Gulf News
Dialogues will not earn the same attention as violent protests, but they can point out that the peace agenda is not hijacked by a violent minority
By Oussama Romdhani, Special to Gulf NewsPublished: 20:00 October 6, 2012
For decades, North Africa has been absent from the US media and public opinion spotlight. There were obviously a few exceptions: Muammar Gaddafi and his recurrent “eccentricities”; Israeli attacks on Tunis after the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) moved its headquarters there; the terrorist incidents shaking up the tourist hubs of Marrakech, Morocco, and Djerba, Tunisia.
But overall, North Africa was no match for the Middle East in terms of competition for American attention. Before January 2011, the domestic happenings of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco were mostly left to the French, the so-called “former colonial power”, to worry about. Only Egypt, associated more with the Middle East than North Africa, had a high profile in the US
With the Arab Spring, developments in the North African nations of Tunisia and Libya rose to a higher level of global and US media attention. But the September attacks against US diplomatic missions in Cairo, Benghazi and Tunis were not the type of profile-enhancing events the struggling North African nations were looking for to improve their investment and tourism fortunes. The attacks thrust North Africa into the unwelcome limelight of violence and mayhem. The week of September 13-16, attacks on the US Embassies in North Africa were in fact followed by the American public even more attentively than the 2012 election campaign. Even Morocco, which has remained calm during the sudden outbursts of mob riots over the film, Innocence of Muslims, saw the faces of its angry Salafists plastered over the cover of Time magazine, all under the quintessentially-stereotypical headline of ‘Muslim Rage’.
In North Africa, the embassy attacks were seen as outrageously shocking by most. The “Maghrebi Street” was never known to be a hotbed of radical anti-Americanism, despite its opposition to US policies in the Middle East. Opinion polls conducted in recent weeks in Libya and Tunisia have reflected the high US “favourability” ratings. In a Gallup poll, 54 per cent of Libyans approved of US leadership — “among the highest approval levels Gallup has ever recorded in the Middle East and North Africa region, outside of Israel,” commented the survey analysts. Poll results released last week by the Sigma poll agency showed that 62 per cent of Tunisians had a favourable view of the US. But such figures seemed utterly theoretical to the chagrined segments of the US public that have had a soft spot for Maghreb for decades. These pro-Maghreb constituencies include former diplomats, academics, tourists, businessmen, Peace Corps volunteers and many others. Chris Stevens, the US Ambassador assassinated in Libya, was ironically one of them. “As a young man, Chris joined the ‘Peace Corps’ and taught English in Morocco and he came to love and respect the people of North Africa and the Middle East. He would carry that commitment throughout his life”, said Barack Obama in his most recent United Nations speech.
When in the middle of a presidential campaign, angry mobs attack American diplomatic missions, killing a US Ambassador and three of his staff members, it is no small crisis. It does not even matter how large the crowd really is. French scholar Olivier Roy talks about an “elliptical illusion” making a small minority of rioters appear larger than it is. Violent protesters do not have to be a majority to capture media attention and seize the political agenda. Those who commit outrageous acts of violence and terrorism know it. In the case of the embassy attacks, the perpetrators knew also that they could count on the lingering residual, distrust (stemming from past episodes of hostility between the US and the Muslim world) to provide them with the accelerator for the arson-fire. Even before the embassy attacks, Rasmussen polls pointed out that nearly two-out-of-three (63 per cent) believe there is a conflict in the world today between western civilisation and Islamic nations.
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was not alone to advocate a tough US response. He was joined by a chorus, including members of Congress opposed to foreign assistance programmes, critical politicians and angry pundits. Victor Davis Hanson, a scholar at the Hoover Institution in Stanford University, was unambiguous in his advice to the US government: “Quietly cut back aid to hostile Middle East governments. Put travel off-limits. Restrict visas and call home ambassadors — at least until Arab governments control their own street mobs,” he said.
But this was not a point of view shared by all quarters. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, noted soberly that Americans “have not even begun to grapple with the enormity of the challenge we face as countries become more politically participatory and people have a voice”. Eventually, such influential newspapers as the New York Times advised the US government against disengagement. “It would be wrong,” it editorialised, “to retreat from supporting people in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt who are committed to building democratic governments and pluralistic societies based on the rule of law as some in Congress urge.” The more prudent and moderate attitude of President Obama carried the day in public opinion. His position was approved by 45 per cent of the public as compared to only 26 per cent for Romney.
Despite the current tremors, there are signs in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia that post-revolutionary authorities have heeded the security alarms sounded by the attacks. At least for now, disengagement does not seem to be the guiding factor for US policies in the region. In fact, at the same time that its embassies were being attacked, the US was launching its first “strategic dialogue” with Morocco and announcing a similar “dialogue” with Algeria for later this month. Such “dialogues” will not earn the same amount of attention as violent protests, but they have the merit of pointing out that the US-North Africa agenda has not been hijacked by the violent minority.
Oussama Romdhani is a former Tunisian minister of communication.
