After the Sheikhs

by Davidson, Christopher

  Elsewhere, however, opposition has been more robust, and the mosque financing strategy in Western Europe may prove increasingly awkward for the Gulf monarchies involved. In Norway, for example, attempts by Saudi Arabia’s Tawfiiq Islamic Centre to spend tens of millions of dollars on building new mosques have been blocked by the government. Explaining in 2010 that ‘…it would be a paradox and unusual to accept funding from sources in a country where there is no religious freedom’ and that ‘…the acceptance of such money would be a paradox since it is a punishable crime to establish the Christian faith in Saudi Arabia’,81 Norway’s minister for foreign affairs has seemingly closed the door on further Saudi funding.

  Soft power in the West: cultural institutions

  In some ways an extension of the development assistance model, especially when the Western institutions involved have run into financial difficulties, and in others a more subtle example of the sponsorship and naming rights strategy, the Gulf monarchies have been increasingly active in supporting well known museums, art galleries, and other cultural institutions. The UAE has been financing a new art research centre in Paris and is providing $32 million to help the Louvre repair a wing of the Pavilion de Flore. When complete, the latter will host a new gallery of international art named after the former ruler of Abu Dhabi.82 Moreover, Abu Dhabi has reportedly been paying for the $10 million restoration of Chateau Fontainebleau’s Napoleon III theatre—controversially to be renamed after Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the current ruler. Following the signing of the deal in 2007 Abu Dhabi’s representative stated that ‘This is proof to the deep-rooted cultural and tourism relations between the UAE and France. We consider it as an additional pillar of our bilateral relations’ before explaining that ‘Sheikh Khalifa’s initiative is part of a long history of cooperation between France and the UAE and is set to be followed by other cultural partnerships’. Despite allowing the renaming of a building that is part of a classified UNESCO World Heritage Site and was home to more than thirty French monarchs and emperors, the French minister for culture claimed that ‘…this current cultural cooperation is proof to the approach the two counties adopt in further boosting cooperation and peaceful rapprochement among the world’s cultures and civilisations’.83

  As part of the same strategy, although in reverse, some Gulf monarchies have imported the biggest western cultural institutions into the Gulf itself, often by providing massive financial inducements which have clearly been used to bolster the resources of the home institutions. Most astonishingly, at a total cost of over $27 billion, Abu Dhabi’s Tourism and Development Investment Company is currently developing Saadiyat—‘the island of happiness’. Intended to become the emirate’s main cultural hub, it is being linked by ten bridges to the mainland and will host branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim in addition to a new Sheikh Zayed National Museum, a performing arts centre, a maritime museum, and a nineteen-pavilion cultural park. The Louvre Abu Dhabi will alone cost $110 million to build, and TDIC has agreed to pay a further $520 million for the Louvre brand name and the loan of various exhibitions and collections. Being built at similarly great expense, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will be the sixth international branch of the renowned New York museum. Designed by Frank Gehry, described by Vanity Fair as ‘the most important architect of our age’,84 the new building will cover over 30,000 square metres and become one of the world’s largest exhibition centres.85 When the French president visited Abu Dhabi in 2009 to open a new French military base in the emirate—as discussed later—he went out of his way to state that ‘…relations between the two countries go beyond economic issues … there are rich cultural relations between the two countries in light of innovative, promising initiatives such as Louvre Abu Dhabi’ before assuring that ‘…France is on your side in the event your security is at risk. France… is ready to shoulder its responsibilities to ensure the stability in the region. This region is strategic for the world balance’.86

  Although the Sheikh Zayed National Museum is not a product of western branding, it is nonetheless being designed by Norman Foster’s Foster and Partners of London, and the British Museum is being paid to be the project’s primary consulting partner, advising on a range of issues from design, construction, and museography, to educational and curatorial programming as well as training. Upon completion, the British-designed museum will feature at least five different galleries dedicated to glorifying aspects of the former ruler’s life, namely his ‘interest in protecting the environment’, his commitment to heritage and the ‘traditional values close to his heart through his life’, his ‘role in the political and social unification of the Emirates’, his role in ‘establishing education for all of the UAE’, and his ‘humanitarianism… and support of Islamic values and religious tolerance’.87

  As with building mosques in Europe and other development assistance to Western countries, the funding of such high profile cultural institutions by Gulf monarchies has also on occasion generated opposition. The various Saadiyat Island developments, which were originally scheduled to be completed in 2013 but which have now been delayed pending a government bailout of TDIC,88 have recently been boycotted by 130 leading artists on the grounds that the expatriate workers involved in constructing the museums are being routinely exploited. Published in March 2011, the artists’ pledge states that ‘[they will] refuse all co-operation with the project until the Guggenheim and its partners guarantee enforcement mechanisms to reimburse workers for any recruitment fees paid, and hire a reputable independent monitor that will make its findings about working conditions public’. Meanwhile a spokesperson for Human Rights Watch has stated that ‘this leading group of artists is making it clear that they will not showcase their work in a museum built by abused workers, and that the steps taken to date by Guggenheim and TDIC are inadequate… if the Guggenheim and TDIC fail to address the artists’ concerns, the museum may become better known for exhibiting labour violations than art’.89

  Saudi Arabia’s attempt to fund Book World Prague—one of the world’s largest book fairs—also proved controversial. In 2011 Saudi Arabia was listed as one of the fair’s ‘guests of honour’ and reportedly a ‘huge and lavish stand’ was erected, taking a central position in the fair. This was ‘…in the form of a turreted (and carpeted) mock fortress, replete with scale models of Mecca and Medina, a children’s play area, some blonde women in Saudi costumes, and plenty of individually plasticwrapped dates for all. There were even a few books, presumably as a concession to this being a book fair’. There were, however, no Saudi authors present at the fair, most notably no Abdo Khal, despite his winning of the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for a book—Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles—that remains banned in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia’s involvement, therefore, was heavily criticised, being described as ‘…an oppressive regime hoping to buy itself some cultural legitimacy with its petrodollars’ and ‘…the hijacking of literary culture for use as instant kudos by the distinctly anti-literary regime of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’.90

  Soft power in the West: financing universities and manipulating research

  All six Gulf monarchies have for years sponsored a number of leading Western universities and some of their professors, research centres, and research programmes. Of special interest have been those universities and departments which have historically focused on Middle Eastern Studies, Islamic Studies, and especially Persian Gulf studies. In the past, most of these donations—many of which amount to millions of dollars—tended to come directly from members of Gulf ruling families. While this still sometimes happens, it is now more frequent for the funding to be channelled through state-backed charities or ‘foundations’, as this seems to smooth the way for recipient institutions to perform due diligence on their foreign backers, helping them to create some distance from regimes or unpalatable individuals whom their staff and student bodies may object to. Nevertheless the various buildings, jobs, and programmes that have been sponsored in this manner invariably s
till are adorned with the names of Gulf rulers or their powerful relatives.

  Most of these gifts have no strings attached per se, and there is generally no follow-up control after the gift is made. However, donors have usually been able to rely on a culture of self-censorship taking root in the recipient institutions. After all, if a university or institute receives a major grant from such a forthcoming source—as opposed to bidding for competitive research grants—it is likely that it will hope to get more from the same pot in the future. In these circumstances junior members of staff or postgraduate students tend to feel uncomfortable discussing either the source of the funding or pursuing sensitive topics relating to the donor country. It is almost inconceivable, for example, to imagine an academic with no alternative source of income researching and writing a serious critique of a regime that has either paid for his or her salary, scholarship, or the building that houses his or her office. In many leading universities this is now no longer a possible scenario, but instead a likely one.

  In addition to promoting self-censorship, the donations also tend to encourage the steering of academic debate away from the Gulf monarchies themselves—and especially studies on their domestic politics or societies—by instead promoting research on ‘safer topics’ in the broader region or on Arabic language or Islamic Studies. Indeed, the latter two fields are particularly palatable as they provide further support for the monarchies’ attempts to build up cultural and religious legitimacy resources. In Saudi Arabia’s case the funding of leading Islamic Studies centres also seems to be part of an effort to make the Saudi state’s highly controversial interpretation of Islam more ‘mainstream’ and acceptable, at least in scholarly and government circles. What all of this will soon lead to (and in some cases already has led to) is an academic discipline that carefully skirts around the key ‘red line’ subjects such as political reform, corruption, human rights, and the prospects of revolution—as these are usually perceived by university fundraisers and executives as likely to anger or antagonise their Gulf patrons. As such, this particular stream of funding is in some ways an even more powerful and sensitive soft power strategy for the Gulf monarchies, as it is not primarily aimed at influencing public or even government-level opinion in the West. Rather its more subtle objective is to sway academic opinion in the West, or at the very least foster a ‘chilling atmosphere’ of apologetic behaviour or avoidance when it comes to intellectual discussion of the Gulf monarchies.

  The historic links between Britain and the region have meant that the Gulf monarchies have been particularly attracted to funding British universities, and these currently represent the best examples of the strategy. Indeed, it is now difficult to find any leading British institution focusing on the Middle East that has not received all of the varieties of gifts. Exeter University, home to Britain’s only centre for Gulf Studies, presently lauds the ruler of Sharjah—Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi—as its most generous donor, having installed him as the founding member of its College of Benefactors in 2006. This is unsurprising as Sultan paid for the university’s Al-Qasimi Building (which houses its Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies),91 and funds two endowed professorships—the Al-Qasimi Professor of Arabic Studies and Islamic Material Culture and the Sharjah Chair of Islamic Studies. In the past, there was also an Al-Qasimi Chair of Gulf Politics, but no longer. Similarly at Durham University, home to one of the Britain’s largest clusters of academics working on Middle East studies, the ruler of Sharjah has paid for another Al-Qasimi Building (which originally housed Durham’s Institute for Middle East and Islamic Studies and now houses its School of Government and International Affairs), and funds an endowed professorship—the Sharjah Chair in Islamic Law and Finance. Elsewhere in the UAE, the Abu Dhabi-funded Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy gave some $15 million to launch the London School of Economics’ new Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, and a further $3 million to name the main lecture theatre in LSE’s New Academic Building after Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan.92 It has also funded an endowed professorship—the Emirates Chair of the Contemporary Middle East—the holder of which does not focus on the Gulf states. On a smaller scale, before becoming Abu Dhabi’s current ruler, Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan had already paid for the Khalifa Building at the University of Wales in Lampeter,93 which now houses the university’s Department of Theology, Religious Studies and Islamic Studies, along with a small mosque. Dubai has also been active, with members of its ruling family having funded the Al-Makoum College in Dundee, which is currently accredited by Aberdeen University and focuses on several niche fields including Muslim communities in Britain and ‘Islamic Jerusalem’ studies.

  Kuwait has been a similarly generous donor to British academia, with the British Society for Middle East Studies’ main annual book prize being named after and funded for many years by a member of the ruling family.94 Since 2010 the prize has been administered by Cambridge University, with the ruling family member remaining as one of the five judges. More substantially, since 2007 the government-backed Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences has been funding a substantial $15 million, ten year research programme at the LSE on ‘development, governance, and globalisation in the Gulf states’ and has funded an endowed professorship—the Kuwait Professorship of Economics and Political Sciences. Despite KFAS stating that the incumbent professor should ‘… take a first hand interest in key issues affecting the economic development of resource rich economies, particularly the Gulf States as well bringing recognition of Kuwait to prestigious academic and policy-making circles around the world’, it appears that neither of the two postholders since 2007 have actually focused on the Gulf states.95 In May 2011 the prime minister of Kuwait—a key member of the ruling family—began sponsoring Durham University, funding an eponymously named $3.5 million research programme along with a similarly eponymous endowed professorship—the His Highness Sheikh Nasser bin Muhammad Al-Sabah Chair in International Relations, Regional Politics, and Security.96 Only months later, as discussed later in this book, Nasser was ousted as prime minister following popular protests and allegations of corruption, but the university has opted to retain the gift.

  There are now many examples of substantial donations from other Gulf monarchies in British universities—again mostly from government-backed entities or influential ruling family members. Qatar’s ruler has paid Oxford University about $3.5 million to endow a new professorship named after himself—the His Highness Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Chair in Contemporary Islamic Studies97 while Oman’s ruler has paid for two endowed professorships at Cambridge University, which again seem to be safely distanced from any discussion of Gulf politics—the His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Professor of Modern Arabic Studies and the His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Chair for Abrahamic Faiths and Common Values.98 Not to be outdone, in 2008 Saudi Arabia’s influential Al-Waleed bin Talal Al-Saud paid for a $13 million Centre for Islamic Studies, also at Cambridge,99 and provided comparable funding for setting up the Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University. Most symbolic perhaps, is the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies, which is a ‘recognised independent centre of the University of Oxford’. Founded in 1985, it has a substantial new building nearing completion and many endowed fellowships. Although some of its funding has come from British and US entities and other parts of the Islamic world, the bulk of the funding is believed to originate in the Gulf monarchies. Saudi Arabia alone is believed to have already donated about $30 million to the centre.100

  Although not a university as such, Britain’s Sandhurst Academy—the elite training school for Britain’s military and the alma mater for several current Gulf ruling family members—has also been receiving substantial donations. In 2009, for example, the UAE was reported to have financed the building of a new hall of residence at the academy to house a hundred cadets.101 Tellingly, the following day it was announced by Britain’s ambassador to the UAE that the Queen’s Household Cavalry would perform at Abu Dhabi’s Inte
rnational Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition later that year—the first overseas display ever performed by the squadron. He also went on to state that ‘The fact is that there is no relationship the United Kingdom has with countries in the Middle East that is more important to us than that with United Arab Emirates’ while a senior British military personality stated that ‘I think that anything we can do to cement the relations between Abu Dhabi and the UK is a good thing’.102

  Similar, although often smaller donations, have been made to universities in other parts of Western Europe and the Commonwealth. At the Australian National University, for example, there exists the Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Senior Lectureship at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, funded by Dubai’s deputy ruler. In Canada, at McMaster University, there exists the Sharjah Chair in Global Islam, funded by Sharjah’s ruler. And in France, at Sciences-Po, a five year KFAS-funded Kuwait Programme has been running since 2007—much like the KFAS-LSE programme. Such funding has found its way into US universities, too, but the US has historically been a more troublesome recipient given the relative influence of its Israel lobby, which has on occasion sought to block such gifts. In 2000, for example, the Harvard University staff and student body signed a petition to reject an offer of an endowed professorship in Islamic studies from Abu Dhabi’s ruler on the grounds that a think-tank linked to the ruling family—the Zayed Centre for Co-ordination and Follow-Up—was allegedly promoting anti-Semitism and that there were well-documented human rights abuses in the UAE. The original plan for the professorship, which would have been named after the ruler, was to have the usual broad focus, thus allowing the incumbent to circumvent discussion of the Gulf monarchies.103 Similarly in 2007 the University of Connecticut pulled out of a relationship with Dubai for much the same reasons.104 Nevertheless significant donations have still been made over the years, with funds from Saudi Arabia having been channelled to the University of Arkansas (which received $27 million for its Middle East Studies Center), and with Cornell University, Rutgers University, Princeton University, and a number of others also receiving donations. The University of Southern California’s Chair in Islamic Thought and Culture, for example, is named after the former Saudi king, Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud, while Georgetown University’s renowned Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding was renamed the Prince Al-Waleed Bin-Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding following a $20 million gift from Al-Waleed in 2005. This prompted a congressman in 2008 to question whether the centre had ever been critical of the Saudi government.105