Vision 2020

A collection of articles by leading academics, intellectuals, and journalists from seven Arab countries, Israel, and Turkey, presenting a variety of visions of life in the Middle East in the year 2020.

The eve of the Third Millennium witnessed an event unprecedented in the annals of Middle Eastern journalism: publication of a series of articles by leading academics, intellectuals, and journalists from seven Arab countries, Israel, and Turkey, presenting a variety of visions of life in the Middle East in the year 2020. Published simultaneously in nine newspapers from Istanbul to Tel Aviv to Tunis, with authors' interviews broadcast on BBC Arabic Service, the series was coordinated by Search for Common Ground, a Washington- and Brussels-based non-governmental organization promoting creative and peaceful conflict-resolution activities around the world, in collaboration with UNESCO.

For probably the first time, mass audiences throughout the Middle East were exposed, in an uncensored fashion and in their own languages, to what other thinkers in the region envisage and aspire to for their collective future. The potential audience totaled more than 15 million people. These articles have now been assembled and published by Search for Common Ground in a volume entitled, Vision 2020: Middle Eastern Outlooks on the Future of the Region.

This project was inspired by the realization, cited by co-editor and American University Professor Abdul Aziz Said, that the old order of conflict in the Middle East is collapsing more rapidly than a new vision is emerging to replace it. The authors, from widely divergent backgrounds and perspectives, were asked to spell out such a vision. The result was a mix of realism and idealism, of optimism and pessimism. In the words of Turkish writer Murat Belge: "In the Middle East "pessimism" and "realism" are synonymous. Yet "optimism" is a psychological necessity." Although both the individual articles and this volume itself were published well before the recent outbreak of violence in Palestine/Israel, those tragic events do not negate the authenticity of the visions they portray. If anything, these articles are even more important today, when the pain and fear of the moment often overwhelm the hope on which any prospect for reconciliation in the long term must depend.

Most expect life in the region to be better more or less for most of its citizens than it is today, with rising standards of living, more democracy, and less conflict. They envisage progress toward peace and stability at the state level, but are less consistently optimistic about the prospects for genuine rapprochement and mutual understanding between Arabs and Israelis at the popular level. Progress in that arena, they implicitly agree, will require enlightened political leadership, open societies, and sustained efforts to overcome decades of mutual fear, distrust, and misunderstanding. Where they differ considerably is in their level of expectation that these efforts will be undertaken, or that they will succeed.

Vision 2020
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The full text of the main articles in Vision 2020 are also available here for free.