Among the many major misconceptions pertaining to Arabs and Muslims is the common belief that they are weak-willed, easily influenced and effortlessly manipulated. This mistaken assumption underscores the very ailment that has afflicted US foreign policy in the Middle East for generations.
As media pundits and commentators began their drum-rolling in anticipation of US President Barack Obama's speech in Egypt tomorrow, very few paid attention to the fact that Arabs and Muslims are not so naive as to be wooed by mere rhetoric, but that they are significant players in their own affairs, capable of resistance and change.
To begin with, it is underhanded and foolish to speak of one Arab and Muslim polity, as if geography, class, language and politics are irrelevant. Why is there an insistence on addressing Arabs and Muslims as one unified body that behaves according to a specific rationale, predisposed to respond in the same way to the same stimuli? True, various groups within the Arab and Muslim worlds share a common history, language and religion, but even the same groups differ in historic interpretations, dialects, religious sects and frames of reference.
Then, why the reductionism? Is it true that a struggling North African immigrant in a French slum carries the same values, expectations and outlook on life as a SUV-driving Arab in the Gulf? Does a poor Egyptian, struggling for recognition within a political body that has room only for a chosen few, relate to the world in the same way as a Malaysian Muslim with a wide range of opportunities, civic, economic and political? Even within the same country, among the same people, adherents of the same religion, does the word mean the same - and will President Obama's words in Egypt represent the unifying lexicon that will meet every Arab or a Muslim man or woman's aspirations? Can one lump together those who collaborated with those who resisted? Those who exploited and those who were exploited? Those who had much and those who had nothing?
A recent poll conducted by Shilbey Telhami and Zogby declared that Obama is popular among Arabs, yet Arabs are still skeptical of the US. Iraq matters the most, followed by the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Of course, there is no denial that Arabs in various countries have major perceptions and expectations in common. But who is to say that there is not more common ground between the poor of Egypt and Mexico than between the elites of Egypt and Pakistan? However, such an assertion is irrelevant for one main reason: Arabs and Muslims have been demonized collectively, targeted collectively and at times, victimized collectively. In other words, it is US foreign policy toward various Arab and Muslim collectives that largely explains the constant lumping of all Arabs and Muslims into one single category.
Arabs and Muslims seem only relevant as a collective whenever the US is interested in carrying out a rhetorical policy shift, a war, a self-serving "democracy" campaign, and so forth. They are available as a collective to be duly demonized as "terrorists."
David Schenker, writing for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy website was honest enough in explaining the significance of Obama's speech in Cairo. He pointed out that Iran is a major issue that Obama and moderate Arabs have in common. His explanation is straightforward: "Tehran's progress toward a nuclear weapon and its provision of material and ideological support for resistance, across the region is of grave concern to Washington and its moderate Arab allies."
According to the poll cited above, only a fraction of polled Arabs seem concerned by the Iranian nuclear program. This leaves Iran posing one major "threat" - its support of resistance.
It's ironic that resistance, which is a universal right of any oppressed individual or collective is being dealt with as a "grave concern" this in part explains the lingering illusion that continues to blight US foreign policy and also to highlight the common strength that the Arab and Muslim masses continue to wield - their ability to resist. Amidst the fraudulent democracy programs that have appeared and disappeared in recent years - Bush's Middle East democracy project being one - none were an outcome of genuine and collective movements in Arab and Muslim nations. Such genuine movements, although in existence, are unpopular in Washington for they seem inconsistent with US interests.
This leaves one last aspect of collective self-expression again which is resistance, in all its manifestations. It is the root cause of Arab and Muslim resistance that are most deserving of analysis and understanding.
If Obama continues to approach Arabs and Muslims as one single collective, ready to be manipulated and wooed with promises, rhetoric and impressive body language, then he will surely be disappointed. Highly politicized, skeptical and, frankly, fed-up societies refuse to be reduced to a mere percentage in some opinion poll that can be swayed this way or that, whenever the US administration determines the time and place. It is exactly that consistent lack of depth that has caused the US so much trouble in the Middle East and will cost it even more if such imprudence persists.
- Ramzy Baroud is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com.
