Vali Nasr en Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What It Will Mean for Our World
Why had I needed to be reminded that capitalism is alive and thriving in the Middle East? There are signs of it everywhere, from the actions of these businessmen to protect their assets to the staggering rate at which shopping malls and modern retail establishments of all kinds have gone up in the Muslim world, and not just in Kuala Lumpur or Dubai, where one sees extravagant Rode Dirve-style malls. In war-torn Beirut and fundamentalist-dominated Tehran, glitzy malls are filled on holidays with shoppers eager to buy the latest electronics or fashionable home furnishings.
This capitalist flowering had had clearly definable cultural ramifications as well. A quick glance at rooftops in any Arab city will leave little room for doubt that satellite television has mesmerized the Arab world, to the chagrin of its dictators and their censors. There are some 280 channels to choose from, and the more popular ones, such as al-Jazeera or al-Arabiya, claim viewership in the tens of millions. It is also on these airwaves that some of the most interesting religious debates take place. Clerics are not the only ones who draw the big audiences. They must now compete with a new breed of televangelists, who preach modernity- and business-friendly Islam.
Internet use too is steadily growing. About 40 percent of Iran's population surfs the Web, with the ranks of first-timers swelling constantly, as opinion and information flow briskly into and out of social networking website and chat rooms, and then get further interpreted on blogs. Even cleric maintain active websites, blogs, and Facebook pages, and have Twitter followings. Those two social networking sites too over the presidential campaign of 2009, upending traditional media to make way for new political dynamics in the country. The government has tried its hand at restricting and censoring the Net, but it is King Canute ordering back the tide. And even if the hard-line ayatollahs and their minions could strangle the Internet, what would they do about the explosion of cell phones and mobile texting? In 2000, fewer than a million Iranians had a cell phone. Now some 48 million - about two-thirds of the country - have one. Even people too poor to obtain a regular mobile subscription can buy cheap prepaid phones to start talking and texting. And it is not just Iran: Next door in war-ravaged Afghanistan, the close of 2008 found eight million mobile phones in use - about one quarter of the population. Pakistan's numbers are even more impressive; in 2008, 78 million were using mobile phones; up from a mere 750.000 in 2001.
A vital characteristic of this flourishing capitalism is that it goes so much hand in hand with the resurgence of traditional Islamic belief. All over the Middle East, piety is shaping consumption. Those who live Islam also demand Islamic goods; not just halal food and headscarves, but Islamic housing, haute courture, banking, education, entertainment, media, consumer goods (such as Europe-based alternatives to Coke and Pepsi, Mecca Cola and Qibla Cola), and even vacations - Islamic cruises are a growth industry in Turkey, and governor of Najaf in southern Iraq has been thinking of ways to market pilgrimage vacation packages in order to coax some of the million-plus Iranians who visit the sacred site in this city every year into staying longer and spending more. Some offerings mix the taste for Islam with that for globalization, as, for example, The Caprice, a luxury hotel with a distinctly French name that caters to the Islamically conscious vacationing on Turkey's western coast.
Nasr cita el ejemplo de Dubai, que para muchos musulmanes representa el futuro y es un modelo a seguir (p. 31-32):
Dubai has become the preferred imagined future - the dreamland - of the Muslim world, the most talked about and most favored destination for Muslim tourists and businessmen, and where most Muslims claim they would like to live, other than in their own country. They have been attracted to the city's distinctive merger of a relaxed social scene with a thriving nightlife and respect for a certain degree of Islamic decorum. (...)
The rise of Dubai has not only transformed the geography of global business; more important, it has transformed the mental map of the Muslim world. Behing the showmanship and glitz, Dubai is aiming to become the Singapore of the Middle East - and even to surpass Singapore on the world stage. To many Muslims who have worked and played in Dubai, or who admire its accomplishments from afar, it represents a new kind of progress, one that impresses the West but does not depend on secularism. The ability to stay true to Islamic value even while pursuing capitalist dreams is essential to its success. The Dubai experience builds on similar experiments in Malaysia and Turkey, where development has also relied on releasing the entrepreneurial energies of the new and pious middle class, through a blending of the values of Islam and capitalism. But Dubai has been more ambitious and grown faster. Its ambition and accomplishments forcefully demonstrate the economic potential of the critical middle in the Muslim world. To Muslims, Dubai's growth represents an enormously appealing new model of development, and the surging popularity of all things Dubai among the Muslim world's rising middle class is a striking testament to the potential for the dramatic progress in the region.
