And here we all were, cynically awaiting Turkey’s caving in to the almighty dollar. In fact, some 15 billion of them. What a surprise we had! As the world turned its gaze toward Turkey, expecting what was thought to be inevitable, the Turkish people shook the floor of the global stage and gave a resounding message of hope to the wretched. We have seen there are still things in life worth a sacrifice. Turkey, a nation whose economy is in dire straits and which faces social upheaval, preserved its dignity.
Does Turkey’s vote spell the beginning of a world revolution? Will the wretched and the dispossessed now begin to answer back after decades of suffering under voracious American hegemony?
Surely the antiwar demonstrations are an encouraging sign and Turkey’s actions should serve as an example to be echoed everywhere in the Muslim world.
Sadly, the exception is the Arab world itself. It has proven that there is no limit to the lengths it will go to avoid standing up for its rights. How sad to see Turkey suffering for people who refuse to help themselves and to know that Turkey will pay a higher price — while the Arabs refuse to pay a much lower one — to save their Iraqi brothers.
How sad to see a once mighty nation descend to the level of mice, as one commentator said. Even this example, however, is wrong for a cornered mouse will fight for its survival. We are being led like sheep to the slaughter.
If Iraqis are killed, it will be the fault of no one but the people of the Arab world, for it is they and only they who have the power to stop it. Instead, they have been silent from the beginning, petrified to offer any kind of resistance whether political or social. They have sat back and watched as the entire world rallied to protest a war and the machinations of a regime intent on dominating the world.
It is time for the Arabs to lay the blame at the door of the real culprits in the tragedies from Palestine to Iraq: Arab cowardice and self-betrayal. We fought the colonialists and then did an about-face, giving in to every demand, acquiescing in every setback and every defeat. We refused to rise to any challenge and we replaced the very idea of sacrifice with empty slogans.
What saddens me unutterably is to see the Turks refusing the billions which its people desperately need. The refusal is a wasted effort on a people who have given up on themselves, who watch with little emotion as houses in Palestine are destroyed, children in Iraq are killed and maimed, whose wealth is plundered from beneath their deserts and from whom not even a cry of pain is heard.
People have gone out to protest in Chile, Italy and Japan, in every land — except the Arab world. While everywhere people try to stop war, we and the American regime are the only ones talking about post-Saddam Iraq!
If this war cannot be averted, if the Arabs will do nothing, then the blood of innocent civilians will stain the hands of their Arab brothers rather than the hands of the Americans who are not their brothers. We carry the burden of many Arabs, from Palestine to Iraq to Lebanon, not because we were murderers but because we did nothing to stop murders. We are accessories before and after the fact. Now, we have to live with that knowledge.
Will you simply switch the channel to the sewage of Arab music clips and dance your way out of history? As for me, I will not shed a tear for your demise, for you would have deserved it.
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(Reem Al-Faisal is a Saudi photographer. She is based in Jeddah.)
Arab News Features 7 March 2003
