7 - 13 March 2002
Issue No.576
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 March 2002 Issue No.576 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Evading reality
While rejecting the content of Muammar Gaddafi's speech I can understand the despair and frustration of which it was an expression -- as, I suspect, can the majority of Arabs.
At the Libyan popular committees' conference Gaddafi said he was no longer proud to be an Arab and, if it were up to him, he would take an immediate decision to withdraw from the Arab League. Less than four weeks before the Beirut summit, Gaddafi called on the committees seriously to consider the matter.
The fact is Gaddafi's criticism of the Saudi initiative is in reality as much a criticism of himself as it is of the condition of the Arab world. It is an expression of Arab impotence in the face of events in the occupied territories.
But withdrawing from the Arab League will not solve the problem, and it will certainly not deter Israel from trampling the Palestinians. And if Gaddafi should renounce his Arabhood, what is the alternative? Africa, as he declared a few years ago? Being African will not add any more to Libya than being Arab did. In effect, it serves as an evasion of the reality we face.
I sympathise with Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa. As head of the entity to which the Arabs are professing to be ashamed of belonging, all that is asked of him is to be incompetent himself -- to confine his role to that of the head of a secretariat of the League's employees. Moussa, in typical fashion, continues to resist and reject such notions, still harbours the hope of achieving something.
The difference between Gaddafi and his Arab counterparts is that the Libyan leader expresses his thoughts honestly. Other Arab officials speak one language in front of the microphones and another in closed and private meetings. Gaddafi speaks only one language, regardless of the fact that it is one I reject.
*This week's Soapbox speaker is editor-in-chief of the daily Al-Wafd
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page