Too Late To Democratize Arabia Prof Sattar Kassem March 23/2003 Wrong-doing drags everybody into chaos. For so many years, the Arab regimes have been reigning over police garrisons, faultily described as states. These garrisons are built on unjust ferocious exploitive conspiring mentality of ruthless hideous gangsters called Arab rulers. While nations have been racing toward advancement and achievements in all spheres of life, these Arab tyrants have been indulging in dishonorable and extremely despicable inhuman behavior. These regimes have not been left alone to face the hatred they have planted in the hearts of the Arab people, but they have received the necessary support from the Western countries particularly from the United States. It has been thought that these regimes are the best in serving Western interests. The Arab rulers never imposed big tiring demands on the West, and have been satisfied with facilitating the satisfaction of, what so many Arabs believe, their monstrous endless desires. In return, the West has guaranteed for itself the flow of oil, investment in the different Arab countries and the safety of Israel. It is by now, and probably after 11/sep/ 2001, that the US started to think of the consequences of its linear unrevised policies in Arabia. Probably, the Americans underestimated to a great extent the degree of dissatisfaction that Arabs have been accumulating over the years and neglected the forces of history that produce awareness. We, the Arab people have been suffering from exploitation, deprivation, dictatorship, injustice, imprisonment, torture, suppression and all kinds backwardness; and we know that it is not only the responsibility of the Arab regimes but also that of the countries have been extending a hand. The Arab regimes have led the people from one to defeat to another, from a frustration to another, and a humiliation to another. We feel crushed and alienated. We are nothing. We the Arabs have been pushed into a narrow crack were life and death became equal. If so, let it be hell over my head and over the heads of others. This is the conclusion that so many Arabs apparently have reached. They say, if survival under these terrible conditions isn’t an advantage to death, then why don’t you bring death to your oppressors? From my own personal experience, I understand why so many people have reached these conclusions. I was fired from my job at Jordan University because I was critical of the Jordanian regime, my passport expropriated and banned from entering the country together with my wife. I was imprisoned by the Israelis for a couple of years, put under home arrest and banned from traveling abroad for so many years. I was targeted by the Palestinian authority and hit by four bullets because of my criticism of Arafat, and imprisoned three times by the Palestinian Authority. All of these three parties are either adopted by the US or depending on its support. Lately, the US started thinking about democratizing Arabia. I think it is too late. Dissatisfaction has generated awareness to the degree that the Arabs, particularly the Islamic movements, won’t back up. The US has depleted all possibility to appear credible and the Arab regimes are untrustworthy. That is aside from the argument insisting on the impossibility of having a man to walk with the legs of another. The Arabs haven’t been encouraged to develop their own version of free life and it is unthinkable they will easily assimilate centuries of Western political philosophy accumulation. The US is talking now about a modern greater Middle East through democratization, economic development and building civil societies. Although this looks bright, it is very hard to convince the Arabs that the US isn’t maneuvering in an endeavor to protect and enhance its interests and the interests of Israel in the area. Even, so many people try to remember Baghdad pact of the fifties of the previous century, and the Israeli scheme toward a new Middle East. The connection between the past and the present is made and tied with Israeli outlook. The US together with some European countries have been financing some nongovernmental organizations to enhance democratic ideals and sell the Western way of life. But these efforts haven’t been very productive because the methods of running these organizations haven’t been deviating so much from those of the Arab regimes. This added to the doubts that people have about US intentions. If America to do good for the Arabs and her own people, I believe she needs to descend from that ivory throne to deal with the ordinary people at the expense of the regimes and the limited Westernized elites. She needs to talk to Moslems who certainly aren’t radical by nature, Pan Arabs who think that they have a future only with united Arabia, and to the deprived who have been robbed by their rulers. Unless the US comes down to the basics, all efforts remain self-deceptive under the guise of fighting terrorism and extremism.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Oct 2013 06:51:11 +0000
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