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Islamic State militants in Raqqa, Syria
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Sever Plocker

The Arab world versus Islam

Islam has helped to destroy Arabic civilization, argue two Arab intellectuals in emotive essays in separate Western publications, and only intensive introspection by the followers of the faith can lead out of the century-long abyss.

It is perfectly feasible that this time it will really happen. It is perfectly feasible that this time, in light of the black fanaticism and the rivers of blood and death, the Arab intelligentsia will embark on some genuine introspection.

 

 

It is this soul-searching that Fouad Ajami demanded in his book "The Dream Palace of the Arabs" after the 1967 Six-Day War. It is this soul-searching that seemed to be inevitable in the wake of the attacks of September 11, but immediately turned into a long list of gripes against America and the West.

 

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This soul-searching experienced a revival in the short-lived Arab Spring, until it was replaced by the discourse of hate typical of those members of the elite in the service of the dark Arab regimes.

 

The Arab Spring in Tahrir Square, Cairo (Photo: AFP)
The Arab Spring in Tahrir Square, Cairo (Photo: AFP)

 

Most of them disdainfully and disgustedly rejected critical analysis of Arab society; they suspected condescension, use of Western criteria that did not fit in with Arab values, misrepresentation of Islam and so on. And above all, there is the enduring tendency to blame others for failures, in particular the Zionists. Israel's disappearance from the map of the Middle East was presented by the Arab intelligentsia - and often - as a necessary condition for the restoration of the greatness of their wonderful civilization.

Muslims in Indonesia burn the Israeli flag (Photo: AP)
Muslims in Indonesia burn the Israeli flag (Photo: AP)

 

But now, it seems, real Arab soul-searching is a necessity, without which there can be no resurrection. And indeed, it is from the ruins that other, new voices will start to emerge.

 

One such example comes in the form of the article "The Barbarians Within Our Gates", which received enormous attention when published by the popular American website Politico. Its author, Hisham Melhem, is the Washington bureau chief for the Arabic-language TV channel Al Arabiya, and a senior journalist in Lebanon.

 

"Arab civilization, such as we knew it, is all but gone," he writes. "The Arab world today is more violent, unstable, fragmented and driven by extremism… than at any time since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire a century ago. Every hope of modern Arab history has been betrayed."

 

One by one, Melhem cites the "colossal failures of all the ideologies and political movements that swept the Arab region: Arab nationalism, in its Baathist and Nasserite forms; various Islamist movements; Arab socialism; the rentier state and rapacious monopolies, leaving in their wake a string of broken societies."

 

Furthermore, says Melhem, "(t)he jihadists of the Islamic State did not arise out of thin air… They are a gruesome manifestation of a deeper malady afflicting Arab political culture, which was stagnant, repressive and patriarchal after the decades of authoritarian rule that led to the disastrous defeat in the 1967 war with Israel."

 

And thus Melhem arrives at the crux of his message. "And let’s face the grim truth: There is no evidence whatever that Islam in its various political forms is compatible with modern democracy," he writes. The legend of a marriage between Islam and democracy is one that harbored by Arab intellectuals and their contemporary Western counterparts, as though there exists a political Islam whose followers also believe in the fundamental values of democracy. This, Melhem writes, is self-deception, lying to oneself, for there is no such Islam:

 

"For most Islamists, democracy means only majoritarian rule, and the rule of sharia law, which codifies gender inequality and discrimination against non-Muslims."

 

A similar analysis appears in a piece entitled "The tragedy of the Arabs", penned by an anonymous Arab intellectual and published two months ago British magazine The Economist.

 

"Islam, or at least modern reinterpretations of it," he writes, "is at the core of some of the Arabs’ deep troubles." It has, he claims, led to the destruction of the Arab civilization.

 

Only in the context of the introspection will it be possible to fathom Arab participation in the current war by the West against followers of the faith. Hesham Melhem ends his own personal essay with a gloomy forecast.

 

"My generation of Arabs," he writes, "was told by both the Arab nationalists and the Islamists that we should man the proverbial ramparts to defend the 'Arab World' against the numerous barbarians (imperialists, Zionists, Soviets) massing at the gates. Little did we know that the barbarians were already inside the gates, that they spoke our language and were already very well entrenched in the city."

 

He mourns the prospects for the future of the Arab world. "It took the Arabs decades and generations to reach this nadir. It will take us a long time to recover—it certainly won’t happen in my lifetime."

 

Yet this soul-searching is not certain, even though there is nothing like looming disaster to heighten self-awareness. But without intelligent and painful Arab introspection, all the bombing of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda factions will be utterly in vain.

 


פרסום ראשון: 09.29.14, 10:15
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