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Let Truth Win in the Middle East
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Bouthaina Shaaban
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The Daily Star
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Thursday, January 8, 2004
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Fear will always be honest to its path and will consistently drag humanity toward destruction
b. shaaban |
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One of the things that probably distinguished the year 2003 the most is that it translated the world’s fear and shock over the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States into a muddle of concepts, fear of the unknown, a confusion of values and the blackmail of the weak.
The ensuing misuse of language made it difficult to distinguish right from wrong disguised as right, between people suffering a real ordeal and others who claimed they were protecting themselves against danger and who used this to preempt aggression to satisfy colonial greed or to annihilate people and take over their land, water, history and heritage.
Most dangerous of all is that many have resigned themselves to hearing and accepting the validity of so-called preemptive action that kills on the basis of intentions and detains on the basis of suspicion of intentions. People have resigned themselves to silence over detentions without investigation, and to propagandized “facts” that have nothing to do with reality. The outcome is a schizophrenic mismatch between reality in progress and an alternative reality designed to conceal what’s really happening and to sedate a conscience that was once the guardian against violations of human rights and human dignity.
With the speed of events and the ensuing confusion between violence, terrorism, aggression and resistance, the media have found escape in partial and biased headlines that neither explain reality nor deliver the gasps of the wounded or the exasperation of the oppressed and persecuted. Headlines have little space for those who have died, or the reasons and ways they died. The civilizations that once thrived between the Euphrates and the Tigris and that embodied human accomplishment, are today a condensed sum of human suffering and reflect the collapse of human, political and moral progress.
Iraq, which once stood apart among Arab countries with a human and material wealth capable of placing it in the ranks of advanced industrialized nations, today suffers a drastic need for the most basic services in education and security and for the fundamental conditions of a decent existence. The pretext under which Iraq was led into this abyss was fear: fear of one’s people and fear for one’s power and narrow interests. That fear spread oppression and terror, and the ensuing straw empire was only reined in by weakness, destruction and peril. Today, the pretext for those who control the world’s destiny is also fear: fear of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and insecurity. Fear will always be honest to its path and will consistently drag humanity toward destruction.
Under the pretext of fear, Israel has turned into a big prison for some four million Palestinians who suffer all sorts of oppression, brutality, terror, torture and confiscation of their liberties, possessions and life itself. The rationale is that the mere existence of Palestinians incites fear in the hearts of those who covet their lands, their water and their country. Under the pretext of fear the fearsome are building an apartheid wall that devours the waters and the most fertile lands of the West Bank, doubling the number of settlers in the occupied Golan Heights and designing a plan to “detach” themselves from the Palestinians, which is nothing but a plan to annihilate the indigenous people and replace them with settlers. Under the pretext of fear, anyone who says a word of truth or looks in the right direction is killed. The death of Sergio de Mello, Anna Lindh and scores of fighters against injustice only ensured that the world would become more fearful and volatile.
Under the pretext of fear of terrorism, shameless ideas and racist decisions are promoted to spread more fear in the West of the increasing numbers of Muslims in Europe. The argument is similar to that which uses the increasing number of Palestinians living in their own land as a reason to justify their annihilation. And the world resigns itself to silence in the face of these crimes and ideas and the racist policies and attitudes they reflect. Racism against Arabs and Muslims no longer needs a justification. The human tragedy of Sept. 11 has been shamelessly used as justification for throwing around accusations against some religions, nations, or ethnicities, so that the persecutor can continue his war of annihilation against the Arabs in Palestine.
So, where do we go from here, and what is it that we can do?
The first thing we should do today is to sever that deliberate correlation between reacting to what happened on Sept. 11 and allowing what’s happening in the Middle East to continue, such as Israeli occupation of Arab lands, the elimination of Palestinian rights and the killing and displacing of an indigenous population under the pretext of combating terrorism, maintaining security and building an Israeli future.
The second thing that we should do is take a decisive and daring international stand against those who try to stigmatize Muslims as terrorists. We should redefine terrorism as a human anomaly that only exists among extremists, regardless of their religious beliefs. Moderates and true followers of the three monotheistic religions should stand against all racist suggestions that are used as a cover-up for occupation and colonial policies such as confiscating lands, stealing water and inviting settlers to replace indigenous inhabitants.
Third, we should restore solemnity to morality and to international legitimacy both of which were previously tools allowing people to redress the course of events and isolate the bad from the good. Today the logic governing international relations is one of force, so that whomever has the power can will an event or an interpretation of an event, and can propagandize that interpretation regardless of what the truth is, no matter how hard truth tries to speak for itself against distortion.
Fourth and most important of all, we should grasp that a strategy that violates all values is tantamount to pressing the trigger in the place of terrorists and extremists, and increasing their clout and mercilessness through the racism and hatred this strategy spreads among people and religions. It therefore must be replaced by another approach that perceives humanity as one, and that isolates all which threatens human life and security with violence, murder and occupation.
With this we could reinstate in their rightful place the moderates and enlightened of all religions and cultures who undoubtedly form a majority in this world. We could pave the way for them to lead the ship of humanity to safety, far from fear, terrorism and exaggeration. With hearts and minds filled with faith in humanity and in its capacity to survive, we could eliminate fear and prevent it from being besieged by all that is evil. Only then could truth win the battle.
** Bouthaina Shaaban is Syrian minister for emigrant affairs.
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