CAIRO, 15 June 2004 — In Cairo, where the soft, round loaves, served hot from a clay oven, are a treat for the senses, soft, round, tasteless burger-type buns are being given pride of place on the tables of top-notch eateries alongside traditional dips. Why? Because their owners think Western is sophisticated. Western is better — little realizing that London’s horrendously expensive Arab restaurants would be dimly viewed if they did the same.
A well-traveled and outspoken British-Egyptian colleague recently complained about this affront to traditional fare to the manageress of a restaurant in the prestigious Nadi El-Said (known in English as ‘The Shooting Club’). When he asked for baladi (local) bread, he was told: “Oh, no, we don’t serve that here”, as though he was requesting monkey brains or stewed snake. “It’s part of an inferiority complex,” my friend says. He knows all about it. Many years ago, while heading a team of British engineers, he flew to a Gulf state where his company was involved in a construction project. At the airport they were met by the local firm’s public relations man, who personally drove my friend to his below-average hotel while his Anglo-Saxon-named colleagues were driven in a minibus to theirs. It wasn’t long before he realized why he had been singled out. While the others were put up in style at the Sheraton, he was expected to put up with moldy carpets and cockroaches simply because he was an Arab.
Arabs have been pummeled by the West — especially the US — since Sept. 11 2001, when a spotlight has been thrust upon their culture, traditions, form of governance and even their religion. Thousands have been locked up in US jails, including Guantanamo’s Camp Delta and Abu Ghraib without the benefit of legal representation. Many have been humiliated and tortured. In Palestine, thousands have lost their lives or been maimed courtesy of America’s “peaceful” poster boy, but instead of the Arab world uniting, it lies in disarray. What did the Arabs do when “Shock and Awe” turned the skies above one of their most ancient cities red? What do they say when Syria is being slapped in the face by sanctions, and threatened? Where is the outrage over the unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, mowed down by US-made Apache gunships? Listen to the sound of silence. If Arabs won’t stand up for themselves then who will?
Worse, Arab leaders squabble among themselves not only during Arab League summits, but also over when or whether to hold them in the first place. Confronted with US interference in their own political systems and plans for a greater “free and democratic” Middle East, there are some who are virtually saying “thank you...please!” while smiling for a G-8 photo-op with Emperor Bush, and others who rightly, in my opinion, believe that reform should evolve from within.
Arabs need to rediscover their own strengths and forge a common cause. Yes, the West has made great strides in science and technology — often with the help of Arab scientists who were not appreciated in their own countries — but life’s meaning is more than a fancy video-computer-camera-mobile. The Arab world has something the West lacks — cohesive families, whose members support one another through thick and thin. It’s a place where the individual is not just a number expected to compete in a ruthless consumer-oriented rat race. It’s where parents and grandparents are still respected, time-honored traditions are celebrated and where visiting a shrink is a rare occurrence. In Arab societies morality is prized and generosity to the poor the mark of a good man or woman. Recently maligned by a handful of terrorist lunatics, Arab hospitality to strangers is second-to-none. Its roots lie in the days when Bedouin roamed the deserts and were never refused food or sanctuary by competing tribes. Those were the days when the host would feel obliged to lay down his own life for his guest, if attacked, even if on a personal level he didn’t think very much of him. This may be one of the reasons the foreigner is often treated as a king in Arab lands today, but not the main one as a distinction is often made between Western visitors and others, including fellow Arabs.
It is surely wrong that Arabs encounter more difficulties obtaining visas for one another’s countries than Americans or Europeans. Many years ago, I flew to Bahrain with a Lebanese colleague where we intended getting transit visas at the airport. While I was greeted with smiles and a speedily stamped passport, she was taken off to one side until it was learned she was traveling with me. I don’t blame her for later bemoaning the fact that I — a British woman — served as her entrée into an Arab country.
And why are Arabs from Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere routinely being paid less for doing the same job as their Western counterparts, often in their own countries and throughout the Gulf region?
Last, but certainly not least, is the question: Why do wealthy Arabs insist on investing in the West and putting their money in US and British banks even as those countries promulgate neoimperialistic policies and advocate a New World Order in which Arabs will figure way down the food chain?
Imagine for a moment that the shoe was on the other foot. Let’s hypothetically speaking suppose an Arab country had invaded a European state and was funding and supporting the occupation of another. Would other European states react by ensuring that Arab invader was oiled by their plentiful natural resources and propped up by their investments and bank accounts? Could that even be conceivable? Of course not, so why are Arabs doing it? Perhaps like the woman who manages the restaurant in Nadi El-Said, they feel Western bread is better than Arab.
Arab leaders should start putting their own people first and fellow Arabs with whom they share a common language and religion second. They should nurture industry and commerce in their own lands and ensure their country’s best and brightest end up with commensurate jobs. There should come a day when they run their own oil wells and choose in which currency they wish that oil to be sold. They should stop apologizing for the few bad apples and, instead, laud and reward the many good ones. Only then will Arabs regain their self-worth. Only then will the specter of neoimperialism be kept at bay. In the meantime, Arabs can picture once more the horrors perpetrated by Americans at Abu Ghraib and take a good look at the British soccer louts lying in a lager-induced stupor on the beaches and squares of Portugal and bake their round loaves with pride.
— Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East. [email protected]
