Constructive solidarity
By
Salah Issa
A large-scale popular movement is backing Iraq against an imminent American attack. Meanwhile, there is unanimity in the region about the US's true motives and warnings are being sounded about the grave implications a military strike will have for the entire region.
Official Arab discourse on the Iraq question is internally consistent. It rejects the right of the Security Council -- or rather the United States -- to interfere militarily in Iraq's domestic affairs, or those of any other country.
In contrast, the Popular Movement for Solidarity with Iraq seems to expound a discourse that is rife with contradictions. While its members declare that they are intent on saving Iraq from imminent disaster, they focus their attack on Washington, without directing any blame at Baghdad -- the party responsible for the harm that has befallen the Iraqi people.
The Popular Movement's discourse, consequently, repeats the mistake made in 1990. At that time people thronged the streets of Arab cities demonstrating against the coalition for the liberation of Kuwait, but failed to call on Iraq to withdraw from its neighbour's lands. The Iraqi regime, as a result, was emboldened to increase its wrongdoing, bringing us to where we are today.
It is, then, the Iraqi people who must be supported. This, however, requires a different discourse; namely, one that focuses on demands for respecting Security Council resolutions and national boundaries. It should also call for radical constitutional and political reforms so that the Iraqi people may, of their own accord, choose policies that do not lead to disastrous situations like the one we see today.
Solidarity is not choosing between "Bush" or "Saddam Hussein"; it entails, at the present juncture, the rejection of both.
