On her book The Levant Express: The Arab Uprisings, Human Rights, and the Future of the Middle East
Cover Interview of February 19, 2020
In a nutshell
First, the book title, The Levant Express,
is a metaphor representing the demands for human rights that raced across the
Arab world like a high-speed train during the Arab uprisings of 2011. Within
two years, the fast moving revolutionary contagion slowed to a halt. When the Arab
Spring turned into the Arab Winter, some governments (Egypt and the Gulf
monarchies) reestablished even more repressive authoritarian regimes, while
other states (Libya, Syria, Yemen) devolved into civil wars. What led to those
uprisings and their tragic consequences? My book addresses those questions by
identifying how patterns of revolution and counterrevolution have played out in
different societies and historical contexts. I then apply those insights toward
offering hopeful and realistic proposals to reroute The Levant Express.
What makes my book unique are the arguments I
offer for hope, and the paths that I offer for resuming the advance of human
rights in the Middle East. Other experts view the region as trapped in an
endless maelstrom, or offer incremental steps aimed at one or another immediate
crisis. True, the region has been beset by a long history of political
repression, economic distress, sectarian conflict, and violence against women.
But that history pales in comparison to the tragedies of the West, which was also
plagued by religious wars, and by two World Wars that brought Europe
unprecedented devastation.
Hopefully, readers will be stimulated and
informed by the lessons I draw from those European struggles and apply to the
Middle East, and by my identification of current possibilities, including
subterranean social forces for progress. I remind readers that before the
defeat of Nazism, Franklin D. Roosevelt envisioned a post-war reconstruction
effort based on foundational principles of freedom. His Four Freedoms (Freedom
of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear) paved
the way for the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the
Marshall Plan, Bretton Woods, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. History
offers no better success story than these post-World War II endeavors. We need
to remember that sustainable peace needs to be planned even during times of
war.
In short, this book is attentive to the current
plight of people in the Middle East. It also challenges the pessimistic malaise
that undermines Western interest in developing substantive plans for regional
progress. It prods readers to resist succumbing to populist, protectionist, and
nationalist fervor, and to understand why a restored international liberal
order requires a peaceful Middle East. For example, the refugee crisis in
Europe cannot be addressed without human rights, political stability, and
economic opportunity in the Middle East and North Africa. Our futures are
intertwined.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
In a nutshell
First, the book title, The Levant Express, is a metaphor representing the demands for human rights that raced across the Arab world like a high-speed train during the Arab uprisings of 2011. Within two years, the fast moving revolutionary contagion slowed to a halt. When the Arab Spring turned into the Arab Winter, some governments (Egypt and the Gulf monarchies) reestablished even more repressive authoritarian regimes, while other states (Libya, Syria, Yemen) devolved into civil wars. What led to those uprisings and their tragic consequences? My book addresses those questions by identifying how patterns of revolution and counterrevolution have played out in different societies and historical contexts. I then apply those insights toward offering hopeful and realistic proposals to reroute The Levant Express.
What makes my book unique are the arguments I offer for hope, and the paths that I offer for resuming the advance of human rights in the Middle East. Other experts view the region as trapped in an endless maelstrom, or offer incremental steps aimed at one or another immediate crisis. True, the region has been beset by a long history of political repression, economic distress, sectarian conflict, and violence against women. But that history pales in comparison to the tragedies of the West, which was also plagued by religious wars, and by two World Wars that brought Europe unprecedented devastation.
Hopefully, readers will be stimulated and informed by the lessons I draw from those European struggles and apply to the Middle East, and by my identification of current possibilities, including subterranean social forces for progress. I remind readers that before the defeat of Nazism, Franklin D. Roosevelt envisioned a post-war reconstruction effort based on foundational principles of freedom. His Four Freedoms (Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear) paved the way for the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Marshall Plan, Bretton Woods, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. History offers no better success story than these post-World War II endeavors. We need to remember that sustainable peace needs to be planned even during times of war.
In short, this book is attentive to the current plight of people in the Middle East. It also challenges the pessimistic malaise that undermines Western interest in developing substantive plans for regional progress. It prods readers to resist succumbing to populist, protectionist, and nationalist fervor, and to understand why a restored international liberal order requires a peaceful Middle East. For example, the refugee crisis in Europe cannot be addressed without human rights, political stability, and economic opportunity in the Middle East and North Africa. Our futures are intertwined.