I was watching Michael Howard, the leader of the Conservative Party in Britain, say that “we must reach out to the majority of the Muslims who share common values with us to stand together and fight terror.”
Messages, advice and suggestions from every Tom, Dick and Michael are now pouring on the Arab world from all over. George W. Bush started it with a call for reforms from Morocco to the Gulf.
The Europeans followed. Dick Cheney, the US vice-president who is among the conservative hawks in the US administration, spoke about the “transformation of the Middle East” at the World Economic Summit in Davos.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman does it a couple of times a week in his paper. He writes open letters to Arab heads of state and others. He does not mince words.
Then of course there is Fareed Zakaria, the American writer of Indian origin in Newsweek, who dishes out lessons on transformation, reforms and change. His message echoes the theme “do or die”. In essence, if the Arab world does not change it will find itself doomed to Third World status and might even fall behind sub-Saharan Africa.
Pretty soon Japan and India will also offer their own reform package — India because it is at the tip of the Gulf and considers itself a regional power, and Japan because it wants a free flow of two-way trade.
However, while many may sit and wishfully think that these are hollow words from the White House, No. 10 Downing Street and pretty much everywhere else, my sincere advice as someone who loves his country and the region is to take careful notice.
Let us not be fooled by the soothing words from their politicians. Let not paid PR companies give us false advice. We have to be aware that whoever is in charge of the White House, whether Bush or Kerry, the US will always be blinded by its desire to rearrange the geopolitics of the region to serve its paramount political, economic and military interests and maintain an Israeli hegemony over the area.
What Arabs unfortunately do not know is that there are no permanent friends in international relations. There are only permanent interests. And if American interests warrant a total and drastic change from Morocco to Pakistan then that is what the US will try to achieve.
What, then, are we to do?
Do we sit there and wallow in self-pity? No, by God we should not. Everyone must know that it is not their destiny to sit on the sidelines when the security of the region is at stake.
We should change. I remember the advice of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, the former Malaysian prime minister who, when asked what advice he would give the authorities in the region, replied: “Change!” One word.
The Arab countries urgently need to reform, not as a reaction to Bush, Cheney, Howard or Friedman but because reform in the Arab world is both overdue and indispensable. And as Palestinian writer Ramzy Baroud pointed out, what all of us — people and governments — should realize is that our inability to bring about political and social reforms will always keep us in subordination, and that that is why these voices from Washington and elsewhere are getting louder.
We are not being treated as equal partners, Baroud says, because of our own failures to establish ourselves as equals. That is why the Arab governments and the Arab people must redefine the status quo so we can deal with the whole world on an equal footing.
Our region has highly competent women and men who can play a vital and positive role in reforms. There is no shortage of people who care about the progress, stability and security of their country. We pray for that day and night. But in addition to prayers there must be action, and therefore reforms in the region are imperative.
To be indifferent or careless about them or delay them under whatever excuses is an open invitation to Washington to step in and impose the future it has planned for the Middle East.
“Verily never will God change the condition of a people until they change it themselves.” (Qur’an 13:11)
