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>> Thank you everybody for that, and thank you, John,
for that lovely introduction, and thank you
for coming here today.
Just by way of a short background I am actually
of Egyptian birth.
I was born in Egypt in a lovely place called Alexandria.
But I grew up in Sidney and returned to Egypt
in my teenage years to undertake my bachelor's degree.
So when I talk
about Australian-Arab relations it's not just part of my work.
It also has a personal resonance for me.
And, of course, I have a very personal interest
in what's happening in the Arab world
at the moment, particularly Egypt.
I still have many friends there and most
of my extended family there.
So it's a personal interest to me to keep
up with what's going on there.
The Arab Spring as it's known in the western world,
if you have been living under a rock for the past 18 months,
is known in the Arab world
as [foreign language] or the rebellion.
So the Arab Spring, although we use it often,
it's not really a term that I like to use.
I prefer to use the rebellion or the revolution.
Because I think that terminology of rebellion
and revolution speaks more to the hearts of the Arab people
who are involved in these times.
It began at the end of 2010 with the self-immolation
of a Tunisian street vendor.
The Tunisians successfully overthrew their longstanding
ruler in 2011.
And what followed was a wave of revolutionary protests
across several countries in the Arab world.
Now, rather than focus on what happened during the Arab Spring,
I don't want to spend too much of the time today going
through a time line of what happened in the Arab Spring.
But I do have some photos taken here during the Egyptian
revolutions from Tahrir Square, which was the main square
in which the revolutions occurred.
And these were taken by a friend of mine who I went to university
with who actually lives on Tahrir Square.
And you can see how messy the demonstrations were
in Egypt at the time.
So what I'm going to do today is take you on a bit
of a journey, a time journey.
We're going to do a bit of time traveling.
So I want to start with looking at where are we now,
where is the Arab world now after the Arab Spring,
a year on after the Arab Spring.
Then I want to go back in time with you
and look at how we got there.
How did we get to that point?
And then looking at moving forward to the future
where do we go from here.
So hopefully you won't get too confused,
and it will be an enjoyable ride.
So I want to start off by looking at what's happened
since the Arab Spring or the Arab revolutions.
It's important to note that the revolutions did not yield
uniform outcomes throughout the Arab world as you can see.
We've had new governments installed, we've had protests
and changes to government.
And we still have major protests and minor protests
across the 22 countries that make up the Arab League.
Where the ruling regime has been overthrown in Tunisia,
Libya and Egypt there's not necessarily been a smooth
transition to new government.
Tunisia, of course, has had probably the
smoothest transition.
The elections last October resulted in a coalition led
by the Islamist party Ennahda.
Ennahda had taken a fairly moderate platform reforming laws
that were restricting association, assembly,
speech and political diversity.
And they've refrained from seeking
to base their new constitution on Shura law.
Libya's progress after the fall
of the Gaddafi regime is challenged by both regional
and tribal rivalries and the fact
that foreign intervention played a pivotal role
in the regime change.
And what that does is actually compromise or threatens
to compromise I should say the legitimacy
of any successive governments after that.
Egypt held it's first elections [inaudible audience comment] yes
over the past two days.
And I've been watching with great interest.
Since the fall of Mubarak the country has been ruled
by the military regime,
the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
And the past year or so has seen a number a violent clashes
between protestors and the military often resulting
in deadly confrontations.
There were 13 candidates standing in the first round
of the Egyptian elections, and you might say
that the Egyptians were spoiled for choice
but that's hardly the case.
Of the 13 candidates I think Egyptian people are very wary
that there is very little choice of a candidate
who actually had the skills, the trustworthiness
to lead Egypt into a new era.
So of those 13 candidates there's five standouts,
five standout candidates.
Two of them, Mohammed Morsi
and Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh have either current
or past connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Another two, one is Amr Moussa
who is the former Foreign Minister and the head
of the Arab League, and Ahmed Shafiq
who is an Air Force general and the head
of the Egyptian Authority, [foreign language]
which is an Arabic word that's used to mean fragments
of the old regime because of their association
with the Mubarak government.
The fifth candidate who actually has a chance
of moving forward Hamdin Sabbahi is a socialist and a Nasserite.
So for Egyptians who fear either the prospect of Islamist rule
or a return to pre-revolution regime Sabbahi kind
of represents -- I've heard him called the best of the worst.
So I think the Egyptian presidential elections made the
Gillard-Abbott thing look fairly tame.
Moving onto Syria, Syria continues to be
in turmoil headed toward the civil war due
to both internal fractions and also external pressure.
It's become a pivotal [inaudible]
for what's often called a regional cold war
between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The challenge to the outside regime in Syria which is
in Iran's strategic partner has significant
regional implications.
And Iranian leaders who seek to preserve
that Assad regime have publicly downplayed the significance
of the Syrian protest movement while reportedly assisting Assad
in his violent repression.
But the internal opposition continues in Syria,
and what happens there remains to be seen.
In other countries where the revolutions have not yielded a
complete regime change, mainly the region's monarchies,
the Arab Spring or the Arab revolutions spurred
modest reforms.
And that was because the leaders tried to quell discontent
and calm the protests through political concessions
to their people in some cases combined
with political force and repression.
So Bahrain is an example where Bahrain backed
by Saudi forces have used lethal force against their protestors,
but protests their continue.
And the so-called Arab Spring is now well over a year old,
although the revolution continues
as many people have said.
And there have been a lot of analysis and a lot
of crystal ball gazing.
I love crystal ball gazing.
You're never quite right with it but a lot of people still do it,
attempting to predict what might be the short,
medium or long-term outcomes of the revolutions.
And what's come out of these predictions is the fact
that the situation is, in fact,
highly unpredictable, highly unpredictable.
And it's a constantly changing landscape.
Attempted forecasts of what the Arab Spring
or the Arab revolutions might yield and its relevance
to western foreign policy have pendulumed.
They're pendulumed between highly optimistic predictions
that this Arab Spring would bring forth widespread democracy
to the Arab region and become a defining characteristic
in shaping the contours of a new middle age.
Pendulumed from there to perhaps overly,
overly pessimistic predictions that the Arab Spring would fall
into this regressive abyss of radical or extremist Islamism.
And it's, in fact, quite difficult
to find any middle ground.
Analysts and political pundits commending
on the Arab Spring seem to be divided into two camps.
There's that one camp who believes
that the Arab Spring heralded a new Middle East materialising
from the ashes of repressive and authoritarian regimes and guided
to democracy by a generation of media savvy youth.
And then there's the other camp that the believe
that the Arab Spring was grossly overestimate
and that it would not the spring
of democratisation but of Islamism.
And a demonstration
that Islamism is the most powerful ideological
and political force in the Arab world.
So these two camps of democracy and light versus Islamism
and dark is not new, not new at all.
And it is, in fact, reflective of a very familiar pattern
of western engagement with the Arab world.
A familiar pattern that's mired in this traditional
yet flawed model which divides the Arab world very neatly
into either pro-Iranians, therefore extremists,
therefore against us, or your moderate western friendly,
therefore with us.
And this kind of separation of the Middle East
and of the Arab world into these two camps of extreme
and moderate doesn't do justice to the Arab world really.
It doesn't take into account all the complexities
of the Arab world, of Arab society, of Arab culture,
of the place of Islam in Arab culture and society,
of the place of significant minority religions
in the history of the Arab world and the history
of evolution of the Arab world.
To me I think the most lingering and salient expression
of this traditional model
of western Arab engagement is the expression
that the revolution has been hijacked by Islamists.
And so while it's true that in countries
where the regime was topped by revolution,
Islamist interest groups seized on that void
and fashioned themselves as political parties
to gain popular support.
But I think we need to ask where are these [inaudible]
of the Arab world regressing into a base of Islamism founded,
and why do we have this expression coming out?
The fact is that it's not the first time that Islamist have,
in fact, vied for and won popular support.
Fouod [inaudible], for example, notes that in response
to the defeat of the 1967 war [inaudible] Islamic
fundamentalists made a very eloquent
and very moving case turning that defeat into an advance
and arguing that the Arabs had lost the war not
because they were busy worshiping
but because they had lost their faith and bearings.
And disconnected from a deeply held system
of beliefs the Arabs proved
to be a very easy prey to Israeli power.
It's not unusual in times of crisis what do people do?
People turn to God.
But [inaudible] analysis is just one analysis
of why Islamism spread throughout the Arab world.
This encapsulates some of the fears
that Islamism has hijacked the revolutions.
This is an Egyptian cartoon.
You can see there in the first one it's Mubarak saying me
or prison.
And in the second one it's obviously a religious figure
saying me or hell.
Great choice.
But looking at why and how Islamism spread throughout the
Arab world, the evolution of Islamism, and I refer here
to a book by Sayyid called The Fundamental Fear: A Eurocentrism
and the Emergence of Islamism.
And there are five main reasons
in the literature why Islamism spread.
And the first one was this failure
of nationalist secular [inaudible]
to make the aspirations
of the people particularly after the 1967 war.
The promise of Pan-Arabism,
the promise of Nasserism did meet the basic needs
of the people.
It didn't fulfil their economic, social and cultural aspirations.
The second one is the politicisation of the mosque.
As the mosque became the centre of political talk
and Islamism became the language of political contestation.
The third one is this continuing domination of ruling elite
in post-colonial states.
So while power was given to civil structures,
while we had new civil structures,
the dominant power still remained with the ruling elites.
And those people who were put
into civil positions actually had a lot less power
than they thought they might have.
The fourth one is petrodollars internal migration
and the increased influence of conservative Arab governments,
particularly Saudi Arabia for example.
And the fourth one is cultural erosion, integration
and a Muslim identity crisis.
We hear a lot about Muslim identity crisis.
I'm Muslim, I don't know how many identity crises I can put
up with anymore.
But apparently I've had a lot.
Where we have been in this situation before the revolutions
was a number of competing ideologies where Islam
or Islamism was presented and offered as a competing force
to secularism and Pan-Arabism.
Pan- Arabism being this belief that Arab speakers
of the Middle East would be best served if they were combined
into one nation state.
And Islamism where a shared religion is the basis of unity,
and that the government should promote the Muslim's performance
of their faith and at the very establish [inaudible] as the law
of the state and then secularism.
And I remember after the fall of Mubarak looking
at on social networking sites some
of the discussions that were coming up.
And the biggest discussion was should we be secular
or should we be an Islamist nation.
And people always take it to extremes.
So those who were against an Islamist nation were going, no,
we don't want to be Iran.
And those who were saying, no,
we're against secularism they used to call it there, no,
we don't want to be France.
So they're taking France as the model for secularism and Iran
as the model of an Islamic state.
And, of course, those two are two very extremes
in two very different ways in which Islamism
or secularism are manifest.
So throughout the Arab world, and you know I'm focusing here
on kind of this feel almost or this expression
that the Arab revolutions will yield Islamism throughout the
Arab world.
But there are -- in fact, the Arab world is homogenous.
It's not homogenous at all.
We're very, very different.
Egyptians are different from Lebanese are different
from Iraqi are different from Libyan are different are Yemeni.
And sometime we do tend to look at the Arab world
as one huge monolith and not recognise those differences.
The way that Islam is a manifest throughout the Arab world was
also very different.
In Lebanon you had visible Islamism.
In places like Albania Islamism was there but it was invisible.
In Algeria and Egypt you have enduring secularism among
the elite.
I'm often told I'm part of the problem because I'm one
of those secular elites having graduated
from the American University in Cairo.
In Jordan you have secularism accommodating Islamism.
In Pakistan Islamism becomes the language
of political contestation.
The mosque becomes a place of contesting politics.
And in Iran and Sudan you have secularism completely replaced
by Islamism.
So let's look at the question here.
What will be the role of Islam in Arab world politics
after the Arab revolutions?
So I want to just focus on some key points.
The first point is that Islamic parties are genuinely popular
in much of the Arab world.
And they are popular because they represent an antithesis
to repressive autocratic regimes who were often supported
by western governments while they continued
to be repressive and autocratic.
The second point is that elections are not going
to be won on the basis of religion alone.
We cannot underestimate the Arab people in this way.
We cannot underestimate them in this way.
And I'll give you an example.
Some of the Islamist candidates
in Egypt actually have lost a lot of support
because they've started to invoke piety as the barometer
of the political capacity.
So there was one of I think it was Morsi
who there were these posters of him praying.
And in the streets people were saying I don't want him
to teach me how to pray.
I want him to get me a job.
I want him to make food affordable.
I want him to give me some freedom of expression.
I don't need him to teach me how to pray.
So the elections are not going to be based on religion alone.
And there's an example there.
You've got the Islamic [inaudible]
and everybody else coming up with their issues, poverty
and employment, housing, human rights, education, bread,
healthcare and prices, healthcare prices.
The third point that I want to make is
that mobilisation is no longer confined to the mosque,
and that's a really important point.
Because that's going to be something
that you can't go back on.
It's now written into the hearts and the minds of the people
in the Arab world that they can make change.
Now, I find this very interesting that the language
of political contestation was moved from the mosque
to the internet to the streets throughout the Arab revolution.
You're never going to take this away from them.
And I'll give you another example of that.
I got an email today from one of my friends
who is Egypt for the elections.
And he is participating
in something called [foreign language].
[Foreign language] means we see you.
And this is a group of citizens, Egyptian people,
who are watching over the elections.
They're watching over the elections and reporting to --
so they're moving from polling booth to polling booth reporting
to each other and stopping any kind of naughtiness
that might be going on, any kind of corruption
that might be going on.
They didn't leave it up to the authorities.
They took that power in their own hands.
They have that agency now.
And I think that's something that you will never take away
from the Arab people after the revolutions.
Finally the final point that I want to make with regard
to the roll of Islam in a future Arab world is
that it will manifest differently
in different countries.
We shouldn't assume that every country that comes
under Islamist rule will become the next Iran.
We need to consider that Islamism is not homogenous
and that it will be introduced in ways that can,
that have the capacity, to accommodate and be integrated
into new democratic systems.
Despite what we might think more Islam does not always mean
less democracy.
Apart from Saudi Arabia many countries already apply a
complicated mix of [inaudible] law and civil law.
And if we even look at moderate Islamism we see
within it some fundamental principles, the principles
of consultation, of consensus, of independent legal reasoning
that are actually very compliant
with the very cornerstones of democracy.
And if we look at the Muslim Brotherhood, for example,
the evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood,
I find it very interesting that the people of Egypt in a number
of days did what dissident groups in Egypt
and in other parts of the Arab world were trying to do
for decades through violent means.
In a number of days they were able to topple a government.
And I find it also very interesting
that Ayman Al Zawahiri who was Osama bin Laden's right hand man
in Al-Qaida has gone eerily silent about the revolutions.
Because his goal was always to topple the Egyptian government.
And through decades of using violent means,
using dissident terrorism to do that he was not able to do that.
But the Egyptian people regardless of their religion,
regardless of their gender,
regardless of their political affiliations stood together
and were able to do that in a number of days.
It's very interesting, and I think something that is likely
to have a lasting effect as well.
But the Egyptian Brotherhood actually selectively filtered
some major western political doctrines
like constitutional rule and democracy
into a modernised Islamic concept of the state.
Hence within the Islamic world today the demands
of the mainstream Islamist movements in Algeria,
in Tunisia, in Jordan and in Egypt are based
on Islamic states, constitutional rule
and multiparty politics, not necessarily the image
of an Islamist state that that we might have.
So through moderate Islamist political thought it's possible
to position pluralism and democracy
as religious rights based on these Islamic principles
and Islamic doctrines.
And one example is the doctrine of Shura or consensus, sorry,
consultation, that actually demands the participation
of society in running the affairs of the government.
Democracy, yes?
In my thoughts having an Islamist government in some
of the Arab countries
by necessity I think they will have an organic transformation.
They will need to organically transform to be able
to accommodate democracy and to be able to if they can base this
on the principles, the principles of Islam that are
by nature very democratic.
One of the things that I've said earlier was that it's important
to note that the elections are not going
to be won on religion alone.
And part of that is because of the key players
in the revolutions throughout all
of the Arab worlds were not religious.
The revolutions weren't about religion.
They also weren't about anti-westernism.
They were about internal issues.
They were about 60 percent of your wage being spent on food.
They were about a majority youth who most were highly educated
and couldn't find jobs.
They were about 40 and 50 percent unemployment.
They were about long bread lines.
They were about police brutality.
They were not about religion,
and they were not about foreign policy.
So I think it's important to remember
that in projecting what might then be some of the long-term
or medium term impacts of the Arab revolutions.
The thing I think we should remember is
that the Arab people actually want democracy.
They actually want their governments to deal
with their issues, their internal issues.
And I think that's going to bear on Arab foreign policy as well
and how active some Arab countries are going to be
in foreign policy over the next decade or so.
I found these two.
These are views on free speech and democracy in the Arab world.
And so you can see this one here, views on free speech.
The question was a constitution
for a new country should include guarantees for free speech.
Had 94 percent in Egypt, 90 percent in Indonesia,
92 percent in Iran, 88 in Turkey and 97 in the U.S.
So why should we presume
that they want anything different from us?
Again, this question here, democracy may have its problems,
but it's better than any other form of government.
The percent agreeing you can see Jordan over 70 percent,
Palestine close to 80, Nigeria close to 70, Morocco over 90,
Kuwait close to 90, Lebanon over 80 and Yemen over 60 percent.
Just some interesting facts there.
Okay, so to close off then let's move
onto where do we go from here?
Where do we go?
Oh, that's the big question.
Let's do some crystal ball gazing, yeah?
First thing I think that we need to do is we need to recognise
and accept that Islamism may well be the preferred
political model.
May well be the preferred political model,
and we need to accept that.
But we need to recognise that within
that there is this potential for the supporting of human rights,
for the development of human rights and the development
of democracy based on some principles
of Islamism, on moderate Islamism.
We need to be guided by the aspirations of the Arab people,
not by our flawed assumptions.
Not by our traditional way of approaching the Arab world
as either pro or anti, as either extremist or moderate.
There are people who have made it very clear what they want.
We need to in engaging the Arab world be guided
by those aspirations.
We need new language and a different foreign approach.
One that moves away from that traditional flaws pattern
of engagement.
And in doing that we shouldn't be complacent in our assumptions
about the Middle East or its politics.
It is ever changing.
It is an uncertain landscape.
And so we should take that into account as we engage with them.
And we need to engage the emerging regional influentials.
As countries that are installing new governments and new forms
of democracy and working their way through this,
as they do that they're going to be much more internally focused.
In other words, they're going to be looking
into their own backyards dealing with their own internal
and domestic issues and probably for the next decade or so.
Which means they may not be so active in foreign policy.
And in that kind of situation we have some new regional
influentials rising.
One of them is Qatar.
It's got the highest GDP per capita in the world.
Keen to diversify, it's got stable institutional frameworks
and very efficient markets.
And very keen also to engage Australia.
The other one is Saudi Arabia.
Probably the only major Arab country that's likely
to actively engage diplomatically mainly
because of its enormous wealth.
But also because its regime needs
to have an active foreign policy in order
to curb Iranian influence in the region.
And it also has stable institutions.
Egypt, the traditional leader
of the Arab world will probably remain fairly politically
inverted for some time with limited capacity
to influence the region.
The same goes for Iraq which has traditionally been the other
major centre of Arab power.
The non-Arab powers in the region are Turkey,
Iran and Israel will be major regional players.
And their actions and relationships are likely
to impact on the region as well.
So wrap up and before I move on to questions
from the audience I just want
to make a few more pertinent points in summing up.
First of all it is a time of turbulent change,
and it is unpredictable.
But what can we predict?
What can we know?
We can know that the power of the people will endure.
It's difficult to go back once you have agency in the hearts
and the minds of the people.
We know that Islam will play a role.
We know that.
It may not be a bad role.
Okay? Maybe a good role.
And we can't assume that it's going to be a bad role.
We need to engage with the idea that it may well be a good role.
We need to move on from the old ways
of looking at the Arab world.
We need to find new platforms of engagement.
We need to know that their internal concerns may also
affect their foreign policy and the way that they engage.
And we need to finally look at what are some of these platforms
that we can use for engagement.
Now, obviously, I'm in education so I'm a big advocate
of using education as a platform for engagement.
Not just for cultural exchange, not just for the exchange
of students coming to experience Australia
or our students going there.
But also as a springboard for trade, for the exchange of ideas
and for capacity building.
So not just matching business to business
but perhaps matching business to the kind of expertise,
research expertise and technical expertise
that universities are developing.
I think we need to remember that, yeah,
Australia is mostly desert.
So is the Arab world.
Our concern are their concerns.
Our priorities are their priorities.
Food security, water security.
Our industries are the same as their industries.
So I've been very fortunate that I come from two cultures.
Because when you do come from two cultures you often are put
in a position where you have to overlook differences
and find commonalities.
And I think that's what we can do in engaging the Arab world.
Overlook some of those differences,
find those commonalities.
And our commonalities are very much in what are our priorities
for the next 20, 30 years.
Environmental sustainability, as I said water and food security,
our environment, our climates are very similar
to many countries in the Arab world as well.
And with that I think I will shut up for a change and throw
to the audience for some questions and discussion.
Thank you.
I find it hard to apply left and right to the Brotherhood
because even within the Brotherhood there are factions.
So it's a bit like any kind
of political party there are factions that are left or right.
So in the Brotherhood there's an internal faction in there
because you've got the young members of the Brotherhood
who want to embrace this kind of moderate Islamism
that accommodate democracy.
Whereas some of the more traditional members
of the Brotherhood take a more traditional approach to that.
And then you've got some members who are [inaudible] leanings
or [inaudible] leanings and others
who are also influenced by that.
In terms of their rights?
>> Yes.
>> I think as I said as the beginning I'm secular so I --
I'm secular, but I'm willing to entertain the idea
that Islamism has the potential to be a vehicle
for developing a kind of Arab democracy,
not western democracy,
but a kind of Arab democracy that can work.
So I'm secular perhaps because I also hold some of these fears
that wrong interpretations of Islam
or thwarted interpretations of Islam will impact
on women's rights or impact on human rights in general
and will have a detrimental impact to that.
So while I like the idea of an ideal kind of Islamism
that really is moderate,
that really does use these fundamental principles of Islam
to fashion itself in a way that is democratic and that is aware
of human rights and sensitive to human rights
and that does not have detrimental impacts
on women's rights, I'm wary of how that works in countries
where there are cultural issues,
there are perhaps they lack institutional capacity to deal
with some of those issues,
and where there might be a strong influence
of the more extremist interpretations.
So what about women's rights?
I think women's rights are always going to come
under the microscope in the Arab world.
And I don't like to compare women's rights over there
to women's rights in other parts of the world
because I don't think that that really achieves anything.
But I think that there are a lot of misconceptions that we have
about the role of women in the Arab world
that are often overlooked in terms of the kind of power
and equality that Arab women have
that sometimes our women don't have.
So I'll give you a very quick example.
On the weekend I was speaking to someone who is an engineer,
and he's a professor of engineering.
And he said that he's actually had some Iranian female
engineering students go back to Iran because they found it
so difficult to handle
and to understand the male dominated engineering groups
that they were in.
There were very, very few women.
Whereas in Iran it was 50/50.
And that sounded very difficult to come to terms with that most
of the engineering students were male
and very few were female here in Australia.
I think an Arab form of democracy it's hard for me
to know what -- I don't know what it will be.
I don't know what it will be
because I can't know exactly what it will be in reality.
But theoretically it could be a kind of democracy that is taking
into account the culture and the history of the Arab world,
of many countries in the Arab world that's either tribal
or very family affiliated.
That's not individualistic cultures there.
It's a very collective culture,
a very collective way of doing things.
And that draws on those principles of Islam.
So it has that separate constitution that may
or may not be based on Shura law but has draws on those concepts
of Islam that are very democratic,
particularly the concept of Shura
which necessitates the active participation of society
in the affairs of government.
That's what I would see as an Arab form of democracy.
Whether or not it's possible, it needs institutional change,
it needs cultural change,
it needs structural change for that to happen.
Gee, I always say something, I always say the best thing
in Australia's favour at the moment is
that we're not America.
I've been to the Maldives and they say the same thing.
They say, oh, you're Australian, great, you're not American.
So I think that's enough.
And I think, yes, Australia has enormous capacity.
We have so much to offer, and there are so many opportunities
for mutual benefit between us
and the countries in the Arab world.
Not only because we're not American.
Let's not sell ourselves short.
Not only because of that.
There's more to us than just not being American.
We do have those common platforms of engagement.
The issues that we see as important to us
for the next decade or so are also important to Arab countries
for the next decade or so.
And I think that's where Australia can make huge inroads
in engaging with the Arab world.
What would be the relationship between an Islamic government
and western countries?
I think that depends on western countries taking a different way
of engaging with the Arab world.
A way that is not completely dismissive of --
not dismissive, but that looks at Islamic government
as pro Iranian extremist, or looks at them
as you're either moderate or you're extremist but engages
with them on those principles of Islam that are very much
like western democratic principles.
So what that relationship will be I don't know,
but it depends on us, okay?
Because we have to accept that that might be the case.
It may not but it might be the case.
And if it is then we have
to change how we're going to work with that.
So the question was about economic policy.
And with high unemployment it requires a strong
and robust economic policy to address those issues.
I remember watching the revolutions on television,
and the whole time I was thinking I really admire this,
this is great.
But getting rid of Mubarak is not going
to put bread on your table people.
And I hope that you realise that.
I'm sitting there at 1 a.m. talking
to the television like a mad woman.
And you're very right.
And there's been a lot of debate about who has the capacity
to develop this robust economic policy that's going
to take the Arab countries, particular Egypt,
Tunisia, into the future.
The high unemployment rate is also a factor
of the demographics with high numbers of youth
and lists some immigration outside
to the other Arab countries to Qatar and Dubai
and Saudi Arabia for those youth.
I don't know much about economic policy so I can't really answer
that question other than to say that, yes, it is a huge issue.
And, yes, I think that among the people
of Egypt there is a recognition that first
of all democracy isn't just about voting among most
of the people, there is that.
And that I would say that among the 13 leaders there was a
general consensus and feeling among the Egyptian people
that not one of them had the skills and the knowledge
and the trustworthiness to lead them into the future.
And I think economic policy plays a big role in that.
One of the things that you could look
at is perhaps economic freedom.
The Frazier [phonetic] Institute along
with [inaudible] economic freedom index.
And in places where there is significant economic freedom
there also seems to be a lot less unemployment
and fewer issues around that.
The question was about regional influentials
and particularly Qatar being a small country how they might
influence the region.
I don't think thought -- I think they are too small
to influence the region.
But I think they're influential in terms of being able to engage
in foreign policy, actively engage in foreign policy.
So influential in the foreign policy sense because they are
in a way free, ready and able to.
And willing to because they want to diversify their economy,
they're out there, we've got Qatar Airways coming
to Perth for example.
There's a huge interest in Australia among Qatar.
They're looking at new ways of bringing in foreign investment
in trade and vice versa.
So in terms of regional influence, no,
not so much because they are small.
But in terms of being influential
for active external engagements I think that's
where the influential [inaudible] lies, yeah.
Never say never.
You know the Arab world time is marked by war.
So, you know, it's a volatile area.
Yeah, never say never.
I wouldn't like to say yes or no to that one.
It's very unpredictable.
I think they still have power simply
because they have more money.
And so I think that will be an Algerian thing that we will see
in Algerian and Egypt that you will still have power vested
within the secular elite.
You know that requires also a lot of cultural change.
And perhaps over decades that might change.
But I don't see that happening
in the near future or even medium term.
That's a good question because a lot
of people called it the Facebook revolution.
Whenever it first started everyone was calling it the
Facebook revolution.
Why now? You know, that is a good question
because when it happened I think at home we went oh, my gosh,
look what's happening in the Arab world.
Oh, my gosh, do these people actually have a voice?
Oh, wow, look they actually want democracy.
And it was such a shock.
But if you had kept your eye on and if you knew
over the past decade or so you could see it coming.
We used to say, you know, every time I went to Egypt I used
to go [foreign language] it's on fire, it's on fire.
We knew something was about to happen.
Something was going to erupt.
It was just a matter of time.
Why now and did the technology have a part of play in it?
I think in Tunisia, of course, it was Mohamed Bouazizi
who self-immolated, and that kind of triggered things.
But in Egypt for some time before the revolution
in Egypt you had a lot of Facebook activity
around police brutality,
exposing a lot of police brutality.
And even before that I remember being in Egypt in the 1990s,
there's my age, 1990s, and you had a lot
of political conversation in cartoons.
They used a lot of humour to make fun of the politics
and contest the politics.
People weren't happy back then.
People were saying I live from hand to mouth,
I live from hand to mouth.
So I think why now?
Why not now?
Why didn't it come earlier is what I would ask.
>> That's because of that tipping point
to that [inaudible] why people were involved
and why technology [inaudible].
>> Yes, there is that whole tipping point,
what was it exactly that sparked it off.
That perhaps the Tunisian one caused a domino effect.
But then I've read other analyses
that say, no, not necessarily.
It wasn't necessarily a domino effect because each one was born
out of its own, each one was born
out of its own spring if you want to say.
>> [Inaudible] the question
about technology [inaudible] feel left out.
[Laughter]
>> That is good, okay, yeah.
I find that really interesting because my internet drops
out every five minutes,
and I know [inaudible] says my internet drops out every minute.
But when I'm in Egypt everywhere I go is WiFi.
Just about everywhere you go is WiFi.
There's an internet cafe on every street corner.
And, in fact, Arab youth have embraced social networking
in far different ways than we have here
and particularly in Australia.
So social networking for Arab youth isn't just about, oh,
I've got a thousand friends on Facebook as my son always says.
I've got a thousand friends on Facebook and it's not just
about social interaction.
It's about movement.
It's about getting together.
It's about sharing political ideas.
It's about having a political forum,
a forum for the sharing of political ideas.
And so I think did Facebook --
I wouldn't call it the Facebook revolution.
I wouldn't call it that because there are a lot of people
who were mobilised not from Facebook.
They were mobilised for reasons that were very personal
and very entrenched in their everyday lives.
But I think you need to look
at how different Arab youth engage technology
and engage social networking than we do.
What do they use it for and what do we use it for?
I have on my Facebook I've got friends in the Arab world
and I've got, obviously, friends in Australia.
My friends in Australia will tell me what they had
for dinner.
My friends in the Arab world will tell me what's happening
at the polls down the road or post
up pictures of police brutality.
It's very, very different.
It's quite interesting to watch the contrast.
Yeah, I think so, I think they will be or I hope they will be.
I hope that the traditional structures allow for that.
I hope that the structures in the institution change to allow
for youths to come out
and become the next generation of leaders.
But, yeah, it is very interesting
that they do post photos of themselves voting.
When was the last time you posted a photo
of yourself voting?
Oh, yeah, here I am, I'm going to go
to the local school to vote.
But I hope that that's going to be the case.
But whether or not the forms of engagement
and political activism that the youth have found are going
to allow them to transition to a kind of formal type
of political activism in terms of forming political parties,
becoming political leaders I think remains to be seen.
Honestly I really don't want to speak for the man on the street
because I'm not that person.
But my perception and from what I've been reading and looking
at I think for the average Egyptian --
now remember the average Egyptian we're talking
about the [inaudible] high levels
of low literacy or no literacy.
And I think for them to vote itself, being able to go
to a polling booth, being able
to vote themselves is an empowering thing.
And that I think to them brings with it the hope that all
of those other issues, the bread are going to be solved.
And then you have another level of society
which is debating these very economic issues and saying,
you know, well just giving us the vote doesn't give
us democracy.
We demand more, we demand more.
So I think there's different perspectives on it depending
on who you're talking about.
I read an article, and there was one woman who went to vote,
and she was saying this is great I'm able to vote.
And I can't read so I don't know who I voted for.
[Laughter] But I voted.
And I think that's beautiful in a way.
In another way I think there's other parts of the country,
other people who are talking on other levels.
[ Applause ]