Nahlah Ayed, a well-known CBC foreign correspondent, opened up to a full audience March 11 about her experiences covering politics and conflict zones in the Middle East.
The speech,“What falls from the sky: Predicting the future in the Arab world,”was for the 15th annual Kesterton Lecture.
Ayed began by explaining she actually hadn’t been to the Middle East recently because she was stationed in Russia and Ukraine covering the Olympics and the current crisis in Crimea. She was scheduled to give the lecture in September 2013, but was called away to reporting duties in Syria.
“I was just as doubtful that I was going to get here as some of you might have been,” she said.
The focus of the lecture was the current political climate in the Middle East and whether it would have been possible to predict future events.
Ayed explained that before the Arab Spring, predicting what would happen in the region was simple and “like clockwork.” But since 2011, she said it’s nearly impossible to see where the Middle East will go next.
Instead, Ayed focused on explaining the key indicators of issues with the Arab world, but also things to watch for that might reveal a more positive future.
The absence of political choices in these countries is troubling, she said, with only the old regimes and Islamist organizations as options. The exclusion of women from government and the corruption and brutality of security forces in the region were other issues touched on.
“People in Egypt feel like the request for better and more effective police still hasn’t been met three years later,” Ayed said.
“There’s been no change in the way security operates. Some activists argue they need to wipe it all up and start from scratch . . . to produce a service that’s built on the idea of serving people rather than the other way around,” she said.
State media control, a problem Ayed said hits close to home, has become so pervasive that signals for television shows critical of the status quo, such as that of popular Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef, are jammed.
Despite the serious issues, Ayed said there are positive signs starting to appear.
“Millions of people in the region have found their voice. It’s as simple as that.”
She pointed to the role social media has played over the past few years and the resurgence of youth involvement during and after the Arab Spring, calling youth the “next generation of activists.”
Increased accountability in Middle Eastern countries like Libya, where corrupt former government officials are being put on trial, is a good step, according to Ayed. A potential deal between Iran and the United States could result in great changes across the entire Arab world as well, she said.
Though Ayed said it’s impossible to predict what the future holds for the Middle East, she ended her lecture on a positive note.
“Like any place that’s undergoing a huge change, there’s a lot falling from the sky . . . but [the people in the region] are hoping that perhaps one day it will stop raining.”
