المحاضرة التي القيتها اليوم في افتتاح جامعة خاصّة في باريس التنمية وإعادة الإعمار في المناطق المنكوبة: الهلال الخصيب Development and Reconstruction of devastated areas: the Fertile Crescent Samir AITA Président du Cercle des Economistes Arabes In the recent decades, Wars had devastated Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and now Syria. The question of reconstruction had then become one of the focal issues to build the future of this region, named sometimes the Fertile Crescent. Not only to insure stability of the concerned countries and the welfare of their people, but also regional and international peace. Reconstruction is not only a matter of rebuilding homes and infrastructure destroyed by the wars. It is also, like in Europe and Asia after World War II, an issue of (re)-building the economic and social networks to put these countries in the path of sustained development and a new stable social contract. The rebuilding of devastated housing constructions poses enormous challenges. The reconstruction of the almost completely destroyed downtown of Beirut had created major political divisions and social polemics. What should be the function of the reconstructed downtown in the city? A chic commercial international area or a modernization with preservation of the social character? The answers to these questions involve many other issues. What is a public good? Moreover, how to maintain a clear differentiation with private ownership? While it is necessary to adopt public-private-partnership in order to finance reconstruction. In addition, what public investment should be prioritized? Why (only) downtown Beirut, and not Tripoli and other regions, and why not developing infrastructures in order to open up the enclaves of underdevelopment where extremism is developing? Alternatively, creating new metropolis for accelerated development and globalization? Then, even buildings’ reconstruction, the challenges involve the model of society, the social contract and the economic model of the country in the regional and global environment. One can express similar and even more acute concerns for the case of Gaza in Palestine, and for the issues of reconstruction after each – cyclical – war with Israel. Gaza is rebuilt at each time as an enormous overcrowded prison destroyed and reconstructed every ten years, with no peace and development perspective on the long term. The war dismember the popular suburbs each time, worsening the situation of the ones still standing. The reality makes that what is mainly constructed are… tunnels. The West bank lives a similar path, where villages and towns are isolated by the wall and check points as a network of islands in an archipelago. The experience of Iraq is also made of cycles of devastation and reconstructions. The Gulf war on Kuwait in 1990 and following decade of blockade and bombardments have damaged more than anything else the basic infrastructures and the economic networks. The US invasion of 2003 destroyed the State apparatus, including that providing basic public services, which had continuously reconstructed bridges and plants destroyed in the previous cycle. The chaos and the civil war that have followed led to the dismemberment of the society and of the “social contract”. Iraq experienced then massive internal migrations and ethnic cleansing. Suburbs of Baghdad, small and medium size towns grew rapidly in a chaotic way, with little public services. These areas became the heartland of different militias, mostly extremist. An oil rich country become gradually the motherland of one of the most terrible cross-border movement in recent history, known now as the “Islamic State” (IS). Only Kurdistan Iraq had been preserved from devastation. However, the extremely corrupt system that had developed following the war and the federal constitution brought this region seeking for independence to a situation similar to the Lebanese case. Irbil developed as a modern globalized metropolis, while the experienced Kurdish army of the region (the peshmergas) collapsed quickly during the surge of the “Islamic State”. The case of Iraq poses dramatically the question of the role of the State in development and reconstruction. The pathway from an extremely centralized State – although efficient in many aspects - to a Federal loose State has been brutal and chaotic. The economic networks collapsed. The agricultural production declined drastically, as well as the industrial production, leaving the country completely dependent on oil production and foreign trade. The social networks also collapsed, leaving cities and suburbs, crowded by massive internal migrations, subject to pre-State (tribal) allegiances and informal networks. Syria is experiencing a civil war in the last four years. What have been an uprising against despotism transformed to an endless war. Bombings and street combats devastated towns and suburbs. Almost half of the total population has migrated internally or to neighboring countries. One day this war will stop, and the issues of development and reconstruction shall be on the agenda. But how? The conflict has little damaged the basic infrastructures, but these infrastructures were already weak. They were even one of the causes of the conflict. The marginalized regions left alone with no proper road access and no proper services were precisely those where the most extremist insurgents, linking to Al Qaida, emerged. This was per example the case of East Deir-Ez-Zor and Jabal Zawiyeh. In addition, the core of the insurgency developed mainly in the middle-size towns and suburbs, crowded by the “youth tsunami” (the arrival of the sons of a “baby-boom” to the age of work with no economic perspectives) exacerbated by the acceleration of rural-urban migration (due to the economic policies of the last decade). The insurgents’ battalions that invaded downtown Aleppo came precisely from these towns and suburbs left alone for decades. So the question is open on how to return the population that have fled the conflict zones? And where to? Their homes have been destroyed, but most of these homes have been in informally constructed areas with no proper public services. This question concerns the issues of the financing of the reconstruction, of the role of the State in providing services and in urban planning; but also and mainly, after a civil war, psychological, social and sectarian issues. Here again the regional problem is posed. The zones controlled by the “regime” have received most of the displaced population. The State apparatus has been extremely weakened because of the conflict and the drain of civil servants. It might collapse completely if the conflict ends in a bloodshed of revenge. The regions controlled by the insurgents live in a chaos, sustained only by foreign assistance and remittances. While it is difficult to the “opposition” to build a State apparatus from scratch. Only the “Islamic State” has been able to organize and provide proper public services in the regions it controls, now disrupted by US laid bombardment. Then in what region the priorities should be put when the conflict ends? Moreover, how to reorganize the relations between the – now extremely weakened – central State and the different regions? What is surprising today is that no one is seriously working on imagining solutions for how to rebuild peace and development in Syria. This is while the learned experiences from Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine after different cycles of devastation had not lead these countries to a stable scheme beneficial for the welfare of their people. The only “talk in town” is about financing development and reconstruction, while nothing is foreseen of the size of a “Marshall plan” for the Fertile Crescent (and for the whole region of Southern Mediterranean). Lebanon has received little foreign aid after its civil war, and the country is now one of the most indebted relatively to the GDP, blocking State capacities. On the country, Palestine lives on foreign aid; but the concerned amounts are just enough to maintain only symbolically the State apparatus. Iraq is assumed to be an oil rich country, while its production is far from reaching its levels before the conflict. However, the sanctions and the compensations for the war on Kuwait are still a burden… ten years after the overthrowing of the old regime. Syria had almost no public debts before the conflict, but it shall have no means to finance its reconstruction. Will the Gulf countries finance development and reconstruction? And at what political and social price? The recent experience shows that they largely financed more wars than peace: Gulf wars, Syrian civil war, etc… Will Europe do this financing while it is in an economic crisis? And at what price? One should always remember that the “Marshall plan” which stabilized the democracies of Western Europe has been above all a plan to save US economy from recession after the World War II.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 21:34:24 +0000
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