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CHAIRMAN'S MESSAGE:
A Letter to a
Friend on Arab Unity
Dear Taryam,
My dear friend, although you are no longer among us, I feel
sure that you, a life long believer in, and
an activist for Arab Unity, would be
dismayed by the sight of international
powers doing so much to weaken our efforts
for unity by sowing so much dissention
amongst us Arabs!
But the irony is that while our governments and
leaders, under the malign influence of
powerful external forces continue to
disagree amongst themselves, Arab people no
matter their nationality or religion, from
the youngest, to the oldest are more united
now than at anytime since the days of
President Gamal Nasser. Even the late
President Nasser, for all his passion for
unity, failed to instill such a desire in
the hearts of all our people. It has taken
interventionist international powers to
ignite a new awareness of, and a desire for
Arab unity, in ordinary people right across
the social spectrum in the Arab world.
Taryam, we were very young men when the imperialists packed
their bags and left our countries. We were
filled with the prospect of rekindling the
greatness of our people. We dreamed we could
once again unite all the different Arab
communities and Nation States, to bring
about a renaissance of Arab culture, and
embark on an era of economic growth, that
would allow us to sit at the table of
nations as equals.
After all, we thought, how can we not become united again? Do
we not share a common heritage, a unifying
single language that is understood by over
300 million people, and are we not, in the
main, all as one, under our faith?
After a promising start, President Nasser’s vision of a
United Arab Republic seemed possible,
stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the
West, to the Arab Gulf in the East, as he
embarked on uniting Egypt and Syria - alas
nothing came of it.
Over the last fifty years, it has not been just the great powers
that has kept us apart; much of the blame
for our failure is our own quarrelsome petty
ambitions that have seen us set up 22
sovereign Arab states, which have become
paralysed by their own indecision..
As his Highness Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan has
often pointed out, “It is the divisions
among Arabs that are a source of strength
for our enemies.” These divisions have led
to the humiliation of the people of
Palestine, and the death of hundreds of
thousands of Iraqi children.
So my friend, what we could not achieve for ourselves, is now
being achieved by the blindness of the new
imperial powers of this new century. Should
we see this as a blessing in disguise? This
new imperialism is acting as a catalyst for
all the frustrations, anger, fear and
injustice felt by our people towards
countries that we thought would be our
friends – particularly after the 1991 Gulf
war.
The New World Order is the embodiment of all that we fear.
For years we have felt uneasy at the West’s
cultural imperialism through its
materialistic values; our portrayal as the
‘bad guys’ in Hollywood movies and the
swamping of our airwaves with Western music,
our stores with Western clothes, and our
countries with ‘fast food’ outlets. All of
which are seducing our young people away
from their cultural heritage and traditional
values. While this is a cause for dismay, we
are much more afraid of the consequences of
this new imperialism on our Palestinian
brothers, and the unquestioning support that
the Zionist State of Israel gets from the
capitals of the West.
Despite numerous UN resolutions clearly stating that Israel’s
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is
illegal, America for instance, still
continues to give Israel 40 percent of its
entire foreign aid budget, totaling more
than $3.5 billion annually. To add insult to
injury, this money is then squandered in
building illegal settlements on Palestinian
land, and buying fighters and helicopter gun
ships to oppress the civilian population.
This fuels our resentment, while the
economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after the
Gulf war that have led to the deaths of over
500,000 children so far, ignites it. Whose
enemy were these innocent children? The West
sanctimoniously presses for continued
sanctions accusing Saddam of violating
United Nations resolutions, but unfailingly
stands by Israel, when it blatantly flouts
all UN resolutions over the occupied
territories.
It is actions like these that made us Arabs resentful; but we
always felt we could do little about them.
This resentment has resulted in the terrible
attack on the American people on September
11th 2001. But rather than addressing the
root cause of Arab resentment, the West has
embarked on a course of action that only
seeks to punish. This has inflamed Arab and
Muslim fears and made them deeply suspicious
of the West’s intentions in our region. This
approach is seeing the innocents suffer, as
a lethal force is sanctioned and used to
conduct an overt and covert war on
terrorism.
"The New
World Order is the embodiment of all that
we fear. For years we have felt uneasy at
the West’s cultural imperialism through its
materialistic values"
Unfortunately the perpetrators of the attack on America were
of Arab origin, so of course, the main
targets of the ‘war against terrorism’ are
all Arabs and Muslims. The West then decided
to invade an Islamic country, Afghanistan,
and overthrow its government in pursuit of
those it believes attacked America. This act
of interventionism is followed by the
passing of blatantly racial laws in some
Western countries that discriminate against
all Arabs, on the basis of their religion
and/or country of origin, thereby forcing
Arab residents in some countries to register
with the federal authorities. It has been
reported by many civil liberties groups in
America for instance, that thousands of
Arabs who voluntarily went to register, have
been arrested, allegedly because their
residence papers were not in order. Thanks
to these unenlightened actions, the western
press and it pundits have been demonising
Arabs and Islamists. Read these words from
Anne Coulter, an American columnist, who
wrote, “we should invade their [Muslim]
countries, kill their leaders, and convert
them to Christianity.” In another article
she advocates that the American
administration deport all Arabs and Muslims,
and force them to get approval from a
federal agency, before boarding any plane in
the United States.
This demonising of Arabs and Muslims has not been lost on
Ariel Sharon, who has engaged all the famous
communication skills of the Israeli State
and the Jewish lobby in the West, to ensure
that the ‘proper’ message is heard about
‘terrible Palestinian terrorists’. He is
portrayed by the Israeli media machine as
the lone friend of the West in the Middle
East, fighting ‘Arab terrorism’ to keep the
West safe, by oppressing and killing all
those greedy troublesome Palestinians, who
dare to want their homeland back. Now, with
America’s help, he wants to make the West
even safer, by driving all these nasty Arabs
into the sea.
These actions, to protect
Western countries from this perceived threat
of terrorism has stirred up much racism,
hatred and intolerance. This oppressive
hatred of all things Arab and Islamic has
started a fire in the hearts of our people,
that will be difficult to extinguish. Stop
anyone on a street, in any city, town or
village in the Arab world, and ask how they
feel about the treatment of Arabs by the
West and Israel, and almost all will say
that it seems very much like a war against
them and their religion. This rapidly
growing resentment is uniting us in a way
not seen before.
Now the West is going to add fuel to the blaze of Arab anger
by invading Iraq. How many will lose their
lives in this latest demonstration of
imperial power? No one can know. But what is
certain is that out of this inferno of war
and hate, a new spirit of Arab national
identity will emerge. It will be one that is
unlike all that has gone before.
Taryam, old friend, this new Arab identity will not, I fear,
be the peaceful uniting of all our people
that we had hoped for. It will be a unity
forged out of the West’s demonising of our
way of life, and be based on the wish of our
people, to be able to stand up and proudly
declare their pride in the cultural heritage
and historic contribution to the human
development of the Arabs, rather than
directives from some of our leaders. If it
is not hijacked by extremism, or fractured
by petty nationalism, it will be strong
enough to eventually overcome the antipathy
of the West and fulfill our dream of
rekindling the greatness of our people, to
bring about a renaissance of Arab culture,
and embark on an era of economic growth and
freedom, that would entitle us to a
prominent place at the table of nations.
Old friend you have travelled beyond all these worldly
concerns. All your Arab brothers and I are
obliged to, as an old Chinese saying states,
“to live in interesting times”. But rest
assured, many of your Arab brothers will do
all in their power to help bring our people
together and thus fulfill your dream.
KHALAF
AL HABTOOR
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