Mr Kilroy-Silk, the British commentator and television presenter, unleashed a tirade against Arabs in his weekly column. In “normal” times and “normal” circumstances, such a tirade would have been easily refuted, rebuffed, and even made to look silly. But these are not normal times for Arabs. Apart from his readily accessible generalization about Arabs, which is the hallmark of the intellectually limited since it makes everything easy, Mr. Kilroy’s outburst was nothing out of the ordinary.
The upheaval of rebirth is upon Arabs. Like a difficult delivery operation, it needed outside intervention in the form of a caesarian section. The baby was not forthcoming on its own so others had to move in lest the mother, the baby, and probably a few relatives die in the process. The boil on the skin of the Arab world that heralded the presence of a plague, let alone a virus, was Bin Laden. The surgical knife that went in to eradicate the source of the boil was the American invasion of Iraq. The problem is that this nation has twenty-two wombs!
From the 1980s onwards, to limit ourselves historically, the world has marched forward: places as far apart as Manchuria and Bosnia were on the road to something new. What have we done apart from exporting oil we did not put in the ground nor figure out how to refine? Well, we blew aircrafts out of the sky only to apologize and pay damages; we bought the mansions of the world to frolic in when the majority of our brethren were risking life and limb to go live in the colonial master’s house for the sole reason of finding their daily bread; we made enemies of humanity because we refused to see that others have a right to their faith and their way of life; and we suffered Saddam’s murderousness in the name of an Arab unity that did not exist, only to see him for what he was: a cowardly snake in a hole.
The list is long and painful. Perhaps Kilroy can do better than I and go further and add to his list. Why? Because we deserve it and we brought it on ourselves. Isn’t it damnation enough that the best of us live where Kilroy lives? The West is so confident of itself that it still sings the praises of Avicenna, for example, when we find it hard to give credit for inventing the cars we drive. The time of sleepwalking is over, whether we admit it or not. If it is not a Kilroy who tells us what we are, then it will be someone else. We give nothing away if we admit to the truth about others and ourselves. If Kilroy said what he said as a friend to Arabs, we should thank him. If he said it as an enemy, we should doubly thank him for coming out in the open. Either way we win if we handle it properly.
