Posted on 11/02/2004 4:33:12 AM PST by SJackson
+++INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE 30 Oct. '04: "The fear that chokes the Arab world" Youssef M. Ibrahim , managing director Dubai-based Strategic Energy Investment Group.
QUOTES FROM TEXT:
"Arab media filters news through the prism of fear, disguised as political correctness, politeness and Information Ministry rules, so that facts become fairy tales."
"How many times have you read about 'honor killings,' which is meant to describe harrowing acts of bloody mahem by a male who cuts the throat of his wife, sister or distant female relatives"
"In America today, an Arab-American community of some three to four million has no voice because it is afraid."
"Our governments, our schools, our social systems. our economies and very sense of ethical conduct are all failed models whose shelf-life is over"
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EXCERPTS:
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Fear is deeply ingrained in the Arab psyche ...no matter where it lives. There is a fear to speak, write, read or even hear truth. The fear hangs in the air ... dominating thinking processes, surfacing in a self-censored media, nervous jokes, absurd commentary that wastes hours describing black as white.
Arab media filters news through the prism of fear, disguised as political correctness, politeness and Information Ministry rules, so that facts become fairy tales.
The whole world ...heard about an ongoing political crisis in Lebanon and the UN Security Council pressures on Syria to get out of there.
But the official Arab media, very anxious not to offend "Arab brothers," will tell you there is no crisis there, that both Lebanon and Syria are blessed with "fraternal" relations, and the whole thing is manufactured by France and the United States, who are "meddling" in internal Lebanese-Syrian relations.
How many times have you read about presidents who win new terms with 99 percent majorities? How many times have you read about "honor killings," which is meant to describe harrowing acts of bloody mayhem by a male who cuts the throat of his wife, sister or distant female relatives, often on a rumor about her misbehaving or not marrying someone the family designated. One fails to see the origin of the word "honor" where cowardice is more appropriate.
We say of countries where women are not allowed to vote, choose their life partners, drive, travel or run for office that they are preserving "Arab and Islamic tradition," when in fact they are committing flagrant violations of human rights for half their population.
Arab media has been very good at dishing out criticism of American double standards. We talk boldly of a pro-Israeli and an anti-Arab bias. But let us not loose perspective here. This same America and its pundits have openly described both George W. Bush and John Kerry as liars, flip-flops, double-dealers and elitists. Nobody goes to jail for it. Can we say as much for the Arab order?
No one is born this way, of course. Fear is an environmentally acquired characteristic. At home it is the product of unilateral rule, hereditary power, rejection of democratic culture, dominance of the male persona which eliminates women as equal partners, and a demeaning embrace of hand-kissing rather than merit as the means to climb the social ladder.
For expatriate Arab communities these fears have been made even more complicated since 9/11 by the systematic singling out of Arabs and Muslims as potential terrorists. In America today, an Arab-American community of some three to four million has no voice because it is afraid.
[IMRA:Arab-Americans are outspoken about their situation and regarding the Middle East they take strong positions against the US and Israel.]
Having a voice means attracting attention, perhaps trouble, most Arabs will tell you. In Europe, where some 35 million Arabs live, most have crawled back into cultural caves - speaking Arabic, eating Arabic and thinking Arabic - instead of opening up to the societies that embraced them.
...The Arab and Muslim worlds are undergoing massive transformations which demands massive adjustments.
Our governments, our schools, our social systems, our economies and our very sense of ethical conduct are all failed models whose shelf-life is over. If Arab writers and pundits cannot say this, document it, analyze it or focus on it without fear, we cannot even begin to reform.
And if we cannot reform, what is left of Arab civilization will evaporate, making place for a new agenda set by someone else. This is happening in Iraq, and it will happen to every society that blocks oxygen to its people.
(Youssef M. Ibrahim is managing director of Strategic Energy Investment Group based in Dubai.)
WOW. Just WOW.
I think it would be a good thing for Arab culture to disappear
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
I think it would be a good thing for Arab culture to disappear"
Would'nt hurt my feelings. Their's is a culture of death.
Me too, as "reformed", Islamic culture would still be a horror, perhaps more so.
Very well put and true sentiments, all of them.
Two things though: it's "let us not loose lose perspective", and Arab Americans never used their collective voice before 9/11/01 either.
Speaking of Islamic disdain toward women, did you hear a Dutch filmmaker who did a documentary that dealt, in part, with traditional Islamic violence toward women was murdered yesterday?
Because there's no freedom, not even freedom of thought, the cultures of various Mislim nations can't evolve. Reform will give them that chance. What the terrorists hate and fear about THAT is that it'll be the bebirth of diverse local cultures and the and of forced, Pan Arab hegemony.
"...what is left of Arab civilization will evaporate..."
Your d@mned right, in a white hot nuclear nigtmare.
New thread on yet another event which demonstrates exactly what you say:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1266061/posts
Arabs can whine and snivel all they want about being victims, but in the end, the entire world of Islam has to face up to their failings. It's no one's fault but their own.
I know what the goal is, but I think these folks are so psychotic in any circumstance that it's impossible for them to be normal.
Is it just me, or have a bunch of articles just been published, in time for Election Day, vindicating Bush's tough stance against terrorism.
"Peace through strength works"
Would you read so many headlines about Arabs questioning extremists among them, if we followed the liberals "appeasment through weakness".
"I think it would be a good thing for Arab culture to disappear"
No. The problem is Wahhabi Islam and the "bigotry of low expectations" from the West. Bush is changing all that.
Imgaine if someone dismissed Christianity all because of the KKK.
The problem here is that the KKK is operating in violation of Christian scriptures while the terrorists are in total compliance to moslem scriptures.
The problem is not wahhabi islam. The problem is islam itself. The wahhabists are perhaps the truest islamics alive now that the taliban was destroyed. Islam commands it's followers to be terrorists
Exactly. Most of the problems with Islam, IMHO, stem from it's (almost unabashed) role as an instrument of cultural hegemony.
Christianity almost had a similar problem, btw. The difference was that there were "universalists" like Paul within the movement who succeeded in wresting it away from early leaders in Jerusalem who wanted to saddle the new faith with obsequious observance of Jewish cultural norms.
I believe that supporting "universalists" -- advocates of cultural diversity, regional diversity, sectarian tolerance, etc -- within Islam against the Arabist monoculturalists is every bit as important as supporting "moderates" against "militants".
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