Marked on the calendar

Remembered was the second anniversary of the war on Iraq and 30 years since the start of the Lebanese civil war, writes Dina Ezzat

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This week marked the second anniversary of the US war on Iraq -- a war not quite over. It was also a week which marked the 30th anniversary of the start of the Lebanese civil war, whose ghosts are still haunting the Lebanese. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and US President George W Bush also met at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. During an eventful few days, the Pope was laid to rest and Prince Charles exchanged wedding vows with Camilla Parker Bowles, thus happily ending an over three-decade love story.

However, for the Arab press these were not events that merited any particular attention. Indeed, compared to the huge number of articles published by the Arab papers last year on the first anniversary of the war on Iraq, this year the occasion all but went unnoticed -- or noticed with indifference. The few writers who dedicated their column inches to the issue shared one obvious fact: they saw a "new Iraq."

"A new Iraq?" was the headline of an opinion piece in the UAE daily Al-Bayan on 9 April by Ahmed Al-Boghdadi. For Al- Boghdadi, there are so many signs "today" that the new Iraq is "in the making". "The prime minister was directly elected. The president did not get the infamous 99 per cent of the votes. There is actually an outgoing president who willingly gave up power and accepted to be a vice-president," Al-Boghdadi noted. For the author, these were signs of blossoming democracy. However, this democracy, Al- Boghdadi noted, will not reap any rewards shortly and is unlikely to sow seeds beyond the borders of Iraq to other Arab states. "The new Iraq will be standing all alone. Its experience will not get passed its borders. Actually, Iraqis themselves will need time before they get used to the concepts of democracy... It would be the next Iraqi generation who will really enjoy living in the new Iraq... And it will be exclusively the Iraqis who enjoy the new Iraq."

On 11 April, the Qatari Al-Sharq agreed that there is a new Iraq in the making. Its commentator Abdullah Khalifa Al-Shaiji, however, asked, "where is the new Iraq heading to?" For Al-Shaiji, the image of Iraq's present and future was not as rosy as was made to look by Al-Boghdadi. "Two years after the Iraqi invasion, there is a more [aggressive] US presence in Iraq and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. There is a resistance of the occupation and there are deep fears of the possible 'Lebanisation' of Iraq."

"Two years after the invasion, the Iraqis want the invaders out", was the headline of a report by the Tunisian daily Al-Shorouq on 11 April. Being one of the very few papers left in the Arab world, including Iraq, that is still willing to decry the invasion, Al - Shorouq accorded attention to demonstrations that erupted in Baghdad and Ramadi to mark two years of the US occupation and to call on American troops to pull out of their country as soon as possible.

In his article, "Memory of the war and settlement", Abdullah Iskandar, a regular commentator of the London-based daily Al-Hayat, argued that 30 years after the civil war in Lebanon that began on 13 April 1975, "the full and real story of the war is still being told in different versions by different parties." For Iskandar, one thing is certain: "the images of the civil war popped up again after the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Al- Hariri... and receded somewhat after the Syrian decision to pull its troops out of Lebanon... but there are no guarantees that no major problems will arise later" -- or rather sooner. The best safety valve against any possible "major crisis" -- the euphemism used by those who do not like to use "civil war" often -- is for the Lebanese people to ignore sectarian notions that guide their approach to power- sharing, and adopt the get-together mentality that can help strengthen people and "could possibly deal with all sorts of inferiority complexes, especially since such complexes could easily trigger a civil war."

In the Lebanese daily As-Safir on 12 April Hossam Aittani expressed a similar concern: the explosive impact of sectarian thinking on the future of Lebanon. According to Aittani, it was this sectarian approach, "of which all of us Lebanese are guilty one way or the other", that prompted the civil war 30 years ago. Those who want to repent, Aittani said, should spare Lebanon the bloodshed of yet another civil war simply by thinking about their country rather than about any particular sect.

Away from Iraq and Lebanon, several Arab commentators worried about the unending saga of Israel and the Palestinians. As Sharon met Bush in the US on 11 April, many commentators, shared one concern: the meeting would only place more pressure on the Palestinians who have been forced throughout history to make too many concessions. According to the writers, there is no hope that Bush will pressure Sharon to respect the requirements of peace and there is no hope that Arab countries will bother pressuring Washington to show some firmness with the Israeli prime minister. As the Jordanian daily Ad-Dostour noted in its editorial, there is only one thing that is certain when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian issue: "Israeli society is getting more extremist and radical. This would it make almost impossible for any settlement especially because Israeli society is not particularly interested in any settlement."

Meanwhile, the Arab press accorded due attention to other world developments, including the royal wedding of Prince Charles and his long-time friend Camilla. The wedding was mocked either because Camilla was perceived as the ultimate embodiment of ugliness, especially when compared to Diana, or because the whole episode of a close to 35-year-old affair that broke up two marriages was not something that suited Arab taste -- hypocrisy aside.

"The amazing thing about this wedding is that Prince Charles did something that most people would not dare do. He is a middle- aged man who did not pursue youth or beauty. He pursued something else that might for him be more beautiful than beauty itself," wrote Mohamed Obeid Ghobash in the 12 April edition of the Saudi-financed and London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat. In his article, "The Charles-Camilla wedding -- A revolution against the dictatorship of beauty", Ghobash argued that the message of the wedding was very profound: women have more to offer than beauty. This is a perspective, the writer insisted, that Arab societies in particular need to embrace. "Our societies look at women with despise... women are generally perceived in our culture in a negative light... She comes across either as a source of sedition to good men, an ugly and annoying wife, a traitor or dumb." Ghobash called for a "revolution" against such anti-women sentiment in Arab societies.