Opinion
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News Analysis
Addressing Arab angst
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Some of its leaders and thinkers seem ready to start a process of reform in the Arab world, writes Kesava Menon.
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Donald Rumsfeld with King Fahd... staying friends.
FOR A while after September 11, the Arab world was under intense international pressure to undertake the long delayed tasks of self-scrutiny and internal correction. That pressure has eased of late with the world's attention having shifted to the subcontinental confrontation, the enormous job of re-building Afghanistan, renewed violence in West Asia etc. Western Governments, notably that of the U.S., might still be working behind the scenes to pressure the Arab world to reform itself but what is more noteworthy is that some of the Arab leaders and thinkers seem ready to take the reform process forward on their own initiative.
Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdelaziz, effective ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has been among the first to note the need for change. At a conclave of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, the Saudi Crown Prince described the present as a period of crisis for the Arab and Muslim worlds but went on to point out that the crisis threw up opportunities that should not be missed. To clear any doubts that his listeners might have had about the drift of his speech, Prince Abdullah said it was time the Arab and Muslim worlds stopped blaming others for their ills and instead tried to understand and rectify their own faults. A few writers have also pointed out that those who drifted into outfits such as Al-Qaeda were after all sons of the Arab world. If these sons had embarked on such a mistaken path it was high time their seniors addressed the reasons that led them on to such a path.
These sentiments and initiatives have probably been eclipsed by the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf's speech of January 12 in which he sought to demonstrate to the international community that he was the Muslim leader who would undertake the boldest of reforms. But, with all due respect to Gen. Musharraf's sentiments, what might happen to his plans vis-a-vis Pakistan can at best have a peripheral effect on developments in the rest of the Muslim world. Pakistan, for all that some might say about its being the "citadel of Islam", is not at the heart of that world. In fact, the manner in which Pakistan misled the Muslim world about the nature of the Taliban and its true potential and character appears to have left a strong residue of resentment in the Arab world at least. (Those who have written about self- correction have also written about how Pakistan pulled askew the relationship which the Arabs had with the non-Muslim world).
Osama bin Laden and his ilk were fighting, or so they believed, for the "liberation" of the Arab and Muslim worlds. They believed this "subjugation" was epitomised by what they perceived was a western siege of the Arabian Peninsula and the holy shrines located therein. What they were most irked by was not just the presence of western business houses or military forces but by the intrusion of a culture which they could not cope with and which threatened to swamp their own. The mentality that the heartland was under siege was home-grown in the Peninsula and the Arab lands bordering it and for that mentality (and all that follows from it) to be eradicated, the civic work and ideological struggle have to be waged there.
At the core of this mentality is a concept — and the common use of the Urdu word saazish and its equivalents sum it up — that the rest of the world has been conspiring against the Arabs and other Muslims. Such "conspiracies" are supposed to have halted the phenomenal advance of the Arab and Islamic civilisation four or five centuries ago and this uniquely malevolent attitude of the non-Muslim world is also supposed to have been manifested in events such as the attack on the World Trade Center (this was supposed to have been the result of a conspiracy by the Jews).
With the Saudi Crown Prince's words — that the Arabs would have to stop blaming everyone else and start a process of self-correction — the first step seems to have been taken towards dismantling the mental straitjacket that is their sense of victimhood.
The ideological struggle, once it is really joined, will be long-drawn and multi-faceted. It is not just the school curricula and the world view propagated through the mosques that will have to be changed.
The lack of a work ethic — a void created and perpetuated by three decades of oil-wealth induced complacency — is a matter the Arabs have to seriously address. Without the self-belief that they can tackle the technologies and systems of today, the youth of the Arab world will continue to be drawn to an ideology that the only way to defend themselves against an intrusion into their space is through rage and violence.
Ironically, organisations such as Al-Qaeda which made use of these technologies and systems for their own purposes — computers, global financial networks, a management style suitable for their requirements — showed that there was nothing intrinsic that prevented the Arabs from absorbing the requirements of the modern world.
It is too early to say whether that struggle will be waged with the commitment required. Meanwhile, despite some controversial reports both the U.S. and the Governments of the Peninsula states say their cooperation on the more mundane aspects of tracking Al-Qaeda men and their resources is functioning well. While not much is being said on the subject, the focus could well be on the financial networks that Osama and his ilk set up.
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