26 February 2011 By Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban It seems that Tunisia was destined to be the
catalyst for the greatest event in modern Arab
history. And it seems that Mohammad Bouzeizi, who set
fire to himself in protest against an insult to his
personal dignity, triggered a revolt for the
restoration of Arab dignity. But when Egypt is at the
heart of events, it will be different from anything
the Arab region has seen in the past few decades. First, because the event was produced by the masses
of Egypt, ‘the mother of the world', the people who
crossed the Suez canal in the 1973 war, the people who
built the pyramids, started the Arab revolutions of
liberation from colonialism. Second, Egypt was
forcefully taken out of the Arab-Israeli conflict by
one tyrant and shamed, for three decades, by another
through complicity with the enemy. This weakened and
humiliated the Arabs who saw the West arming Israel
with arrogance and intransigence while arming
submissive regimes with dictatorship, oppression and
tyranny. In this atmosphere of humiliation, Zionism
prospered. Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu
said, "We have enjoyed thirty years of quiet and
security" during which Israel attacked Lebanon and
Palestine on a daily basis, continued to build
settlements and became entrenched in extremism. Third,
the ‘free and democratic' West remained unable, for 18
days, to support the revolution of freedom and
democracy which they claim to support in other
countries. One more reason is that the process of
democracy, intended by George W. Bush and his generals
to be marred by the shame of foreign occupation, is
now crowned by the triumph of people's will against
oppression and tyranny. What is striking to all Arabs, and maybe to the
whole world, is the blanket Arab support of the
revolutionaries of Tahrir square and their honorable
fight for freedom and dignity, compared with the
United States' and the West's opposition of this
revolution. The position taken by the United States, the West
in general, and Israel towards this revolution should
define the future of inter-Arab relations, on the one
hand, and Western – Arab relations, on the other. The
American position has been hesitant, contradictory and
complicit with Israel and aimed at injecting Mubarak's
regime with life in a manner that should be
embarrassing to a country which claims to defend
freedom, and launches wars to spread democracy. The
reason might be the shock and confusion of the
American administration caused by the events in
Tunisia, in the beginning, and then in Egypt, which
befits a new century and ushers a new era in which
Arabs make history and do not only keep its record.
This position flies in the face of the values of
democracy, freedom and human rights. Arabs now realize that the main drive for Western
policies in the Middle East is that Israel should
impose its hegemony on the Arabs, take over their land
and suppress their aspirations for freedom, dignity
and democracy. They now know for sure that the West
befriends some Arab rulers in as much as they befriend
Israel; it is pleased with them in as much as they
please Israel. Four hundred million Arabs do not mean
anything to Barak Obama, Catherine Ashton and other
Western politicians who have suddenly become mute
while they have been extremely vociferous against
Iran. The primary concern of all Western policies in the
region is Israel, then their interests in terms of
oil, ransacking our peoples' resources through
laundering corrupt rulers' money in their banks,
companies and economies. It has become clear that the
West looks at Arabs with Israeli eyes, which was once
articulated by Golda Meir when she said that "a good
Arab is an Arab buried three meters deep under". We
should recall that Arab decadence and the
deterioration of their living conditions have been in
direct correlation with Israel's creation and
expansion in the second half of the 20th century.
Israel has spearheaded the campaign to distort the
image of the Arabs and branding them with terrorism
after 9/11. It also spearheaded efforts to drum up the
American war on Iraq and launched its own wars on
Lebanon and Gaza under European and American
protection. People like Elliot Abrams, a staunch
neo-conservative, were adamant in claiming that Bush's
policies were the right ones and that he was right in
wondering whether the peoples of the Middle East were
capable of living freely, or whether they are doomed
by their culture and history to live under despotism
(quoting a speech by Bush in November 2003). The
Egyptian answer today is that the Arab people can
teach the world how to fight for freedom, but not the
Bush way when he killed a million people for the sake
of Israel. The answer given by the Egyptians to Obama
and Bush supporters is: enough rhetoric; Arab people
yearn for a freedom they make, their way and for their
own historical, social and political reasons. They do
not trust false friendships, illusory rhetoric and
claims of embracing ‘Western values'. Now everything
is absolutely clear, and no power in the world can
deceive the Arabs again. The spring of democracy ushered on our Arab streets
is the greatest event in Arab history since the
revolutions which put an end to Western colonialism
and its lackey regimes. Liberation today is rooted in
the Arab will based on their conviction that the age
of submission and humiliation is over; and that the
dawn of pride, dignity and freedom has arrived. Western reactions show that the West has not yet
recovered from the shock; and that's quite natural.
This shock should make a shift in Western thinking
from branding Arabs with terrorism to acknowledging
Arabs as major contributors to civilization that they
uphold important values, reject injustice, love
freedom and are willing to die for democracy. The West
should also realize that the Arab identity is the
common element which brings Arabs together. It informs
their conscience, and no power will be able to take it
away from them. Prof. Bouthaina Shaaban is Political and Media
Advisor at the Syrian Presidency, and former Minister
of Expatriates. She is also a writer and professor at
Damascus University since 1985. She's got Ph.D. in
English Literature from Warwick University, London.
She was the spokesperson for Syria. She was nominated
for Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.
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