The uncerTainTies involved in calculaTing migraTion 195
and international migration. The parliamentary elections held in Egypt
and Tunisia following the respective change of regimes demonstrated the
relative strength of the Islamic groups, not the least because they, unlike the
more secular organisations and the ‘Facebook revolutionaries’, commanded
a well-organised base. Nevertheless, an ‘Islamist threat’ as such did not
emerge.
According to the quantitative data of the Global Peace Index, most
countries in the MENA region were prone to conf licts, which became
manifest in the Arab Spring. In the Failed States Index (Fund for Peace
2011), which surveys conditions in 177 countries, several of those from the
Middle East – f irst and foremost Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen – lead the group
of ‘critical states’. The fragility of the governments in these ‘failed states’
blocks development, creates considerable legal uncertainty and prompts
those ready to migrate to leave.
6.3 The ‘Islamist threat’: The main source of conf licts and
forced migration?
Researchers such as Nirumand (2007) have provided rather conspiratory
interpretations of nearly all conf licts in the Middle East as being motivated
by the geostrategic interests of the US and their desire to secure resources.
Others, such as Faath and Mattes in this volume, regard internal factors –
namely the problems surrounding the Islamists – as the ‘central impetus for
conf lict’ and as the source of ‘constant migration pressure’ that may even
be intensif ied should open conf licts arise. It is their prognosis – and this is
important to the scenario concerning future security interests – ‘that this
part of the world will remain, in the future, the stage for international and
domestic conf licts. Domestic conf licts, in particular, will dominate and
determine the amount of migratory activity’.
Faath and Mattes see – in the strengthening Islamist positions in Egypt –
a reason for the possible exodus of Coptic Christians from the country. They
admit that the migration potential arising from domestic conf licts is hard to
calculate, but they still assign to recent developments a large probability of
open conf licts causing massive migration movements that would eventually
reach Europe. As in the situation of Christian refugees from Iraq, Europe
would then once again be confronted with the diff icult matter of whether
to use religion as a criterion for selection, a questionable procedure with
respect to both international law and human-rights concerns.