Contemporary Socio : Political Issues of the Arab Gulf Moment - Abdulkhaleq Abdulla - Article Example

The abstract laid out by Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, is seen to be well structured and greatly helps in providing an insight of what exactly is tackled in the paper, however, Abdulla could have further enhanced this section of the article by alluding to the possible conclusions that would be expected to be made by the paper. The Context of the Gulf Moment By pointing out that the various socio-political issues affecting different countries do not in any way happen to exist in a vacuum, Abdulla provides an appropriate introductory statement to this section of the paper.

He then proceeds to indicate that most of the current socio-political issues that are affecting the Gulf moment essentially have their roots in the various historical turning points that happened to have occurred over the past half century. Some of these are seen to include, the turbulent years experienced in the region during the 1980s, political independence in 19171 and the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990. Abdulkhaleq Abdulla is seen to correctly point out that perhaps what can be considered to be the actual starting point of the larger majority of the contemporary socio-political issues affecting the region is the colonial legacy of the British in the region as well as its subsequent withdrawal in 1971.

Abdulla highlights some of the harmful changes instigated by the British as being the forceful change of rulers, their inhibition of any change, the creation of artificial boarders and their preservation of the region’s tribal order. The eight year gulf war military conflict between the countries of Iraq and Iran as well as the Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait were critical aspects that helped in shattering the hitherto political innocence of the AGS (Abdulla, 2010, p. 7-11). This section of the article as presented by Abdulla is seen to be extremely comprehensive and effectively traces the socio-political issues surrounding the AGS from their actual origins to the present day.

Change Versus Continuity Abdulla (2010), considers change versus continuity to be the first among the current socio political issues affecting the region, he further points out that the AGS have undergone an extremely massive transformation that has affected the socio-economic aspects of the gulf region and have been extremely multifaceted in addition to having encompassed all the different aspects of life in the region. However, there is a common belief among some persons in this region that there has hardly been any substantial or meaningful change.

To better highlight the position of this statement, Abdulla (2010) cleverly and sharply contradicts this by stating that there have been a series of changes within the AGS that have changed life in the region beyond any possible recognition that have been somewhat more stressful and systematic as compared to similar changes experienced in some of the other Arab countries (p. 12). Most of the countries in the AGS have been seen to actively promote continuity rather than change, a factor that has helped sustain the continuity of the centuries-old monarchies in these countries.

In most of the AGS, the monarchies are currently seen to be essentially more powerful as compared to their status in previous generation. This is as a result of their reliance on oil, modern security apparatus and administration and modern elements of bureaucracy. Abdulla proceeds to analyze the growth and prevalence of the newly emergent middle class across some of the countries