resurrectionsong

January 20, 2004

No Voice of Reason Here

Linda S. Heard writes occasionally for the Arab News and her latest is enough to make any reasonable person do a double take. In an angry rant against writers who have lately begun to criticize Middle Eastern nations, she seems to instead to propose that those nations are above reproach, that their approach to everything from women's rights to international politics to technological prowess to education are just fine the way they are.

Those elevated Arab individuals, often enjoying the benefits of dual nationality, describe Arab states as technologically backward, badly run and beat their chests over the status of women. Clutching diplomas bestowed by Western universities, they adopt a superior tone and unashamedly kowtow to their Occidental mentors. Enough already!

Well, I’ve got news for them. Arabs are the good guys here. It is outrageous that just because a gang of fanatics ran with their hatred and committed cold-blooded murderous acts on US soil, the entire Arab world — along with the planet’s 1.5 billion Muslims — has come under a negative American microscope.

Indeed, the Arabs have nothing for which to apologize. On the contrary, it is the West, which should be saying it’s sorry. Britain, France and the US have jointly and separately raped the Middle East and North Africa, while greedily lusting after the regions’ natural resources.

Heard is a fool, and any who listen to her and agree are just as foolish. One of the most important building blocks of a progressive, just culture is the ability to self-examine and self-criticize. No progress is made until a culture realizes its own injustices and errors.

This doesn't mean that we need to be a society of contrarians or that we need to indulge in knee-jerk anti-Western behavior, but that we need to have an honest evaluation of our own culture and governments. Too many in the Middle East would prefer to think that the problems that manifest are entirely the creation of others; it's a culture of victims far more widespread than anything we see here in the United States.

Instead of discouraging an honest look at Islamic nations, Heard should be encouraging the changes and the open dialog that is beginning to take shape. The hope of people of the West has to be that Heard is a symbol of an old, dying view of Middle Eastern culture, and that those journalists that she despises are symbols of something new and better.

Read the story.

Posted by zombyboy at January 20, 2004 11:18 AM | TrackBack

Comments

I agree completely. I took a Middle Eastern Politics class a while ago, and the tone was decidedly unhopeful. I asked my professor if there was anything promising in the region. His answer was that a couple of years ago several prominent Arab scholars published a study for the UN about how the Arab nations were causing their own failures. They did not do so anonymously.

This may not sound like a lot, in our society where personal responsibility, self-reflection and self-criticism are virtually instinctive. However, in a region where conspiracy theories run rampant and often dysfunctional behavior is excused* and dissident voices are silenced through prosecution and persecution, it is indeed hopeful.

Now that one example did not convince me that the Arab world had begun working studiously to reform. But it did provide the outlines of a prescription for the dysfunction of the modern Middle East.

*i.e. God's will is going to come to being no matter what we do; she tempted him into raping her with her perfume and mascara

Posted by: Julia at January 20, 2004 11:36 AM

The most frustrating thing to me about Middle Eastern politics is that for every time I read something that gives me a spark of hope, I read three or four things that bury it in pessimism.

Posted by: zombyboy at January 20, 2004 11:50 AM

You're not alone there. The Mid East is the second most hopeless region on the planet (politically speaking) One guy I know (a real Peace Movement type; if we just hold hands and sing "Imagine" the world will love us) told me the other day re the Israli/Palestinian conflict "If there ever was a place that needed a wall, it's the West Bank."

Posted by: Julia at January 20, 2004 04:08 PM

I have a very liberal friend who is moving her position closer to that same place. She's been watching Israelis make concessions over the last few years and be subject to the continued attacks from terrorists. She isn't ready to believe that the Israelis are the good guys, but she's starting to believe that the Palestinians most certainly aren't.

Posted by: zombyboy at January 20, 2004 09:11 PM