When Iraq’s representative at the UN, Mr. Mohammad Douri, looked away from the cameras and said that “the game was over,” he probably did not know how far-ranging this declaration was.
The statement did not encompass Saddam alone; rather, it was a way of doing things in this area that ended. Take journalism for example. There was a time when no one really bothered to read what we wrote.
We could have claimed that the earth was flat (and some did) and get away with it. Today the world is watching and we can’t claim something is a fact when it is not. We can give opinions, we can rant, we can declare and counter-declare, but we can’t say black is white when it isn’t.
There is an article translated from Arabic into English and published in this very same Arab News that is now being circulated on the Net as evidence of “Saudi lies.” The article was purported to have been based on research presented at the London School of Economics and was entitled “A Psychological Study of the Mentality of Jewish Children.”
I won’t go into the details, but apparently the author of the original research, a Mr. Assi Sharabi, denied it had been presented at the school or published in Arabic, and said the quotations were taken out of context. I am not in a position to discuss this incident, but the principle is clear and it is one that can backfire.
A just cause does not need to rely on lies, semi-truths, or even hyperbole. Strange as it might sound, the world is discovering us, and we seem to be squirming with stage fright.
A study of this nature, if it exists, would probably find that the children of Israel as well as the children of Palestine are haunted by fear and instinctive defensiveness. That does not mean that any of them are “different” from other children in the world.
The legacy of horror and blood is an uncomfortable heritage for both. Unfortunately, they will carry it for a while yet, even when the guns and bombs have fallen silent.
To this day young men and women who grew up during the civil war in Lebanon instinctively duck under a table when Israeli jets break the sound barrier over Beirut. They can’t help it.
At the risk of stating the obvious, I would say that one is “allowed” to hate an enemy but not to hate a people. There is a difference, and this space cannot fully tackle it. But since Sept. 11 we have been trying to make the point that, as a people, we are not all terrorists. It is hardly sane or just to go around practicing what we preach against. [email protected]
- Arab News Opinion 19 June 2003
