It's easier to reach the moon...

By Hmida Ben Romdhane



There is a wide spread cliché in the West presenting the Arabs as embittered and underdeveloped peoples living inside dictatorships and enjoying no rights. So, their attitudes toward the developed countries are determined by jealousy; and they hate America because they envy her wealth and the liberty her citizens are enjoying.
The Arabs are undoubtedly embittered and frustrated, not by the jealousy or the envy, but by the destabilizing feeling of injustice they experience year after year because of the imbalanced American foreign policy toward the Arab world. They feel offended and humiliated but not jealous or envious. The humiliation is the most unbearable sentiment the human being can experience. The state of mind of the humiliated people resembles that of Shakespeare’s hero who was lamenting in Macbeth: “Life is a story told by an idiot full of noise and fury and signifying nothing.”
Life in these conditions is highly depreciated, and this constitutes a strong incentive for the terrorist to sacrifice it in a despaired attempt to restore the lost dignity for the social group to whom he belongs, by harming the occupier or the oppressor. Between the humiliated party and the party inflicting the humiliation is instituted, involuntarily, a catastrophic cooperation, destructive for both.
The satellite TV and the 24-hour-information channels increase sharply and widen dramatically the sentiment of humiliation in the Arab world. Charles Graner and Ivan Frederick didn’t only abuse and humiliate the few dozens of Iraqi prisoners; they abused and humiliated the millions of Arab citizens who have seen the Abu Ghraib scandal on Al Jazeera. Likewise, the pain and the grief caused by the death of thousands of Iraqi civilians are not only felt by the victims’ relatives; they are also felt by the millions of Al Jazeera viewers. There is a devastating standardization of the Arab psyche, from Morocco to Bahrain, through the pain, the grief and the humiliation.
People in the Arab world become addicted to Al Jazeera, and this goes beyond the strict need to be informed. One could suspect a masochist behavior, a pathological need to suffer by watching tirelessly the brutal behavior of the American army in Iraq and the Israeli army in the occupied territories, with the secret hope that this self inflicted suffering will decrease the harshness of the guilt complex generated by the powerlessness and the incapacity of the Arab world to provide any help to the Iraqis or to the Palestinians. At the same time, the resentment and the hostility toward the American policy in the Middle East and the gulf increase sharply and become a matter of concern for the US officials. They are concerned that the rage and the hatred expressed in the Arab and Muslim world reach an unprecedented level. But what is dismaying is the explanation provided by officials in Washington that the wide spread hatred of American foreign policy is the consequence of the failure of public relations and communication policies.
This flawed explanation is seen in the Arab countries as an attempt by the US administration to avoid going to the root of the problem. For the real problem here is the very substance of the US policy toward the Arab world and not the alleged incompetence of they who are in charge of the American public relation policy. A simple declaration by a third rank US official condemning the destruction of Palestinian houses by Israeli bulldozers, for instance, can do more in improving the American image than the best public relation campaign carried out by the most competent experts.
The recent report by a Pentagon advisory panel is very clear on this issue: “The critical problem in American public diplomacy directed toward the Muslim world is not one of ‘dissemination of information’ or even one of crafting and delivering the ‘right’ message. Rather it is a fundamental problem of credibility”, says the report, quoted by the New York Times. This problem of credibility has worsened sharply since the occupation of Iraq where, instead of the promised democracy, Iraqis are facing chaos and death.
In the light of what is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq it’s hard for America to convince the Arabs and Muslims in the “Great Middle East” of its good will or its intention to help, not to harm. After seeing what has been done in Falluja, for instance, it’s hard for the people of the region to accept the idea that the destruction of the town is the necessary step for democracy or the prelude for progress.
However, one can’t seriously argue that American credibility is lost once and for all in the Arab and Muslim world. According to History there are neither perpetual enemies nor permanent allies. So, one day or the other, things will change. But things can change for the better or the worse. In either case, the ball is in the American field. For the nature of the change is dictated by who decides and not by who reacts to the decision. And till now, the Arabs had no other choice but to react to American decisions with little chance to influence or reverse them. We are waiting for decisions that generate other feelings than disappointment and anger. For this, The US should change its politics toward the Arab world and not just its communication policy.
In one of his columns in The New York Times, Thomas Friedman wrote: “ I want a president who can one day restore Sept. 11th to its rightful place on the calendar: as the day after Sept.10th and before Sept.12th . I do not want it to become a day that defines us.”(1) I do not think that Mr. Friedman wants America to forget the World Trade Center and turn its back to the victims. But he is right to refuse the idea that his country remains indefinitely “addicted to 9/11”.
More than five years now separate us from the tragic event. Isn’t it time for an introspection exercise and a good opportunity to think about all the mistakes committed by the US foreign policy makers? What we call international politics is a huge forum in which nations are bullying peacefully, and sometimes violently, to defend and ensure their interests. But frankly, one can’t understand the systematic hostility of the American foreign policy makers to the Arab causes. One can’t understand what interest America has ensured by locking up itself in the Iraqi stalemate, what harm will affect US interests if the Palestinians establish their State on 22% of Palestine or what good Washington is reaping by supporting systemically Israel ?
America went to the moon because it had the will to do so. It couldn’t reconcile itself with the Arab world because it lacks the will to do so. Till when should we live with the incongruity that it’s easier to reach the moon than to ensure some justice on earth?
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(1) The New York Times, October 14, 2004.