Wither the Arabs?
In the final instalment in his series on the Arabs and 9/11, Abdel-Moneim Said* argues that we need to take a long hard look at both our shortcomings and achievements
I began this series on the Arab response to 9/11 more than two months ago. Regardless of whether or not the attacks on the US changed the world, they certainly effected a shift in Arabs' international standing. Moreover, they exposed a mentality prevalent among the Arabs in their dealings with an increasingly connected world. However, 9/11 presented entirely unprecedented circumstances and it was soon obvious that the Arabs' usual way of handling events would be ineffective. To criticise others -- the US, Israel and Zionism -- is entirely legitimate, but only after we have engaged in self-assessment.
Perhaps the phenomenon that immediately strikes the observer is that the post-colonial Arab state has not been particularly successful at addressing certain fundamental issues with which other nations have contended. These issues pertain to modernism, the process of modernisation and the relationship between religion and the state. A fundamentalist polemic, whether nationalist or religious, has exerted an increasing hold on the Arab mind, affixing it with blinkers that render it incapable of honest self-examination while increasing the tendency to blame the West for all our problems.
Simultaneously, the Arab world view shrank alarmingly to become governed by a single criterion: the Palestinian cause. The centrality of the Palestinian cause to Arab political life is indisputable; however, it should not be the sole determinant of all our relations, concerns and actions.
In the absence of democratic liberties and modernisation there evolved a highly complex relationship between the Arabs and the West, indeed between the Arabs and the entire world. There emerged a predilection for harping on the "victimised" Arab nation. Some of us have comforted ourselves with the idea that the whole subject is not worth losing sleep over.
Only if we work to revamp the original, bringing it up to date with the contemporary age and its demands, will we be able to improve the image held abroad of Arabs. As I mentioned in previous instalments, the negative images of the Arabs in the West have not only persisted, but have perhaps become more widespread and entrenched. How is this possible with the growing physical presence of Arab and Muslim communities in the West and the increasingly close interrelation between Arab and Western interests, especially with the binding of Israel to the West?
The Western world is currently witnessing the birth of the third generation of Arab and Muslim immigrants. There are some 30 million Arabs and Muslims in Western Europe and North America -- five times the number of Jews. If the Jews are organised, it is simultaneously true that the Arabs and Muslims in the West are becoming increasingly so. They have some 300,000 commercial establishments, 440 leagues or associations, 170 schools, 1,600 mosques and 95 periodicals. Many Arab celebrities in various vocations are familiar to Western audiences: Ahmed Zuweil, Magdi Yaqoub, Edward Said and Hisham Sharabi, to name only a few (Nobel prize-winning physicist, heart surgeon, scholar of comparative literature and commentator on the Palestinian cause, and political science scholar, respectively).
The sad irony of a large and growing Arab- Muslim presence in the West and the persistence of a negative Western image of the Arabs and Muslims has many possible explanations. For one, the West has little accurate knowledge about Islam, which for long has been regarded as a form of heresy and a rival to Christianity. Also, history has bequeathed a lengthy record of conflict with the Arab-Muslim world, from the Crusades to the Ottoman encroachment into Europe to the gates of Vienna, and from the Muslim rebellion against the British Empire in India to Arab liberation movements in the Middle East. Certainly, too, the Zionist cause and Israel have taken their toll on Arab-Western relations. In more recent times, Western media have acquired an increasingly powerful ability to shape opinion. Because of its general lack of knowledge of Arabic, the media's approach to events in the Middle East has generally been coloured by a distorting lens -- a lens that has worked to foment certain stereotypes.
At the same time, the Arabs have rarely taken the opportunity to drive home the services they have recently performed for the West. The Arabs were crucial to the West's victory in the Cold War -- not only because they steadfastly prevented communism from gaining a foothold in the Arab world, but also because they actively fought it around the world. Nor have the Arabs reminded the West that cheap Arab petrol during the entire post-World War II period was instrumental to the Western revival in the aftermath of the massive destruction wrought by that war.
Also contributing to the general overall impression of Arabs and Muslims is the generally pitiful state of political and economic development in the region. We have no instance, for example, of an Islamic economic or political "miracle". Indeed, when Indonesia and Malaysia appeared on the verge of an Asian Islamic miracle, economic and political crises quickly pulled the rug out from under them. In addition, it is hardly heartening to point out that Arab and Islamic countries are the focus of the lion's share of international human rights reports. It is also true that many Islamist forces have betrayed an astounding degree of backwardness and inclination towards violence. The Taliban, the armed Islamist groups in Algeria as well as the general attitude towards women in Islamic societies have done enormous damage to the Western image of Arab and Muslim peoples.
Although it is possible to address all the issues above, there remains the problem of Arab societies and their ability to promote political and economic reform. With every step the Arab world takes towards economic growth and democratisation -- even if in only a few Arab countries -- and with every improvement in the circumstances of women and every step to delegitimise extremism, the image of the Arabs will improve and Arabs will find more Westerners sympathetic to their concerns. More importantly, however, this process is vital to the mental and intellectual health of Arab societies themselves. Progress is needed because the Arabs need it -- not merely because we feel we should satisfy the West or the rest of the world. The fact is that if we do not reform, we face the prospect of a tragedy of greater proportions than anything we have encountered before.
* The writer is director of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
