This year, the Middle East Directions Programme annual conference focused on debating potential solutions for designing new and stable security systems in the Persian Gulf region. Of particular interest was the panel on ‘Cultural Diplomacy and Religious De-securitisation’.
Professor Olivier Roy, opened up the discussion by exploring religion’s role as a potential de-escalation tactic between states. “In the last ten years we have seen a decrease in the ideological dimension of religion [in the Persian Gulf] and a rise in the pragmatic use of it,” said Roy. He argued that state religious diplomacy “kills” religion because it deprives religion of its autonomy and capacity for mobilisation. “There is now more and more secularisation among the Persian Gulf population. There is no more trying to make religion the cultural hegemony of the country.”
Riccardo Redaelli (Director, Center for Research on the Southern System and the Wider Mediterranean) spoke about the overuse of sectarianism in the Middle East. He claimed that polarisation and sectarianism represent easy drivers of state propaganda to, “legitimise geopolitical conflicts in the name of identity defense.” He re-asserted Roy’s points that state religious diplomacy is ineffective. In Redaelli’s view, there has to be some sort of ‘liquid’ or ’Track II’ diplomacy that can produce new channels for communication on the grassroots level. He acknowledged that while Track II diplomacy has its shortcomings, as it is difficult to go from informal discussion to concrete action, it also “recreates bridges in fragmented and post-conflict societies… We need a peace-building pyramid that works at all levels, not just the official state one. ”
Ghadir Nasri, Director, Institute for Middle East Strategic Studies, pointed to the opportunity offered by pilgrimage practices such as the Hajj. “When we speak of the Hajj we speak of more than 600,000 Iranians who go to Mecca and Medina every year. The social impact is incredibly important.” He affirmed that it can expand religious relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and help individuals from each country reconcile misconceptions about the other.
Mahjoob Zweiri (Director, Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University) was less convinced by Nasri’s suggestion. “Context matters, it [the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran] is not necessarily about Hajj or religion,” said Zweiri. Instead, he argued that each country’s respective position to the other oscillates over the years depending on whom their leaders are and how they behave towards each other and their neighbors.
SEPAD Project Director at Lancaster University, Simon Mabon, echoed Zweiri’s points. “The nature of relations between the two states [Iran and Saudi Arabia] is not purely shaped by this widespread misconception of ‘ancestral hatred’ for the other that goes back millennia.” Instead, Mabon believes the fusion of politics with religion, domestic affairs and complex societal dynamics involving sectarian minorities is what drives the decisions and attitudes of the Persian Gulf states. Mabon also agreed with Roy and others that bottom-up peace-building solutions are worthwhile avenues to pursue in order to address long-term sectarian divisions. However, he remained skeptical of the Hajj’s reconciliation opportunities proposed by Nasri. “Despite the Hajj being an apolitical event that leaves politics at the door, my research shows that charged identities lead to different forms of division even during the pilgrimage. The internalised politics is much harder to cast off. But I hope I am wrong”.
Lastly, Rouzbeh Parsi, Head of MENA Programme, Swedish Institute of International Affairs, closed the panel by echoing the importance of encouraging and supporting bottom-up solutions. “Much of the states in the Persian Gulf region are generally quite lousy at governance and are corrupt. If we go as far as to let them define what the problem is, then we have to follow their own definitions about how to solve it, which can often make things worse. That’s why it’s important to incorporate non-state actors through Track II and other processes.” He stated that conflict-reconciliation discourse should specific ‘human’ rather than ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ security. “Building from below” permits the building of inertia and can survive whatever turns individual states take in their interactions, alliances and rivalries with one another. Parsi acknowledged that such methods have higher costs and risks because they take more time and involve building entrenched economic and cultural links. Nevertheless, “Once established, [these connections] are not easily destroyed and aren’t just a pieces of paper that can be torn up.”
The debate reported was the third one in the programme of the MEDirections annual conference. The first two panels discussed the role of soft power and of non-traditional security instruments, as well as specific diplomatic tools to de-escalate tensions in the region and open up channels of communications between states and non-state actors.