Political Narratives in the Middle East and North Africa

The aim in this chapter is to interpret the trans-border armed involvement of Lebanese Hezbollah in Syria by shifting the observation to ordinary Hezbollah activists. The focus here is on the narratives produced by these activists concerning their experience of war, whether that experience is direct—of the ’s fighters—or indirect as in the case of the majority of Hezbollah members who are not involved in the fighting. This approach will shed light on how they describe this experience and on the meaning they attach to the battle. The account is based on ethnographic fieldwork (interviews, conversations, and direct and participant observation) conducted between 2011 and 2017 with Hezbollah activists in the Southern suburbs of Beirut, where the party’s territorial and militant base is very solid.

The consequences of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war continue to resonate in modern times. The Palestinians and the Israelis are stuck in an all-consuming conflict over territory, sovereignty and identity, with no end in sight. Two clashing and seemingly irreconcilable metanarratives present in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict revolve around what happened in 1948 with the formation of the state of Israel. The Palestinian narrative describes a people unjustly deprived of its land by invaders, whereas, on the other hand, the Israeli narrative, depicts the justified return of a historically dispossessed diaspora to the land of its ancestors. There is little understanding, respect or acknowledgement of what the other side perceives to be its narrative. These accounts rest on a number of ideological, religious and strategic layers that are at times intertwined. This chapter examines how the Israelis and the Palestinians have constructed their metanarratives, how they inform the policies and practices of their respective governments, and concludes with reflections on the prospects for a resolution of the conflict.

The chapter analyses the political narrative used by Turkey’s political elite for rationalising, explaining and justifying regional policies and behaviour in the post-2011 Middle East. It detects the long-term traditions of strategic thinking in Turkey, demonstrating their role in the new foreign policy narrative. Based on this contemporary narrative, Turkey considers itself as an order-producing country. According to the narrative, Turkey is enabled to perform this role due to its own domestic restoration project. The chapter indicates that the new narrative envisions an Islamic-conservative ideal society for the whole Middle East, targeting in particular Muslim Brotherhood constituencies across the region. In the concluding section Turkey’s new foreign policy narrative is analysed in the context of current international relations.

This chapter examines the interplay of hegemonic competition in the Persian Gulf between Saudi Arabia and Iran alongside the intra-Arab Gulf crises that have erupted since 2011. Regional rivalries between Saudi Arabia and Iran acquired a potent geopolitical dimension following the fall of the Shah in 1979. Whereas Iranian foreign policies moderated after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, the narratives framed during the 1980s were hard to dislodge, even during the thaw in cross-waterway relations that occurred in the 1990s. The legacy of years of mutual mistrust became clear after the spread of the Arab uprisings in 2011. Both the Arab Gulf States’ responses to the so-called Arab Spring and the bitter disputes between the trio opposing Qatar illustrate how political narratives continue to polarise the Persian Gulf, albeit in subtly different ways.

The second decade of the twenty-first century is characterised by Russia’s active involvement in Middle Eastern issues. Unexpectedly, Russia decided to return to the Middle East, and Damascus appeared to be the gate to the region. Russian policy in the Middle East ceased to be ideological following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and no longer followed a messianic narrative. The State has become more pragmatic, neither “pro-Arab” nor “pro-Israel” and, in principle, serves its own interests without adhering to a specific camp. Russia has repeatedly changed its vision and respective narrative of the events taking place in the Arab world since the onset of anti-government protests in the region in 2011. In fact, Russian policy in the Middle East has taken a u-turn during the past 8 years: from near total disinterest to direct military intervention.

This chapter addresses China’s strategic narrative with regard to MENA and its increasing regional role via the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). After decades of democracy promotion and violent regime change to enlarge the US-led liberal order, China sees the Western MENA narrative as the principal cause of state failure, rising terrorism and regional disorder. In response, Beijing offers an alternative “peace with development” narrative as a more sustainable security concept promoting MENA connectivity and economic integration to achieve regional stability. As China is strengthening its diplomatic and security postures, partnering with local actors in new geopolitical alignments and building new institutions to implement the BRI, a new MENA regional security architecture appears to be arising and slowly paving the way for a post-western, multi-order world.

This chapter takes stock of the order-building narratives that the US has employed vis-à-vis the Middle East in the post-9/11 era, with particular focus on the case of Egypt against the backdrop of the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011. The exposition sheds light on how the narratives utilised by the successive presidential administrations have evolved, and explores how these discursive constructs are predicated upon the ways in which key policymakers fathom America’s global role and leadership in an increasingly complex twenty-first-century world. The analysis finds remarkable continuity running through the George W. Bush and Obama administrations in terms of rhetorical commitment to liberal hegemony—to America’s continued engagement in the Middle East as a superpower guarantor of order, and to democratic principles as the foundational building blocks for achieving a sustainable order. Nevertheless, discernible differences remained over the means through which such an order should be pursued. Although it may be early to render judgment on the Trump administration, it appears that a narrative shift in a direction that more closely reflects the nature of America’s policy practice vis-à-vis Egypt and the broader region is on the cards. The normative and strategic desirability of this sea change remains open to debate, however.

This book explores the narratives of various political entrepreneurs in terms of the current post-2011 ‘Arab Spring’ Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The chapters included analyse both regional and external forces. Each of the eight carefully chosen case studies concerns influential actors and their political narratives, ultimately the way in which they actively participate in the construction of reality by rhetorical means. In most cases this has required taking a long view, detecting how narratives in political communication evolve over time.