To what extent do you agree that ‘authoritarian states have served the needs of their

people’ in the Middle East from 1908-2011?

The authoritarian states in the Middle East have stuggled to meet the ‘needs of their
people’. Authoritarian means favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the
expense of personal freedom. Throughout the years of 1908 to 2011, the Middle Eastern
governments have continuously put the religious needs of their people over anything else,
meaning other needs, such as social, political and economic may have lower standards. With
religion, always being put first as it was important to their people, it can be argued that they
were meeting the needs of their people. However, with many states having differing
populations, places like Iraq struggled while rich Saudi Arabia prospered. Due to being
authoritarian, political needs weren’t really met in any state, except possibly Ataturk paving
the way for democracy in Turkey, political freedom was never prioritised in the Middle east.
Instead, religion was put first.

As for religion, many authoritarian governments could have been seen to meet the needs of
their people. In the Sunni Wahhabism state of Saudi Arabia, needs were met. The fact there
was such a majority meant that only one religion had to be considered, meaning that all
laws could reflect their values and the people could be happy. Even in 1990 in the Gulf war,
many US soldiers and officials were in their country, the government made sure that they
followed the laws reflecting Wahhabism, for example, women wearing headdresses. This
was undoubtedly meeting the needs of their people. However, money was not an issue in
Saudi Arabia due to the mass amounts of oil, leading to some thinking that the people were
only happy due to this. However, there was never a major outbreak regarding religion
meaning needs were met. It can be argued that in Iran, Khomeini didn’t meet many of his
people’s needs economically, politically or socially, but he did succeed in religion and as this
was so important to the Iranian people, he didn’t appear too negatively. Khomeini himself
even stated, “Islam is politics or it is nothing”, proving just how important it was in affecting
his popularity as he put religion first. With a Shia majority, Khomeini implemented Sharia
law across the country, making him appear successful, despite the declining literacy rates
and poor health. Iran also became the first Islamic state in the Middle East, proving just how
important it was, meeting the religious needs and when everything else Khomeini did was
reverted to the ways of the Shar, the state remained Islamic. In Turkey, Ataturk (Kemal
Mustafa) was successful in almost all ways, but when he introduced a secular state, looking
to the West for inspiration. He began using the Christian calendar instead of Muslim,
removing the caliphate and women no longer having to wear headdresses. None of these
actions would have pleased the highly religious, meaning the authoritarian state of Turkey
was not meeting the ‘needs of the people’. However, he did translate the Quran into Turkish
in his newly formed alphabet. Nevertheless, the laws in Turkey didn’t reflect this pro Islam
way of life and this was the only positive Ataturk provided for the Muslims – not meeting
the needs of most his people. Religion is by far the most influential factor in the Middle East
in determining if the ‘needs of the people’ are met. In 2011 in the Arab Springs, many
authoritarian government were overthrown, but the oil rich states of Iran and Saudi Arabia
that heavily focus on religion were not affected.

Not many of the social ‘needs of the people’ were met by the authoritarian governments of
the Middle East as religion was usually put first to be deemed a success. For example, Iraq
did not. From 1979, under the rule of Saddam Hussein, living standards were completely
reliant on oil, but due to Saddam constantly engaging in conflicts to put his enormous army
to use, the oil wealth was drained and people suffered. Standards of living dropped and
with all the conflict there was an increased mortality rate. Food was gained through
agriculture but only due to UN sanctions – again only an issue as the result of conflict. He
did promote gender equality with female bodyguards, but due to the variety of religions in
Iraq, this wouldn’t always be a good thing. Under the Assad’s, Syria were another to suffer,
with two thirds of the populations in extreme poverty, instability in society due to clashes
between the Alawites and Muslim Brotherhood and the freedom from ‘Damascus Spring’
ending abruptly. Social ‘needs of the people’ were hardly met due to always being second
best to religion.

As for economic needs being met, those with oil wealth succeeded, but those constantly in
conflict usually weren’t. however, one that was is the middle was Iraq – rich but riddled with
constant wars. Before Saddam, oil wealth meant their economy was growing by 11.7%, but
in the Iran Iraq war, oil reserves were bombed, ruining the economy. The war also led to UN
sanctions previously mentioned. However, this lead to the people getting better at farming
and agriculture boosting their economy. Also, the world all wanted oil so exports began
again. Yet, Saddam kept up his spending on his military and nuclear programme more than
infrastructure or anything else and as opposed to just cutting it down and witnessing an
increase in unemployment, he decided to invade Kuwait in 1990 to put it to use. This was
not likely to have met the need of his people at all. Another confused economy was in Egypt
under Nasser. Nationalising the Suez Canal in 1956 lead to an influx in his economy,
receiving new revenue that the people received a fair share of. When joining the UAR, the
economy did not benefit and neither did it from the Six Day War. However, from this,
reparations were paid to Egypt from the Arab states and they annually received £135
million. This money could however be spent on more conflict, such as Yom Kipper in 1973.
Whether Egypt economically met the need if their people is hard to judge, but possibly
meeting them met religion wasn’t so successful, being secular. Economically, there was a
variety of successes and failures in meeting the ‘needs of the people’.

In the Middle east in the year 1908 to 2011, each state met the needs of the people
differently, due to each having different demographics and each authoritarian system
varying. For example, Saudi Arabia didn’t have much of a challenge to ‘meet their peoples
needs’ as they were wealthy and had a populations almost all following one religion. States
like Syria had much more challenging circumstances to work with. However, the fact is that
if the religious needs of the people were met, the state would usually succeed. Political,
social and economic needs would all be sacrificed if it meant religious needs were met.