Excerpt:
Of course, the idea of this âcultural dialogueâ is not just of some fireside chat about different values and traditions aimed at drawing people closer together; it always has also a political dimension. Dialogue with Hamas or Egyptian anti-Semites can only take place on the assumption that the other is a legitimate interlocutor and that existing differences of opinion remain within the bounds of the acceptable. Thus, all at once, statements expressing overt and unwavering hostility to democracy, parliamentarism and individual liberty and calling in a language of uncommon violence for the destruction of Israel, if not of Jews in general, become part of the discussion. If the problems of the Arab or Islamic world are attributed not to the repressive regimes that prevail in the region, to state control, the oppression of women, the lack of a free media and the glorification of violence â in short, to the form of government â but instead simply to a different cultural understanding, then all the basic human rights standards commonly defined as universal â and therefore as subjects not fit for dialogue â are reduced to political manifestations of âWestern Christian cultureâ and thus rendered negotiable. At the same time, the political circumstances of despotic rule in the Middle East are rendered immutable, since any potential political change would appear as foreign to the indigenous cultural predispositions. If the Middle East is ruled by dictatorships on account of deep cultural causes and not rather because elites who have enjoyed decades of impunity maintain such regimes in their own interest, then hardly anything can be changed in this state of affairs. Moreover, the European seekers of dialogue constantly act as if the parties, groups and governments with which they are talking want something other than what they say they want, even though neither Hizbullah nor Hamas, neither the Syrian nor the Iranian government, do anything to conceal their political ideas. On the contrary, their statements and political programs leave nothing to the imagination.
As is entirely to be expected, then, no one has been able to claim even the least success in separating Islamists or Arab nationalists from their fundamental convictions by way of âconstructive dialogueâ. On the other hand, the Western dialogue partners often tend to assimilate the mental world of their Middle Eastern opposite numbers so closely as to cross over into it. This is a result of the very nature of the dialogue, in which the preferred partners are Islamists and dictatorial regimes rather than members of the opposition or liberals from the region. Since every dialogue requires making concessions to the other side, the Western partners always find themselves obliged to adopt positions that approximate the lunacy of the Islamists and Pan-Arabists and thus to take their distance from the hitherto shared values of the democratic nations. Even a little compromise with beheaders and terrorists is more than a humanistic outlook can tolerate. The Iranian government is no more likely to be talked into giving up the nuclear bomb than self-professed Islamists are to be dissuaded by argument from pursuing their goal of a sharia-based social order. âDialogueâ is an end in itself, serving, in the best of cases, to cover up oneâs own helplessness. In the worst, it amounts to openly cozying up to the enemy of oneâs enemy. |