conclusion This article has argued that violence in central Mali is being perpetrated by three primary sets of actors: jihadist groups, especially Katibat Macina; Malian state security force; and ethnic militias, especially the Dogon militia Dan Na Ambassagou. By targeting civilians, all three sets of actors have committed acts of terrorism. An analysis of the central Malian conflicts shows that violence is fueled by a wide range of factors, including disputes over the role of Islam, ethnic tensions between Peuls and Dogons, economic conflict over resource access, tension between state and traditional authority, and changing rainfall patterns due to climate change. More importantly, this article has argued that these actors and factors cannot be viewed separately from one another. What is occurring in central Mali cannot be broken down into distinct sub-conflicts pitting just two of the actors against each other, nor can it be reduced to insulated models of terrorism or ethnic conflict. Instead, traditional theories of both terrorism and ethnic conflict are best complemented by a more expansive theory of violence—such as Fiske and Rai’s theory of virtuous violence. By showing how violence is informed by a wide range of logics—including supporting the integrity of the in-group, and maintaining the in-group’s linear ranking—Fiske and Rai allow us to see central Mali as a complex social and political space in which acts of terrorism are not just rooted in ethnic hatred, political strategizing, or psychological disorder.

Understanding the system of violence in central Mali through virtuous violence theory also offers insight into potential paths to reducing the current levels of violence and ultimately ending the interlocking conflicts. Over the course of the past three years, the Malian government and various ethnic militias have formally agreed to unilateral

and multilateral ceasefires and disarmament schemes.81 All such schemes, however, have quickly broken down. Although some Malian public figures—especially Salafi-oriented religious leaders such as Mahmoud Dicko, former leader of the High Islamic Council of Mali—support negotiating with Hamadoun Kouffa and Katibat Macina over an end to violence in exchange for an adjustment to the role of Islam in public life in Mali, no such negotiations have formally occurred.82 The Malian state, community peacebuilders, civil society groups representing ethnic militias, and international donors and human rights groups all agree in principle that lasting peace can only be achieved in central Mali if Malian security forces can guarantee security to all elements of the populace impartially and if the Malian state expands its presence on the ground to provide services to the population.83 However, in their current form, Malian security forces are firmly contributing to the system of violence in central Mali rather than playing a role in ending it—one rights group’s investigation concluded that the Malian military summarily executed more than 100 civilians and tortured dozens of others in 2018 alone.84 This comes despite extensive sums of money and time being spent on training for the Malian military focused on respecting the rights of the populace. In the short- and medium-term, the Malian state simply lacks the resources to dramatically expand services in central Mali, and it is unlikely that it will be able to single-handedly ensure peace in the region. Where other efforts have failed, however, virtuous violence theory offers a subtly different approach towards reducing levels of violence in central Mali. As Fiske and Rai note, violence only continues to be seen as morally acceptable when it actually enhances the perpetrator’s social relationships through any of the relational models—violent practices formerly seen as morally acceptable “[disappear] as soon as the consequences of violence bec[o]me maladaptive.”85 According to this line of reasoning, violence in central Mali should


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theoretically cease if violent actions have a negative impact on the perpetrator’s social relationships. The impact of violence on the perpetrator’s social relationships is most easily adjustable on the side of the Malian security forces because the Malian state is already formally committed to ending the violence, providing security impartially, and respecting human rights. The Malian state has even paid lip service to the need to end the culture of impunity in its armed forces. However, thus far punishments inflicted by the state on soldiers found or alleged to have committed violent rights abuses have not extended beyond simply redeploying offending units to other parts of the country.86 As such, these punishments have not succeeded in making violence on the part of the security forces maladaptive. Nevertheless, security reforms dedicated to rendering violence maladaptive for the social relationships of perpetrators—starting with harsher, more transparent punishments for transgressors but focusing on forming negative perceptions of transgressors among those in communal sharing and authority ranking relationships with them—may succeed where attempts to simply educate soldiers on the importance of human rights have failed. Reducing the adaptivity of violence for perpetrators in jihadist groups and ethnic militias is more difficult. As Fiske and Rai suggest, changes in cultural views in these communities must come from within the communities themselves. However, in some places, local activists—and especially women—have spurred local community reconciliations. For example, in the small town of Macina,87 following an eruption of violence between the local Peul and Bambara communities, local women organized first community dialogue and then a formal reconciliation celebration featuring cultural activities shared by both groups. The event, which successfully ended the outbreak of violence in the area, also shamed authority figures in the community who could have done more to stop the violence but did not.88 In short, these local peacebuilders have been

trying to make violence negatively impact the perpetrator’s social relationships and to socially reward non-violent options, and, in the case of the Macina women, also furthering the communal sharing relational model through non-violent means. However, while these grassroots peace efforts have met with some successes, they remain largely unconnected from each other and from state support.89 At the moment, it is not immediately clear what can be done to support the efforts of such local activists, and the topic requires further research. Nevertheless, virtuous violence theory indicates this approach is likely to be productive if more support is given. Virtuous violence theory is not just relevant in the case of central Mali but can cast light on many of the ongoing violent conflicts in the broader African context. Worryingly for counterterrorism efforts, the underlying conditions that have allowed Katibat Macina to persist and grow—preexisting ethnic and economic conflict, low levels of state presence, and Islam as a strong local identity marker—are present in many other regions throughout Africa. For example, in Plateau State of central Nigeria, at least 4,000 people have been killed since 2001 in violence that has largely pitted Peul and Hausa Muslim herders against Christian farmers from other ethnic groups.90 As in central Mali, the Nigerian conflict features a mix of ethnic conflict and conflict over access to resources, and changing rainfall patterns have exacerbated economic pressures. Until now, the conflict in Plateau State has not been framed in jihadist terms, and the Nigerian military has not become a primary perpetrator of violence against civilians as the Malian military has. However, the example of central Mali shows that jihadist ideology can graft itself onto existing conflicts, and the Nigerian military has a history of perpetrating violence against civilians in other areas of the country. The conflict in Plateau State is not alone in sharing parallels with that of central Mali; the Central African Republic and Mozambique are also home to conflicts with similar

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characteristics. Local factors will determine whether or not conflicts in states such as Nigeria, CAR, and Mozambique are eventually framed in terms of jihad, but the underlying elements for escalating violence along central Malian lines are present. Violence, moreover, is not just a social and political question, but also an environmental one. Across the continent, increasing climate pressures will induce greater tensions between different communities over resource access, raising the potential for violence to assume ethnic and jihadist dimensions. The potential proliferation of conflicts similar in

1 “Attaques de Tenenkou: L’ombre de Hammadoun Koufa avec un Mouvement de Libération de Macina plane,” Le Républicain, January 23, 2015, http://malijet.com/a_la_une_du_mali/121613-attaques_de_tenenkou_l_ombre_de_hammadoun.html. 2 In this article, I use the term “jihadist” solely as a label in accordance with the term’s overwhelming occurrence in Malian discourse and the Malian media. An analysis of the nuances of the deeper concept of jihad in the Malian context and how groups operating in Mopti Region engage with the concept is beyond the scope of this article. 3 A note on names: different spellings of many Malian personal and place names appear in various scholarly and media sources. For example, the jihadist leader Hamadoun Kouffa’s first name appears as Hamadoun, Hamadou, and Amadou, while his second name is variously rendered as Koufa and Kouffa, among others. In this article, in my own writing, I strive to consistently use the name that appears to be most commonly used, and I include French accents and diacritical marks where applicable. However, I do not make any attempt to standardize names in quotations and citations. 4 “Mali: violents affrontements communautaires au centre du pays,” Radio France Internationale, July 20, 2015, http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20150720-mali-violents-affrontements-communautaires-centre-pays. 5 “Mali: six morts dans des violences entre Peuls et Dogons,” Jeune Afrique, July 20, 2015, https://www.jeuneafrique.com/247833/societe/mali-six-morts-violences-entre-peuls-dogons/. 6 Central Mali: An Uprising in the Making? (Belgium: International Crisis Group 2016), https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/west-africa/mali/central-mali-uprising-making. 7 Map derived from “Map of the River Niger,” Wikipedia Commons, available from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Niger_river_map.svg (accessed October 5, 2019).

nature to the system of violence present in central Mali underscores the importance of understanding and resolving this situation. When confronted with a system of violence involving jihadism, ethnic conflict, state actors, and economic tension traditional theories of terrorism and ethnic violence encounter severe limitations. Only a broader theory of violence, such as virtuous violence theory, can be applied to the conflict holistically. Perhaps most importantly, such theories hold the key for conflict resolution in the years to come, both in central Mali and elsewhere.

8 Matthew D. Turner, “The Micropolitics of Common Property Management on the Maasina Floodplains of Central Mali,” Canadian Journal of African Studies

40, no. 1 (January 2006): 47–48, https://doi.org/10.1080/00083968.2006.10751335. 9 Anca-Elena Urcu, Under the Gun: Resource

Conflicts and Embattled Traditional Authorities in

Central Mali (Clingendael: Netherlands Institute of International Relations 2018), 10, https://reliefweb.int/report/mali/under-gun-resource-conflicts-and-embattled-traditional-authorities-central-mali. 10 Ibid., 92. 11 Timothy Insoll, “The Archaeology of Islamisation in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Comparative Study,” in Islamisation: Comparative Perspectives from History, ed. Andrew C. S. Peacock (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 260. While the Inner Niger Delta was incorporated into major West African empires such as the Malian Empire, the rulers of which converted to Islam in the early 14th century CE, it is unclear to what extent Islam spread to the common people during this period rather than remaining a religion of the elite. 12 Despite their relatively recent conversion, Peuls today place Islam at the very center of Peul identity: they believe the ancestor of all Peuls was a Companion of the Prophet who married a Malinké woman. See Mirjam De Bruijn and Han van Dijk, Arid

Ways: Cultural Understandings of Insecurity in Fulbe

Society, Central Mali (Amsterdam: Thela Publishers, 1995), 51. 13 Ibid., 53–54. 14 Ibid., 54. 15 While the systems of resource access laid out by the Diina of the Macina Empire have been repeatedly contested over the past two centuries, these systems continue to influence norms for communal resource access in the rural Inner Delta to this day. See Turner, “The Micropolitics of Common Property Management,” 48 and De Bruijn and van Dijk, Arid

Ways, 92–93.


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16 This favoritism originated with the political ideology of the Malian government under President Modibo Keita (1960-1968), which viewed cultivated agriculture as the key to economic development, but has generally continued under subsequent regimes. For more information, see Charles Grémont, “Villages and Crossroads: Changing Territorialities Among the Tuareg of northern Mali,” in Saharan Frontiers:

Space and Mobility in Northwest Africa, ed. James McDougall (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012), 137–138. 17 De Bruijn and van Dijk, Arid Ways, 489. 18 An analyst who had recently spent time in Central Mali told the author that among Malian government officials, Central Mali is seen as a place to get rich, i.e.

through corruption, rather than provide services. See De Bruijn and van Dijk, Arid Ways, 465. 19 Interview conducted by the author with an analyst employed by an NGO based in the United States who had recently spent time conducting research in Central Mali, July 2018. 20 Turner, “The Micropolitics of Common Property Management,” 53–54. 21 Sebastien Malo, “In Rain-Short Mali, Villagers Enlist Irrigation to Ward Off Extremism,” Thomson

Reuters Foundation News, October 29, 2018, http://news.trust.org/item/20181029065819-is8ps/. 22 De Bruijn and van Dijk, Arid Ways, 93. 23 Urcu, Under the Gun, 23–24. 24 Taoudenit and Ménaka, formerly administrative subdivisions of the Timbuktu and Gao regions respectively, have subsequently been promoted in status to full regions, bringing the total of northern regions to five. 25 Tuaregs constitute a transnational ethnic group spanning Mali, Niger, and Algeria. In Mali, Tuaregs are concentrated in the North, although some also live in the Center. Traditionally nomadic pastoralists, Tuaregs have long had a contentious relationship with the Malian state; Tuareg-led rebellions have occurred in northern Mali in 1963, 1990, 2006, and 2012. 26 The precise nature of the links between Ansar al-Din and AQIM and between the MNLA and Ansar al-Din during the first half of 2012 are highly contested. 27 Although Azawad was originally a geographic term—referring to a valley spanning the Mali-Niger border—since the 1970s it has been linked to the Tuareg nationalist movement as a name for a would-be Tuareg nation-state. 28 A full discussion of the jihadist groups operating in northern Mali during the MNLA’s uprising and the complex, ever-changing relations between them is outside the scope of this article. However, Ansar al-Din and MUJAO were both front groups for AQIM, although Ansar al-Din was through its leadership tied much more closely into elite Tuareg religious and political circles in Kidal Region, while MUJAO developed extremely close links with predominantly Arab drug traffickers, especially in Gao Region. Both

Ansar al-Din and a successor group to MUJAO ultimately formally pledged loyalty to AQIM. 29 Central Mali: An Uprising in the Making?, 7. 30 Ibid. 31 “Attaques de Tenenkou: L’ombre de Hammadoun Koufa avec un Mouvement de Libération de Macina plane,” Le Républicain, January 23, 2015, http://malijet.com/a_la_une_du_mali/121613-attaques_de_tenenkou_l_ombre_de_hammadoun.html. 32 Central Mali: An Uprising in the Making?, 11. 33 Aurélien Tobie, “Central Mali: Violence, Local Perspectives, and Diverging Narratives,” SIPRI Insights on Peace and Security Series No. 2007/5, 7, https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2018-02/sipriinsight_1713_mali_3_eng.pdf. 34 Katibat Macina and Ansar al-Din were each announced separately as becoming parts of JNIM, leaving Katibat Macina’s previous reported status as a division of Ansar al-Din unclear. 35 See Central Mali: An Uprising in the Making?, 12, and Tobie, 11. In positioning itself to appeal uniquely to a specific group—in this case, Peuls—Katibat Macina followed in the footsteps of many AQIM-linked groups present in the Sahara and Sahel more broadly. Indeed, rather than claim to control a single unified group, AQIM and central al-Qaʿida leadership encouraged the proliferation of ostensibly independent groups that tailored their rhetoric and messages to specific audiences. This was done for three reasons. First, al-Qaʿida leadership was simply logistically incapable of exerting direct control over many of its lieutenants in the Sahara and Sahel, and rivalries existed between different commanders. Thus, commanders could not be prevented from acting independently, at least occasionally, and separating them formally helped minimize intra-organizational rivalries. Second, AQIM leadership cautioned its lieutenants and supporters in the Sahel against showing their power too openly, lest they provoke international retaliation. Because the small groups were not officially pledged to al-Qaʿida, they were thought to attract less undesirable attention. Third, al-Qaʿida leadership believed that a number of smaller, specifically tailored groups could, combined, recruit more effectively than a single umbrella group. All of these beliefs were re-evaluated following the takeover of northern Mali by AQIM-linked groups and subsequent international intervention, leading to the formation of JNIM as an umbrella group. Although the ideology of the group is framed around a “return” to the Macina system, both Katibat Macina and JNIM support a form of Islam quite different than that practiced in the Macina Empire. The group thus presents a return to an idealized ahistorical condition of Islam as the solution to both perceived injustice within the Peul community and repression of the Peul community by the Malian state. 36 Ibid., 15. 37 Tobie, “Central Mali,” 14.

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38 Dozos are secret societies of hunters with their own initiation and ritual practices. They are not only drawn from the Dogon but rather from a number of ethnic groups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Cote D’Ivoire. However, in Central Mali, Dozos are perceived as belonging to the Dogon community, and a full analysis of the Dozos is outside the scope of this article. 39 “Mali: deux nouveaux groupes d’autodéfense voient le jour dans le centre,” Radio France

Internationale, May 24, 2018, http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20180524-mali-deux-nouveaux-groupes-autodefense-voient-le-jour-le-centre. 40 “We Used to Be Brothers”: Self-Defense Group

Abuses in Central Mali (Washington D.C.: Human Rights Watch, 2018), https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/12/07/we-used-be-brothers/self-defense-group-abuses-central-mali#. 41 Turner, “The Micropolitics of Common Property Management,” 53. 42 “Mali Bans Hunting Society After Attack Kills 130 Fulani,” BBC News, March 24, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47687682. 43 Moribafing Camara, “Centre du Mali : FAMA et Dan Na Ambassagou s’affrontent de nouveau,” L’Indicateur de Renouveau, November 22, 2018, http://bamada.net/centre-du-mali-fama-et-dan-na-ambassagou-saffrontent-de-nouveau. 44 Urcu, Under the Gun, 26. 45 “‘Le risque d’une balkanisation du territoire malien est réel’,” Le Monde, June 11, 2019, https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2019/06/11/le-risque-d-une-balkanisation-du-territoire-malien-est-reel_5474782_3212.html. 46 The rise of Dogon militias has in turn spurred the creation of non-jihadist Peul self-defense militias. However, these Peul militias have had a smaller impact on the system of violence in Central Mali than the jihadist groups, the Dogon militias, and the Malian state, and they are not discussed in detail in this paper. 47 One definition of terrorism that frames it in such terms is the oldest extant definition of terrorism encoded in US federal law, which appears in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. 48Rupert Colville, “Press Briefing Notes on Nicaragua, Mali, and Kashmir,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, July 17, 2018, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23383&LangID=E. 49 Dans le centre du Mali, les populations prises au

piège du terrorisme et du contre-terrorisme (Paris: International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), 2018), 11, https://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/fidh_centre_du_mali_les_populations_prises_au_pie_ge_du_terrorisme_et_contre_terrorisme.pdf. 50 Quoted in Arie W. Kruglanski and Shira Fishman, “The Psychology of Terrorism: ‘Syndrome’ Versus ‘Tool’ Perspectives,” Terrorism and Political

Violence 18, no. 2 (2006): 195, https://doi.org/10.1080/09546550600570119. 51 Shibley Telhami, The Stakes: America in the Middle

East: The Consequences of Power and the Choice for

Peace (Boulder: Westview Press, 2002), 16. 52 Lori-Anne Théroux-Bénoni et al., “Mali’s Young ‘Jihadists’: Fuelled by Faith or Circumstance?,” Institute for Security Studies Policy Brief Series 89, August 2016, 3–6, https://issafrica.org/research/policy-brief/malis-young-jihadists-fuelled-by-faith-or-circumstance. 53 Central Mali: An Uprising in the Making?, 11. 54 Ibid. 55 Théroux-Bénoni et al., “Mali’s Young ‘Jihadists’,” 2–5. 56 In one way, the strategic choice approach to understanding terrorism, which holds that groups employ terrorism as a tool to achieve specific ends—usually, but not exclusively, understood to be political in nature—cannot be dismissed entirely in the Central Malian case. That members of Katibat Macina engage in acts that fall under the definition of terrorism because they believe doing so will advance their goals in general cannot be doubted, but the same motivation can be applied to practically any human behavior. 57 Dans le centre du Mali. 58 “Milice d’auto-défense: après les Peulhs, les Dogons créent leur mouvement,” Studio Tamani, June 1, 2018, https://www.studiotamani.org/index.php/themes/politique/15836-milice-d-auto-defense-apres-les-peulhs-les-dogons-creent-leur-mouvement. 59 Matthew Lange, “Emotional Prejudice and Ethnic Obligations: Motives of Ethnic Violence,” in Killing

Others: A Natural History of Ethnic Violence, ed. Matthew Lange (Cornell University Press, 2017), 123. 60 Ibid., 124. 61 Ibid., 125–126. 62 Ibid., 134–136. 63 Alan Page Fiske and Tage Shakti Rai, Virtuous

Violence: Hurting and Killing to Create, Sustain, End,

and Honor Social Relationships (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 17. 64 Available data is insufficient to determine to what extent, if any, the equality matching and market pricing relational models are also present as motivations behind violence in Central Mali. 65 Fiske and Rai, Virtuous Violence,18. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid., 22. 69 Ibid., 21–22. While all the constitutive phases can be, and usually are performed non-violently, virtuous violence theory is, of course, interested in their performance through violence. 70 Quoted in Théroux-Benoni et al., “Mali’s Young ‘Jihadists’,” 5. 71 Ibid., 2. 72 Central Mali: An Uprising in the Making?, i.


19

73 See ‘We Used to Be Brothers’: Self-Defense Group

Abuses in Central Mali. 74 Grémont, “Villages and Crossroads,” 137–138. 75 See ‘We Used to Be Brothers’: Self-Defense Group

Abuses in Central Mali. 76 Camara, “Centre du Mali.” 77 “La MINUSMA conclut son enquête sur les incidents de Boulkessy du 19 Mai 2018,” Mission Multidimensionnelle Intégrée des Nations Unies pour la Stabilisation au Mali (MINUSMA), June 26, 2018, https://minusma.unmissions.org/la-minusma-conclut-son-enqu%C3%AAte-sur-les-incidents-de-boulkessy-du-19-mai-2018. The Boulkessy attack was particularly embarrassing for the Malian government to admit because the Malian soldiers in question were under the official command of the G5 Sahel, a security cooperation organization comprised of Chad, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. The G5 Sahel was set up with significant international support and donor backing in February 2014; it was originally intended as a mechanism to allow regional countries to more effectively address shared security threats, including terrorism. The organization has faced significant challenges in becoming operational. 78 “Mali: Communiqué du ministère de la défense sur les événements à Boulkessy,” Mali Actu, May 21, 2018, https://maliactu.net/mali-communique-du-ministere-de-la-defense-sur-les-evenements-a-boulkessy/. 79 Dans le centre du Mali, 10. 80 Camara, “Centre du Mali.” 81 For example, Dan Na Ambassagou’s leadership announced a unilateral ceasefire in September 2018. See “Engagement en faveur d’un cessez-le-feu unilatéral de Youssouf Toloba et son groupe armé de Dan Nan Ambassagou,” Dan Nan Ambassagou, September 27, 2018, https://www.hdcentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Cessez-le-feu-

unilat%C3%A9ral-Youssouf-Toloba-Dan-Nan-Ambassagou-Septembre-2018.pdf. 82 Speaking with the ‘Bad Guys’: Toward Dialogue

with Central Mali’s Jihadists, Africa Report No. 276 (Belgium: International Crisis Group, 2019), https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/sahel/mali/276-speaking-bad-guys-toward-dialogue-central-malis-jihadists. 83 Richard Reeve, Mali on the Brink: Insights From

Local Peacebuilders on the Causes of Violent Conflict

and the Prospects for Peace (London: Peace Direct 2018), https://www.peacedirect.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/P772-PD-Mali-LVP-Report-ENG_WEB.pdf, 7. 84 Dans le centre du Mali, 10. 85 Fiske and Rai, Virtuous Violence, 239. For example, in many societies around the world, a more robust formal system of justice has put an end to the widespread pursuit of blood vendettas. Pursuing vendettas originally furthered the authority ranking and/or communal sharing relational models of those who pursued them, but the social cost of legal penalties came to exceed the social benefit accorded by acting violently to further these relational models. As a result, the violence became socially maladaptive. 86 Dans le centre du Mali, 11. 87 Not to be confused with the Macina Empire, which was centered on Hamdallahi to the northeast of the modern cercle of Macina. 88 Reeve, Mali on the Brink, 26. 89 Ibid. 90 Jana Krause, “A Deadly Cycle: Ethno-Religious Conflict in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria” (working paper, Geneva Declaration, Geneva, 2011), 9–10, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/GD-WP-Jos-deadly-cycle.pdf.


Sino-Omani Relations in the Age of the Belt and Road Initiative: A Win-Win

Opportunity for the Sultanate?

CALLUM PRINTSMITH, University of Cambridge Abstract First announced in 2013, China’s plan to revive the ancient Silk Road and ocean trade routes under the auspices of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been described as the “project of the century.” Due to its geographic position, stable governance, and diplomatic neutrality, Oman has come to play a key role in the BRI. Nevertheless, the Sultanate has often been overlooked by scholarship and has featured somewhat as an afterthought, especially compared to the studies of Chinese relationships with regional heavyweights, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. In this context, this article explores Oman’s role in the BRI initiative, and critically evaluates the potential impact of Chinese developments on Oman’s national sovereignty and socio-economic development. It argues that Oman stands to gain much from the transforming Sino-Omani friendship and potentially achieve a win-win outcome, largely due to Oman’s unique bargaining position in comparison to other countries involved in the BRI. The article begins by offering an introduction to the BRI and discussing the scope of the project. It then moves on to contextualize Chinese investments in Oman within a longer history of economic relationships between the Sultanate and China. Finally, it examines the pros and cons of Oman’s increasing entanglement with China and asks to what extent the BRI can be strategically leveraged by the Sultanate. Keywords: Oman; China; the Belt and Road Initiative; dependency theory; economic development Callum Printsmith is a recent graduate from the University of Cambridge, where his studies focused on the modern political and economic history of the MENA region, the history of Islam, and international diplomacy. Since completing his degree he has worked as a Researcher for the Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research in the United Arab Emirates, the London-based Anglo-Omani Society, and Oman British Business Council. He currently works for the Government of the United Kingdom in the Department for Exiting the European Union.

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Since Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2013 announcement of his ambitious plan to revive the ancient Silk Road and ocean trade routes under the auspices of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Oman has become an attractive partner for realizing this aspiration. The Sultanate is well-positioned on the axis of the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, enabling it to act as a regional hub between the GCC states, coastal East Africa and Asia. It also possesses accessible trade routes and attractive transit times to the globe’s emerging markets.1 Indeed, China’s maintenance of strong relations with Oman is paramount to making the BRI a successful venture, which has subsequently led policymakers in Beijing to fund numerous bilateral projects including the financing of extensive industrial zones in the Omani ports of Duqm and Sohar. These investments, however, have been met with a mixed response amongst experts and key stakeholders. On the one hand, there is cause for concern about the potential downfalls the Sultanate could suffer as a result of engaging with the BRI. Some have suggested that the infrastructure project is intended to export the Chinese model and undermine sovereignty, primarily through setting debt traps for countries that cannot repay the Chinese loans. 2 On the other hand, the BRI offers Oman a plethora of opportunities: the circumstances to project its reach into territories and regions that were once within its sphere of influence during its time as a maritime imperial power, going as far as coastal East Africa and Gwadar in present-day Pakistan3; the potential to develop academic partnership programs and curriculum cross-fertilization, and most importantly; the means to successfully diversify the economy of the Sultanate away from oil and gas.

Despite Oman’s strategic importance to the BRI, China’s affairs with the Sultanate has often been overlooked by scholarship and has featured somewhat as an afterthought, especially compared to the Chinese relationship with regional heavyweights such as Iran and Saudi.4 Its

omission from studies of the BRI has obscured the extent of China’s interests in Oman and does not fully represent Oman’s strategic importance for China. In this context, this article explores Oman’s role in the BRI initiative, and critically evaluates the potential impact of Chinese investments on Oman’s national sovereignty and socio-economic development. It argues that Oman stands to gain much from the growing Sino-Omani friendship and potentially achieve a win-win outcome, largely due to Oman’s unique bargaining position in comparison to other countries involved in the BRI. Placed perfectly at the crossroads between East and West and with a strong reputation for neutrality, Oman has the unique capability to balance the interests of numerous powers, making it less likely to fall completely within the sphere of Chinese influence. To understand the importance of the Sultanate within a framework of Chinese expansion, I begin by offering an introduction to the BRI and the scope of the initiative. I then move on to contextualize Chinese investments in Oman within a longer history of economic exchange between the Sultanate and China. Finally, I examine the pros and cons of Oman’s inclusion in the BRI project and ask to what extent this inclusion can be strategically leveraged by the Sultanate in the years to come. The Belt and Road Initiative In concrete terms, China’s One Belt, One Road Initiative—announced in 2013 and later rebranded as the Belt and Road Initiative—is an ambitious transcontinental development campaign through which China wishes to boost trade and stimulate economic growth across Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Europe. It intends to realize this plan by building extensive infrastructure connecting mainland China to countries large and small across the globe. Seventy-one countries have already signed up to the Belt and Road, representing half of the world’s population and a quarter of global GDP.5 Estimates of

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the BRI’s investment value differ dramatically. By some expert estimates, China plans to pump roughly $150 billion into projects in these countries each year. In 2017, rating agency Fitch released a report stating that an immense $900 billion in projects were either planned or underway.6 Estimations on the more extreme end of the scale predict China’s overall expenses over the lifespan of the BRI to reach $1.2 to 1.3 trillion by 2027.7 In any scenario, the initiative will definitively be the most expensive infrastructure project in history.

Described by President Xi Jinping as the “project of the century,” the BRI operation has grown from an initial focus on energy to encompass manufacturing, the Internet, tourism, and all areas of trade.8 Indeed, since its announcement in 2013, two aspects have become glaringly clear. Firstly, the Belt and Road Initiative is intended to be a journey—even a grand narrative—and not a series of separate one-off infrastructure projects. Secondly, it is much more than an outward program of investment. Indeed, the overall ambition of the Chinese state is to improve connectivity—both culturally and economically—across all of the world’s continents. The aim for the BRI is thus to increase the general development and prosperity of all countries who sign onto it and create a new and updated Silk Road fit for the twenty-first century. As suggested in its original name, the “One Belt, One Road” consists of two different segments for realizing these goals of economic cooperation and interconnectivity. The first route is a land bridge known as the “Silk Road Economic Belt”: a series of land-based corridors including roads, railways, and pipelines connecting China with its neighbors, beginning with closer countries in South East and West Asia and spanning further as far as Northern Europe. The second is the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road,” an expansive sea route made up of coastal developments and ports starting at China’s eastern provinces and going on to the Gulf, Oceania, East Africa, and the Mediterranean.

Oman is one of the seventy-one countries to sign up for the BRI, and the state is seen by China to have an extremely important role to play. As outlined by the Chinese ambassador to Oman Yu Fulong, “Oman is in the middle of China’s Maritime Silk Road, which passes through the Strait of Malacca to India and Sri Lanka, and then goes on to Europe.”9 Furthermore, due to the country’s membership to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), it can successfully provide a channel for Chinese goods (made in China or in Oman) to enter the emerging markets of countries within the Middle East, East Africa, and beyond. As such, Oman is understood as a key maritime partner which could act as a crucial transit point for increasing economic interconnectivity under the BRI, both due to its geostrategic location between these regions and the Sultanate’s positive neutral reputation on the international stage. A History of Sino-Omani Relations: From Ancient Ties to the BRI

A contextualization of the historic relationship between China and Oman is paramount for understanding both the current relationship between the two countries and China’s ambition to make the Sultanate a key partner in the Belt and Road project. As scholars such as Zhibin Han and Xiaoqian Chen have pointed out, the long history of commerce and communication between China and Oman—largely flourishing during the age of the ancient Silk—is an important underpinning to the BRI.10 Not only did it serve to manifest the mutual trust and respect in diplomatic communications both countries currently maintain, but it also fostered the close economic contact which they share today. This historic relationship of trade has largely guided China’s BRI narrative when considering Oman—both publicly and privately—and has been used to strengthen the Sino-Omani dialogue.

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Since ancient times the Indian Ocean has been a central hub of maritime traffic and commerce, with modern-day China and Oman being home to many seafaring merchants who traded through these waters. During the Tang Dynasty in the 7th and 8th centuries—the period in which the “Silk Road” experienced its Golden Age—sea-borne trade between China and Arab countries increased considerably.11 In order to develop overseas trade, the Tang Dynasty established superintendencies of merchant shipping in Guangzhou. This site would become a key location for Arab merchants—including many Omanis—to settle and do business.12 Instances such as this are a testament to China and Oman’s long histories of forging ties both East and West across the oceans.

Following centuries of long-standing economic exchange, the two countries witnessed a brief period of hostility during the Dhofar rebellion in Oman between 1962 and 1975. During this spell of civil unrest against the Sultan led by the Dhofar Liberation Front—a separatist insurgency influenced by Arab nationalism and Marxist-Leninism—China provided moral, financial, and military assistance to the rebels in Oman. China also engaged in training Dhofari agitators in China, and in some instances deployed Chinese military advisers to support the uprising.13 While the Dhofar rebellion took a toll on the economic relationship between the two states, Sino-Omani relations witnessed an unprecedented intensification after they re-established diplomatic ties in 1978. The export volume from China to Oman almost doubled in less than a decade, from $5.85 million in 1976 to $9.06 million in 1983 and to $10 million in 1986.14

At this time, China also began to view Oman not only in terms of its geographical importance but also through the locus of its abundant oil resources. The need of the Chinese state to secure long-term energy supplies led them to alter their foreign policy towards the Gulf, and in 1983 Oman became the first Arab nation to export oil to

China.15 Since then, the key axis around which Chinese-Omani relations have revolved has been energy cooperation and oil trade. According to a report by the US Department of Energy, China is Oman’s largest export market for petroleum, receiving 70% of Oman’s crude oil exports in 2017.16 By December 2018, this percentage has increased to 87.23%, according to a report by Oman’s Ministry of Oil and Gas.17

In this way, strong commercial bilateralism has been a hallmark characteristic of the Oman-China relationship practically since the conception of both nations. Apart from a period during the 1960s and 1970s, the two states have been increasingly engaged in economic change, and the volume of trade has grown substantially over the past century. While economic cooperation between the two countries has been the driver of their friendship, the end of the twentieth century also witnessed firm support from both parties toward collaborating with each other on other core interests, such as countering piracy and hosting forums focusing on scientific development.18 Thus, when President Xi Jinping announced China’s plans for the “New Silk Road” at a conference in Kazakhstan in 2013, it came as no surprise that Chinese policy-makers immediately set their sight on the strategically well-located Muscat, seeing the great potential in the Sultanate for mutual development and cooperation.19 On an official visit to Muscat in May 2016 Chinese State Councillor Wang Yong stated that China considers Oman a key partner in materializing the BRI, and believed that the China-Oman relationship should assume a new significance.20 This sentiment was shared across the board with high-level Chinese officials, and in the same year the Vice Minister of Commerce Qian Keming stated that China wanted to “expand the cooperation [with Oman] to areas of building free trade zones, energy and clean energy utilization, and services.”21


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As of yet, the main development in Oman as a result of increased Chinese interest and BRI integration has been the China-Oman Industrial Park in Duqm, which is playing a critical role in boosting Chinese-Omani cooperation.22 Forming part of the Duqm Special Economic Zone (SEZ), the largest of its kind in the MENA region (with a landmass larger than Singapore and Bahrain combined), the project so far has an estimated investment cost of 67 billion yuan (approximately $9.5 billion). Duqm is located in the southeastern al-Wusta region of Oman on the Arabian coast, placed perfectly as an important connecting point for the Maritime Silk Road between China and trade routes leading to Europe and East Africa. At Duqm’s conception, the Omani government introduced measures to cut red tape surrounding the SEZ, for instance by giving the zone its own municipal governing body known as the Duqm Special Economic Zone Authority (SEZAD). SEZAD has since introduced a series of preferential policies and economic incentives within Duqm in a bid to attract more foreign investment, assist the Sultanate in its aim to diversify the economy, and to provide a better environment for cooperation.23

The China-Oman Industrial Park was one of the first major projects to be announced for Duqm, and its construction has been regarded as hugely important for maintaining strong ties between the two countries and an investment into continuing their economic cooperation. Indeed, Yahya al-Jabri, Chairman of the Special Economic Zone Authority of Duqm, stated that “projects at the industrial park deepen the political and trade relations between the two countries.”24 From a plan of the park released by Chinese consortium Oman Wanfang, this newly built industrial city will consist of a heavy-industry park with an oil refinery, power plant, cement factory, and other mineral processing facilities, in addition to a light-industry park which will include assembling plants, a residential zone, and solar factories.25 The plan is for the construction of these facilities to support the

general diversification of Oman’s economy from its traditional reliance on oil and gas, as well as make the country’s workforce more technically focused and expand the Omani private sector.

A Worrisome Development or Unparalleled Opportunity? As the scope of BRI has continued to grow, some experts and stakeholders have warned that the lack of regulation surrounding the BRI puts countries who hope to harness the BRI’s benefits at risk of becoming ensnared in debt traps. Brussels-based scholar Ramon Pacheco Pardo, for instance, has suggested that the BRI’s source of financing is underscored by China’s use of economic inducements to gain influence in target countries and that the initiative is, in reality, a subtle hegemonic ploy.26 Countries such as Djibouti and Sri Lanka provide a degree of credibility to this claim; in both cases, Chinese capital loans have gone to infrastructure projects under the aegis of the BRI. Subsequently, unable to pay back their debts, they have been forced into debt-for-equity arrangements, leading them to hand over large stakes in key ports and military bases.27 The case of Hambantota port in Sri Lanka—built by Chinese loans which could not be sufficiently serviced by the Sri Lankan government, leading to the port later being handed over to Chinese state-owned company China Merchant Port Holdings on a ninety-nine-year lease—has caused much wariness and concern.28 As a result of episodes like this, a number of other countries once positive about the BRI have since changed their tone, including Malaysia and India. Many are now fearful that if they allow the Chinese project to take effect in their respective countries they will not only have to sign away large assets over to the Chinese, but also become completely dependent on Chinese capital, Chinese labor, and Chinese products.

At the same time, others have argued for a more nuanced understanding of the

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BRI. For instance, a recent report by the Lowy Institute, “Ocean of Debt?,” is critical of the claim that China is deliberately engaging in “debt-trap diplomacy” and planned seizure of assets from other smaller countries. While not dismissing the risks of taking large loans from China, it argues that it is unjust to point the finger solely on China and that such instances of “debt traps” have not been intentional ploys.29 Rather, factors such as small populations, fragile economies prone to external shocks (such as oil price hikes), and weak (or corrupt) institutions of government, have made smaller states profoundly vulnerable to their debts to China becoming unsustainable. Indeed, as some have pointed out, it is normal political exercise for an emerging superpower with the size and wealth of China to want to increase its influence abroad and build strong economic partnerships with smaller nations, and should be expected, especially in a time when the country is engulfed in a trade war with the US and being hit with wave after wave of tariffs.30

Moreover, critical interpretations of the BRI often fail to account for the potential benefits and even need, of such an enterprise, for many small states in the current global economy. For Oman, a narrow focus on oil and gas no longer works or is a viable option for long-term economic development. The country’s oil reserves remain one of the lowest among neighboring Arab states, and sustained focus on the oil and gas industries has hampered economic diversification by constraining the amount of resources available for research and development. Thus, by participating in BRI investment and projects, Oman can achieve economic diversification at a much faster pace than it would otherwise be able to achieve. With Oman’s “Vision 2020” and the more recent “Vision 2040” emphasizing human capital development, knowledge-based industries, information technology infrastructure, private sector-supported initiatives, healthcare, foreign direct investment, and e-commerce, there is much room for Oman to harness the financial backing of China to

achieve the robust logistics and infrastructure links necessary to promote this downstream diversification.31 Furthering this point, the BRI also offers immense opportunity for Oman to expand its tourism industries, including Arabic theme parks, cultural tourism destinations, and global merchandising. Over the last few years, Oman has adopted a bullish growth outlook in terms of its tourism sector, and it is expected by researchers and analysts alike that there should be an expected positive growth momentum over the next decade in this field.32 With the Sultanate expecting to see a large increase in tourists visiting the country due to an already impressive amount of investment, it is clear that further development in tourism industries using Chinese capital would not go to waste.33 Harnessing the BRI thus is likely to open avenues for joint projects in heritage tourism, food and beverage services, hotels, and wildlife activities, which in turn offers the potential for opening new doors for unemployed youth and local communities who wish to be employed in areas outside of the traditional industries.

The BRI’s involvement in Oman should also not solely be seen as economically transformative for the Sultanate, but it could also be harnessed to improve academic networks between Oman and East Asia, in turn making Oman a truly global country. Already, Beijing is sponsoring hundreds of Omani students to train, sight-see, and study in China, with the view that they will go back to newly formed special economic zones like Duqm to work.34 Working with the Omani Ministry for Higher Education, academic partnership projects with the BRI will provide more opportunities for Omani universities and schools to cultivate education and internship networks through joint research and development, language training, curriculum cross-fertilization, and exchange programs between the two countries.35 This, in turn, will help place Oman more firmly on the world map through internationalizing its citizens, increase job prospects and language


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skills amongst Omanis, and also lead to a more intercultural understanding between the two countries. Although there has been no direct study providing solid data on the BRI’s educational benefit on the Sultanate as of yet, previous studies in this respect strongly support these hypotheses.36

In this way, critiques of the BRI have to account for the potential benefits of the initiative. No doubt, China’s investment in Oman is part of a strategic plan with the intention to propel the Chinese economy forward at a dramatic pace through forging strong commercial ties with its neighbors. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily the “debt trap” that some commentators have made it out to be. Moreover, critiques of the BRI also need to be analyzed in a context of Western hegemony and shifting global power dynamics. As Sholto Byrnes has pointed out, pessimistic analyses of the BRI often seem to come from a place of Sinophobia.37 By portraying the initiative as an evil scheme destined to condemn unsuspecting poorer countries to an incalculable debt trap, culminating in the complete takeover of their resources and geography, commentators frame the BRI as the latest iteration of the “Yellow Peril” ideology, a historically racist outlook that attests that the Chinese state conspires to upend Western global dominance and ultimately take over the world.38 Indeed, narratives that characterize the BRI as a Trojan-horse style ploy to isolate smaller nations and make them China’s economic vassal states could just as equally be applied to the United States’ investment programs in other developing countries, or even European governments regional development initiatives. Coverage of Western initiatives, however, rarely discuss these as “debt traps,” but tend to frame them in positive terms, as bringing “development” to the Global South.

While issues of uncertainty should not be overlooked in the case of Chinese investments, it should be realized that like any new business realm (and certainly one as broad as the BRI), there is naturally no lack of risks and pitfalls; the BRI is “not paved

with gold.”39 It is a given that Oman should not look into the mouth of the lion too far and see Chinese support as a remedy for all of the country’s unanswered economic issues. In many ways, however, it is unfair to portray the BRI as an evil scheme pushed forward by a predatory superpower; in doing so, one risks misconstruing the development ethos that underscores the project, and the very real benefits for participating countries. In fact, some have even noted that Chinese investments and development projects tend to be more attuned to the needs of small states than those of Western superpowers, including Europe and the US. As one report argued, “Chinese assistance is perceived to be faster, more responsive to the needs of local elites, and have fewer conditions attached […] as one senior Pacific bureaucrat put it: ‘we like China because they bring red flags, not the red tape’.”40 Beyond Dependency Theory: Oman’s Potential for Leveraging the BRI In framing the BRI as a “debt trap,” many critics have implicitly analyzed the initiative within the framework of dependency theory, overlooking some of the ways in which Oman can strategically leverage Chinese initiatives. First emerging from studies of Latin America in the mid-twentieth century, dependency theory posits that resources flow from the “periphery”—poor and underdeveloped states, most of which are in the Global South—to the “core”—wealthy developed states, most of which are in the Global North—in a process that benefits the core at the expense of the periphery.41 Within this framework, underdevelopment is a product of a peripheral state’s international economic relations and its subjection to a global market marked by an exploitative imperialist and capitalist structure.42 Moreover, peripheral states are largely seen as lacking agency and therefore unable to propel themselves out of poverty and underdevelopment. As Vincent Ferraro puts it, dependency theory sees

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“underdevelopment [as] a wholly negative condition which offers no possibility of sustained and autonomous economic activity in a dependent state.”43

While dependency theory’s conceptualization of the core-periphery system does a fair job of mapping global economic inequality and capitalist processes of wealth extraction, its characterization of peripheral states as passive recipients to imperialism fails to account for the various ways in which these states are able to influence and shape their own socio-economic trajectories. In the case of Oman in particular, dependency theory is an inadequate model to explain the Sultanate’s involvement with the BRI, as a series of factors allow for the country to strategically capitalize on the initiative. Indeed, due to Oman’s unique geographic position, stable governance, and diplomatic neutrality, it can balance the risk of Chinese entrenchment through the maintenance of strong ties with other powerful countries with a stake in Oman’s best interests. For example, Oman’s recent decision to grant the US Navy access to the strategically important ports of Duqm and Salalah reflects its strong hand in dealing with Beijing and suggests Chinese encroachment of the Sultanate is unlikely. On March 2019, Muscat and Washington signed an agreement that gives the United States greater flexibility to conduct maritime operations in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, a move which experts like Robert D. Kaplan consider partly influenced by the United States’ desire to monitor China’s activities in the region and limit Chinese commercial and logistical expansion.44 In turn, US involvement brought the concern of the EU; Camille Lons from the European Council of Foreign Relations described this development as a potential threat to Oman’s neutrality and thus useful ally, spurring her to call for European action in maintaining their ties with Oman and safeguarding the country as a neutral mediator.45 Moreover, with Beijing and New Delhi continuing their competition for geopolitical supremacy across the Indian

Ocean, Oman can benefit from its strategic position at the crossroads of Indian and Chinese trans-regional trade corridors to become a crucial shareholder as that rivalry evolves in the coming years.46 Like their Chinese counterparts, India is committed to taking advantage of Omani trade networks to achieve access to more markets in East Africa and the GCC due to the Sultanate’s close proximity to the Gulf of Oman, Strait of Hormuz, Arabian Gulf, Arabian Sea, and Indian Ocean.47 Since India also has a long history of cultural, diplomatic, and economic ties with the Sultanate, Oman could use this to its advantage and cement its place as an attractive maritime trade hub. In doing so, it would also gain access to some of the most attractive energy corridors globally, thus making its presence in the global energy supply chain more pronounced. Indeed, while welcoming Chinese capital, Muscat should have no reservations about attempting to secure further leverage from across the Indian Ocean should China’s imprint become too deep.

In this way, analyses of Oman’s involvement with the BRI cannot be limited to entrenched dependency narratives in which the Sultanate is forced to rely on more powerful partners for economic support; instead, the opposite is arguably closer to the truth, as larger countries rely on Oman both for their energy supplies and as a guarantor of global oil price stability.48 Although neorealist international relations theorists have difficulty explaining phenomena where weaker states exercise influence on superpowers, more realist approaches acknowledge that weaker states can wield disproportionate influence if they use issue-specific resources to increase their bargaining leverage or exploit mutual fears of abandonment in periods of high tension.49 Indeed, as Deutsch observed in 1963, smaller states that possess advantages in relevant asymmetries, or convince superpowers that they do, can exercise a large degree of influence out of all proportion to their relative capabilities.50 Thus, by skillfully navigating between the interests of various


29

parties to support their large-scale development plans, it is highly likely that Oman will be able to enjoy the benefits of Chinese investment and cooperation and thrive. Conclusion With the advent of the BRI—which has become the most distinctive feature of contemporary Sino-Omani cooperation—the confluence of shared interests between Beijing and Muscat indicates that the two nations’ relationship will continue to flourish over the coming years. While cases like Djibouti and Sri Lanka produce a negative outlook in terms of the potential drawbacks which could come from jumping on the BRI bandwagon, such as the possibility of falling into Chinese “debt traps,” the transcontinental infrastructure project offers remarkable opportunities for Oman to achieve its development goals in the realms of economic diversification, education, international trade, and employment creation. Indeed, examples such as Duqm offer clear and systemic evidence for these

1 Giorgio Cafiero and Daniel Wagner, “What the Gulf States Think of ‘One Belt, One Road,” The Diplomat, May 24, 2017, https://thediplomat.com/2017/05/what-the-gulf-states-think-of-one-belt-one-road/. 2 “Xi Pledges to Bring Benefits to People through Belt and Road Initiative,” The People’s Republic of China, August 28, 2018, http://english.www.gov.cn/news/top_news/2018/08/28/content_281476279035556.htm 3 Chris Zambelis, “China and the Quiet Kingdom: An Assessment of China-Oman Relations,” China Brief

15, no. 22 (November 2015): 11–15, https://jamestown.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/CB_22_3.pdf?x41146. 4 Ibid. 5 Lily Kuo and Niko Kommenda, “What is China's Belt and Road Initiative?,” The Guardian, accessed October 28, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2018/jul/30/what-china-belt-road-initiative-silk-road-explainer. 6 Embracing the BRI Ecosystem in 2018: Navigating

Pitfalls and Seizing Opportunities, Deloitte Insights (Beijing: Deloitte China, 2018),

benefits the BRI has to offer; through increasing manufacturing production in Oman and promoting the overall economic development and diversification of the Sultanate, the Duqm SEZ is bringing robustness, employment, and economic activity to an otherwise sparse desert area with a small population and a relatively low level of development.51 Moreover, the risk of falling into a Chinese “debt trap” is significantly lowered by Oman’s unique characteristics, including easy access to oil-producing countries in the Gulf, a geostrategic location placed on the oil chokepoint Strait of Hormuz, and a general ability to act as an Arab mediator in regional conflicts due to its international neutrality in international affairs. These factors allow Oman to attract balanced levels of support and investment from a range of global powers, and can thus be used as a bulwark to fend off possible Chinese encroachment. In this way, by seizing full advantage of Chinese investment, Oman could leapfrog itself to the next stage of its development whilst strengthening its relationship with a growing global power, producing a win-win outcome for the Sultanate.

https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/economy/asia-pacific/china-belt-and-road-initiative.html. 7 Andrew Chatzky and James McBride, “China’s Massive Belt and Road Initiative China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” Backgrounder, Council on Foreign Relations, last updated May 21, 2019, www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative. 8 Charles Clover, Sherry Fei Ju, and Lucy Hornby, “China’s Xi Hails Belt and Road as Project of the Century,” Financial Times, May 14, 2017, https://www.ft.com/content/88d584a2-385e-11e7-821a-6027b8a20f23. 9 Zhibin Han and Xiaoqian Chen, “Historical Exchanges and Future Cooperation Between China and Oman Under the ‘Belt & Road’ Initiative,” International Relations and Diplomacy 6, no. 1 (January 2018): 6, https://doi.org/10.17265/2328-2134/2018.01.001. 10 Ibid. 11 Abdullah Saleh al-Saadi, “The Origins of Omani-China Friendship: A Historical Review,” Journal of

Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (in Asia) 6, no. 1 (January 2012): 84–105, https://doi.org/10.1080/19370679.2012.12023204.

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12 Xuming Qian and Jonathan Fulton, “China-Gulf Economic Relationship under the ‘Belt and Road’ Initiative,” Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and

Islamic Studies 11, no. 3 (2017): 12–21, https://doi.org/10.1080/25765949.2017.12023306. 13 See R. P. Owen, “The Rebellion in Dhofar—A Threat to Western Interests in the Gulf,” The World

Today 29, no. 6 (June 1973): 266–272, https://www-jstor-org.proxy.library.nyu.edu/stable/40394708. 14 Han and Chen, “Historical Exchanges and Future Cooperation Between China and Oman.” 15 Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, “Exploring the China and Oman Relationship,” The Diplomat, May 10, 2014, https://thediplomat.com/2014/05/exploring-the-china-and-oman-relationship/. 16 “Oman,” Country Analysis Brief, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), last updated January 7, 2019, https://www.eia.gov/beta/international/analysis.php?iso=OMN. 17 “China Remains Largest Buyer of Oman’s Crude in December: Report,” China Daily, January 16, 2019, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201901/16/WS5c3ec328a3106c65c34e4cc7.html 18 Giorgio Cafiero, “Why China’s investment in Oman matters,” The New Arab, October 17, 2017, https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2017/10/17/why-chinas-investment-in-oman-matters. 19 President Xi Jinping, speech, Nazerbayev University, Kazakhstan, September 7, 2013, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/topics_665678/xjpfwzysiesgjtfhshzzfh_665686/t1076334.shtml. 20 Abhishek Bhaya, “Analysis: Could China-funded Omani Port Go Against Beijing’s Interest?,” CGTC, February 27, 2018, https://news.cgtn.com/news/336b7a4d35677a6333566d54/share_p.html. 21 Qian Keming, speech, Oman Economic Forum, Muscat, March 23, 2016, https://world.huanqiu.com/article/9CaKrnJUNsK. 22 Liu Xi and Yang Yuanyong, “Spotlight: China, Oman Establish Industrial Park to Boost Bilateral Cooperation,” XinhuaNet, December 19, 2018, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-12/19/c_137683272.htm. 23 “The Special Economic Zone of Duqm,” About, Port of Duqm, accessed October 29, 2019, https://www.portofduqm.om/About/The-Special-Economic-Zone-of-Duqm.html. 24 Jason Lee, “China-Oman Industrial Park boosts China-Oman cooperation,” Belt and Road Portal, The People’s Republic of China, April 24, 2007, https://eng.yidaiyilu.gov.cn/qwyw/rdxw/11647.htm. 25China-Oman (Duqm) Industrial Park (Port of Duqm, Oman: Oman Wanfang, 2017), https://www.portofduqm.om/userfiles/7-%20Oman%20Wangfang.pdf. 26 “China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Debt Trap or Hope?,” The Strait Times, October 20, 2018,

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-debt-trap-or-hope. 27 Amy Cheng, “Will Djibouti Become Latest Country to Fall into China’s Debt Trap?,” Foreign Policy, July 31, 2018, https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/31/will-djibouti-become-latest-country-to-fall-into-chinas-debt-trap/. 28 Kiran Stacey, “China Signs 99-year Lease on Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port,” Financial Times, December 11, 2017, https://www.ft.com/content/e150ef0c-de37-11e7-a8a4-0a1e63a52f9c. 29 Roland Rajah, Alexandre Dayant, and Jonathan Pryke, Ocean of Debt? Belt and Road and Debt

Diplomacy in the Pacific (Sydney: The Lowy Institute, 2019), https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/ocean-debt-belt-and-road-and-debt-diplomacy-pacific. 30 Benn Steil and Benjamin Della Rocca, “Trump’s Trade War Puts ‘Belt and Road First’,” Geo-Graphics (blog), Council on Foreign Relations, August 12, 2019, https://www.cfr.org/blog/trumps-trade-war-puts-belt-and-road-first 31 Han and Chen, “Historical Exchanges and Future Cooperation Between China and Oman.” 32 Oman Tourism Report (New York: Fitch Solutions, 2018). 33 Madiha Asif, “Oman Tourism Sector Growth Intact, Reveals New Data,” Times of Oman, July 21, 2018, https://timesofoman.com/article/138504. 34 Xi and Yuanyong, “Spotlight: China, Oman Establish Industrial Park to Boost Bilateral Cooperation.” 35 Andrew Leung, How Oman Can Leverage China’s

OBOR to Achieve Diversification - Gaining More

With Less (Buraimi, Oman: Andrew Leung International Consultants Ltd., 2016), https://www.andrewleunginternationalconsultants.com/files/paper---how-oman-can-leverage-china.pdf. 36 Caroline Musyimi, Joseph Malechwanzi, and Heng Luo, “The Belt and Road Initiative and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in Kenya: The Kenya-China TVET Project,” Frontier of

Education in China 13, no. 3 (October 2018): 370, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-018-0017-x. 37 Sholto Byrnes, “Criticism of China’s Expansive Global Policy Has a Whiff of Sinophobia,” The

National, February 27, 2018, https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/criticism-of-china-s-expansive-globalist-policy-has-a-whiff-of-sinophobia-1.708563. 38 Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong, “The Truth About Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port, Chinese ‘Debt Traps’ and ‘Asset Seizures’,” South China Morning Post, May 6, 2019, https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3008799/truth-about-sri-lankas-hambantota-port-chinese-debt-traps. 39 Leung, How Oman Can Leverage China’s OBOR to

Achieve Diversification, 7.


31

40 Ibid. 41 See Vincent Ferraro, “Dependency Theory: An Introduction,” in The Development Economics

Reader, ed. Giorgio Secondi (London: Routledge, 2008). 42 See, for instance, Susanne Bodenheimer, “Dependency and Imperialism: The Roots of Latin American Underdevelopment,” in Readings in U.S.

Imperialism, ed. K.T. Fann and Donald C. Hodges (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1971). 43 Vincent Ferraro, “Dependency Theory: An Introduction,” 60–62. 44 Robert D. Kaplan, “This Isn’t About Iran. It’s About China,” New York Times, June 26, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/26/opinion/trump-iran-china.html. 45 Camille Lons, “Onshore Balancing: The Threat to Oman’s Neutrality,” Commentaries, European Council on Foreign Relations, April 3, 2019, https://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_onshore_balancing_the_threat_to_omans_neutrality. 46 Amar Diwakar, “Oman’s Coastline Is the Next Stop on China’s Belt Road,” Insights, Emerge85, December 19, 2017, https://emerge85.io/Insights/omans-coastline-is-the-next-stop-on-chinas-belt-and-road/.

47 Neeta Lal, “India China Jockey for Influence in Oman,” Asia Sentinel, February 21, 2018, https://www.asiasentinel.com/politics/india-china-jockey-influence-oman/. 48 Sam Meredith, “Here’s Why the Strait of Hormuz Is the World’s Most Important Oil Chokepoint,” CNBC, July 11, 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/11/oil-heres-why-the-strait-of-hormuz-is-so-critical-to-energy-markets.html. 49 Richard Lebow, “Small States and Big Alliances,” The American Political Science Review 91, no. 3 (1997): 705–709, https://doi.org/10.2307/2952086. 50 Karl Deutsch, The Nerves of Government: Models

of Political Communication and Control (New York: The Free Press, 1963). 51 Grady McGregor, “The Remote Omani Fishing Village of Duqm is ‘Rising From the Desert’ as China Strategically Invests,” Albawaba News, October 23, 2018, https://www.albawaba.com/news/remote-omani-fishing-village-duqm-rising-desert-china-strategically-invests-1203064


Sectarian Politics and Public Service Provision: The Case of Electricité du

Liban

HAYA CHEMAITILLY, King’s College London Abstract This article explores the impact of sectarian power-sharing agreements on public service provision by looking at the case of the Lebanese public electricity company, Electricité Du Liban. It argues that sectarian power-sharing presents a significant obstacle to providing high-quality services and renders public utility companies inefficient. In Lebanon, this system is the foremost contributor to the current 1,000 MW electricity deficit, a deficit that has resulted in daily power cuts since the 1990s. With the adoption of the Taʾif Agreement at the end of the civil war, ministries and SOEs were placed under sectarian control in a system that does not allow for the meritocratic recruitment of public officials. This has facilitated corruption, nepotism, and poor management, as was the case in the Karadeniz affair, in which the Ministry of Energy and Water acquired three powerships from Turkey. This article also debates the potential privatization of the electricity sector. While private companies such as Electricité De Zahlé suggest that privatization could solve many of the current issues, there is a risk that it would have limited impact if politically connected elites acquired the private contracts. Moreover, the prospects for privatization remain bleak, as sectarian politics make reaching consensus over policies a lengthy and often, unattainable, process. Keywords: sectarianism; Lebanon; electricity; public services; conflict reconstruction; privatization; Electricité Du Liban Haya Chemaitilly is currently doing a master’s program in International Energy at Sciences Po Paris. Previously, she completed a bachelor’s degree in International Development at King’s College London, where she undertook the research to publish this article. Haya is interested in energy trends in the Middle East—especially renewables—and, as a Lebanese citizen, the restructuring of the energy sector in Lebanon.

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In post-conflict societies, restoring high-quality services such as policing, water, and electricity is a key way to assert state legitimacy, establish citizen support, and successfully reconstruct war-torn environments. 1 Governments traditionally have two areas to focus on to improve service quality: a) maximizing efficiency, and b) improving service reliability, access, and affordability.2 As simple as this formula to achieve high-quality public services appears, most countries emerging from civil wars face a difficult trade-off in the reconstruction process in terms of peace versus efficiency. On the one hand, efficiency can be sacrificed for peace by incentivizing political and military actors to end violence through rent opportunities. Since these actors often have the will and capacity to reinitiate conflict, giving them a share of financial resources and influence in policy-making—whether it be by controlling specific ministries or State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs)—ensures they comply to terms of peace. 3 This, however, inherently exposes public administrations to corruption.4 On the other hand, peace can be sacrificed for efficiency by focusing on cost-recovery and eliminating corruption, ensuring that citizens receive high-quality services.5 One way to do so is to privatize activities that do not require necessary state intervention, such as water, electricity, and waste management services. 6 This allows post-conflict governments to focus on other aspects of reconstruction and ensure that service continuity is not affected by political disputes. However, focusing on efficiency is especially difficult in post-conflict societies whose wars were based on ethnic or religious tension. In these cases, politics are entangled with social stratifications based on religion, sect, or caste, making it difficult to separate public interests from sectarian ones.7

As one of the states with the “longest and most uninterrupted experience” of political sectarianization, Lebanon makes for a valuable study of sectarian politics’ impact on public service provision.8 Today, political groups with a clear sectarian agenda dominate the Lebanese political arena. 9

These include the Future Movement (FM; Tayyar al-Mustaqbal)10 for Sunni Muslims, Hezbollah (“The Party of God”) 11 and Harakat Amal (Amal; “The Hope Movement”) 12 for Shiʿa Muslims, as well as the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM; Tayyar al-Watani al-Hurr) 13 and the Lebanese Forces (LF; al-Quwwat al-Lubnaniya)14 for Christians. Such a fragmentation of the political order has posed several obstacles for post-conflict reconstruction and public service provision. Specifically, the country’s malfunctioning public electricity sector is one of the main issues the government has been unable to solve since the end of the war, despite it being an upper-middle-income country with a high electrification rate. 15 Indeed, the electricity sector has been struggling to solve a power generation deficit that has left the country devastated by daily power cuts since the 1990s.16 These cuts—lasting three hours in the capital, Beirut, and between twelve to eighteen hours in the countryside—have negatively impacted daily life and economic activities in the region.

This article asks how it is possible that almost thirty years after the Lebanese civil war ended the national public electricity sector has not improved. While most studies on the Lebanese electricity sector have focused on analyzing electricity distribution (i.e. which customers are able to access electricity in which areas and why), this article looks at management and production capacities. In doing so, it fills the gap amongst the technical studies on the electricity crisis by revealing sectarian politics’ role in maintaining the electricity gap. Using the case of Electricité du Liban

(EDL), Lebanon’s public electricity company, this article argues that a sectarian political settlement, where peace depends on the division of rents, is the main obstacle to reinstating high-quality public services in Lebanon. First, the sectarian system prevents the meritocratic recruitment of officials by basing their appointment on sectarian allegiance. While this system ensures that each group is represented in the political

Sectarian Politics and Public Service Provision

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arena—as a way of dividing power and resources for peace—it also means that public officials are prone to exploit their positions for sectarian and personal gain, and often results in poor investment decisions as officials lack skills and qualifications to manage SOEs and ministries. Second, the sectarian system allows every sect to voice its concerns and block policies deemed harmful to its interests. The ability to veto decisions leads to wasting significant amounts of time over debating instead of acting, and developments to public service provision have been discussed since the end of the war without reaching consensus. Finally, this article examines the prospects of addressing the mismanagement of public services through privatization mechanisms. While there are many arguments for privatization, there is a risk that improvement would be curbed by the entanglement of private interests and the sectarian political system. This article’s theoretical framework draws on key debates in public services management in the context of divided post-conflict societies. For the Lebanese case study, it relies on a wide range of sources, including reports by research institutes and international organizations, newspaper articles, 17 ministerial reports, government data, and official statements from the National News Agency (NNA). The Lebanese Electricity Crisis From the 1920s up to the civil war of 1975–1990, Lebanon was considered a relatively developed country with high living standards and quality infrastructure. 18 Its ethnic diversity and high level of development had earned it the nickname of the “Switzerland of the Middle East” or, referring to Beirut, the “Paris of the Middle East.”19 In 1958, the Lebanese government created the first public electricity company, Electricité du Liban (EDL), which quickly became a symbol of Lebanon’s modernity and the state’s newfound independence from the French mandate.20 More than sixty years later, EDL

supplies 90% of the electricity consumed in Lebanon. 21 Two other private companies, Electricité de Zahlé and Electricité de Kadisha, supply the remaining 10% thanks to concessions granted under the French mandate. Despite EDL’s longevity, its quality of services was severely impacted by the Lebanese civil war, which took a high toll on public service provision. The war caused widespread destruction across the country, and today Lebanon has some of the worst infrastructure in the world. It was ranked 130th out of 137 states in terms of quality of overall infrastructure in the 2017–2018 Global Competitiveness Index, on par with low-income countries such as Cameroon (132th) or the Democratic Republic of Congo (135th).22 Poor infrastructure is particularly noticeable in the electricity sector, where Lebanon ranks 134th out of 137 states for the quality of electricity supply—similar to low-income countries and failed states such as Yemen (137th).23

The Lebanese electricity crisis is first and foremost the result of a severe electricity deficit of 1,000 MW on average every year. In 2018, for example, the government only supplied 2,407 MW of electricity when peak demand was around 3,400 MW.24 Not only is electricity supply insufficient, but ineffective production contributes massively to the public debt. In 2018, gross public debt was around 152% of GDP, one of the highest levels of public debt in the world.25 A large part of this debt is derived from subsidies paid to the electricity sector. Every year, EDL incurs technical and non-technical losses to between $300 and $400 million, which are subsidized by the government.26 Electric rates are one of the major sources of technical losses, as they are set way below cost-recovery—production costs $0.17/kWh versus a billing cost of $0.085/kWh. 27 In addition, the system is disrupted by illegal connections to the grid and meter manipulations.28 These non-technical losses account for 20% of EDL’s total yearly losses. 29 Overall, government transfers to EDL correspond to 4% of the GDP, and

Haya Chemaitilly

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EDL’s deficit accounts for one-third of the public debt.30

Due to the large electricity deficiency, power cuts are a recurring feature of daily life in Lebanon.31 These cuts span three hours a day in Beirut, and between twelve and eighteen hours in the countryside, depending on the region. 32 Dana Abi Ghanem has documented how living with power outages lowers the comfort and convenience of households in carrying on their daily tasks.33 To tackle the difficulties of the power cuts, most urban, better-off people resort to individual, private generators to self-generate electricity and maintain their activities as usual. 34 Typically, these generators are shared by the building—or, in certain cases neighborhoods—and tenants pay a monthly fee to their landlord. While private generators allow for a constant supply of electricity, they come at a higher price than electricity supplied by EDL, and consumers must pay a double bill: one to EDL, and one to the private supplier.35 The high cost of electricity often forces families to deprioritize access to other services, such as education and health services. Moreover, power cuts have had an important impact on the Lebanese economy. Studies have shown that economic growth could be propelled if policymakers invested in the development and expansion of infrastructure. 36 Indeed, power cuts induce supply and cost issues, including delays in production, and raise production costs due to paying for a generator.37 These cuts cost Lebanon’s GDP 1% yearly and contribute to a lower rate of foreign investment in the country.38 Service Provision Under the Taʾif Agreement: A Sectarian Affair The governance of public service provision in Lebanon is closely interconnected to the institutionalized system of sectarianism that lies at the core of political life. Following Lebanese independence in 1943, an informal consociational agreement—the National Pact—was instated to regulate and balance

power between the different religious and ethnic groups in the newly founded state.39 The pact stated that the president must be Maronite Christian, the prime minister (PM) Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament Shiʿi Muslim.40 With the end of the Lebanese civil war, sectarian power-sharing was further institutionalized in the form of the 1989 Taʾif Agreement. The agreement expanded on the 1943 Pact by dividing parliamentary seats and ministerial control equally between Christians and Muslims, providing more power to Muslims who felt under-represented in the 1943 Pact.41 While the Taʾif Agreement initially planned to abolish confessionalism and to transition into secular politics in the long-run, it has effectively made religion more influential in politics. Today, political groups with a clear sectarian connotation have come to dominate political life (see table 1 below for a list of main political parties).

Since controlling the more resourceful ministries comes with greater influence and public funds, as well as control over SOEs, the Taʾif Agreement has resulted in a long-standing debate over which sect controls which ministry.42 The Ministry of Energy of Water (MEW) is one of the ministries that has been subject to intense conflict and competition, especially following the discovery of offshore gas in the Mediterranean in 2010. In the past decade, the ministry was mainly under FPM control (see table 2 below for the full list of MEW ministers). This, however, does not mean that FPM dominates all areas of the public Lebanese electricity sector, as Amal has retained control over EDL. Indeed, while the MEW and EDL are closely interconnected, they are tied to different sectarian parties, and each comes with its own set of powers and resources. The MEW is the overarching body in control of the Lebanese electricity sector, and provides EDL with annual budgets, makes decisions on investments, and negotiates deals for fuel imports. EDL, on the other hand, is mainly in charge distribution. Thus, the MEW gives orders and resources to EDL to act upon them, and


37

TABLE 1. Overview of the main political parties in Lebanon as of December 2018.43

Political Party Important figure or

leader Main sect of voters

No. of seats in Parliament (/128)

No. of positions in min. cabinet (/30)

Free Patriotic Movement (FPM)

Michel Aoun (President of the Republic) and Gebran Bassil (Leader)

Christian (mainly Maronite)

29 11

Future Movement (FM) Saad Hariri (Prime Minister and Leader)

Muslim (Sunni) 20 6

The Hope Movement (Amal) Nabih Berri (Speaker of Parliament and Leader)

Muslim (Shiʿia) 17 3

Lebanese Forces (LF) Samir Geagea (Leader) Christian (mainly Maronite)_

15 3

Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah (Leader)

Muslim (Shiʿia) 12 2

Progressive Socialist Party (PSP)

Walid Jumblatt (MP and Leader)

Druze 9 2

Marada Movement Suleiman Frangieh (MP and Leader)

Christian (Maronite)

7 1

Azm Movement Najib Mikati (Former PM and Leader)

Secular / All sects 4 1

Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Tashnag)

Hagop Pakradounian (MP and Leader)

Christian (Armenian)

3 1

Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP)

Assaad Hardan (MP and Leader)

Secular (mainly Greek Orthodox)

3 1

Lebanese Phalange Party (Kataʾib)

Samy Gemayel (MP and Leader)

Christian Maronite

3 0

Civil Society Movement (CSM)

Paula Yacoubian (MP) Secular / All sects 1 0

Lebanese Communist Party (LCP)

Hanna Gharib (Leader) Secular / All sects 0 0

TABLE 2. List of Ministers of Energy and Water in Lebanon since 2005.44

Years Minister’s name Party Cabinet of PM:

2005–2007 Mohammad Fneish Hezbollah Fouad Siniora I

2007–2009 Alain Tabourian Tashnag Fouad Siniora II

2009–2011 Gebran Bassil FPL Saad Hariri I

2011–2014 Gebran Bassil FPL Najib Mikati

2014–2016 Arthur Nazarian Tashnag Tammam Salam

2016–2019 Cesar Abi Khalil FPL Saad Hariri II

2019– Nada Boustani FPL Saad Hariri III

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38

EDL is subject to monitoring from the ministry to ensure it carries the projects in accordance. To ensure a fairer split of power and more neutral monitoring different political factions are associated with each entity. As such, since the end of the war, Amal has been granted control over EDL while the ministry oscillates between different factions. In this way, the relationship between the MEW and EDL reflects the complex sectarian structure generally in the political system in Lebanon.

Sectarian governance has played an important role in shaping the post-conflict electricity sector in Lebanon and enabling the current electricity crisis. By tying MEW and EDL management to sectarian and political interests, the Taʾif Agreement has resulted in widespread clientelism, corruption, and company oversight. One example of such mismanagement was the acquisition of three Turkish power barges over the course of 2013–2018. In 2010, the MEW introduced a new plan to address Lebanon’s electricity scarcity under the leadership of Gebran Bassil (FPM), who had previously been Minister of Telecommunications (2008–2009). As part of a $4.8 billion plan, Bassil claimed that he would achieve a public electricity production of 5,000 MW by 2015 by developing existing power plants and

constructing new ones.46 At that time, EDL only produced 1,500 MW, and the plan would more than triple the total production.47 While the new plants were developed, the MEW signed a deal with the Turkish company Karadeniz to acquire two “powerships” or “barges” to carry steam power plants as a “temporary solution” to the power supply deficit. 48 In 2013, the ships “Fatmagül Sultan” and “Orhan Bey” arrived in the Zouk and Jiyeh ports respectively, supplying Lebanon with 180 MW each. 49

Bassil stated that the two ships would stay in Lebanon for three years—i.e. until 2016.50 Nevertheless, in July 2018 a third ship, “Esra Sultan,” arrived at the Zouk port, adding an additional 235 MW,51 and the 2013 barges are still stationed in Lebanon as of March 2019 (see figure 1 below).52 Thus, nine years after Bassil’s promise of 5,000 MW EDL’s total production is approximately 2,400 MW, less than half of the original target (see table 3 above). Permanent plants have not yet been developed, and the Turkish powerships have not been able to compensate for this loss. In January 2019, the electricity shortage was so severe that it caused EDL to extend power cuts from three hours to four and a half in Beirut.53

Considering the continuing production shortage in the public electricity

TABLE 3. Sources of EDL’s electricity generation as of December 2018.45

Name Date built

Installed Capacity

Actual production

Operates on

Zouk Thermal Power Plant Mid-1980s

607 MW 365 MW Fuel Oil

Jiyeh Thermal Power Plant 1981 346 MW 187 MW Fuel Oil Hreisha Thermal Power Plant 1983 75 MW 60 MW Fuel Oil Deir Ammar Thermal Power Plant 1998 435 MW 435 MW Diesel Zahrani Thermal Power Plant 1998 435 MW 435 MW Diesel Baalbek Thermal Power Plant 1996 70 MW 70 MW Diesel Tyre Thermal Power Plant 1996 70 MW 70 MW Diesel Litani hydropower plants * 203 MW 190 MW * Karadeniz Fatmagül Sultan barge 2013 203 MW 180 MW Fuel Oil Karadeniz Orhan Bey barge 2013 203 MW 180 MW Fuel Oil Karadeniz Esra Sultan barge 2018 235 MW 235 MW Fuel Oil Total 2,882 MW 2,407 MW

Note: Actual production capacities are as of December 2018 and are not expected to have changed, but may have been reduced

due to rationing policies in early 2019. *Data missing.


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sector the Karadeniz affair requires closer analysis. Indeed, even as a “temporary solution,” much points to the fact that the Turkish barges are notoriously cost-inefficient. Together, the three barges produced approximately 600 MW in 2018—a quarter of all electricity in Lebanon that year.55 Each of the barges costs $130 million per year—including maintenance costs—but fuel to power them raises this to $260 million per year.56 In addition to the high costs of running these barges, they also run 40 MW behind their maximum production capacity. In part, this can be attributed to insufficient

fuel imports, as EDL relies on oil instead of natural gas. 57 Until now, the Lebanese government has paid $1.9 billion to Karadeniz in exchange for approximately 600 MW.58 The low cost-efficiency of the Turkish powerships is notable, especially compared to alternative sources of energy such as solar power. With Lebanon’s 300 sunny days per year and high solar insolation of 4.38 kWh/m2/day, an investment in solar power is likely to have been significantly more cost-effective. 59 In 2015, the global average cost of building a 600 MW solar plant amounted to approximately $1.4 billion

FIGURE 1. Location of power plants and barges in Lebanon as of December 2018.54

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maximum (including operation and maintenance costs).60 The cost of building a utility-scale PV plant is the largest expense, with maintenance and operation costs only representing 1% of the total price over the project’s average 25-year lifetime.61 In fact, a 500 MW solar park is currently being built in Turkey, which has similar solar insolation to Lebanon for a total cost of $1.3 billion.62 This 500 MW solar park—capable of delivering 1,000 MW in the long-run—is estimated to continuously supply 600,000 households.63

The relative cost inefficiency of the Karadeniz affair raises the question of why the MEW decided to invest in barges in the first place, as well as why they continued pushing this project forward by acquiring a third powership in 2018. In fact, the project has been surrounded by controversy since the very beginning. Disputes over which company would supply the barges emerged as early as in 2012 since many suppliers—including the American company Waller Marine—were excluded from the deal even though they offered lower prices than Karadeniz. 64 Najib Mikati—the Lebanese PM at the time— did not agree with the decision to grant the contract to Karadeniz and had even proposed constructing a 500 MW plant instead. With a cost of $480 million, the plant would have taken a year to be built and would operate for 25 years.65 Moreover, investigations by journalists have revealed that few know the actual details of the Karadeniz negotiations.66 When the plans were laid out, information about the affair was disclosed only to select MEW employees, and not the government as a whole. The ambiguity of the Karadeniz deal—coupled with the fact that the FPM has been controlling the MEW all in all for 9 years without major improvements in the electricity sector—led many officials from different sects to raise corruption suspicions. More recently, in February 2019, independent MP Paula Yacoubian legally accused Bassil of corruption in the Karadeniz project, asserting that Bassil gained a commission of 8% from the deal.67 Bassil

responded to these claims by threatening to block passing the budget if these allegations were not immediately retracted.68

The case of the Turkish powerships demonstrates how the Taʾif Agreement has led to a conflation of personal, sectarian, and public interests on the one hand, and inefficient public management on the other.69 As Reinoud Leenders has pointed out, one of the main obstacles that arise from sectarian politics is the inability to meritocratically recruit public administration officials. 70 Since these officials are appointed on sectarian and political grounds, rather than qualification or skill, this system often leads to mismanagement and inefficient public services. As we have seen with the Karadeniz deal, politicians also tend to use their positions in public administration for sectarian or personal gain. The Karadeniz deal, however, is not the only example of this type of mismanagement, which is a recurring phenomenon in the Lebanese electricity sector. Thus, EDL has been similarly co-opted by Nabih Berri of Amal, who has used the company to maintain his sectarian clientele by providing jobs or free electricity in exchange for votes. 71 Indeed, EDL employees often lack adequate skills for their jobs and do not use computers to assist them in their work, despite the fact that this technology would considerably increase efficiency through smart planning, archiving and financial tools.72 It is not just EDL staff and leadership that see preferential treatments as Amal supporters, but the same goes for electricity consumers who are often exempt from paying if they support Amal or are linked to an important politician. In this way, EDL’s inefficiencies originate from the rent-seeking behavior inherent to the political system under the Taʾif Agreement. Privatization as a Way Forward? To tackle the problem of sectarian governance and poor service quality, much of the literature on post-conflict societies and developing states has advocated for private


41

management of public services. 73 Two main reasons behind this rationale are pertinent to this article. First, in terms of service provision, economists argue that the government should only intervene in the economy to correct market failures; otherwise, it creates inequalities and inefficiencies. 74 Markets bring competition through having multiple providers of a service, supposedly improving efficiency and lowering prices for consumers. 75 Evidence from successful privatizations in Latin America and East Asia shows that efficiency improvements were achieved with better service quality.76 Second, post-conflict governments are often considered “weak states” with low coercive capacities, and high risk of corruption, loss of authority, or misallocation of public services. 77 Studies have outlined how weak states often provide unequal access to public positions or welfare services, as access often is dependent on sectarian belonging.78 In this context, private management reduces incentives to capture SOEs for sectarian gain, limits corruption and clashes between groups, and increases meritocratic recruitment.79 By trusting public service management to private companies, weak governments would also be able to focus on other reconstruction aspects such as police services.80

In Lebanon, some companies that were privatized have been more successful at delivering services, suggesting that privatization could be one solution to the electricity crisis. One successful privately established company in the electricity sector is Electricité de Zahlé (EDZ).81 Since 2015, EDZ supplies electricity to 65,000 subscribers located in Zahlé, the capital of the Bekaa governorate, and fifteen surrounding villages for twenty-four hours a day.82 This region is one of the places where EDL cuts would previously last between twelve and eighteen hours a day.83 EDZ buys the maximum amount of electricity EDL supplies through national grids for $0.04/kWh but takes over power generation and distribution during power cut periods.84 During these cuts, it generates electricity

using its own 60 MW plant, co-constructed with British company Aggreko, which it sells for $0.02-$0.13/kWh (depending on whether consumption is residential or industrial), thus recovering one part of its cost. 85 From a consumer perspective, EDL and EDZ both charge their customers according to consumption, and the prices are actually the same. 86 For instance, both EDZ and EDL residential consumers subscribing to a 200 kWh package would pay an average of 55,000 LL ($36). Unlike EDZ customers, however, EDL customers experience power outages.87 Therefore, most EDL consumers also have to pay for private generators for electricity during cuts. Fees for these are independent of consumption, and flat rates apply according to whether the subscription is for 5 amperes ($100) or 10 amperes ($200) per month.88

The disparity in both prices and services between EDL and EDZ stresses the point that the solution to Lebanon’s electricity crisis may be private companies that are created and operate independently from the political sphere. Indeed, the origins of EDZ’s success can largely be attributed to the political independence of the company’s management. The founder and current CEO—Assaad Nakad—started the company without parliamentary involvement, as an engineer aiming to restore power in his hometown of Zahlé. 89 He directly sought help from private consultants and technicians and only relied on the government for national grid connection.90 Since EDZ does not need to satisfy sectarian interests, employment is first and foremost based on qualification and skill. As such, the company has been able to successfully develop a range of strategies that maximize efficiency. In contrast to EDL, losses are minimized through investment in technology to manage the company and reach a 100% bill collection rate.91 Moreover, EDZ consumers pay prior to receiving electricity, and fraud and meter manipulation is controlled through high-technology systems such as Geographic Information Systems, network remote monitoring, and smart metering.92

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While privatization might thus solve many of EDL’s problem, it is also likely that many of the current issues in the company’s management would remain. As Alberto Alesina et al. have demonstrated, privatization is often an opportunity for elites to capture highly profitable contracts without improving service quality—especially in countries with high levels of ethnic division—and might mean that public management is merely transferred to a sect leader, prominent party figure, or politically-connected businessmen.93 Previous cases of privatization have proved this to be true in Lebanon. For instance, the telecommunications sector was transferred to private management in 2003 without a significant improvement in service.94 In this context, Khalil Feghali has argued that privatization itself is not the solution—what matters is how it is implemented. 95 Moreover, private management also comes with its own set of risks. First, private strategies for increasing efficiency mainly aim at cutting costs and achieving optimal production by laying off employees. Massive layoffs in a traditionally large employer sector can result in drastic welfare losses and increased poverty.96 Second, as privatization means that sectarian groups are unable to provide jobs in exchange for party support, they can develop negative strategies for managing political competition, including escalating conflict and military action.97

Regardless of whether the privatization of EDL would lead to improvements or not, it remains an improbable outcome in the current political system. While privatizing EDL has been on the political agenda since the post-war reconstruction period—having first been introduced by PM Rafik Hariri (FM) in 1992—any step to transform public management has been blocked by the parties and individuals who have benefitted from the current system.98 In 2002, for instance, Hariri submitted Electricity Law no. 462 for discussion in the parliament. 99 The law would provide a legal foundation to start EDL’s privatization process, and was

supported by many parties. Nevertheless, tensions immediately arose between Hariri’s party—the Future Movement—and Berri’s party—Amal—as the latter was afraid to lose its grip over the company. Thus, Berri quickly interfered to block the law and halter the privatization process. 100 Here, Berri’s actions represent another challenge posed by sectarian politics to public service provision in Lebanon. As part of the Taʾif Agreement, each sect in parliament is endowed with veto power and has the right to block any policy it might oppose. 101 The president, prime minister, and speaker of parliament have veto power as well.102 With each group aiming at validating policies that will benefit them, the veto power has historically been used by sects to promote their own agenda instead of agreeing on national policies.103 In this way, veto power produces major lags in the whole system, as sectarian interests leading to a paralysis in law-passing that stalls reform projects. Indeed, when the debate on the privatization of EDL resurged in the Lebanese parliament in 2012 and 2017, similar blocks prevented the coming of any conclusion.104 Conclusion In contrast to the literature that blames Lebanon’s electricity crisis on the lack of appropriate infrastructure, this article suggests that the current problems in Lebanon’s electricity sector are not merely a result of technical issues, but more so of the political challenges posed by post-conflict sectarian agreements. By examining how Lebanese politicians have dealt with the electricity crisis, this article has shown how sectarian post-conflict societies face many obstacles when reconstructing, especially concerning public service restoration. In Lebanon, the Taʾif Agreement has meant that public administration is not recruited in a way that prioritizes the skills, qualifications, and priorities required to effectively manage public services. Instead, party or sect loyalty is the crucial determinant in these careers,


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leading to corruption, clientelism, and poor investment decisions. To illustrate this, the article compared the case of renting powerships as a “temporary solution” to building a terrestrial solar power plant and demonstrated that the MEW paid too much for an unsustainable solution. This was not just a case of accidental mismanagement, however, but much points to it having been a calculated affair that spoke to sectarian and personal interests. To solve the problem of sector mismanagement, some scholars, politicians, and businessmen have argued for the privatization of Electricité du Liban. Here, Electricité de Zahlé has illustrated that private management can bring impressive results, as the company manages to supply electricity for twenty-four hours a day, without charging consumers more than EDL subscribers. Nevertheless, privatization may not produce higher service quality if it simply reassigns the company to politically connected elites, as has been the case in the telecommunications sector. Finally, this article has shown how the Taʾif Agreement has hitherto made it impossible to reach a consensus on policies for reform in the electricity sector. Instead of acting to solve the power deficit, politicians have used their veto power to block any proposals that would compromise their sectarian and private interests.

In sectarian post-conflict societies, the main barrier to high-quality services is the trade-off between efficiency and peace. On the one hand, efficient public services are needed for a state to function as high-quality services legitimize the state, which is important to assert authority and peace, especially in a post-conflict context. On the other hand, by creating rent opportunities in public services, it is easier to make all war belligerents comply with the terms of peace. In Lebanon, civil war truce negotiations landed in the latter. By allocating public institutions to sectarian parties political and military actors would be able to tap rents,

1 Derick W. Brinkerhoff, ed., Governance in Post-

Conflict Societies: Rebuilding Fragile States, 1st ed. (New York: Routledge, 2007).

incentivizing them to keep the peace agreement. 105 This sacrifice, however, has resulted in low-quality public services, marked by daily power cuts. This article does not seek to join the debate on whether sectarian political systems actually promote peace prospects or not. Instead, it argues that the way in which reconstruction took place has resulted in sectarian politics negatively impacting critical aspects of the provision of public services, including the supply of electricity. Moving forward, Lebanon should look for inspiration in post-conflict states such as Bosnia or Northern Ireland, where sectarian political systems have managed to push through reforms leading to more stable societies and improved public service quality.106 For instance, while Northern Irish public services were of low-quality in the 1970s, reforms in the 1990s made recruitment of civil servants meritocratic, leading to improvements in the healthcare system.107 As such, this article supports steps taken during the CEDRE conference (Conférence économique pour le développement, par les réformes et avec les entreprises) in April 2018 in Paris. The conference, which was organized by international organizations as well as donor countries, made international development funding to Lebanon contingent upon the implementation of anti-corruption laws and fiscal reforms for accountability and judicial oversight.108 While building and refurbishing electricity plants, establishing public transportation systems, or installing nationwide fiber optic are all important development strategies for Lebanon, outcomes of these remain uncertain as long as the public administration is not recruited in a meritocratic way, nor subject to performance monitoring and anti-corruption laws. Until these reforms are executed the sectarian political system will remain the main obstacle for Lebanon’s development and reconstruction.

2 Rhys Andrews and Tom Entwistle, “Four Faces of Public Service Efficiency: What, How, When and for Whom to Produce,” Public Management Review 15,

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no. 2 (February 2013): 246–264, https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2012.725760. 3 Leonard Binder, Rebuilding Devastated Economies

in the Middle East (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). 4 See ibid., and Hannes Baumann, Citizen Hariri:

Lebanon’s Neo-Liberal Reconstruction (Oxford, Oxford University Press 2017). 5 Aidan R. Vining and David L. Weimer, “Economic Perspectives on Public Organizations,” in The Oxford Handbook of Public Management, ed. Ewan Ferlie, Laurence E. Lynn Jr., and Christopher Pollitt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 6 Christopher Hood, “A Public Management for All Seasons?,” Public Administration 69, no. 1 (March 1991): 3–19, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1991.tb00779.x. 7 Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977). “Sectarianism,” “confessionalism,” “communitarian” and “religion”—including their various derivatives—are used interchangeably in this article because they refer to identity categories’ whose membership is assigned at birth (see Kanchan Chandra, “What is Ethnic Identity and Does It Matter?,” Annual Review of

Political Science 9, no. 1 (June 2006): 397–424, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.9.062404.170715). Sects are small religious groups arising from divisions inside larger ones because of diverging practices (see Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge, “Of Churches, Sects and Cults: Preliminary Concepts for a Theory of Religious Movements,” Journal for

the Scientific Study of Religion 18, no. 2 (June 1979): 117–131, https://doi.org/10.2307/1385935). 8 Bassel Salloukh, “The Architecture of Sectarianization in Lebanon,” in Sectarianization:

Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East, ed. Nader Hasheemi and Danny Postel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 215–34. 9 Table 1 summarizes the current number of parliament seats and cabinet positions along sectarian lines. 10 The Future Movement was founded in 2007 by Saad Hariri, Lebanon’s current PM. It regularly clashes with Hezbollah in the political arena. 11 Hezbollah emerged at the end of the civil war as the main Shiʿi militia and then transitioned into a political party. Today, it is considered a terrorist organization by the US government due to its current military activities. It was the only militia that was not disarmed after the civil war under the argument that it was continuing the struggle against Israel in the South. See Elizabeth Picard, Lebanon: A Shattered Country—Myths and Realities of the Wars in Lebanon (New York: Holmes & Meier Pub., 1996). 12 The Hope Movement is another key Shiʿi militia-turned-into-party, defending the interests of the historically marginalized Shiʿa Muslims. Its current leader, Nabih Berri, has been speaker of parliament since 1992.

13 The Free Patriotic Movement was founded in 1994. It is the largest Christian party in the Lebanese parliament. 14 The Lebanese Forces was founded in 1976. It gathers Christians from different sects. 15 Jawad Khoury et al., “Review on the Integration of Photovoltaic Renewable Energy in Developing Countries—Special Attention to the Lebanese Case,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 57, no. 1 (May 2016): 562–575, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.12.062. 16 Ibid. 17 An-Nahar in Arabic and English, L’Orient Le Jour and Commerce du Levant in French, and The Daily

Star in English were essential sources for this article. These media outlets are known for their relative impartiality and independence from politicians—in contrast to party-owned ones widespread in Lebanon such as Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV or the Hariri bloc newspaper al-Mustaqbal. 18 “Electricity in Early Independence Lebanon,” interview with Ziad Abu-Rish, The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, September 22, 2015, https://www.lcps-lebanon.org/agendaArticle.php?id=55. 19 Picard, Lebanon: A Shattered Country. 20 Pauline Gabillet, “Le commerce des abonnements aux générateurs électriques au Liban. Des modes de régulation locaux diversifiés,” Géocarrefour 85, no. 2 (2010): 153–163, https://journals.openedition.org/geocarrefour/7861. 21 Khoury et al., “Review on the Integration of Photovoltaic Renewable Energy in Developing Countries.” 22 Klaus Schwab, The Global Competitiveness Report

2017-2018 (Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2017), http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GCR2017-2018/05FullReport/TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2017%E2%80%932018.pdf. 23 Ibid. 24 Wissam Harake and Christos Kostopoulos, Strategic Assessment: A Capital Investment Plan for

Lebanon – Investment Opportunities and Reforms (Washington D.C.: The World Bank, 2018), http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/489871546612200067/pdf/Stratgic-Assessment-A-Capital-Investment-Plan-for-Lebanon.pdf. 25 Ali Awdeh, Zouhour Jomaa, and Mohamad Ali Zeaiter, “Exploring The Effectiveness Of Financing Resources In Promoting Economic Growth In Lebanon,” The Journal of Developing Areas 53, no. 3 (Summer 2019): 43–57, https://doi.org/10.1353/jda.2019.0037; General Debt

Overview (Beirut: Ministry of Finance 2018), http://finance.gov.lb/en-us/Finance/PublicDebt/PDTS/Documents/General%20Debt%20Overview%20Updated%20as%2031%20December%202018.pdf. 26 Ibid.


45

27 Farouk Fardoun et al., “Electricity of Lebanon: Problems and Recommendations,” Energy Procedia 19, no. 1 (May 2012): 310–320, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2012.05.211. 28 Ibrahim et al., “Multi-Variable Optimization for Future Electricity-Plan Scenarios in Lebanon.” 29 Khoury et al., “Review on the Integration of Photovoltaic Renewable Energy in Developing Countries—Special Attention to the Lebanese Case.” 30 Awdeh, Jomaa, and Zeaiter, “Exploring The Effectiveness Of Financing Resources”; Éric Verdeil, “Infrastructure Crises in Beirut and the Struggle to (Not) Reform the Lebanese State,” Arab Studies

Journal 16, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 84–112, http://www.arabstudiesjournal.org/261-spring-2018.html. 31 Joanne Randa Nucho, Everyday Sectarianism in

Urban Lebanon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016). 32 Khoury et al., “Review on the Integration of Photovoltaic Renewable Energy in Developing Countries.” 33 Dana Abi Ghanem, “Energy, the City and Everyday Life: Living with Power Outages in Post-War Lebanon,” Spatial Adventures in Energy Studies 36, no. 1 (2018): 36–23, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2017.11.012. 34 Ibid. These private generators have become widespread and the norm since 1988, when power shortages lasted for six months during the war. These generators can be implemented in every building or in some cases, by municipal segmentation. Compared to other developing countries, the Lebanese case differs because these generators become forms of collective supply networks that are location specific and have acquired a semi-legal character. 35 Ibrahim et al., “Multi-Variable Optimization for Future Electricity-Plan Scenarios in Lebanon.” 36 Leila Dagher and Talar Yacoubian, “The Causal Relationship Between Energy Consumption and Economic Growth in Lebanon,” Energy Policy 50, no. 1 (November 2012): 795–801, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.08.034; Salah Abosedra, Abdallah Dah, and Sajal Ghosh, “Electricity Consumption and Economic Growth, the Case of Lebanon,” Applied Energy 86, no. 4 (April 2009): 429–32, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2008.06.011. 37 Nora Stel and Wim Naudé, “‘Public–Private Entanglement’: Entrepreneurship in Lebanon’s Hybrid Political Order,” The Journal of Development

Studies 52, no. 2 (2016): 254–68, https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2015.1081173. 38 Khoury et al., “Review on the Integration of Photovoltaic Renewable Energy in Developing Countries.” 39 Salloukh, “The Architecture of Sectarianization in Lebanon.”

40 Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies; Tom Najem, The Politics of a Penetrated Society (Abingdon: Routledge 2012). 41 Salloukh, “The Architecture of Sectarianization in Lebanon.” 42 Daniel Corstange, The Price of a Vote in the Middle

East: Clientelism and Communal Politics in Lebanon

and Yemen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016); Verdeil, “Infrastructure Crises in Beirut and the Struggle to (Not) Reform the Lebanese State.” 43 Sources: Salloukh, “The Architecture of Sectarianization in Lebanon,” 229; “Nataʾij al-Intikhabat al-Niyabiyya al-ʿAma 2018,” Ministry of Interior and Municipalities, May 8, 2018, accessed October 21, 2019, www.interior.gov.lb/AdsDetails.aspx?ida=281; and “La composition du nouveau gouvernement Hariri,” L’Orient Le Jour, January 23, 2019, https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1127804/la-composition-du-nouveau-gouvernement-hariri.html. 44 Sources: Mona Yacoubian, “Lebanon’s' Unstable Equilibrium,” (briefing, United States Institute of Peace, November 2009), http://www.shiawatch.com/public/uploads/files/LebPatchwork_USIP_November2009.pdf; “Names of Ministers Announced in Cabinet of Tammam Salam,” National News Agency, February 15, 2014, http://www.nna-leb.gov.lb/en/show-news/21479/Names-of-ministers-announced-in-Cabinet-of-Tammam-Salam; and “Declaration of New Cabinet: 30 Ministers, 5 Innovative Ministries,” National News Agency, December 18, 2016, http://www.nna-leb.gov.lb/en/show-news/72621/. 45 Sources: “Lebanon,” Karpowership; Martensen et al., Wind Energy Grid Interconnection Code for

Lebanon; Electricity Progress Report; and Khoury et al., “Review on the Integration of Photovoltaic Renewable Energy.” 46 Ibid. 47 Gebran Bassil, “Policy Paper for the Electricity Sector,” Ministry of Energy and Water, June 2010, http://climatechange.moe.gov.lb/viewfile.aspx?id=121. 48 Martensen et al., Wind Energy Grid Interconnection

Code for Lebanon; Sahar al-Attar, “Électricité: un plan opaque de 850 millions de dollars par an,” Commerce du Levant, May 4, 2017, https://www.lecommercedulevant.com/article/27292-lectricit-un-plan-opaque-de-850-millions-de-dollars-par-an. 49 Ibid., and “Lebanon,” Karpowership, accessed February 4, 2019, http://www.karpowership.com/en/lebanon. 50 Martensen et al., Wind Energy Grid Interconnection

Code for Lebanon, and Al-Attar “Electricité: un plan opaque de 850 millions de dollars par an.” 51 “Plagued by Cuts, Lebanon Survives on Floating Power Plants,” An-Nahar, July 22, 2018, https://en.annahar.com/article/834872-plagued-by-cuts-lebanon-survives-on-floating-power-plants.

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52 Philippe Hage Boutros, “Navires-centrales: retour sur un dossier polémique,” L’Orient-Le Jour, July 15, 2018, https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1125621/navires-centrales-retour-sur-un-dossier-polemique.html. 53 “L’absence de Budget Contraint EDL à Rationner La Production de Courant,” L’Orient Le Jour, February 13, 2019, https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1157095/labsence-de-budget-contraint-edl-a-rationner-la-production-de-courant.html. 54 Information compiled from Nis Martensen, Peter-Phillip Schierhorn, and Zakaria Rammal, Wind

Energy Grid Interconnection Code for Lebanon (Beirut: UNDP CEDRO and DREG, 2017), http://www.cedro-undp.org/content/uploads/publication/170920100014314~CEDROWindEnergyGrid.pdf, and Oussama Ibrahim et al., “Multi-variable Optimization for Future Electricity-plan Scenarios in Lebanon,” Energy Policies 58, no. 1 (July 2013): 49–56, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2013.02.033. Map based on “Map of Lebanon,” Google Earth, accessed October 1, 2018, https://goo.gl/maps/4Dt3fsLfcVQkFdvEA. 55 “L’absence de Budget Contraint EDL à Rationner La Production de Courant,” L’Orient Le Jour. 56 Sahar al-Attar, “Électricité: un plan opaque de 850 millions de dollars par an.” 57 Inefficient fuel imports also hurt other forms of electricity production, including the operation of thermal power plants, leading to lower production. See Martensen et al., “Wind Energy Grid Interconnection Code for Lebanon,” and “Plagued by Cuts, Lebanon Survives on Floating Power Plants,” An-Nahar. 58 Ibid. 59 Solar power in Lebanon only represents a small fraction of electricity production. Due to legislation limiting production of solar power to 1.5 MW for personal generation, only private and small-scale photovoltaic (PV) projects are installed, typically for individual household supply or for water-heating purposes. 60 Ali H Berjawi et al., “Assessing Solar PV’s Potential in Lebanon,” Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs Working Paper Series No. 43, 2017, 16, https://www.aub.edu.lb/ifi/Documents/publications/working_papers/2016-2017/20170808_solar_pvs.pdf. 61 Ibid., 30. 62 “Karapinar Renewable Energy Resource Area Bidding Announcement,” Invest in Konya, accessed March 6, 2019, http://www.investinkonya.gov.tr/en/haber.asp?HaberID=116. 63 Ibid. 64 “New Row over Hiring Power-Generating Ships,” The Economist, May 1, 2012,

http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=219038406&Country=Lebanon&topic=Economy&subtopic=Cu_9. 65 “Mikati Proposes Power Plant Construction,” The

Daily Star, March 25, 2012, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2012/Mar-25/167926-mikati-proposes-power-plant-construction.ashx; “New Row over Hiring Power-Generating Ships,” The Economist. 66 Philippe Hage Boutros, “Navires-centrales: retour sur un dossier polémique,” L’Orient Le Jour, July 15, 2018, https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1125621/navires-centrales-retour-sur-un-dossier-polemique.html. 67 “Bassil va porter plainte contre Yacoubian pour diffamation,” L’Orient Le Jour, February 23, 2019, https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1158648/bassil-va-porter-plainte-contre-yacoubian-pour-diffamation.html. 68 “Navires-centrales: le ministère de l'Énergie notifie le parquet des accusations de S. Gemayel,” L’Orient

Le Jour, January 8, 2018, https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1093091/navires-centrales-le-ministere-de-lenergie-notifie-le-parquet-des-accusations-de-s-gemayel.html; Yara Abi Akl, “La guerre contre les navires-centrales se poursuit… chez le procureur financier,” L’Orient Le

Jour, March 1, 2018, https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1102408/la-guerre-contre-les-navires-centrales-se-poursuit-chez-le-procureur-financier.html. 69 Robert H. T. Bates, “Modernization, Ethnic Competition, and the Rationality of Politics in Contemporary Africa,” in State Versus Ethnic Claims:

African Policy Dilemmas, ed. Donald Rothchild and Victor Olunsorola (Connecticut: Westview Press, 1983); Binder, Rebuilding Devastated Economies in

the Middle East; Daniel Posner, Institutions and

Ethnic Politics in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 70 See Reinoud Leenders, Spoils of Truce: Corruption

and State-Building in Postwar Lebanon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012). 71 Corstange, The Price of a Vote in the Middle East. 72 Fardoun et al., “Electricity of Lebanon: Problems and Recommendations.” 73 Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (New York: Norton, 2002); Vining and Weimer, “Economic Perspectives on Public Organizations.” 74 Binder, Rebuilding Devastated Economies in the

Middle East. Vining and Weimer, “Economic Perspectives on Public Organizations.” 75 John Øvretveit, “Towards Market-Focused Measures of Customer/Purchaser Perceptions,” Quality Forum 19, no. 3 (1992): 21–24. 76 Vining and Weimer, “Economic Perspectives on Public Organizations.” 77 Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel, “Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East,” The Review of Faith & International


47

Affairs 15, no. 3 (Fall 2017): 1–13, https://doi.org/10.1080/15570274.2017.1354462. 78 Miller, Rethinking Northern Ireland: Culture,

Ideology and Colonialism (Abingdon: Routledge, 1998); Marco Demichelis, ed., Religious Violence,

Political Ends Nationalism, Citizenship and

Radicalizations in the Middle East and Europe (Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms Verlag, 2018). Frederic Wehrey, ed., Beyond Sunni and Shia: The

Roots of Sectarianism in a Changing Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 79 Hood, “A Public Management for All Seasons?”; Verdeil, “Infrastructure Crises in Beirut and the Struggle to (Not) Reform the Lebanese State.” 80 Binder, Rebuilding Devastated Economies in the

Middle East. 81 Khoury et al., “Review on the Integration of Photovoltaic Renewable Energy in Developing Countries.” 82 Philippe Hage Boutros, “EDZ détaille sa tarification en réponse aux critiques,” L’Orient Le Jour, August 7, 2018, https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1128913/edz-detaille-sa-tarification-en-reponse-aux-critiques.html. 83 Fardoun et al., “Electricity of Lebanon.” 84 Boutros, “EDZ détaille sa tarification en réponse aux critiques.” 85 Ibid. 86 This is mostly because EDZ buys the electricity from the national grid and prices tend to converge in the long run. 87 Boutros, “EDZ détaille sa tarification en réponse aux critiques.” 88 Ibrahim et al., “Multi-Variable Optimization for Future Electricity-Plan Scenarios in Lebanon”; “Plagued by Cuts, Lebanon Survives on Floating Power Plants,” An-Nahar. 89 Claude Assaf, “Assaad Nakad, un phare dans la nuit,” L’Orient Le Jour, May 15, 2017, https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1051753/assaad-nakad-un-phare-dans-la-nuit.html. 90 Ibid., and Boutros, “EDZ détaille sa tarification en réponse aux critiques.” 91 Ibid. 92 “Systems and Technologies,” EDZ: Electricité de Zahlé, accessed September 14, 2019, http://www.edz.com.lb/Systems_Technologies. 93 Alberto Alesina, Reza Baqir, and William Easterly, “Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions,” The Quarterly

Journal of Economics 114, no. 4 (November 1999): 1243–1284, https://doi.org/10.1162/003355399556269. 94 Baumann, Citizen Hariri, 245. 95 Khalil Feghali, “Evaluation de l’impact perçu de la privatisation au Liban sur le management et la variation de l’emploi,” Lebanese Science Journal 12, no. 1 (2011): 135–154, http://lsj.cnrs.edu.lb/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/feghali2.pdf.

96 Hood, “A Public Management for All Seasons?.” 97 Milton Esman, Ethnic Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). 98 Baumann, Citizen Hariri. 99 Katarina Uherova Hasbani, “Electricity Sector Reform in Lebanon: Political Consensus in Waiting,” Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law Working Paper Series, no. 124, 2011, https://fsi-live.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/No._124_Electricity_Sector_Reform.pdf. 100 Ibid. 101 Salloukh, “The Architecture of Sectarianization in Lebanon.” While many Lebanese know about this strategy and might be expected to revolt against it, sectarian culture is fully embedded in society and has the support of the people as long as the sects delivers benefits to their affiliated electorate. Free media and small secular parties denounce these practices but face strong sectarian populism through which leaders rally sect members and create sentiments of distrust between groups. Indeed, sect leaders often constitute the political and business elite, concentrating power, economic resources, and large social networks which allow them to penetrate and manipulate cleavages. This “divide and rule” strategy allows politicians to hold on to their power by competing or cooperating with one-another to reach this goal. In this system, sect leaders centralize power and disable citizen participation in political processes since their demands are not directly voiced. 102 Tom Najem, The Politics of a Penetrated Society. 103 Ibid. See also Thomas W. Haase, “A Challenging State of Affairs: Public Administration in the Republic of Lebanon,” International Journal of Public

Administration 41, no. 10 (2018): 792–806, https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2017.1387148, and Salloukh, “The Architecture of Sectarianization in Lebanon.” 104 Céline Haddad, “Privatisation de l’électricité: quelles implications?,” L’Orient Le Jour, March 2, 2017, https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1038115/privatisation-de-lelectricite-quelles-implications-.html; “Privatization: Lebanon’s Empty Pledge?,” The Daily

Star, March 16, 2012, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Business/Lebanon/2012/Mar-16/166843-privatization-lebanons-empty-pledge.ashx. 105 Baumann, Citizen Hariri. 106 Miller, Rethinking Northern Ireland; Donald L. Horowitz, “Ethnic Power Sharing: Three Big Problems,” Journal of Democracy 25 (2014): 5–20. 107 Colin Knox and Paul Carmichael, “Improving Public Services: Public Administration Reform in Northern Ireland,” Journal of Social Policy 35, no. 1 (January 2006): 97–120, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279405009311. 108 Harake and Kostopoulos, “Strategic Assessment.”


Nonviolence in Islam: Jawdat Saʿid and the Path of Adam’s First Son

PIETRO MENGHINI, University of Naples “L‘Orientale”

Abstract This article analyzes the first work of the Syrian philosopher and political thinker Jawdat Saʿid (b. 1931), Madhhab ibn Adam al-Awwal: Mushkilat al-ʿUnf fi al-ʿAmal al-Islami (The path of Adam’s first son: the problem of violence in Islamic action). This book, published in 1966, outlines the author’s ideas regarding Islamic nonviolence and represents one of the most important modern Arabic contributions to the debate surrounding the role of violence in Islam. The first part of this article traces the methodological directives and theological beliefs that form the core of Saʿid’s theory of nonviolence, what he will come to call “Habil’s path.” The second part focuses on Saʿid’s division between the constructive and the distinctive phases of Islamic society and analyzes how his idea of nonviolence shifts during his discussion of the latter. The final part explores the revolutionary potential of Habil’s path and the ways in which an espousal of tawḥīd and nonviolence might facilitate effective revolt against tyrannical rulers. This article concludes with a critical analysis of Saʿid’s arguments in support of his theory. It makes the argument that Saʿid’s work provides for an Islamic theory of nonviolence by rooting nonviolent concepts in Islamic history. It also highlights Saʿid’s theorization of nonviolence as a methodology and points to the way in which this theory sets him apart from other nonviolence theorists who see nonviolence as an absolute moral imperative. This article utilizes the English translation of Madhhab ibn Adam al-Awwal by Munzer A. Absi and H. Hilwani (1993) as a primary source, while using the original Arabic text to verify the translation’s accuracy. The ideas of other Islamic thinkers have also been presented in order to clarify Saʿid’s ideas, as well as to provide the reader with a general context of the similarities and differences between Saʿid and other Islamic philosophers. Keywords: Jawdat Saʿid; nonviolence; Islam; Habil (Abel); revolution; tawḥīd; Syria Pietro Menghini is a master’s student at the University of Naples “L’Orientale.” His studies focus on Islamic history and thought, contemporary history of the Middle East, and Arabic and Persian language. He improved his knowledge of Arabic studying and working with the European Voluntary Service in Amman, Jordan. He continued his studies of Persian in Kharazmi University in Tehran. Previously, he received his bachelor’s degree in Arabic and Persian studies, summa cum laude, from University in Naples “L’Orientale.”

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The Syrian philosopher Jawdat Saʿid (b. 1931) published his first book, Madhhab ibn

Adam al-Awwal: Mushkilat al-ʿUnf fi al-

ʿAmal al-Islami (The path of Adam’s first son: the problem of violence in Islamic action; hereafter, “The Path of Adam’s First

Son”), in 1966.1 In this work, Saʿid approached the theme of nonviolence that would become central to his writing in the following decades. By tracing ideas of peace and violence through the history of Islam, The Path of Adam’s First Son provides for a theory of Islamic nonviolence, where nonviolent concepts are seen as an integral part of the religion. In doing so, Saʿid brings a critical perspective to the debate surrounding the inherently “violent nature” of Islam that has increasingly come to dominate public discourse about the Muslim world. His advocation for nonviolent methods for revolting against tyranny is fundamental, especially in recent years in which parts of the Muslim world have witnessed nonviolent uprisings degenerating into bloody civil wars. Alongside ʿAbd al-Ghaffar Khan (d. 1988), a Pashtun activist, and ʿAfraʾ Jalabi (b. 1969), his Syrian disciple, Saʿid is one of the most important thinkers who have examined the idea of nonviolence in Islam, making his contribution to the conversation worthy of attention in contemporary debates. In the case of Syria, recognizing his influence and the application of his theories allows for the deconstruction of the state-sanctioned narrative that popular revolt is necessarily violent, based on a dualistic confrontation between the state on the one hand, and terrorists on the other; while rarely recognized in the media coverage, ideas of Islamic nonviolence played an important role during the Syrian Civil War in 2011, where citizens like Saʿid and his students firmly advocated for a nonviolent revolt.

Despite the relevance of Saʿid’s writing, there are few studies that examine his work in detail. These studies have mainly been conducted by Florence Ollivry-Dumairieh2 and Jean-Marie Müller,3 who have written an article and a book chapter

about Saʿid’s works respectively. Moreover, Naser Dumairieh has edited a collection of writings by Saʿid, Vie Islamiche alla non

violenza, which was published after the completion of the research for this article.4 Ollivry-Dumairieh’s article is first and foremost a cursory study of Saʿid’s life and main ideas, whereas Müller looks at the relationship between nonviolence and ignorance. Dumairieh likewise situates Saʿid’s main ideas in the context of his life, with a special focus on the concept of jihad. This article draws on the work of these three scholars—and primarily on Ollivry-Dumairieh and Müller, as mentioned—in analyzing Saʿid’s concept of nonviolence. It further explores some of the nuances around his theory of nonviolence, as well as his methodology, and adds to the existing literature the idea that nonviolence in Saʿid’s work is a method to reach a precise goal and not a moral imperative. This conceptualization of nonviolence is critical, as it differentiates Saʿid’s thinking from that of many other theorists of nonviolence. The article is structured in three parts. First, I discuss the ways in which Saʿid presents a theory of nonviolence by drawing upon passages from the Qurʾan and hadith. I then analyze the way Saʿid wants to create a new kind of society, built with nonviolent means. In the end, I highlight how this nonviolent method is revolutionary and how it provides a framework for dismantling tyrannies. I conclude by summarizing Saʿid’s thoughts and analyzing potential flaws in his argumentation. Indeed, the overall importance of Saʿid’s first work must not keep one from highlighting some of the critical issues in his theory of nonviolence, which requires thorough study, given both its potential as a theory and as a tool to understand other situations within the context of repression and revolt. This article utilizes the 1993 English translation of Madhhab ibn Adam al-Awwal by Munzer A. Absi and H. Hilwani (1993) as a primary source,5 while using the original Arabic text to verify the translation’s accuracy. The ideas of other Islamic thinkers have also been

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presented in order to clarify Saʿid’s ideas, as well as to provide the reader with a general context of the similarities and differences between Saʿid and other Islamic philosophers. Habil’s Path: Methodological Directives and Theological Beliefs Saʿid opens The Path of Adam’s First Son by quoting a passage from the Qurʾan (5:27–31) which he uses as a point of departure for constructing his theory of Islamic nonviolence. The verses describe the killing of Habil (Abel) at the hand of his brother Qabil (Cain) and the stance taken by Habil, saying that he would not raise his hand against his brother even if he was planning to kill him:

And recite to them the story of Adam’s two sons, in truth, when they both offered a sacrifice [to God], and it was accepted from one of them but was not accepted from the other. Said [the latter], “I will surely kill you.” Said [the former], “Indeed, God only accepts from those who are righteous [who fear Him]. If you should raise your hand against me to kill me—I shall not raise my hand against you to kill you. Indeed, I fear God, Lord of the worlds. Indeed, I want you to obtain [thereby] my sin and your sin, so you will be among the companions of the fire. And that is the recompense of wrongdoers.” And his soul permitted him to murder his brother, so he killed him and became among the losers. Then God sent a crow searching [i.e., scratching] in the ground to show him how to hide the private parts of his brother’s body. He said, “O woe to me! Have I failed to be like this crow and hide the private parts of my brother’s body?” And he became of the regretful.6

As the passage makes clear, Habil’s decision to “not raise [his] hand” is taken out of fear of God. The connection between Habil’s fear of God and his rejection of violence is seen by Saʿid as proof that Habil’s behavior is to be followed by true believers of Islam. In Arabic, the author uses the word “madhhab”

to refer to Habil’s practice of nonviolence.

The word, which could be translated as “path,” but also as “method,” “doctrine,” and “school of thought,” situates this practice within a context of fiqh, meaning Islamic jurisprudence.7 It suggests that Habil’s path forms part of a jurisprudential school, and serves as a guide to the proper behavior of a devout Muslim. Based on this idea, Saʿid sets out on a mission to describe, or rather “rediscover,” Habil’s teachings. As Saʿid explains he is not building a new theory, but rather uncovering an existing school of Islamic nonviolence—Habil’s path—by giving it a structure and an articulate argument. As one of the first episodes of the early history of Semitic religions, Saʿid uses the story of Habil and Qabil to demonstrate how nonviolence is a fundamental concept in Islam, present from its very beginning. Nonviolence, according to Saʿid, is a recurring principle in the lives of all the early prophets. For instance, he cites a verse from Surah Yunus (10:71), in which Nuh (Noah) refrains from violence when faced with resistance from those who rejected his message. Instead of meeting the disbelievers with fists and weapons, Nuh merely reaffirmed his conviction of God:

And recite to them the news of [Nuh], when he said to his people, “O my people, if my residence and my reminding of the Signs of God has become burdensome upon you—then I have relied upon God. So resolve upon your plan and [call upon] your associates. Then let not your plan be obscure to you. Then carry it out upon me and do not give me respite.”8

Saʿid points to other Qurʾanic verses to show prophets like Hud, ʿIsa (Jesus), Musa (Moses), and Shuʿayb all demonstrated a commitment to nonviolence, even in the face of an opposition that was itself violent.9 Finally, Saʿid locates the same call to nonviolence in the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, and provides his readers with several hadith on this matter:

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It is reported that Saʿd ibn Abu Waqqas addressed the Prophet[...] saying, “O God’s Messenger, tell me if someone comes into my house and stretches his hand to kill me?” To this the Prophet’s answer was “Be like Adam’s [first] son,” and he recited the Qurʾanic verses [5:27–31] cited above.10 “God’s Messenger, tell me what to do if I am drawn to rank in spite of myself, or in one of the groups and made to march, and a man strikes with his sword or there comes an arrow and kills me?' Thereupon he said, “He will bear the punishment of his sin and that of yours and he would be one among the denizens of Hell.”11

Having shown how the call to

nonviolence was repeated throughout the history of Islam, Saʿid begins to expand the scope of Habil’s path by locating other principles and beliefs that form part of this school. Again, he turns to the life of Prophet Muhammad, and examines hadith in which the Prophet offers advice for proper behavior in the face of adversity, oppression, and injustice:

It has been narrated on the authority of ʿUbada Ibn al-Walid, who learned the tradition from his father. ʿUbada’s grandfather said, “The Messenger of God took an oath of allegiance from us on our listening to and obeying the orders of our commander in adversity and prosperity, in pleasure and displeasure [and even] when somebody is given preference over us, on our avoiding to dispute the delegation of powers to a person deemed to be fit recipient hereof [in the eye of one who delegates it] and on our telling the truth in whatever position we be, without fearing in the matter of God the reproach of the reproacher…”12 A most excellent jihad is when one speaks a word of truth in the presence of a tyrannical ruler.13

In addition to a commitment to nonviolence, Saʿid argues that Habil’s path includes the principles to always tell the truth, to fight injustice with our words, and to be ready to sacrifice ourselves for our beliefs.

Moving forward, Saʿid also describes how Habil’s path entails a set of fundamental theological beliefs. Since the path represents Muslim’s model of behavior par excellence, it necessitates what he considers to be the core of the Islamic faith—a profession of belief tawḥīd. As part of the shahāda, one of the five pillars of Islam, all Muslims must profess a belief in tawḥīd—the unity and uniqueness of God—and, for reasons that will become clear later, Saʿid highlights this as a crucial element of Habil’s path:

A Muslim should have only guilt of believing in God (the Exalted in Power, the Owner of Praise) and saying, “My Lord is God (Allah).”14

In this way, then, the core of Habil’s path is comprised both of a set of methodological directives—abstention from violence, commitment to honesty, and opposition to injustice—and a set of theological beliefs. When combined, Saʿid means that these rules will have a lasting impact not just on individual followers, but on society as a whole.

The Constructive Phase and the Distinctive Phase At this point, Saʿid has presented us with a set of methodological directives and theological beliefs. Nevertheless, Habil’s path also includes a socio-political call for reform. To explain, Saʿid describes how the path consists of two phases: a constructive phase and a distinctive phase. The constructive phase occurs when followers of Habil’s path begin to adopt the aforementioned directives and beliefs. Once this is done on an individual level, Muslims should try to implement the same reform on a collective level, working towards the creation of a new society. The first step of the collective reform is to change the social and political environment: “We try to create a new environment to exchange views without weapons, guns or bombs, but by methods of ideas, logic, and dialogue.”15 Saʿid explains


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how the nonviolent environment will allow the Muslim community to freely discuss the terms and conditions for a new era of governance. Through nonviolent and democratic debates, the people can come to a collective agreement on the principles they recognize to be best for them and decide the laws of their new society.16 Once all participants come to an agreement on these principles and the method of their application they enter into the second phase of Habil’s path—the creation of a distinctive (mutamayyiz) Islamic society—which Saʿid means has fully “embraced and accepted Islam.”17 Here, Saʿid uses the word “mutamayyiz” in Arabic to convey the idea that the society being created is different from what came before since it will follow a set of principles that have been chosen by the people themselves, as opposed to a ruler. Moreover, in emphasizing that the distinctive society has “embraced and accepted Islam,” Saʿid indicates that other Islamic societies are corrupted by the use of violence and despotism and that Muslims, as a society, have to truly accept and embrace Islam once again, to create the distinctive society.18

In his discussion of the distinctive phase of Islamic society, Saʿid’s perspective on nonviolence undergoes a substantial shift. Once the members of the distinctive society have agreed upon a set of principles, he posits that force could legitimately be involved in ensuring the application of those principles:

Hence, it becomes evident that the choice of peaceful means must be applied when the society has not met the conditions of a Muslim society. When, however, the existing society is a Muslim one, which accepts the codes and norms of Islam, the act of force to sustain those rules becomes necessary;19 Fighting as a concept is not absolutely prohibited or ordained.20

For Saʿid, nonviolence only forms a part of Habil’s path insofar that it is a tool to reach a precise goal—the new, distinctive society.

Prior to the creation of the distinctive society, the use of all violence is unacceptable, since the principles which may need sustaining through force have not yet been recognized and accepted by everyone. Once the goal of a distinctive society has been reached, however, Saʿid means that the imperative of nonviolence no longer holds, should the participants of the distinctive society deem force to be an acceptable part of governance. Indeed, he even posits that when all the members of society have agreed upon the laws and principles they would like to adhere to, the use of force becomes necessary to preserve and sustain those laws and principles.21 This distinction is also described by Naser Dumairieh in Vie

Islamiche alla non violenza, where he defines it as the transition from “the predication to the state.”22 Here, Dumairieh further analyzes how the permission of the use of force when the society is created is a very similar idea to that expressed by Jean Jaques Rousseau.23 As we move deeper into Saʿid’s theory of nonviolence, we learn that the legitimacy of force is contingent. When the distinctive society is not yet formed, violence is forbidden; then, when the society is created, violence can be used under specific circumstances. The difference lies in the acceptance of the laws and principles that guide the new society may warrant the use of violence. While we tend to think of nonviolence in terms of moral absolutism, Saʿid’s theory suggests otherwise. To him, nonviolence is not an absolute moral imperative that remains constant over time. Instead, nonviolence is first and foremost a methodology—a tool to be used for a specific goal—and can thus be compromised once it has fulfilled its methodological purpose. The same logic, however, is also applicable to the practice of violence. Within the scope of Saʿid’s theory, both violence and nonviolence come to be understood as dependent on the situation society is in. Both concepts serve as tools and methodological directives—either to create a distinctive society, as in the case of nonviolence, or to

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preserve the distinctive society, as in the case of the limited use of violence. In this way, nonviolence stands in stark contrast to tawḥīd, which Saʿid means is a principle that can be compromised neither in the constructive phase nor the distinctive phase of Habil’s path.24 As one of the five pillars of Islam, tawḥīd is a prerequisite for all Muslims, even those that live in the distinctive society.

The permissibility of violence during the distinctive phase does not mean that nonviolence is a “secular” concept to Saʿid. Since the entirety of Habil’s path is given by God to humanity, nonviolence-as-methodology is equally “Islamic” as nonviolence-as-imperative. To demonstrate this, Saʿid returns to Islamic history. Looking at the life of the Prophet Muhammed, he finds similar divisions of a constructive and distinctive phase in the prophetic mission:

It [(the trial of Messenger Muhammad) ] took two clear forms: before the existence of the distinctive society and after it. During the first period, Prophet Muhammad himself did not order his followers to practice any acts of violence or war. Such a procedure was practiced after the erection of the Islamic state and the society’s complete acceptance of the different codes of Islam.25

As discussed above, Muhammed responded with patience and dialogue when faced with difficult circumstances. In the early days of the prophetic mission, he told his believers to stay clear of force, and to instead strive for an environment free of violence:

I would like to mention what a Muslim should do if he wants to erect the distinctive Islamic community. His task is similar to that of the Prophets, as mentioned in the Qur'an. In fact, in all its passages, the Holy Qur'an, which recalls the various disputes and conflicts between each Prophet and his people, shows us that the main reason behind such disputes and the aggression upon the Prophets were because of their faithful preachings, and not because they employed some form of aggression against their people.26

At the beginning of Islam, believers, in Mecca, were ordered to pay ritual charity, pray and pardon and forgive the polytheists, and persevere patiently for no long at a time.27 The Prophet did not allow his Companions to engage with those who rejected their call, even in self-defense.28

This commitment to nonviolence represents the Prophet’s method during the constructive phase of the Islamic mission when he was still trying to create the Islamic society. When the constructive phase was completed, however, the phase of the distinctive Islamic society commenced. At this point, the Prophet condoned the use of violence for certain purposes, as indicated by his acceptance of the killing of Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf, a Jewish leader and a poet in Medina, after the battle of Badr. According to Saʿid “the Prophet accepted [the] violent act,”29 in order to preserve the newly created society. This example, set by the Prophet, shows again how the methodological conceptualization of nonviolence (and violence) is well-rooted in the Islamic tradition. Habil’s Path and Revolt In a context of tyrannical rule, Habil’s path holds revolutionary potential. This potential is drawn both from the values espoused by its theological beliefs—in other words, what kind of society it envisions—and the effectiveness of its methodological directives. Here, Saʿid returns to the idea of tawḥīd, which was previously highlighted as a cornerstone of Habil’s path. He points out that tawḥīd is not just a theological concept, but also a political one. By establishing God as the ultimate source of power, tawḥīd

necessitates a certain political order on the human level:

[As a follower of Habil’s path] I bear witness that there is no god but Allah… I follow no rule, but that of Allah (the only God), I do not respond to any government, constitution


55

or legislation on Earth. I do not obey any order but that of God. I do not abide by any rule or norm whatsoever which belongs to hereditary jahilite convictions. I believe in God, I surrender myself to Him; rejecting those blasphemous tyrants and false gods. In such a case would such societies hear this call and keep silence toward it? I doubt it.30

To Saʿid, declaring the unity of God is like declaring the unity of humanity—as a creation of God—and the equality between people. In a true Muslim society, it is impossible for a single person to stand as a ruler since the only true ruler is God himself. In this way, the belief in tawḥīd necessitates a political espousal of egalitarianism. Saʿid is not the first to make this connection between revolution and tawḥīd. Another Islamic thinker, ʿAli Shariati (d. 1977), came to the same conclusion:

The meta-historic fight between [Habil] and [Qabil] is also a fight between the oneness of God and polytheism, between justice and oneness of humanity on one side, and racial and social discrimination on the other. It has existed throughout human history and it will exist until the last day. It is the fight between [a] religion of deceit and stupidity and justification of the status quo and [a] religion of conscience, activism and revolution. The end of time will come when [Qabil] dies and “[Habil’s] system” will be established once again. This inevitable revolution will mean the end of [Qabil’s] history; equality will be restored all over the world, unity and brotherhood will be re-established thanks to equity and justice. This is the unavoidable direction of history.31

As both Shariati and Saʿid explain, the oneness of God necessitates the oneness of humanity. In turn, this relationship necessitates that unity, equality, and brotherhood be practiced on a political level. If tawḥīd represents the political vision inherent in Habil’s path, nonviolence is the means by which this vision is most effectively attained. Again, looking back to the lives of the prophets, Saʿid argues that “the last of this Islamic nation [i.e. the egalitarian society] would not be reformed

but by the very means which reformed it initially.”32 In attempting to build an Islamic society, the prophets, as discussed above, responded to difficulties and persecution through nonviolent means. To Saʿid, however, this was not just for theological reasons—such as respecting the path laid out by God—but also for strategic ones. Recounting the story of Musa, Saʿid points to the fact that the Pharaoh felt his rule threatened by Musa first and foremost due to the fact that Musa did not call to violently overthrow him:

In spite of the fact that [Musa] wanted to change the status quo, Pharaoh did not consider [Musa] a man that wanted to enforce change by aggression or power. Rather, Pharaoh regarded [Musa] as a man who was well capable of changing the existent condition simply because there was no force in Pharaoh’s system that could face the concepts which [Musa] was spreading among the people.33

Instead of inciting the people to violence, Musa managed to challenge the Pharaoh by facilitating an open discussion of his abuse of power. The creation of an environment where everything—apart from theological beliefs like tawḥīd—can be discussed and debated freely using logic and argumentation is not convenient for a tyrannical ruler. With the ability to question power, the people are likely to make demands for limits to be placed upon it. Nonviolent methods are also effective as they are often difficult for the ruler to counter. As Saʿid explains, rulers tend to prefer protests where participants rely on violence to make sure their demands are heard:

If such rulers were given a chance to choose between a revolt that is based on a strong belief and promoted by peaceful means, and a revolt which is promoted by force and the use of arms, they are sure to choose the one based on force, as this would give them the excuse to demolish the rebels with the utmost ease. 34

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While rulers would normally find it much easier to retain power through the use of force rather than debate, this is a risky tactic when countering nonviolent protestors. Without an adequate justification to use violence, the ruler might further lose legitimacy in the eyes of the people. Since a nonviolent revolt questions power in accordance with certain principles, it also demands that answers be given according to the same principles. This was true in the story of Musa, where the Pharaoh felt incapacitated by Musa’s nonviolent methods. As Saʿid points out, “[i]If Pharaoh had been capable of proving that [Musa] was a criminal, he would not have tried to ask the people to allow him to kill [Musa].”35 Thus, if followers of Habil’s path are faced with violence they should not resort to force, as this would give the ruler an advantage. In a violent confrontation, protestors are more likely to lose both the moral and the physical battle; when using violence, the followers of Habil’s path would be categorized as a dangerous threat, giving any ruler the excuse to use force against them and most probably leading to their defeat. In this way, Saʿid explains that standing by one’s principles is not only a matter of morality following God’s path but also a necessary political strategy for winning the revolt. To him, the only way of creating the egalitarian society that is demanded by Islam—the distinctive society—is by following Habil’s path, and staying true to the method of nonviolence throughout the course of the revolt. Conclusion While there is room for deeper analysis and description of what has been discussed, this article has provided an in-depth look into The

Path of Adam’s First Son, building on the work of Florence Ollivry-Dumairieh, Jean-Marie Müller, and Naser Dumairieh. With the description of Habil’s path, the contextualization of nonviolence within the division of the phases, and the discussion of the revolutionary potential of tawḥīd and

nonviolence, one has a strong understanding of Saʿid’s theory of Islamic nonviolence. His work, while complete and structured, does include some critical issues that should be highlighted, especially with regards to argumentation and analysis, as well as the question of practicability. Concerning the first part of this critique, when Saʿid presents passages from the hadith and the Qurʾan to develop his theory, he does not explain why he includes those specific passages. These passages support his position, but the selection is arbitrary given the number of other references from the hadith and the Qurʾan that could contradict his theory, or, at the very least, change the context in which those passages are being employed. For example, the first Qurʾanic passage that Saʿid uses to narrate Habil’s story could be interpreted in another way, such as was done by the Pakistani philosopher Abu al-Aʿla al-Mawdudi (d. 1979). Instead of seeing Habil’s decision to “not raise [his] hand” as a commitment to nonviolence, al-Mawdudi sees this as a commitment to not inciting

violence:

This does not mean, that his brother assured him that when the latter stepped forward to kill him he would keep his hands tied and stretch out his own neck to be cut down rather than defend himself. What this statement amounts to is an assurance on the part of the first brother that, even though the other was intent on killing him, he himself had no such intention. In other words, he assured his brother that even though the latter was busy planning his murder he would not take the initiative in killing him despite his knowledge of the latter’s intent. Righteousness does not demand at all that when a man is subjected to wrongful aggression he should surrender to the aggressor rather than defend himself. Righteousness, however, demands that a man should not take the initiative and try to kill someone even though he knows him to be bent on killing him. He should rather wait for the act of aggression to be initiated by the other person. And this is exactly what was intended by the statement of the righteous son of Adam.36


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This difference in interpretation demands that Saʿid provide a more structured explanation of the reasoning behind his interpretation of this passage. The same can be said in regard to other passages he chose to include in his argument, especially those where alternative readings suggest that nonviolence may be more of a response to circumstances than conscious adherence to Habil’s path. When the Prophet Muhammad, for example, invited Muslims to be patient and not use violence against polytheists in Mecca, the reason could be connected with the equilibrium of forces specific to that moment, more than with a conscious choice of nonviolence. The polytheists in Mecca were much stronger than the Muslims and so the choice to not confront them with force could have been made by a strategic circumstantial justification. As far as the second level of critique goes, parts of Saʿid’s theory suffer from a lack of clear definitions and adequate explanations. For instance, when explaining how the distinctive society will be created, Saʿid does not define what is meant by “society.” Is this society simply Islamic, or should it be defined in terms of reach on a national or global scale? It is also unclear how the debates taking place in the nonviolent environment will be concluded, and how the principles on which everybody will agree will be chosen. Will the agreement be reached by a majority vote or by other means? Another problem arises concerning permission for the use of force. Even though the author clarifies which situations warrant the use of violence, he does not explicitly explain what he means by “the act of force to sustain those rules.”37 Is he referring to the use of force against riotous members of society who had previously accepted its laws and are now resisting or revolting against them? Or is he referring to external attacks on this new society? If so, how can force be used against external attacks, since those waging the attack are not members of the society and have not accepted its principles? Yet another issue arises with regard to the efficiency of nonviolence as a method for

revolt. While Saʿid makes a strong case for the moral superiority of a nonviolent method, he seemingly idealizes the possibility of a nonviolent revolt without considering the extent of the repression that could take place. These issues are fundamental in assessing the soundness and practicability of the application of Habil’s theory. Despite the aforementioned theoretical weaknesses, the relevance of Saʿid’s work is clearly demonstrated in his innovative position on, and interpretation of, the principle of nonviolence. In constructing Habil’s path as a new madhhab modeled on the lives of the prophets, Saʿid shows how nonviolence is a recurring theme throughout the history of Islam. As such, he makes a convincing argument that nonviolence is truly an “Islamic” principle, thereby refuting interpretations of Islam as a “violent religion.” Moreover, Saʿid’s theorization of nonviolence as a methodology sets him apart from many other philosophers both inside and outside the Islamic world. In the current literature on nonviolence in Islam, Sa’id is often referred to as the “Syrian Gandhi.”38 This epithet, however, is largely misleading.39 Gandhi, like many other philosophers and activists, viewed nonviolence as an absolute moral imperative, and would not have agreed with Saʿid’s arguments for the permissibility of using force in the distinctive society.40 However, the non-absolute status of nonviolence in Saʿid’s theory does not mean that he was a “proponent of violence” as such. Instead, Saʿid suggests that force can only be administered when society has reached a certain stage of peaceful, democratic development—the distinctive Islamic society—and only in the case that the principles of that society should be threatened. In this way, he deems violence impermissible in any non-democratic society and proposes a strong regulation of the use of force in societies where violence is permissible. With The Path of Adam’s First Son, Saʿid hoped to create a distinctive Islamic society and solve the problem of conflicts

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among Muslims. More than fifty years after the book was published, this dream is yet to come true. This does not mean that there is a lack of support for his ideas. Saʿid himself has been heavily involved in politics in Syria both prior to and following the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, and his work was one of the primary sources of inspiration for the movement of nonviolent protest in Syria at that time.41 Through the teachings of his disciple, ʿAbd al-Akram al-Saqqa,42 and in some of the writings of al-Saqqa’s students, his ideas of Islamic nonviolence have been spread to new generations of political activists.43 In 2003, al-Saqqa’s students formed the group Daraya Youth to fight political injustice using nonviolent means. Its

1As Naser Dumairieh points out in Vie Islamiche alla

Nonviolenza, The Path of Adam’s First Son was published during the same year as the death of Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966), who had published Maʿālim fī al-

Tarīq (Milestones) in 1964. Milestones has been a pillar for violent activism within political Islam in the second half of 20th century. In this context, Saʿid’s work could be read as an answer to the school of thought in Islam which Qutb subscribed to. See Naser Dumairieh, ed., Vie islamiche alla non violenza, by Jawdat Saʿid, trans. Paola Pizzi (Bologna: Zikkaron, 2017), xv. 2 Florence Ollivry-Dumairieh, “Jawdat Saʿid: Penseur de la non violence en Islam,” Ultreïa! 9, no. 1 (Fall 2016): 132–136, http://revue-ultreia.com/rubriques/figures-libres/jawdat-said-penseur-de-la-non-violence-en-islam/. 3 Jean-Marie Müller, Désarmer les dieux: Le

christianisme et l'islam face à la non-violence (Paris: Les Editions du Relié, 2010). 4 Dumairieh, Vie islamiche alla non violenza. See note 1 above for full citation. 5 Jawdat Saʿid, Non-violence: The Basis of Setting

Disputes in Islam, 5th ed., trans. Munzer A. Absi and H. Hilwani (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1993). While Absi and Hilwani translated the original title, Madhhab ibn

Adam al-Awwal: Mushkilat al-ʿUnf fi al-ʿAmal al-

Islami, as “Non-violence: The Basis of Setting

Disputes in Islam,” the literal translation is “The Path

of Adam’s First Son: The Problem of Violence in

Islamic Action.” In this article, a shortened version of the literal translation of the original work is used (The

Path of Adam’s First Son). Nevertheless, Absi and Hilwani’s translation is used when the work is cited in the endnotes. 6 Saʿid, Non-violence, 12. 7 While “madhhab” has many possible translations, I have chosen to translate it as “path.” This is to better

members played an active role during the first Syrian uprisings in 2011, calling for the implementation of nonviolent principles.44 Saʿid’s work could also be a contribution to the on-going debate within the Syrian opposition, alongside that of the Syrian writer Yassin al-Hajj Saleh, about the evolution of a nonviolent revolt into an armed one.45 While this article has provided an overview of Saʿid’s theoretical contribution, more research is needed to measure the impact of his ideas on nonviolent groups such as Daraya Youth and on Islamic nonviolent movements at large. This goes beyond the scope of this article but remains a fertile ground for future stud

reflect the chronological structure of the constructive and distinctive phase of Habil’s madhhab. 8 Saʿid, Non-violence, 12. 9 Ibid., 22–26. 10 Ibid., 12. This hadith originally appears in Sunan

Abi Dawud, no. 4257. 11 Ibid., 12. This hadith originally appears in Sahih

Muslim, no. 6896. 12 Ibid., 13. This hadith originally appears in Sahih

Muslim, no. 4538. 13 Ibid., 13. This hadith originally appears in Musnad

Ahmad ibn Hanbal, no. 18449. 14 Ibid., 16. 15 Ibid., 51. 16 In Jean Jacques Rousseau’s work, Du Contrat

Social, one finds the idea that force does not generate law. Saʿid integrates this idea into his work and ascribes nonviolence to the role of building the rule of law. See Jean Jacques Rousseau, Du contrat social ou

Principes du droit politique, (Paris: Flammarion, 2012), 15. A similar argument has been made by Dumairieh, see endnote 21. 17 Saʿid, Non-violence, 17. 18 See ibid., 32, on the idea that even a society that is considered a Muslim one needs reformation. See also ibid., 42–43, where Saʿid states that only by truly following Islam we can reach a distinctive society and that the society becomes distinctive for its “clear faith.” 19 Ibid., 28–29. 20 Ibid., 19. 21 Saʿid, Non-violence, 28. “The enforcement of such a law can only come at a later stage, when everybody agrees on this law.” 22 Dumairieh, Vie islamiche alla non violenza, xxix. 23 Ibid., xxx–xxxii. 24 Saʿid, Non-violence, 27. “Such a procedure (the use of force) was practiced after the erection of the Islamic state and the society’s complete acceptance of the


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different codes of Islam.” Saʿid highlights that even after the creation of a distinctive Islamic society the members of this society need to accept completely the codes of Islam, among them, of course, is the tawḥīd. 25 Ibid., 27. 26 Ibid., 21. 27 Ibid., 27. Here, Saʿid refers to an argument provided by the Qurʾanic scholar Ismaʿil ibn Kathir in Tafsir al-

Qurʾan al-ʿAzim (Cairo: Maktabat al-Nahda al-Islamiyya, 1980), no. 1096. 28 Ibid., 68. 29 Ibid., 48. 30 Ibid., 45. 31 ʿAli Shariati, On the Sociology of Islam, trans. Hamid Algar (Berkeley, Mizan Press, 1979), 108–109. A similar argument has been made by the Islamic philosopher Hassan Hanafi (b. 1935). The work of Hanafi is not directly connected with Saʿid’s work but it is interesting to examine the similarities between their perspective on tawḥīd. Hanafi writes that “Islam is the revolutionary religion par excellence. [Tawḥīd] is a process of unifying something that happened in the past with the future. It means freedom of conscience, the refusal of fear, and the end of hypocrisy and duplicity.” Similar to Saʿid, he also argues that “the declaration of the oneness of God: there is no god but God is not just an expression of the language, but it is a double act of consciousness. In the first place, it denies all pseudo-gods that impede freedom of conscience, and in the second place it is a statement of oneness and transcendence of the universal principle.” See Hassan Hanafi, “Des idéologies modernistes à l'Islam révolutionnaire,” Peuples Méditerranéens 21, no. 1 (Fall 1982): 3-13, and Islam in the Modern World: Vol 1: Religion,

Ideology, and Development (Heliopolis: Dar Kebaa Bookshop, 2000), 467. 32 Saʿid, Non-violence, 68. 33 Ibid., 24. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Abu al-Aʿla al-Mawdudi, Towards Understanding

the Qurʾan, trans. Zafar Ishaq Ansari (Leicester: Islamic Foundation UK, 2013). See comments for Surah al-Maidah (5:27–34). 37 Saʿid, Non-violence, 28–29. 38 See Claudia Mende, “In Gandhi’s Footsteps,” Qantara.de, June 26, 2015, https://en.qantara.de/content/islamic-approaches-to-

non-violence-in-gandhis-footsteps; See also Abdessamad Belhaj, “Jawdat Saʿīd and the Philosophy of Peace” (conference paper, Islamic Peace Ethics: Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence in Contemporary Islamic Thought, Hamburg, Germany, October 17, 2015). 39 Ollivry-Dumairieh also observes this trend without expressing an opinion on it. See “Jawdat Saʿid: Penseur de la non violence en Islam,” 132–136. 40 Mohandas Gandhi, Non-violent Resistance

(Satyaraga) (Chelmsford, MA: Courier Corporation, 2001), 32–33. In fact, Gandhi’s position is much closer to those of ʿAbdul Ghaffar Khan, who has also been referred to as the “Islamic Gandhi.” See

Dinanath Gopal Tendulkar, Abdul Ghaffar Khan: Faith Is a Battle (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1967), 93–94, and James Rowell, “Abdul Ghaffar Khan: An Islamic Gandhi,” Political Theology 10 (2009): 591–606. 41 See, for instance Mohja Kahf, “Water Bottles and Roses,” Mashallah News, November 21, 2011, https://www.mashallahnews.com/water-bottles-roses/, and “Who’s Who: Jawdat Said,” The Syrian

Observer, January 7, 2014, https://syrianobserver.com/EN/who/33793/whos_who_jawdat_said.html. 42 “Abdul Akram Al-Sakka, Peaceful Activist,” Human Rights Watch, September 11, 2013 https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/09/11/abdul-akram-al-sakka-peaceful-activist. See also Joey Ayoub, “An Idea called Daraya,” Al Jumhuriyya, December 9, 2018, https://www.aljumhuriya.net/en/content/idea-called-daraya. 43 See Lorenzo Trombetta, Siria: Dagli ottomani agli

Assad (Milano: Mondadori Education, 2013), 221; and Kahf, “Water Bottles and Roses.” 44 Amal Hanano, “Syria’s Non-Violent Activists Were the First to Be Targeted,” The National, March 12, 2012, https://www.thenational.ae/uae/syria-s-non-violent-activists-were-the-first-to-be-targeted1.380789. 45 Andy Heintz, “Dissidents of the Left: In Conversation with Yassin al-Haj Saleh,” al-

Jumhuriya, August 28, 2018, https://www.aljumhuriya.net/en/content/dissidents-left-conversation-yassin-al-haj-saleh.

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