In two articles that appeared on the liberal website Elaph, Tunisian intellectual Al-'Afif Al-Akhdar analyzed and criticized dominant values in the Arab world. Al-Akhdar, currently residing in Paris, was a regular columnist for the London Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat, but was fired at the instruction of the paper's owner, Saudi Prince Khaled ibn Sultan, for saying during a talk show on Al-Jazeera that Saudi practices such as amputating body parts render the regime "barbaric." In the first article, Al-Akhdar sets out the logic and goal of the attack on Baghdad, as "told" by the missiles as they fall on the city; in the second, he looks at deeply rooted thought patterns and values in the Arab world. The following are excerpts from the two articles:
| I've only excerpted a few paragraphs. The entire article is worth reading. We sometimes forget that not every Muslim is afflicted with the myopia of tribalism... |
"The hysteria of vengeance on the West and on its protégée Israel has disastrous results – for example, the Arab traditional elite's phobia of Western modernism. The Western imperialism that followed this Western modernism crippled this elite, depriving it of the ability of rational statesmanship. [Statesmanship] that includes [the adoption of] constructive [Western] innovation; setting realistic aims; playing the political game rationally; realistically interpreting the [global or regional] balance of power and harnessing [this interpretation] in the decision-making [process]; managing crises sensibly by peaceably bringing the conditions of its solution into fruition; and, finally, developing decision-making procedures."
"The policy of vengeance that prevails today, especially among the influential elites in Palestine, Syria and Iraq, has banished any rational policy from their domestic decision making. In their domestic policy, these elites dismiss all public discussion. In their foreign policy, they refuse to negotiate. This is how these elites increase the likelihood of implosion [i.e. domestic strife] and war. It [also] explains their careening from one domestic outbreak [of violence] into the next, and from one destructive war into the next, much fiercer war" ...
"The cult of arming with WMD drove Saddam Hussein into delirious... decisions. [Such as the decisions] to strike the Kurds with chemical weapons; shoot tear gas at demonstrators – [tear gas] produced from aflatoxins that cause liver cancer
; attack Iran with chemical weapons; invade Kuwait; in addition to wasting - over 35 years - his country's material and human resources on the altar of his vengeful obsession and insane passion for martial victory. Currently, Iraq's resources, which include the second largest oil reserves in the world, qualify this country, economically and scientifically, to be the Japan of the Arab world. [Instead, it] became one of the poorest, most despotic and bloodiest countries in the world."
"The fanatical and neurotic tenacity of the [policy of] 'all or nothing' and martial victory are, without a doubt [the source] of Hamas's program to 'liberate Palestine to the last grain of earth and to restore it as a Waqf [religious endowment] for all the world's Muslims' – and [the factor] behind [Hamas's] insane refusal to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and east Jerusalem. And what was the result, after the suicidal operations had failed to fulfill this impossible aim? Hamas's spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, appealed to Israeli PM Sharon for a 10-year truce [Hudna], in the aftermath of which [the circumstances would be reassessed]."
"This kind of suicidal policy was also behind Yasser Arafat's unexpected shift from promising negotiations to futile armed struggle and Intifada, that has proven no less futile. And why is that? It was because Chairman Arafat envied Hizbullah's success at 'expelling' the Israeli army from the Israeli security zone [in Lebanon]. Overnight, he decided to shift from negotiating with to expelling the occupying Israeli army, and unilaterally declaring a fully sovereign Palestinian state without [paying] the price of recognizing Israel – as Egypt and Jordan had already done. And what was the outcome of this vengeful and suicidal decision? Unprecedented self-punishment: The occupying army [Israel] returned to 42% of the territories liberated through negotiation. By the same logic, Chairman Arafat turned down president Clinton's proposal to regain 97% of the occupied territories, with a promise of $40 billion to resettle the Palestinian refugees within the promised Palestinian state. And what was the outcome of this decision, which was in disregard of any consideration of Palestinian national interest for establishing a homeland and a lasting state? The outcome is that Arafat and his people are today in grave danger." |