Editorial: Good News From Kabul
Even a month ago few people would have believed it possible. But the seemingly impossible has just happened in Afghanistan. We are, of course, referring to the country’s first presidential election held earlier this month. With almost all results counted, it is clear that Hamid Karzai has won a convincing victory. Though Karzai’s election is a major event in its own right, what makes the Afghan experience even more significant is that all the losers in this election have accepted the results and promised to help rebuild the war-shattered country.
An excellent editorial from Arab News. The piece could have gone a bit further, perhaps recognizing the role the US played in bringing about these elections, but at least the importance of the elections was noted. Astute, too, is the message that seems to have missed a lot of Americans who are still enraged by the 2000 presidential elections. They should have gotten on board four years ago, accepting the responsibilities of a democracy. If Bush is re-elected, they might take notice:
…While there is no democracy without elections, it is possible to have elections without democracy. An election becomes a sign of democratization only when many candidates and parties are allowed to stand, and when the losers, no matter how painful their defeat, accept the results. Both those conditions were met in the Afghan experience. In the American presidential election of 2000, the refusal of the Democratic candidate, Al Gore, to accept the Florida results led to a crisis that lasted weeks and finally intervention by the Supreme Court to resolve. Four years later many Americans have not yet absorbed the shock of Gore’s loss….
Arabs Are Big Losers in Nonmilitary Fields Too
Abdulaziz Sager, Arab News
DUBAI, 26 October 2004 — Many Arabs wrongly believe that Arab states have only lost the conflict with Israel on the battlefield. In fact, the Arab states have consistently sustained a loss nearly as momentous and heart-rending as the military loss.
This Arab News op-ed is a good one. It goes a long way in noting that military inferiority isn’t the only way to measure the weakness of one’s country or region. It would be very interesting indeed if Israelis were invited to take part in the upcoming conference on Gulf Security (Manama, Dec. ’04).
What is missing from Mr. Sager’s piece though, is recognition that every act of violence against innocent victims, be they Israeli civilians or Anglo-Irish-Iraqis like Margaret Hassan, does positive damage to the Arab image and cause. Every missed opportunity for Muslims, particularly those high within the religious community, to publicly condemn such actions further maginalizes Arab concerns, legitimate or not. As things now stand, people in the West are growing utterly disinterested when Arabs complain about Iraeli iniquities. The wanton slaughter of innocents, in the name of the Arab nation or Islam, diminishes all Arabs and all Muslims.
Iraqis Refuse to Be Pawns in a Clash of Fundamentalisms
Abdullah Muhsin, The Guardian
Some in the West have argued wrongly that the chaos in Iraq represents a national liberation struggle. They risk perpetuating a historical myth about our country. There is always a risk of cultural imperialism when people speak for others in the name of national liberation.
…Widespread, popular sentiment against the foreign occupation of our country does not translate into legitimation of these forces. With the support of the international labor movement, and others, we have a duty to ensure that the voice of Iraqi civil society is heard.
— Abdullah Muhsin is the foreign representative for the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions.
Excellent editorial, for several reasons. First, of course, is the fact that here’s an Iraqi stating clearly that what’s going on in Iraq is not a war of national liberation: it’s a last-ditch struggle by the thugs to take over a country that’s been badly destabilized. Ba’athist thugs or thugs cloaking themselves in the name of religion, it makes no difference. They can’t be permitted to succeed.
As pertinent as the piece is, though, I think it extremely important that it’s being run in the left-wing The Guardian in the UK, as well as in a Saudi paper, here the Arab News. This is a story that those who are simply twisted by the inequities of history need to understand: As much as you may loathe the US, it is utterly immoral to let Iraqis die so that you feel righteous in seeing a US defeat. A defeat, if it happens, will have far graver effects on Iraqis, not to mention all other Arabs in the region.
Islamists Seek Political Showdown in Kuwait
JEDDAH/KUWAIT, 25 October 2004 — The Kuwaiti Parliament is scheduled to start its new session tomorrow amid reports that a number of Salafi Islamist deputies plan to demand a constitutional amendment that would make the country an Islamic state.
This needs to be watched. Currently, the Kuwaiti constitution cites Sharia law as one of the sources of law in the country. The very conservative deputies want to make it the only source of law. That would be a truly backwards step.
I find it interesting–to say the least–that Saudi papers are reporting this as it’s a very hot topic in the country, where Sharia law is the national law.
More Regions and More Powers for Provincial Governors in the Pipeline
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News
JEDDAH, 25 October 2004 — Moves are under way to increase the number of regions in the Kingdom from 13 to 18 and give more powers to regional governors as part of administrative reforms, the Al-Hayat Arabic daily reported yesterday quoting informed sources.
Even as it moves toward its first nationwide elections, the Saudi government is making changes. This effort to create more provinces is another step toward decentralization of power.
Dr. Khaled M. Batarfi, kbatarfi@al-madina.com.sa
Now and then, Americans ask me the same question: Why don’t you, Arabs, help us in Iraq? Aren’t you better off without Saddam?
This is an unusually contentious–not to mention factually inaccurate–opinion piece by Dr. Khalid Batarfi, Editor of Al-Madina newspaper. It’s an interesting article to read if you want to get an idea of just how deeply the enmity toward the US runs among those who once considered us friends. It also shows, I think, the strong thread of self-destructive thinking that frequently pops up in Middle Eastern political analyses.
Editorial: More Oil or No More Oil
In a freak coincidence that thriller writers might imagine the price of oil hit an all-time record yesterday exactly at the time that the Kyoto Protocols came into effect.
The Arab News has a good editorial pointing out the paradox created by the Kyoto environmental treaty. The developed and developing countries all want to cut pollution caused by hydrocarbon fuels. At the same time, they cry for greater production of those very fuels. This piece takes the view that oil in the market place is more valuable than oil in the ground. This is very different from what Saudi popular opinion used to be. From the 1970s, well into the 90s, the common wisdom was that whatever oil was worth today, it’d be worth more tomorrow. And interesting article.
Last year, when reports about a possible United Nations role in the oil-for-food scam in Iraq first broke out, few people could have imagined its scale. Fewer would have believed that senior UN officials and dozens of prominent personalities in more than 30 countries had been drawn into a diabolical scheme to rob the Iraqi people, then suffering under UN-imposed sanctions. The earliest reports, based on documents from Iraqi ministries, showed that a UN assistant secretary-general was at the center of the scam.
This Arab News editorial is simply stunning. It severely takes the UN to task for mismanagement of the “Oil for Food” program designed to help Iraqi citizens during the UN sanctions period. It also notes how different countries and individuals took up to 10% of the total income from the program to line their own pockets. What’s most astounding, though, are the conclusions:
Only a proper judicial inquiry, held in public, by the United States, which is the UN’s host country, preferably in conjunction with the European Union and, of course, Iraq, could reveal the whole truth and bring the thieves to justice.
White House Race: Without Beating About the Bush
Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid
If you are a Palestinian or Saudi, you might probably wish to see George Bush re-elected. If you are an Iraqi, Egyptian or Syrian, your preference could be to see John Kerry in the White House. Though it is the American people who will cast votes and make the decision, the rest of the world has a big stake in the outcome because the man in the White House influences not only America’s affairs. He influences world events.
Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid, Director General of Al-Arabiya TV, comes through with another astute editorial. He offers a quick survey of how different Arab national audiences tend to see the US presidential election, but offers words of caution about hoping for too much. Excellent piece, well worth reading.
The Mideast’s Massive, Silent ‘Swing Vote’ Is Growing Impatient
Afshin Molavi, Arab News
With little media notice and marginal scholarly interest, a powerful and potentially transformative movement is taking shape across the Middle East. The movement cuts across religious, ethnic and gender lines. It threatens ruling elites. It poses new challenges to the social order. It makes new and urgent demands of civil society. It feeds and animates other movements. And it will reshape the region as we know it, far more than the US invasion of Iraq.
This is a very good op-ed on the need for economic reform, quickly. The writer is right on target, I think, in pointing out how economic reform is one of the most important means of getting people’s mindsets changed so that terrorism no longer seems a way out of the morass.
Afshin Molavi is a fellow at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank devoted to pragmatic solutions to global problems
Tariq A. Al-Maeena, close_encounters@gawab.com
I must confess that like most Saudis I do not watch Saudi TV very much. In fact my viewing is limited to the holy month of Ramadan. And only for a specific period during this month. For it is then that I would turn on our state sponsored monolith of communication a few minutes before the breaking of the fast.
Anyone who has lived in the Middle East for long has noted that Arabic TV tends toward being content-light. Things have improved greatly over the years. Twenty years ago, for instance, the first 20 minutes of a 30-minute news program was taken up with pictures of the president or king of whatever country meeting whomever happened to be visiting that day. Then pictures of senior ministers meeting the same visitors. The whole was accompanied by strange medelies of martial music.
Now, there’s more news, more commentary, but nothing terribly appealing, as Tariq Al-Maeena makes clear in the opinion piece. There’s still a lot of room for improvement. Perhaps when Saudi TV becomes privatized, those improvements will come.
Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat the Arabic language, London-based daily has an article by Hussein Shobokshi praising the Middle East Broadcasting Corp’s Ramadan program “Rihla [Journey] With Sheikh Hamzaâ€. The program, filmed in the U.S., “It is a program about a journey of several Saudi youths with an American Sheikh, Hamza Yusuf, in the U.S. where they meet ordinary people, Muslims and Christian and Jewish religious men. The theme of the journey promotes the values of tolerance and positive dialogue in a format our viewers are not used to in our traditional religious programs… It was nice that this initiative came from Saudi Arabia.†“Rihla With Sheikh Hamzaâ€, is shown in half-hour episodes daily, during prime time.