BEIRUT, 30 March 2004 — What’s going on? The Arabs are being “ordered” to democratize or else by men in suits thousands of miles across several oceans, in some cases. One Arab country is groaning under the occupation of up to 150,000 foreigners in boots and tin hats, while the Palestinians, as always, are being assassinated at the whim of the “Butcher of Beirut” and suspected grafter, and left wandering around the rubble of their demolished homes — and all those men in suits can say from their comfortable leather chairs in climate-controlled network studios is: Stop the Terror! And they are referring to Arab terror. Eh?
The Arab League has lost its credibility, not only vis-à-vis its dealings with the non-Arab world, but also among its own members because there is now a fundamental division. Some Arab states are joined at the hip with Pennsylvania Avenue, either because they have been intimidated or due to political or financial self-interest, while others don’t want foreigners in stripy suits and Harvard (or is it Yale?) ties telling them what to do.
Arabs on the street are generally bemused, frustrated and struggle with feelings of impotence as their leaders appear to lack focus, unity and direction. Those basic feelings of injustice and helpless are pushing some — a very few — into the arms of extremists. But this is something the current US administration refuses to contemplate, let alone acknowledge. As far as it is concerned, a person wakes up in the morning, sips his coffee and decides to embark upon a career path of terrorism for terrorism’s sake.
In the West, especially in the US and Britain, a section of the population — which once associated Arabs with petroleum, olives, camels and T.E. Lawrence, as if that wasn’t bad enough — now believe that Arabs and Muslims sit around hatching nefarious plans to take over the world and proclaim it an Islamic Caliphate. I know because I’ve got a stack of e-mails to prove it. They invariably end off with the hope that I “end up in a burka” or have my hands “chopped off”. There is so much ignorance about the Arab world out there, and, frankly this is just as much the fault of the Arabs as it is the Western media, and in some instances, governmental spin machines.
Most Arabs, from the wealthy down to a Cairo doorman know all about the West, as amazingly even the poorest have satellite dishes these days. As soon as they turn on the sets, they are bombarded with glossy Hollywood movies and television series, and those who speak English, can switch between CNN, Fox, the BBC and Sky News at will. But where do the Westerners get their feel for the Arab world? Where is the promised Arab English-language satellite network? Why aren’t there any movies about Arab concerns, lifestyle, culture, traditions etc. in English? All Westerners see on their screens are scenes like the WTC imploding on Sept. 11, teenage Palestinian boys wearing suicide belts or would-be hooded martyrs.
I’ve spent much of my adult life living and working in the Middle East, the Gulf and North Africa and I’ve never met anyone who wants to “kill the infidel” or “take over the world”. On the contrary, I’ve met with warmth, hospitality, generosity and human, all too human, kindness. Most ordinary Arabs are concerned with making ends meet, taking care of their families, and educating their children, like all of us on this one planet. There is anti-American feeling throughout, but this isn’t caused by an inherent hatred for Western values or freedoms, as George W. Bush is so fond of portraying. It’s because of America’s bias toward Israel — as it proved once again when vetoing a recent UN resolution condemning the assassination of Sheikh Yassin — its profiling of Arabs and Muslims in the US, its flouting of human rights at Guantanamo Bay, and its invasion of Iraq on the false pretext of WMD.
Is this a manifestation of the “Clash of Civilizations” Samuel Huntington — a Harvard academic infamous for portraying Islam as the biggest danger to global stability — wrote about? Is this the Judeo-Christian world against Islam? Or vice-versa? I don’t think so. I believe it’s down to the root of all evil — money. It’s the haves who want more than they already have at the expense of the have-nots. How is that?
Do a little detective work here. Who stands to gain from and endless war policy, and especially when those conflicts are centered around and oil-and-gas rich region? Think weapons manufacturers, the aviation industry, and Western energy sectors. Think companies like Halliburton, Bechtel, Dyncorp, Stevedoring Services of America, International Resources Group, and Carlyle... most of all Carlyle. On behalf of this company the father goes around paving the way for military contracts, while the son rubber-stamps the policy. There has got to be something wrong with this scenario. If the allegations are true, even UN administrators have been caught with their hands in the Iraq cookie jar.
It is my belief the Israel-Palestine conflict is being deliberately kept on the boil. Let’s face it. If the Arabs ever did shake hands with the Israelis in good faith, and a genuine peace were to prevail throughout the region, what a political and economic powerhouse that would be. And what influence would the men in suits have then? Against Israel’s military capability and Arab wealth, not much.
As for us ordinary mortals, we are just dispensable cogs in the wheel of big business. Ours not to reason why. It’s about time, though, that we did. And, no, I am not a pinko-commie tree-hugging liberal. Capitalism definitely has its good points. Wealth is good, megawealth is even better, but — and this is a big but — not when it is forcibly grabbed by the few who send their forces into foreign lands and care not a jot about the piles of bodies they leave in their wake, as their dollars pile up in their numbered accounts.
— Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs and can be contacted at [email protected]
