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Jon Alterman: Nadia Oweidat is a Middle East fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. and an assistant professor at Kansas State University. Nadia, welcome to Babel.
Nadia Oweidat: Thank you for having me.
Jon Alterman: You have been doing some work about social media in the Middle East—in particular, how social media is tracking the war in Ukraine. What have you found?
Nadia Oweidat: What I found is really alarming, Jon. First of all, since the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the world has started to pay attention to something that has been happening for a while. It just reached a tipping point before Western governments decided, "Oh, we need to stop this aggression." What I found in my research is that Russia has been waging very diligent, systematic, consistent disinformation campaign that goes as far back as 2010—before the Arab Spring. So this has been happening for over a decade. For example, we found documentations of some voices that masquerade as authentic Egyptian voices that are anti-colonial, anti-American, anti-Western, but, in fact, there is nothing authentic about them. They are basically Russian bots or Russian intelligence officers operating out of Moscow.
Jon Alterman: Although certainly, those sentiments are common in places like Egypt and Jordan—and in Palestine.
Nadia Oweidat: Jon, that is absolutely a great point. You know, Jon, I grew up in the Middle East
Jon Alterman: You are Jordanian.
Nadia Oweidat: I am Jordanian as well as American, and when I was growing up, the United States’ reputation—and the reputation of the West in general—was not so bad. Now, delving into this research, I really wonder how much of the negative opinion now is actually authentic or organic, and how much of it is, in fact, directed—directed by authoritarian forces within the region and outside the region. And I am not really sure that a lot of these grievances are actually grassroots. In fact, what I'm seeing is that there are investments being made to voices that focus solely on everything negative about the West, the United States, liberal values, and democracy. And this is really harmful in the sense that authoritarian regimes are winning. What does it mean when authoritarian regimes win? It means that less people in the world—be they in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world—have fewer human rights. It means that even a lot of the elites in these regions are starting to repeat the Russian narrative about Ukraine and the West verbatim. There are a million stories you can tell about the West, but if people are given the choice, they would want to live under liberal democratic rule. The West is not evil, but why is there no coverage of what makes liberal democracy the best system for the largest number of people? We don’t hear that narrative. We don’t hear about it at all.
Jon Alterman: But as you will know, I remember being surprised when I looked at some polling numbers that suggested that people in the Middle East didn't look at the United States as a paragon of democracy. I questioned that, and people said, "Well, people in the Arab world often talk about how politics in the United States are captured by the American Jewish community and therefore it's not really a reflection of democracy." It seems to me that these sorts of strains of thought—and maybe some of them date back to the Soviet era and that propaganda effort—show that there is a lot of a lot of fertile ground for anti-Americanism in the Middle East. And if anything for the last 50 years, the constant has not been pro-Americanism, but the constant in the region has been anti-Americanism—partly because of the U.S. relationship with Israel and partly because of a sense that the United States is empowering un-democratic regimes in the region. And therefore, in countries including Jordan, people say, "The United States is responsible for our repression rather than our freedom."
Nadia Oweidat: These are really legitimate points—all of them. It is true that sometimes U.S. policymakers do not apply American values in foreign policy. There is lack of consistency, but sometimes we do support good initiatives. However, what I'm really alarmed about is a phenomenon that benefits primarily authoritarian powers and authoritarian regimes worldwide. There is no distinction—none whatsoever—between pro-West, pro-American, and pro-democratic liberal, human-rights focused rule. That is where it gets really dangerous because, again, authoritarianism is about violence. It is about depriving people of choice. It is about repressing dissent with intimidation and repression, and if these regimes are seen as justifiable because they are the opposite of what the West has to bring to the table, that is dangerous. The reason why a lot of people critique the United States is because it is not living by its own values. But is it constructive to just throw the baby out with the bathwater? I don’t believe that it is. And the reason we are seeing this crescendo of messaging—because I really see it exacerbated in the last couple of decades—is because there is systematic support for it. No matter how good an idea is, if we don’t support it and there is instead support for an idea that is much worse, you know which one is going to rule the day. We had an idea in Wahabism and global terrorism, where tens of thousands of young people from Muslim community could get in tune with the idea, “We need to go start a Caliphate and enslave girls again and sell them in markets.” Why? Because somebody invested in teaching them that this was the real Islam. There was an investment in this really rotten idea, but it led to changes on the ground. So we cannot say, “Well it should be self-evident that human rights, democratic rules, or liberal values are superior, so we don’t need to support it.” No, actually we really need to support it. Even when we in the West don’t live up to these ideas, we can continue to support them and continue to strive to meet them. And I really believe that we do. As somebody who grew up in the region and lives in the West, I do believe there are enough people in Western countries that truly are dedicated to these liberal values and truly are pushing to try to have more policymakers sign onto these ideals.
Jon Alterman: Let me ask you about the Ukraine war in particular because what we see on the state level in the Middle East is that there is no Middle Eastern state that is supportive of the U.S. position on Ukraine. And what I hear increasingly from friends—I was just talking to a Jordanian friend at lunch today—is that there's outright support for what the Russians are doing, partly because they like the idea the Russians are tormenting the West and partly because they take a sort of sympathy to the Russian view of the world. Is that what you're seeing on social media?
Nadia Oweidat: Absolutely. And in fact, I just published an Arabic article essentially scolding the Arab elite for exactly what you said. They are supporting Russia just because it is basically a thorn in the side of the West. And this is very blind, because Russia is invading a country and wants to annihilate a country off the map and remove a national identity. They critique Israel, for example, but it is okay if somebody else does it. If we are pro-human rights, we have to be pro-human rights consistently, no matter whose people we are talking about—not just our people versus their people. It is really alarming, Jon. Even though I brief the White House and I brief the State Department and various government agencies, I do not understand why we don’t take seriously that Arab regimes—as far back as 10 or 15 years ago—play the card of “We are allies of the West,” while they have been putting all of their weight in the media behind making the United States look really awful and evil and bad. And there's reputational cost to that. There's a huge reputational cost because people are repeating what basically the Russians and the authoritarian regimes want them to repeat. I mean, if you are bombarded by narrative 24/7 everywhere you go that a republic is planning attacks, is planning attacks—nd you hear it everywhere—you're going to start to think about it and repeat it. Along with censorship of other ideas, the populations in the Middle East are bombarded 24/7 with very authoritarian, pro-Russian, anti-Western narratives. So it is inevitable, again, because there is not an authoritative narrative that they're being exposed to.
Jon Alterman: Let me ask you a question because there's a lot of talk, a lot of speculation that people are impressed by the China model because China has social order. China has economic growth. China is a great power. I think there is a certain believability to the appeal of China to Arab elites, Arab masses, and Arab governments. I certainly think there are some governments that are seduced by the idea that you can have tremendous economic transformation without social and political transformation. But what does Russia really offer? Russia doesn't seem to me to be a model of modernity, progress, or innovation. Russia is a sort of “no” vote for the Western model, but it doesn't seem to be a yes vote for anything. Is that right?
Nadia Oweidat: Absolutely. Let's start with China. Again, the power of narrative that is so frustrating for people like me that are watching the Arabic news, media, and social media space and media space is that we are hardly doing anything. The reason why I know we are not doing anything is because I’m not seeing it. Where is it? Where is that counter-narrative? We are not fighting the Chinese narrative. And if all you hear is, “China is running like a Swiss clock and China is great, of course you're going to say, “Okay, China has economic prosperity”—which we know is not that simple. There could be a narrative that China is subjecting its minority Muslim population to unbelievable cruelty and putting huge amounts of people in concentration camps. This narrative is not being told. China is one of the most repressive countries on earth. They deal with dissent with such cruelty and brutality. Where is this narrative? That's a fact. That's a factual narrative. China is only a model that serves people that want to enslave their population. And what’s really happening is that these regimes are succeeding in convincing their population that it is in their interest—which it's not—to basically be so subservient and have no political will, no ability to participate in building their homelands, and no ability to express any dissent. So it is a false narrative that is being sold as a successful model. It is not successful for those who are being oppressed. It is not successful for those who are being killed, but if you're an Arabic speaker, you don't know much about that. You almost never hear about it. And on the Russian narrative, I have monitored how the Russia and Ukraine are being portrayed. From everything I’ve seen in Arabic, Russia’s primary goal is to destroy the reputation of the West. It is really succeeding because there is a reputational cost when you don’t counter a narrative, and we're paying it. The United States is the capital of public relations, right? We need to do PR on our reputation as Americans. There are a lot of great stories—just as many as there are bad stories. And we truly need to invest in salvaging our reputation.
Jon Alterman: Well, I have to tell you: I was in the State Department during the campaign right after 9/11, when they were doing a program on Muslims in America. I don't know if you remember that, but that was not a bright shining light of the American ability to understand Muslim audiences. The way it was put together and the way it was perceived was that people come to America and become more secular. And what the people putting together the programs thought the message was, was different from the way the message was being received because I think the United States is good at telling its own story—and people pick parts and pieces of this story—but I think we have a failure of imagination and a failure of empathy to understand how others perceive us and to understand what others want to see us as.
Nadia Oweidat: That is really important because it's all about narrative and what is being portrayed—what our reputation is and how do we defend ourselves in the world. The United States is not just one thing. And we need to tell the story of that diversity. One thing I’ve always believed—and we were talking about some research I did at RAND—is that there are multiple approaches we need to take. One of them is that within the Arab world—within the Muslim world and even within Russia—there are a lot of people who truly believe in human rights and liberal democratic values. These are our allies, and nd we are yet to truly empower these people that know how to tell that story because they are from within these cultures, within these religions, within these localities, and they know how to communicate a story way better than somebody who's from a completely different background could.
Jon Alterman: Although it also feels to me that so many of the people we engage with are people who are very used to talking with us—who oftentimes have been educated in our countries. They are so sympathetic. They, in many ways, are closer to us and have a greater stake with us than they do with the people we might want to persuade in their own societies. The other problem we have is that we are bound by the truth. And a lot of these social media campaigns that are so hostile to the United States are not bound by the truth. They're bound by creativity and all the other things. And that puts you at a disadvantage when you're trying to win hearts and minds.
Nadia Oweidat: One other way we are at a disadvantage is that there is a sort of a naivete and an assumption that I think we really need to change. Those who are for human rights believe that they should not really put that message strongly, whereas the other camp has lobbies and a lot of influence. They have bought advertisements. They put people behind computer screens to spread certain messages. They've actually invested very heavily—even though they have a false and disempowering narrative to most people. They put their weight behind it. You know, I went to school at Oxford. One of the things that really struck me when I was there—and it was really disturbing to me in fact—is that I met some of the children of the dictators in the Middle East. These are people being educated at top UK universities, and their argument is basically, “The Middle East is not ready for democracy. You should not try to impose human rights.” And I just thought, I’m sorry, what? I don't remember, growing up in the Middle East that somebody said that I signed my right to you, the child of my oppressor, telling you that I don't want the human rights or that I'm not ready. I am ready. And go listen to my tribeswomen—who are not even educated—tell you that they want human rights. They come to these elite educational spaces and they use the space to argue their message. They have a mission. They want to stay in power. They want to stay monopolizing power and exploiting resources while at the same time just deflecting all their failures on the West. If you look at the Arab world, it is all dictatorships. There are a lot of failed states or semi-failed states in one region. This is the leadership of the political elite in the Middle East. They are not people whose word we can get behind. So, it is really complex, and we need a systematic effort matching that of the other camp that is doing such a great job persuading people on a false narrative. I really am very happy to see that Western countries are also coming together, and we need to intensify that effort massively in the soft power and digital space. We need to really take that war of ideas seriously. It cannot be underestimated, and the consequences are really dire, in my opinion. What is at stake is more people in the world living with human rights, living with freedoms, living with the ability to participate in their country's future, versus more people enslaved, silenced, and oppressed. So I really hope this Russia and Ukraine war is a wakeup call, but we'll see.
Jon Alterman: Nadia Oweidat, thank you for joining us on Babel.
Nadia Oweidat: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.