Mshari Al-Zaydi scratches his head in puzzlement on the pages of Asharq Alawsat. How, he asks, can ‘Arab Intellectuals’ (defined as ‘those who are concerned with political, social and cultural criticism and development, whether revolutionary or reformist’) not realize the utter contradictions between their avowed projects and now support reactionary Islam? Do they not realize that everything they stand (or stood) for is antithetical to what’s being proposed by the likes of Usama bin Laden, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah? Even Christian ‘Arab Intellectuals’ are finding themselves cheering for their enemies.

He makes several attempts to reason an answer, but the best one he finds is an all-too-human and simple one: narcissism. ‘Arab Intellectuals’ (his quotation marks) just want to make sure they’re on the side with power. Right now, they’re betting that the religious conservatives are the ones who are going to have that power. May they be wrong.

The Arab Elite and the Double Standards
Mshari Al-Zaydi

How can progressive intellectuals claiming to be propagating enlightenment, freedom and openness, support a fundamentalist party such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which openly declares through [its Secretary General] Hassan Nasrallah that it is part of Wilayat-e-Faqih?

And why do these intellectuals support a fundamentalist group that has dominated over and transformed the [Gaza] Strip into an experiment station for fundamentalist practices on the public and society, such as the case with Hamas in Gaza?

How can it reach the point where some among the Arab intelligentsia, the people spearheading progress and enlightenment, describe Al Qaeda’s leader [Osama Bin Laden] as the Mujahid Sheikh?

This is truly baffling: On the one hand, we find these Arab intellectuals calling for and propagating the need for criticism, enlightenment and reform whilst being infuriated over their governments’ hindrance of development, progress, democracy, tolerance and the tackling of women’s and minorities’ issues, while on the other; it is those same people that chant their loyalties to fundamentalist groups.

Indeed, it is a contradiction, but it is one of many in our Arab societies. The matter has even reached the point where some of the Christian Arab intellectuals have expressed their fascination with Khomeini’s revolution and Wilayat-e-Faqih.
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