Overall, the branding of such opposition movements and the positioning of the Gulf monarchies as a better, safer alternative to Islamistdominated governments or other such scenarios has been highly effective. Indeed, as described in a recent book on the Arab Spring, these ‘…rulers became well versed in their routine of no alternative argumentation: towards the West, they posed as the only ones able to deter an Islamist takeover’.[810] Moreover, it was argued that there is a now a ‘…sad irony that the powers in place have ended up believing their own fantasises about the Islamist threat; they not only displayed that card for external consumption, but they also fed their own masses with gory stories about the inevitability of… ruin’.[811] And that the Gulf monarchies — and their now fallen Arab autocrat neighbours — have been responsible for ‘…rushing to enrol in the global War on Terror, provided that their domestic opposition would fall under the extensive category of al-Qaeda supporters’. The anti-terrorism legislation and emergency laws that have been used to neutralise opponents have since been heavily criticised for being an ‘oxymoron to describe the suspension of the rule of law and the absolute vulnerability of the citizen’.[812]
In much the same way as the Islamist groups, some opposition movements in the region, especially in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia — where there are substantial Shia populations — are now being branded both as terrorists and as part of some greater plot to further Iran’s interests in the Gulf monarchies. Linked to growing hawkishness towards Iran, this has been another relatively straightforward and convenient mechanism in these states with which to portray opponents — no matter how peaceful — as being dangerous fifth column movements serving a foreign power or entity. Again this has allowed the monarchies to discredit opponents in the eyes of other citizens, while also allowing them to demonstrate their willingness to support Western policies on Iran. Frequently in Bahrain, for example, the government has claimed that the opposition is either being funded by Iran or is receiving weapons or other logistical support. In May 2011 military officials claimed that the opposition was made up of ‘traitors and saboteurs’ who were drawing ‘…guidance lines from Iran that drew the acts of sabotage and barbarism in the kingdom’.[813] And even following the publication of an independent report into Bahrain’s crackdown in November 2011—as discussed below — which concluded that the ‘Iranians are [merely] propagandists and that they can’t be expected not to take advantage of the situation’ and that ‘…to say they were funding, agitating… we found no evidence of this’, Bahraini government officials still claimed that there was a link, stating that they had ‘evidence you cannot touch or see physically, but we know it is there’.[814]
Modernising forces
Since the beginning of the oil era and the rapid socio-economic transformation of the Gulf monarchies, many of the modernising forces impacting on the region were, as described, expected to lead to significant political openings or, at least, more conscious and demanding national populations. In many ways what happened instead was the careful control or in some cases even harnessing of these forces by the regimes. Despite massively improved access and a large number of schools and universities being established, educational curricula have usually been tightly monitored or even shaped to support directly the state or the ruling family in question. This has usually led to skewed or inaccurate history being taught in the region, the absence of some fields of political science and law from university faculties, and a reliance on self-censoring, often expatriate, staff in these institutions. Similarly, with regards to communications, the Gulf monarchies have invested considerable resources and efforts in finding ways to censor interactions between their citizens and between their citizens and other parties. As such, each new communications technology that has become available in the region has either been sponsored by the state (for example the state-backed newspapers, radio stations, and television stations), or — if that proved difficult — has been blocked (such as unpalatable foreign newspapers, unwanted foreign radio and television signals, satellite broadcasts, and foreign books).
A case can even be made that the internet itself — predicted by many to lead to sweeping changes in such tightly controlled societies — was also successfully co-opted by the Gulf monarchies, at least in the early days. The blocking of offensive websites, including blogs critical of the regimes, has occurred, while many other basic internet communications methods such as email or messenger software can either be blocked or — more usefully — monitored by the state so as to provide information and details on opponents and opposition movements.[815] Moreover, some Gulf monarchies have actively exploited internet communications, and arguably done so much better than most governments in developed states, with an array of ‘E-Government’ website services having been launched — most of which allow citizens to feel more closely connected to government departments and thus help echo the earlier era of direct, personal relations between the rulers and ruled.[816] Meanwhile, as demonstrated, the rulers themselves have often established presences on the internet, and their self-glorifying websites usually also feature discussion fora to facilitate interaction between themselves (or rather their employees) and the general public. Many other lesser ruling family members, ministers, police chiefs, and other establishment figures in the region have also set up interactive Twitter feeds and Facebook fan sites for the same purposes, and some of these are now ‘followed’ by thousands of citizens and other well-wishers. The ruler of Dubai’s Twitter feed, for example, exceeded one million subscribers in July 2012. Tweeting on this success, he emphasised the participatory nature of the software: ‘Together we came up with many social, humanitarian and cultural initiatives and I have personally benefited from your constructive thoughts. Thank you all, and I hope that we take our communication and interaction to the next level soon, for the good of our communities’.[817]
More recently a wave of new internet technologies — often loosely bundled under the banner of ‘Web 2.0’ applications — seems to be finally having the kind of impact on the region’s access to education and communications that would have been predicted or desired by the earlier modernisation theorists. Popularly defined as ‘facilitating participatory information sharing, interoperability, and user-centred design’ these applications allow users to connect to each other using ‘social media’ based on content created by themselves in co-operation with other users, rather than simply retrieving information from the internet in the format that is presented to them. Among the best examples of such applications are the more recent incarnations of Facebook, which is now no longer just focused on personal pages and fan sites but has become home to thousands of active discussion groups; the more recent versions of Twitter, which is now host to thousands of third party applications that aid users in finding and following the most appropriate content and personalities based on their interests; and YouTube, which allows regular users to upload, share, and comment on videos from their mobile phones, or even create their own television channels. While these and other Web 2.0 applications can still be blocked in their entirety by cautious regimes, this is now unlikely to happen in the Gulf monarchies as the inevitable outcry from the large numbers of users would be difficult or perhaps impossible to appease.
810
14. Filiu, Jean-Pierre,
815
19. Regimes have also used ‘deep packet inspection’ to censor private emails. See Filiu (2011), p. 46.
816
20. E.g. the case of Abu Dhabi’s burgeoning E-Government. See Davidson, Christopher M.,