Fool's paradise

By Salama A Salama

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Lately two shocks of immense proportion hit the Arabs almost simultaneously. The first was when a Muslim woman, a specialist in Islamic studies living in America, decided to act as imam. She led one hundred people in Friday prayers at a church hall in Manhattan. The event took place under the glare of dozens of TV cameras. The media savoured this unique moment of Islamic history, this new look phenomena -- this instance of reform undertaken American- style.

This was not the first time Muslims living far from Mecca had modified religious practice to suit their own purposes. Elijah Muhammad and black groups in America did it before. If anything, this proves that Muslims living abroad find the rigidity of religious authority in the Arab world too much to bear. The trend is likely to continue so long as we continue to stagnate morally and intellectually.

A second shock came when, while on his way to the US, the king of Jordan announced a new initiative calling for normalisation with Israel without much ado, in the hope that this would reassure Israel and prompt it to start peace talks along the lines of the roadmap. The king's initiative was presented as if it were a revival of that the Arab summit announced three years ago in Beirut.

Arab ministers reacted to the Jordanian move in typical manner. They denied, stalled, dropped it from the agenda, fiddled with it, and put it back on. This happened in a summit that had little to offer aside from rehearsing old stands, one with little hope of doing anything, indeed, apart from keeping the Arab League together.

The Jordanian move was not entirely senseless. The Beirut summit initiative received almost no international backing. We have done little to bring it closer to implementation. It is true that Egypt helped the Palestinians put their house in order and encouraged a truce that may revive the peace talks. But aside from that, nothing much happened on the Arab scene.

It is the Arabs who need reassurance, not Israel. Egypt and Jordan have normalised their relations with Israel, and what good did this do? The aggression continued, and so did the building of new settlements. As things stand, the Arabs live in a fool's paradise. They act as if they do not perceive the immensity of international changes, as if they are not aware that the gap between the US and Europe has virtually disappeared, as if they have not noticed that France acted in tandem with the US in the Lebanese-Syrian crisis and that Germany, Russia and Spain were ready to help at anytime. The world, we seem to forget, is eager to shake us out of our slumber.

Robert Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy has a published article in which he explains "constructive" destabilisation, the policy favoured by the Bush administration. The Americans intervened in Afghanistan and Iraq, followed that by prompting a change in the Palestinian leadership, then shook things up in Lebanon and Syria, as well as prodding Saudi Arabia and Egypt to reform. Astounding changes happened on the international scene. These are the changes the Algiers summit should be looking into, instead of regurgitating old stands and trying to push differences under the carpet.

This is not the end of it. Unless we do something, unless we have something new to say, the world will keep pushing us. And if the past is anything to go by, we will succumb.