The Chronikler

The al-Jazeera debate programme, al-Itijah al-Mua'kes (Opposite Direction), is well-known across the Arab world for tackling thorny, controversial and offbeat issues. Earlier this week, the show got stuck into the taboo question of whether Arabs, after decades of self-rule, were better off under the oppression of their current regimes or whether the yoke of the former imperial powers was preferable.

At one point, the programme's moderator Faisal al-Qassem described the modus operandi of Arab leaders as a form of internal imperialism and said that some were of the view that home-grown colonialism, which consumes the body from within, was tougher to combat than foreign occupation, which behaves more like an external parasite.

As is the format of al-Itijah el-Mua'kes, the two guest panellists had opposing views on the topic. One, a member of an Arab parliament, was of the opinion that no matter how bad local rulers were, they were preferable by far to a foreign occupier whose sole concern is the pillaging of a society's resources and the subjugation of its people. In contrast, local leaders ultimately have the interests of their society – or at least parts of it – at heart and, with reform, self-rule can be made to work.

 The other, a lawyer with the International Criminal Court, argued that the European powers brought the Middle East into the modern age and set it on the road to progress. In some cases, he opined, there had not been much progress since. As an example, he referred to the railways in Sudan, which were built by the British but have not been improved by the Sudanese.

 Despite the eccentricity of these views, they seem to have a certain resonance with ordinary Arabs. Surprisingly, some two-thirds of respondents to an online poll conducted by al-Jazeera were of the view that their countries had been better off under colonial rule.

 Of course, polls of this kind are unscientific, the make-up and demographic spread of the respondents are unknown and the sample size was too small (6,808). Nevertheless, the result is an interesting one, and it speaks volumes of the frustration felt by ordinary Arabs, caught as they are between the rock of repressive rule and the hard place of foreign hegemony. 

Long gone, it would seem, are the days of heady, post-independence optimism in which Arabs believed that, after shaking off the shackles of centuries of European and Ottoman rule, a new golden age was about to be born. 

So, which is better? Well, as with most things, the issue is neither black nor white because the track records of both imperialism and self-rule have been patchy. In addition, the diversity of imperial and post-independence experiences are enormous. Moreover, even within a single empire, performance changed dramatically over time and the colonial experience in each country was marked by key differences. 

In the Arab world, the early centuries of Ottoman rule, for example, were relatively benign, tolerant and prosperous, but the latter period was increasingly repressive and stagnant. In their favour, the European powers brought in ideas of modern science and the Enlightenment, helped abolish slavery and sparked Arab interest in modern technology.

 On the negative side, they often stripped countries of their resources, put in place repressive colonial power structures which were perpetuated by local rulers, and, intentionally or unintentionally, planted many of the seeds of the internal and cross-border conflicts that plague the region to this day.

 Algeria, for example, is still staggering from the wounds of having once been annexed by France, with the mass displacement of the peasantry and the marginalisation of the urban professional classes that this involved. In addition, the roots of the bloody north-south conflict in Sudan, and the massacres in Darfur, can be traced back to the destructive period of Anglo-Egyptian rule.

 The record of self-rule is also difficult to assess and compare, partly because the Arab world of today is so very different from that of colonial times. On the plus side, self-rule has led to massive improvements in such areas as education and healthcare. In addition, a number of post-independence regimes embarked on huge and ambitious programmes to industrialise, with mixed results.

 On the negative side, most domestic regimes have been as oppressive in their handling of the population as the former colonial powers, and human rights abuses in many countries are rife. An extreme example of this would be Saddam Hussein and his murderous rule. But, then again, those who dream of a return to colonial rule would do well to examine the case study of contemporary Iraq, where the US-led occupation is giving the country's former dictator a serious run for his money in terms of destructiveness and malignancy.

 In fact, the question posed by al-Jazeera is perhaps the wrong one, since, in many ways, colonial rule has not ended. Although direct rule stopped more than half a century ago, with the exception of Iraq since 2003, indirect rule never ceased. In broad terms, the region's regimes fall into two general categories: those who have accepted the role of client states and those who have opposed it and been punished and "contained" for stepping out of line. Then, there's the privatisation and franchising of imperialism to multinationals.

 So, in reality, today's Arabs are living under the crushing burden of domestic and foreign imperialism. To my mind, the issue is not which one is better but how to bring both to an end.

 This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 19 February 2010. Read the related discussion.

Football may be known as the beautiful game but at the international level it often resembles some kind of Great Game in which countries compete for regional and global ascendancy. Overpaid knights in shining bling – backed up by a supporting army of fanatical volunteers – march into battle to defend the honour and prestige of the nation.

Football has a tendency to bring out both the best and worst in people, from friendly rivalry and parties in the stands, to the pettiest forms of jingoism and tribalism. As someone with only a passing interest in the sport, who finds there are goals in life beyond the back of the net, I sometimes find the depth of passions football provokes both baffling and bewildering.

In the African theatre, things are heating up, and the scramble to join World Cup hosts South Africa in one of the continent's five additional places has sparked a cold war between two of its top footballing nations and archest rivals: Egypt and Algeria. A clash between the Pharaohs and the Desert Foxes for a place among the Titans of football sounds like the stuff of legends and the buzz surrounding the make-or-break qualifier on 14 November has an almost mythical ring to it, especially since the two nations fought almost the exact same battle 20 years ago, in 1989.

With so much at stake, advance armies of fans, journalists, hackers and other patriots have been mobilised to instil fear in the hearts of the enemy. Even that great patriotic Egyptian institution, Coca-Cola, has launched a major propaganda campaign, called "Remember 1989", to get Egyptians squarely behind the troops.

Both sides have been exchanging allegations of unfair play, and the head of Air Algérie has even accused Egypt of restricting the movement of Algerian fans that have already arrived in the country.

For their part, international observers fear that the clash could spill over beyond the battlefield and claim some civilian casualties. The Egyptian and Algerian foreign ministers have been on the phone to each other to discuss the emerging crisis.

Peace activists on both sides are out in force. In a bid to calm tensions, the Egyptian daily al-Masry al-Youm has launched a controversial campaign called "A Rose for every Algerian". Earlier this week, a group of Egyptian and Algerian journalists met in Algeria to discuss ways of bridging the widening chasm and, in a gesture of love, solidarity and soppiness, they exchanged red roses.

These pre-match skirmishes raise the question of whether Algerian-Egyptian tensions revolve solely around football or whether the beautiful game is being used as a proxy – a political football, if you like – for deeper animosities.

"Algerians and Egyptians have never warmed to each other, and they seem to like expressing their feelings through football," speculates Brian Oliver on the Guardian's sports blog. "Egyptians are seen as snooty and aloof, and there was bad blood between the two countries in the late 1950s, when so many African countries – but not Egypt – were fighting for independence."

Although Egypt may have been one of the first African countries to gain its independence and had a mild colonial experience compared to Algeria, this was actually not a source for tension between Egypt and Algeria – quite the contrary.

Egypt's struggle for independence and the support given by Gamal Abdel Nasser's regime to the Algerian revolutionaries during the country's long and bloody war of independence against France – which led France to join forces with Britain and Israel to attack Egypt during the 1956 Suez crisis – is greatly appreciated in Algeria. In fact, Nasser is revered to this day by many Algerians.

If there have been political tensions between the two countries, these emerged later, when Egypt made a separate peace with Israel and was left out in the cold by the entire Arab world, including Algeria – but these resentments have faded.

In addition, the fact that Algeria is similar to Egypt in many ways – it too has a secular regimes propped up by the military – but is smaller and geographically more peripheral means that the country sometimes aspires to but has not managed to play the same kind of cultural and political role Egypt does on the Middle Eastern stage. And Egyptians can be quite arrogant about this, which could explain why some Algerians see them as "snooty and aloof". For their part, Egyptians stereotype Algerians as aggressive and violent – which might date back to the fateful 1989 encounter in which the Algerian players reacted violently to being knocked out.

But, in the balance of things, I think the rivalry is mostly about football and how it impacts on the pride of two troubled nations. Egypt, which has qualified only twice for the World Cup (in 1934 and 1990), wants to overcome its 'curse of the Pharaohs' and reflect its unrivalled record in Africa on the world stage. And with what is widely seen as its best team ever, the country should have qualified without trouble, and not be struggling to keep its head above water as it now is.

Meanwhile, Algeria, which was Africa's most impressive side in the 1980s, wants to regain its former glory after so many years in the wilderness.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 7 November 2009. Read the related discussion.