World Expo 2020: The Arab Spring Advances

Some compelling and rather unexpected imagery arose in my mind’s eye as I read through Diaries of an Unfinished Revolution, the recently published and justly acclaimed oral history of the Arab Spring compiled and edited by Layla Al-Zubaidi, Matthew Cassel, and Nomonie Craven Roderick.
In eight Arab lands, from Tunisia to Syria, Diaries of an Unfinished Revolution introduces a representative spokesperson who chronicles the perils and perplexities of this collective struggle for human decency. I say “perplexities” because these men and women are no mere revolutionary martinets. They’re far too thoughtful and honest for that.
One reviewer, for example, appropriately highlights Tunisian activist Malek Sghriy as he ponders, “how will we reconcile the values of political modernism on the one hand, and those of our medieval Islamic ‘tradition’ on the other?” A definitive question, for sure, especially coming from Tunis where it all began.
It may have been at that early point in the book when, for this reader, images of World Expo 2020 began to superimpose themselves besides these narratives of brave hope and struggle. Of course, right now one can only guess at the specific shapes and contours that will soon transform the desert landscape between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, but they won’t likely be unspectacular. After the UAE won its bid last November to host the Expo, Dubai’s ruler and UAE President, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, promised a show that will “astonish the world.”
Images of the great exposition ahead by no means trivialize the unspeakable horrors in Syria that confront us with every news cycle. To the contrary, doesn’t the event at least offer some durable pretext for celebrating the stability and prosperity that can and will eventually be achieved in the region? Shouldn’t Dubai’s longstanding commitment to serving as a role model for the entire Middle East – in its stability and growth, a palpable alternative to terrorism for millions of people throughout the Middle East – occasion some fireworks of hope, an opportunity to see beyond the current suffering so that we can all keep our eyes on the ultimate prize?
There are those for whom any juxtaposition of World Expo 2020 with events in Damascus and Cairo underscores disparity within Arab civilization. Yet the common bonds explicit in the UAE’s winning Expo theme, “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future,” are more persuasive. The fact that 2020 will see the first World Expo ever held in the MENA & SA (Middle East, North America, and Southeast Asia) region is of additionally glaring significance – if anything, an all-the-more defiantly hopeful symbolism as the fighting rages on in Syria.
The World Expo 2020 as a whole may also serve as a reminder that the balancing of “political modernism” and “tradition” is indeed possible in the context of accelerated economic growth. The Expo site will include an Innovation Pavilion and Innovation Labs showcasing projects that define “modernism” itself – just as in 2010 the Facebook page “We are all Khaled Said,” created by Google executive Wael Ghonim to memorialize an Arab Spring martyr, also defined “modernism” when it went viral, attracting hundreds of thousands of followers and inspiring new Facebook profiles throughout Egypt.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Ghonim was in Dubai when he decided to create “We are all Khaled Said.”
There is a related focal connection between the reality of the Arab Spring and the spirit of World Expo 2020 – a generational connection. The activists in Diaries of an Unfinished Revolution range from students to experienced journalists, but a persistently cited definer of the great Arab movement is its youth, including an emphatic participation by what we’d call Millennials, age 18 to 35.
So too does World Expo 2020 – building on Sheikh Mohammed’s $272 million Smart Education Initiative to create a new learning environment by introducing “smart classes” in all UAE schools, and providing every student with tablet PCs and high speed 4G networks – look toward this generation as both architect and targeted audience.
“The region is at a crossroads as 65% of the population are Millennials,” says Suzanne Leonard. “World Expo 2020 has identified the human component in the academic and living domains as the greatest opportunity for sustainable growth,” adds Leonard, the founder and CEO of Legends & Legacy, an organization that introduced “the transference of knowledge, leadership, and legacy capital as the key catalyst to transform the lives and futures of MENA-Millennials” into the region ahead of the World Expo 2020 announcement.
Leonard’s work in the region has accelerated rapidly due to the vast demand for advanced education and values “based on critical thinking skills specifically designed for the Millennials…We celebrate His Highness’ initiative and support the mission, starting with a new way of thinking and, ultimately, a responsible, and meaningful way of participating in their new era of the Arab Spring.”
In a sense, we’re looking at twin sides of the same revolution – two very different-looking phenomena on the surface but fulfilling the same inexorable historic mission. If Dubai is a living alternative to terrorism, so too is the heroic activism that the Arab Spring has made possible for so many people.
If the Arab Spring was in part driven by advanced technology in the hands of a younger, idealistic population, World Expo 2020 has drawn on resources worldwide to exponentially leverage such technology.
If, in Diaries of an Unfinished Revolution, a Saudi woman, Safa Al Ahmad, stresses the inextricable linkage of political repression and the repression of women, we find that women in Dubai are eligible to vote, serve in the military, and hold public office.
If the tyrants of the Middle East turn blind eyes to human suffering, Dubai has worked steadily to comply with international standards in remediating its human rights issues.
In the last analysis, the world can and should see World Expo 2020 as a symbol of all that the Arab world can achieve. We cannot expect it to inspire people who, perforce, are currently too preoccupied with finding food and eluding goon squads. And celebratory public symbols can backfire: the sinking of the Titanic, for example, neatly presaged the disaster that, with World War I, awaited the arrogant civilization incarnate in the great boat.
But there’s a decisive difference here. Economic epicenters are shifting south to emerging markets and new trading hubs. Geo-political lines are being redrawn, with the Emirates as clear beneficiaries of the sea change. Meanwhile, when the Arab Spring happened, it happened for many reasons – not least of which is that a whole people now insists on partaking of the benefits promised by this seismic global realignment.
And partake they will.
Richard Levick*
*Richard Levick, Esq., Chairman and CEO of LEVICK, which provides public relations and communications counsel to companies throughout the world on public affairs-related issues. Mr. Levick was honored for the past four years on NACD Directorship’s list of “The 100 Most Influential People in the Boardroom,” and has been named to multiple professional Halls of Fame for lifetime achievement. He is the co-author of three books, including The Communicators: Leadership in the Age of Crisis, and is a regular commentator on television, in print, and on the most widely read business blogs.