14 - 20 February 2002
Issue No.573
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 14 - 20 February 2002 Issue No.573 |
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Support against terror
Illustration by Gamil Shafiq
Sir- While I disagree often with some of your points, I agree totally about how supportive the Egyptian government has been of US policy, especially since 11 September.
Most US citizens do not realise that Egypt has consistently been a friend of the US. When they see terrorists that were from Egypt, they forget that the Egyptian government has been much more successful in driving these individuals from their country. Thus many US citizens think that "Egyptian radicals," who have not been welcome in Egypt for many years, are de facto representatives of the Egyptian government's policies.
Thanks for listening.
Charles W Stewart
Hannibal, Missouri
US
Look in the mirror
Sir- In several televised interviews since 11 September, President Bush was asked how he'd changed, and each time he responded that he didn't know and perhaps the question was best put to his wife. "I don't look in the mirror much," he said, "unless I'm shaving." I understood remarks like this to mean, "I'm not very self-reflective or introspective," a state of mind we should consider psychologically hazardous in a president.
The respected depth psychologist, Edward Edinger, observed that terrorism is a "manifestation of the psyche," the psychological roots of which "is a fanatical resentment -- a quasi- psychotic hatred originating in the depth of the archetypal psyche and therefore carried by religious (archetypal) energies." Edinger observed that "articulate terrorists generally express themselves in religious (archetypal) terminology. The enemy is seen as the Principle of Objective Evil (Devil) and the terrorist perceives himself as the 'heroic' agent of divine or Objective Justice (God). This is an archetypal inflation of demonic proportions which temporarily grants the individual almost superhuman energy and effectiveness." The great danger for President Bush is becoming trapped or possessed by this magnetic-like field. The virtually overwhelming tendency for the president is to take a reverse archetypal position, to apprehend Bin Laden, for example, as the Devil, and to identify with God. Lost is the capacity for understanding terrorism or one's own role in creating conditions which cause it. Lost is the capacity for self-reflection.
President Bush has taken numerous positions in the "war on terrorism" which indicate such a dangerous psychological possession, from his unwillingness to consult with Congress, to his willingness to compromise the American Bill of Rights, to the denial of Geneva Convention rights to Guantanamo detainees. What Americans tend to see as an heroic transformation of the president should be understood also as a dangerous black and white identification with God. So, what troubles me most is not any of these specific political issues, but rather our president's contentment with being unconscious and, generally speaking, our political leaderships' collective willingness to join him. One test of great leadership is the active capacity for self-reflection, the ability to stand outside the fray with objectivity and insight, the capacity to remain autonomous under the influence of dangerous forces. President Bush needs to do more than shave when he looks in the mirror.
David Hallock
Washington
US
Summary execution
Sir- Pascale Ghazaleh's current propaganda article ("Welcome to the peep show," Al-Ahram Weekly, 31 January - 6 February) has brought tears to my eyes. Those poor Jihad ***holes held prisoner by the capitalist dogs of America The fact that the Al-Qa'eda and Taliban prisoners in Cuba are not being given the consideration or being provided with accommodations suitable for guests of the US is pure bull****. Maybe private suites at the Havana Hilton would be more suitable to their distinguished tastes?
Those prisoners are the scum of the earth, dedicated to killing innocent unarmed civilians, they should have been executed long ago, not kept in conditions that exceed their previous lifestyles. The US should have invoked Islamic law and beheaded these human monsters weeks ago.
Bud Dailey
Shelton, Washington
US
Devilry and details
Sir- In the Middle East, the idea that the Israeli government is nudge-winking the United States into conflict with Iran rings irrefutably true. In the putatively paranoid opinion of the Middle Eastern "street," a war with Iran will allow the Israelis to refocus attention away from their strangulation of the Palestinians and to continue their ceaseless disregard of human rights and international law. It also lets them bomb Iran's nuclear reactor, in a grander replay of Israel's bombing of Iraq's spanking new reactor in 1981. A show-down, first rhetorical then real, will benefit also the Bush clan by diluting the growing suspicion among so-far-assenting Americans that there is something rotten in the White House, namely possible evidence of chronic and sweeping Enronitis in the administration. In short, messing with Iran can help Bush and Sharon postpone the day of public reckoning.
But even if Bush and Sharon's politically leprous administrations desperately need some cosmetic refurbishing in the mirror of world opinion, fingering Iran won't help prettify their behaviour. And if the off-the-cuff accusations, bullying and brinkmanship continue between Iran, Israel and the US, things may get even uglier than they are today. In fact, as an Iranian immigrant who knows a bit of both worlds, I wager that Iran may turn out to be more Moby Dick than this gaggle of Ahabs can chew.
That Sharon wants fully to reap the benefits of riding shotgun on Bush's "War against Terrorism" is a secret only to the misled and the misinformed. In the Middle East, Iran represents one of the loudest and most active voices against Israel's inhumane policies. The Israelis, who somehow happened to discover a shipload of small arms from Iran floating near the occupied territories immediately after the war with Afghanistan was over, are being a little coy when they claim suddenly to discover Iranian support for the Palestinians. For more than two decades since the 1979 Revolution, Iran has openly and vocally condemned Israel's occupation of Lebanon and Palestine, and made little secret of its support, military and humanitarian, for Muslim populations under brutal occupation elsewhere in the world. To most Muslims, assisting the besieged populations of Palestine, Chechnya or Bosnia seems only fair, even if we all know, in our less idealistic moments, that as far as geopolitics goes, the fair remains in Pomona.
Bush's sudden turn this week on Iran genuinely shocked the Iranians and discomfited the world. Iran's fall from "a member of the coalition" to the "axis of evil," days after Bush felt it no longer needed Iran's quiet but indispensable assistance in Afghanistan, seems nasty and shortsighted. It is obvious to most that as enemies go, Iran has been quite gracious to the United States, its mighty nemesis. And the United States has taken full advantage of Iran's offers to provide it with rare intelligence on the ground in its hunt for Al-Qa'eda and the Taliban, to rescue American military personnel if need be, and to help quietly (without the embarrassment that a US alliance with mercenary dictatorships like Pakistan or war criminals like Dostom can bring) liberate much of Western Afghanistan, a region that is intimately tied with Iran historically, economically, culturally, and politically. But now that the war is over and the US has settled its scores and its military arsenal and personnel next door, Bush is giving Iran the finger.
It's true that Israel, the US and the rest of their codependent gang have the economic and political need, the military muscle, and the chutzpah to bomb Bushehr (where Iran has been building a non-military reactor bit by bit for years) or Tehran (where Khamenei lives and works). After all, few Americans will sweat much if "the Mullahs" receive a good spanking from a few lethal weapons: tit-for-tat for the hostages and all the hassle ever since. Never mind if Iran's nuclear programme is regularly inspected by the Atomic Energy Commission to ensure its compliance with civilian purposes. And never mind that Iran never joined in the rape or destabilisation of Afghanistan or any of its other neighbours, and has shown the greatest capacity and farsightedness for helping the Afghan people on the ground, both before the US forces arrived and to this day.
This school-yard nastiness has a history of course. Beginning in 1979, Iran bit the hands that leashed it, helped embarrass the United States and Israel in Lebanon, and has evolved at its own pace and beckoning without the kibbles the US offers other client nations for compliance with its narcissistic demands. Iran has in fact survived in the face of relentless US intervention (by, for example, unleashing Saddam on Iran in 1980 or aggressively funding and arming the Mujahidin, anti-Iranian terrorists based in Iraq. No doubt, a neutralised Iran means a neutralised Middle East where a few fat hyenas would get an even bigger kill in the hunt for cheap oil and hegemony. With the fledgling nations that have mushroomed around the Caspian with the fall of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the gang of Gulf States dancing to Bush's Nero-like cues, the place is fast becoming a political Disneyland. Bush views Iran and Iraq as the only villains in this theme park of crude-oil imperialism. Iraq has been waiting for the long- promised lethal pounce while Iran discovered it was on the menu only this week.
Of course, neither Bush nor Sharon need my advice, but I'll give it anyway: what will save a lot of grief globally is a little common sense, that precious commodity among world leaders. Attacking Iran will have global side effects. Iran is neither war-torn and wretched like Afghanistan nor nastily dictatorial and desperate like Iraq. It is the second largest oil- producing nation, one of the region's fastest- growing democracies, a post-revolutionary Muslim nation of 65 million with a young, educated, entrepreneurial and increasingly democratic personality. Threatening to attack Iran proves to most Iranians the folly of the reformists and the indispensability of the fundamentalists. Further, the Iranians, even the US-friendly and mullah-weary majority, will not fail to mobilise against bellicosity from other nations. Neither the return of Coca Cola to Iran nor the popularity of Britney Spears among Iranian teens should deceive Bush with regards to the country's readiness to defend itself. If nurturing democracy and stability was in fact the West's purpose in that region, working with Iran to continue toward an open-market Islamic democracy under people like Khatami might be a better option. Yet America seems to be offering the world nothing more than a bully's refrain: "I bully because I can." Strategy please, Mr Bush, for everyone's sake.
But perhaps I am being paranoid. The Bush clan surely knows that a war with Iran will have consequences, and not all of them in the form of civilian casualties and returning body-bags. How will Bush survive in an America that may have to cough up $40 for a barrel of crude, even if Russia's oil barons can be bribed to double or triple their output? And most Israelis know, even if it remains a national "unmentionable," that with or without Iran's support of the besieged in Palestine or Lebanon, Israel will continue to suffer the natural consequences of illegal occupation. By urging Bush to up the ante with Iran and see what happens, Israel is about to embarrass the United States, its strident buddy, and further hurt its own chances for peace.
In a post-11 September America, immigrants like me are becoming paranoid simply by noticing things. In the same way, not all public opinion in the Middle East, however, is paranoia, and when it is, it is rarely a natural by-product of genetics, Islam, anti-Semitism or anti-Western propaganda. There is the seldom-considered possibility that this thing some in the West label as "Middle Eastern paranoia" (among Middle Easterners in general, and Iranians specifically) is primarily due to their relatively robust historical memories. America's track record in Iran and the Middle East is available at our local libraries. I checked out a few books myself and I think I am beginning to understand why Iran's sloganeers call America "the Great Satan." Bush's global gall since bombing Afghanistan with everything short of a nuclear missile proves that in 21st- century international politics the devil no longer has to reside in the details. Why hide in the small print when few dare to object to your devilry in its most brazen manifestations?
Babak Nahid
Department of English
Mount St Mary's College
Los Angeles, California
US
Sheer nonsense
Sir- I have just read a piece that implies and assumes and suggests that all sorts of terrible things are taking place at Camp X-Ray but does not offer one shred of evidence to make this believable. It is, after all, the many non-American nations that want the detainees to be called POWs, and yet as this piece notes, POWs can be kept till a war is over -- and this has no visible ending or nation to sign a peace accord. Thus the writer argues that we should change the term from detainee to POW, but that would further befuddle things.
The writer should know there is no such thing as the Geneva Accord. The accords have been altered some four times in keeping with the way and nature of changes in the manner warfare alters over time.
Now, specifically, if the writer has proof and evidence of terrible treatment of the prisoners, detail them please. Otherwise, sheer nonsense.
Fred Lapides
Connecticut
US
Not Ibn Tulun
Sir- I would like to comment on Pascale Ghazaleh's article "Who owns the past?"(Al-Ahram Weekly, 31 January - 6 February). The article is very educational, but the picture attached to it is not of Ibn Tulun's mosque, as the caption tells, but Al-Hakim's mosque.
The madrasa of Gamaleddin El-Ustadar is not "the first four-iwan madrasa built in Egypt." Many four-iwan madrasas were built before it, like the famous madrasa of Sultan Hassan (1356- 1362), the madrasa of Sultan Barquq (1386), while that of El-Ustadar dates back to 1428.
Sayed El-Nemr
Doqqi
Egypt
Not whether, when
Sir- The more I look at the situation in the Arab world, the greatest the impression that the next major world "unrest" is likely to occur in the region. The conditions for such "revolt" are emerging, mounting and being "attached" one to the other.
More concretely, the seeds of "unrest" can be observed in the following: large segments of the Arab population have few, if any, hopes for the future; significant financial problems; high unemployment; poor scientific and industrial development; the legitimacy of many regimes is at its lowest ebb; increased discontentment among middle classes, religious elites and security forces; the Palestine issue is unresolved; increased repression; high frustration levels; broadly unaccepted attacks on or containment of Arab countries; less tolerance vis-à-vis the presence of troops/bases in the region; and the realisation that the influence of Arabs in the affairs of the world and the region has diminished.
So far there is relative calm among the Arab "masses," but many rulers are very much aware of the situation and one can appreciate their efforts in trying to abort a future "revolt." Great powers (e.g. the US) are also conscious of the situation and their increased "security" presence in the region partly reflects their concerns. However, I am afraid that the rulers' and the US's behaviour is more likely to accelerate the "unrest" than the contrary. In reality, the question is not whether "unrest" will occur, but when, its forms and severity, consequences, and in which country it will take place first.
Joaquim Soares
Stockholm
Sweden
Go it alone
Sir- I believe strongly that Africa should stop getting money from donor countries. They do this to shape our future. What did Africa get from colonists? Nothing.
We should have learnt our lesson by now; let us stop getting money from these people and study economic history. The Chinese did it, so did the Russians. If they had waited for aid, donation after donation, they would not be able to compete with the West, as they are currently doing.
I know there will be a lot of hardship but our children will be able to be free, will be able enjoy the success of the hardships. Do you think the Danes like us? They know they will be able to sell their products to us, since we get donations from them. So let's put our hands where our mouth is, stop getting donations then people will start working harder. We will be able to build cheap cars, since we won't be able to afford foreign cars, thus the beginning of industrial development.
And rich Africans will be glad to come back home -- those who left due to donor competition. As [former US President John F] Kennedy, a leader from a country that has shown that one can get a lot with enough determination, said: "Don't ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."
And, "there is nothing to fear but fear itself." Get up, rise for Africa: we can do it.
Betty Ejullu
Uganda
Moral choices
Sir- I appreciated Hani Shukrallah's willingness ("Exercises in mortification," Al-Ahram Weekly, 7-13 February) to make the obvious, but too seldom heard, point that Yasser Arafat would do better to denounce terrorist tactics in the presence of fellow Palestinians rather than in the pages of American newspapers.
But I find cause to disagree with Mr Shukrallah when he speaks of Wafaa Idris being "driven" to kill herself and an 81-year-old Israeli. Such a careless use of a word like "driven" attempts to deprive Ms Idris of the free will that God gave her. For the same reason, I also object to the use of other phrases popular in the Arab media, such as "the root causes of terrorism" -- as if a suicide bomber never actually makes a decision to strap those explosives to himself (or herself) and walk into that pizza parlour.
Many millions of people, stretching back thousands of years before Ms Idris and Mr Arafat, have been confronted with terrible poverty and oppression. Very few have responded with a suicidal frenzy of destruction. The root of terrorism is in the heart of the terrorist.
I am not naive enough to ignore the fact that there is a link between oppressive conditions and violent reactions. I am simply arguing that link is neither absolute nor strong enough to absolve the individual of the largest share of moral culpability. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jesus the prophet of Christianity and Islam, have all shown us that there are morally pure choices available even to the oppressed.
I understand that it is simplistic, and perhaps even a bit arrogant, for a privileged American like me to offer advice to people who face conditions far worse than any present in even the worst areas of my own country (though some of us have known a degree of oppression, even here in the land of the free). I apologise for that arrogance. But I cannot help but feel that the discourse between our civilisations would be greatly improved if Americans were more ready to understand that global economic disparities and an almost-universal absence of human rights in the Middle East surely contribute to feelings of anger and resentment there, and if Arabs were nevertheless willing to accept the responsibility that even the downtrodden have to tend the spark of divinity that burns in all human hearts and respond to oppressive conditions with as much moral dignity as they can muster.
The human's ordained ability to choose justly cannot be ripped away by Israeli tanks and guns. It can only be given away.
Malcolm I Jackson
New York, New York
US
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