Many years ago some top Arab singers repeated resounding phrases and stirred people’s emotions, pushing them toward union under the false banner of Arab union. In those days everyone dreamed of a bright future once the colonizers had been driven out with the blood and lives of the virtuous. Today that dream is ailing. Regional leaderships betrayed the trust and became a plague for their own people, more than the colonizers ever were.
Defeats have accumulated — leaders roamed the land devastating it and marginalizing half the nation: Its women. Yet these very same women contributed to the downfall by accepting the secondary role assigned to them. This stereotypical structure that still prevails in the Arab world has contributed to the failure of many development plans. A society that allows half of itself to be paralyzed and the other half to be run-down will surely fail to accomplish its goals. The Arab situation has become so miserable that people hang their failures on “The Arabs” rather than the old suspect “conspiracy theories”.
The phenomenon of “The Arabs” is a new one but it seems to suit every taste. Citizens pour their anger out at “Arabs” — they repeat phrases such that “Arabs bring nothing but grief” and “Arabs are a calamity to the nation” and “There isn’t a good one among them.” Even intellectuals take part. Whenever they collide with the authorities or their ideas are stifled, their voices silenced and they are threatened with expulsion, they point the finger of blame at “The Arabs” who have consented to live with humiliation and subservience. They say that the Arabs are “a dead nation”; “a nation of has-beens”; they are ignorant and unenlightened and they deserve everything they get.
Those in authority lay the blame on the composition of the Arab mind, claiming they are not prepared to develop or to keep up with the world because of tribalism and religious extremism. They are a society that refuses change — “an immature society” — not a democratic one. Many ministers upon leaving conferences proclaim “The Arabs have agreed to disagree” or accuse them of never meeting, except to trade insults or announce that “Arabs are useless.” It was rather astonishing to hear an Arab ruler announce that he wants nothing to do with Arabs and no relations with the Arab nation because only failure and disappointment come from them and that Palestine had been lost because of the Arab army.
It is truly confounding. All the ills of the nation have been brought on by “The Arabs!” Who are these Arabs then? Aren’t they both the governors and the governed — or are they aliens? Can they be identified and weeded out or does it require the help of Arab intelligence agencies to cram them into prisons and rid the nation of them? Perhaps this is a task best handled delicately so let us do as the Iraqi opposition did and ally with the superpower or even “the devil and his lot” so that they will come with their armies and war machines to destroy “The Arabs” and liberate the Arab nation! It is truly pitiable, a nation so depressed that it has resorted to divesting itself of its own roots.
The nation’s spirit has dissipated and is marginalized — the current situation has left people discontented and depressed. The Arab man daily sips from the bitter cup the Arab woman has been drinking every day for ages. Absenteeism, crushed dreams and the bitterness of loss of will. Over the years, men’s characters will become like that of their women — broken, marginalized and unable to make their own decisions.
In these times it is incumbent on everyone to stop using these depressing phrases. All nations get defeated — all the nations of the world go through dark times and are able to get through them. They become weaker but then regain their strength. What is happening on Arab land is the harvest of a long era of feebleness and treachery. But that doesn’t mean that this is the end. The land that gave birth to the first human civilization and embraced all religions will not vanish into the margins of history nor can the armory and destructive weapons bury its glory.
Blood ties, regionalism and sectarianism are binding chains that must be broken and replaced by justice, equality and freedom. We should also turn our attention to the other half of this society — women. That unused power must be utilized. If we keep looking backward, more defeats will come our way — our voices will become weak — like the whisper of a woman — and no one in this despotic and tumultuous world will respond.
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(Wajeha Al-Howaider is a program analyst at Aramco. She holds an MA in Reading Management from George Washington University.)
Arab News Features 25 April 2003