"A Tunisian Intellectual on The Arab Obsession with Vengeance"
Special Dispatch - Reform in the Arab and Muslim World May 4, 2003


A Tunisian Intellectual on The Arab Obsession with Vengeance

In two articles that appeared on the liberal website Elaph(1), Tunisian
intellectual Al-'Afif Al-Akhdar analyzed and criticized dominant values in
the Arab world. Al-Akhdar, currently residing in Paris, was a regular
columnist for the London Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat, but was fired at
the instruction of the paper's owner, Saudi Prince Khaled ibn Sultan, for
saying during a talk show on Al-Jazeera that Saudi practices such amputating
body parts render the regime "barbaric."(2) In the first article, Al-Akhdar
sets out the logic and goal of the attack on Baghdad, as "told" by the
missiles as they fall on the city; in the second, he looks at deeply rooted
thought patterns and values in the Arab world. The following are excerpts
from the two articles:


I. 'What Did the Missiles Falling on Baghdad Tell Me?'(3)

"...All the peoples of the world are moving forward along the course of
history towards globalization, a society of knowledge, and political
modernization - all but you, who race in the opposite direction."

"The Eastern European countries have moved peacefully and with lightning
speed from murderous Stalinist totalitarianism to democracy, and from
economic backwardness to continuing economic growth that amazed even the
most optimistic predictions. As for you, you're moving in rapid steps from
backwardness into sub-backwardness, and from poverty into sub-poverty. As
population growth and weapons acquisitions increase, economic growth and
education decline into degradation. The peoples of mankind are governed by
the law of progress, while you are governed by the law of regression."

"You replaced the dictatorship of the Shah for the theocracy of [Ayatolla]
Khomeini, from the pores of whose skin the blood was dripping. In Sudan,
Hassan Al-Turabi - nicknamed by our media 'the pope of world terror' -
turned against Al-Sadeq Al-Mahdi's elected government after he was toppled
by free elections, and established on the ruins [of Al-Mahdi's government] a
militaristic and bloody Islamic regime, unique of its kind in the annals of
this country, that set it back decades in all spheres."

"Febrile and delusional with the solitary, fixed idea of military vengeance
for their two centuries of defeat at the hands of the West and Israel, your
political and intellectual elites became crippled. [This is] instead of
restoring your legitimate rights through negotiation, as is being done by
your contemporaries - except for you who are resolved to achieve through
terror what others have achieved through diplomacy."

"This insane obsession with vengeance has robbed your minds of the ability
to think reasonably. That is why you are incapable of identifying your real
problems and defining your political, economic, social, and educational
priorities. In contrast to almost all other societies, your societies are...
completely closed. We [missiles] are resolved to purge your madness of
vindictiveness and [cure] your historical castration complex by lancing your
narcissistic, putrid wound..."

"The neutral, and at times even sympathetic, disregard shown by vast sectors
of the Baghdad populace and Iraqi intelligentsia - whom Saddam tortured...
for 35 years - towards the fall of Baghdad, was an incentive for us [the
missiles] to expand our plans to retake [Iraq] and to intervene in the
domestic affairs of other Arab capitals as well, since they refuse to open
their societies to political and media pluralism and to respect human
rights... as long as they consider - like Baghdad did - acquiring WMD so as
to ruin their own people, first economically and then politically and
militarily. This is what the moronic and despotic Saddam regime did, more
than any other regime in the Arab world and the entire world."

'The Missiles Will Force You - as They did Nazi Germany and Militaristic
Japan - to Open to Democracy and Moderation'

"We know that your obscurantist religious culture is a terrible obstacle
hindering your transition to a society less closed, less oppressive, and
less hostile towards the individual, the woman, the non-Muslim, the
rational, the modern, and toward life itself. We also know that your
political imagination has learned nothing, from the days of Caliph 'Uthman
[the third caliph after Prophet Muhammad's death] to the days of Saddam,
except for this saying: 'Nothing can remove a caliph except for death or
complete heresy' - but not his oppression [of his people]. We, [the
missiles] are targeting this obsolete political imagination so as to force
it to open to democracy and its helpmeet, moderation. We know that with you,
success cannot be guaranteed, but the experience is worth a shot..."

"We would be lying if we told you that we want you to be realistic,
rational, open-minded democrats and modernists for love of your beautiful
eyes, because on the scale of our values you will always be a mere mustard
seed. [No,] we do this for the sake of our strategic interests in the Middle
East and in the oil fields, and for the sake of our security - at which you
struck [as soon as you realized] you were capable of doing so, with terror
and a frantic race to obtain WMD. This is an explosive mixture that we can't
let you play with."

"Our decision - that is, bringing you into modernization, against your will
and in the service of our interests - suits the interests of important
sectors of your enlightened elites and those who listen to them. [These
range from] the elites and the people of Iraq to the elite and the people of
Iran, who entertain vain hopes of granting civil and human rights to those
whom you have deprived of these rights - like the Sunnis in Iran, whom
Khomenei considered 'impure' and who are denied all rights, so that even
Friday prayer and burial services for their deceased are held in one single
mosque in Tehran."

"[Another example is the] Shi'ites of Iraq, outcast although they are the
overwhelming majority, and the same discrimination is applied to Shi'ites of
Saudi Arabia, whom the jurisprudents of Wahabbi terror call Rawafidha(4) and
issue Fatwas prohibiting Sunnis from consuming meat slaughtered by Shi'ites.
The same is true also for the non-Muslims whom you have cast into a
'ground-zero' of civil rights. And for women who you degraded to a status
half that of men in judicial [affairs] and [in matters of] inheritance, and
into nothing at all in matters of civil rights. You even deprived them of
the right to drive a car (as in Saudi Arabia) or of the right to a passport
without their husbands' permission (as in Jordan and Algiers - although
President 'Abd Al-'Aziz Buteflika has formed a committee to prepare a bill
on personal status like the law in Tunisia. So, welcome to the club of
modernization)."

"Why don't you consider solving your real problems while you squander out of
unique stupidity all your material and human resources, thus compounding
fourfold this [vicious] circle. Perhaps your fabricated problems have
overwhelmed the remnants of your intelligence."

"We have efficiently dealt with a similar crazed obsession with vengeance by
means of occupation, in Nazi Germany and in militaristic Japan. Today, the
Germans and Japanese have completely forgotten the idea of wasting their
resources for the sake of acquiring conventional and non-conventional
weapons. They have learned to allocate their resources wisely so as to
modernize their economy, [upgrade] their educational [system], and [improve]
their political establishments. Similarly, through bombs, we also dealt with
Serbia's madness for ethnic purging and taught it how to play the game of
democracy and moderation in statesmanship and how to extradite its Saddam...
to the International Criminal Court, to stand trial as a war criminal. And
here we are, attempting this same bitter treatment with you, lest perhaps...
In any case, this is your last chance, O masters of the missed
opportunity..."

II. 'Why Does the Arab Sisyphus Lift the Heavy Rock Only to Drop it on His
Own Feet?'(5)

"There are white days and black days in the history of people. Their white
days are those that give them their founding myths - that is, historical and
symbolical events that shape their collective human imagination, like the
[French Revolution's 1789] Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.
There is no substitute for these founding myths in inspiring the [human]
imagination and in setting the [peoples'] creative energies in motion."

"The black days are those on which these peoples suffered defeats that they
were incapable of absorbing, psychologically or intellectually, in such a
way that they could derive the real conclusions. In this situation, people
tend to curl up within themselves like frightened snails, to brood about
their dark thoughts - their catastrophes and their collective obsession with
vengeance - and to use them as a pivot that diverts them to suicidal
political and militaristic decisions. [They do this] instead of [using] the
same circumstances to elevate themselves by way of dignified and creative
collective action, aimed at rehabilitating their self-confidence, and
triumphing over those thoughts."

"Throughout modern Arab history, the collective Arab imagination has needed
a healthy and inspirational founding myth. Yet this imagination has suffered
defeats disproving the Arabs' self-deceiving notions about themselves as
'the best nation that has been delivered to mankind.'[Koran](6) They were
struck by impossible obsession with avenging [each of] their defeats, from
the days of the Mamluk defeat at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte in the late
1700s to the defeat of [Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser] Arafat at the
hands of [Israeli Prime Minster Ariel] Sharon at the beginning of the 21st
century. [This] in addition to two centuries of defeat by [Western]
imperialism, that left its open, festering wounds."

'The Tribal Arab Culture of Vengeance Transmuted their Defeats into a
Fixated, Vengeful Mentality'

"This deep-rooted culture of tribal vengefulness in the [Arab] collective
consciousness is a fundamental driving force. [This driving force] has
transmuted this consciousness into a fixated, brooding, vengeful mentality,
instead of transforming [that kind of culture] into a [source of]
far-sighted thought and self-criticism, as a grasp for a spring board for a
consciousness of the vital necessity to emulate the enemy, that is becoming
like him in modern knowledge, thought and politics, so as to reshape the
traditional personality and adapt it to the requirements of the time, as did
Japan in the aftermath of its unprecedented defeat in the history of mankind
in 1945."

"The culture of tribal vengeance haunts... not only in our relations with
the other but also our relations with each other, between Arab countries and
within each country, from honor crimes [i.e. murder of women] to tribal and
factional strife. Rightly, Muhammad Hasannain Haikal(7) called the 20 years
of war between the Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya and Islamic Jihad organizations
and the [Egyptian] police 'the blood vengeance war between the police tribe
and the Islamist tribe.'"

"The hysteria of vengeance on the West and on its protégée Israel has
disastrous results - for example, the Arab traditional elite's phobia of
Western modernism. The Western imperialism that followed this Western
modernism crippled this elite, depriving it of the ability of rational
statesmanship. [Statesmanship] that includes [the adoption of] constructive
[Western] innovation; setting realistic aims; playing the political game
rationally; realistically interpreting the [global or regional] balance of
power and harnessing [this interpretation] in the decision-making [process];
managing crises sensibly by peaceably bringing the conditions of its
solution into fruition; and, finally, developing decision-making
procedures."

"The policy of vengeance that prevails today, especially among the
influential elites in Palestine, Syria and Iraq, has banished any rational
policy from their domestic decision making. In their domestic policy, these
elites dismiss all public discussion. In their foreign policy, they refuse
to negotiate. This is how these elites increase the likelihood of implosion
[i.e. domestic strife] and war. It [also] explains their careening from one
domestic outbreak [of violence] into the next, and from one destructive war
into the next, much fiercer war."

"These traditional leaderships, saturated with collective narcissism, have
undergone the same experience as people afflicted with depression. They are
driven by their guilt-struck emotions to self-punishment, which is likely to
end in suicide. This collective self-punishment is revealed in many cases,
which I will summarize in two [phenomenon]: a) an 'all or nothing' policy,
and b) a cult of armament and violence aimed at salvaging the injured face
of this collective narcissism through martial victory, hoping that this
would wash out the disgrace of military defeats."

'The Neurotic Tenacity of an 'All or Nothing' Policy and Its Consequences'

"The 'all or nothing' policy was behind [Jerusalem's Grand Mufti] Haj Amin
Al-Huseini's rejection of the Peel Commission [1937] [decision] to grant the
Palestinians 80% of the land of Palestine, and of the 1947 UN resolution to
grant the Palestinians 45% of Palestine. This policy also motivated Hafez
Al-Assad, at the end of the summit conference with president Clinton in
2000, to refuse [the offer to] regain the Golan Heights except for 200
meters on the eastern bank of the Sea of Galilee, claiming that when he was
in the army, he used to wade and fish in the lake! And what was the result?
Great difficulty for his successor in regaining even a single meter in the
foreseeable future, save for concessions that the Israeli leadership only
ever dreamed of."

"The cult of arming with WMD drove Saddam Hussein into delirious...
decisions. [Such as the decisions] to strike the Kurds with chemical
weapons; shoot tear gas at demonstrators - [tear gas] produced from
aflatoxins that cause liver cancer... as revealed by Saddam's former
scientific advisor Dr. Hussein Al-Shahrastani; attack Iran with chemical
weapons; invade Kuwait; in addition to wasting - over 35 years - his
country's material and human resources on the altar of his vengeful
obsession and insane passion for martial victory."

"Currently, Iraq's resources, which include the second largest oil reserves
in the world, qualify this country, economically and scientifically, to be
the Japan of the Arab world. [Instead, it] became one of the poorest, most
despotic and bloodiest countries in the world."

"The fanatical and neurotic tenacity of the [policy of] 'all or nothing' and
martial victory are, without a doubt [the source] of Hamas's program to
'liberate Palestine to the last grain of earth and to restore it as a Waqf
[religious endowment] for all the world's Muslims' - and [the factor] behind
[Hamas's] insane refusal to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the
Gaza Strip, and east Jerusalem."

"And what was the result, after the suicidal operations had failed to
fulfill this impossible aim? Hamas's spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin,
appealed to Israeli PM Sharon for a 10-year truce [Hudna], in the aftermath
of which [the circumstances would be reassessed]."

"This kind of suicidal policy was also behind Yasser Arafat's unexpected
shift from promising negotiations to futile armed struggle and Intifada,
that has proven no less futile."

"And why is that? It was because Chairman Arafat envied Hizbullah's success
at 'expelling' the Israeli army from the Israeli security zone [in Lebanon].
Overnight, he decided to shift from negotiating with to expelling the
occupying Israeli army, and unilaterally declaring a fully sovereign
Palestinian state without [paying] the price of recognizing Israel - as
Egypt and Jordan had already done. And what was the outcome of this vengeful
and suicidal decision? Unprecedented self-punishment: The occupying army
[Israel] returned to 42% of the territories liberated through negotiation."

"By the same logic, Chairman Arafat turned down president Clinton's proposal
to regain 97% of the occupied territories, with a promise of $40 billion to
resettle the Palestinian refugees within the promised Palestinian state. And
what was the outcome of this decision, which was in disregard of any
consideration of Palestinian national interest for establishing a homeland
and a lasting state? The outcome is that Arafat and his people are today in
grave danger."

'The Arabs and Muslims - Both Masses and Elites Alike - Believed in Bin
Laden and Acclaimed Him'

"The last 'hero' of the Arab and Islamic nation, the Wahabbi terrorist Osama
bin Laden, wanted to avenge his Arab and Islamic nation on the 'Crusaders'
by attacking New York and Washington, D.C. The Arabs and the Muslims, both
elites and masses, believed in him and acclaimed him. And what was the
result? The complete opposite: The U.S. invaded Afghanistan and expelled bin
Laden and his patrons, the Taliban, from the country, with determination to
uproot them. In addition, our 'hero' [bin Laden] provided the
neoconservatives in the American administration the chance they longed for
to implement their geopolitical vision: to redefine and reorganize their
priorities independently of their European allies. Abandoning the
formalities of international law - which was for a long time a shield for
the 'oppressed ones,' of whom bin Laden was the self-appointed spokesman -
put an end to the prospects of the emergence of an economically and
militarily unified Europe as [another] global
pole, [a vision] of which the Arabs dreamed night and day."

"Finally, bin Laden also inadvertently helped [the neoconservatives] to
reshape international relationships in accordance with the [new] global
balance of superpowers that brought about the U.S.'s ascendancy as the most
powerful superpower in the world, economically and militarily. Now, this
superpower insists on unilaterally controlling international decision-making
in an attempt to curb the proliferation of WMD and liquidate Islamic terror
by pursuing it and monitoring the countries that generate terror through
religious Jihad education - an education which all Arab countries implement,
except Tunisia - and replacing the regimes that arm and shelter terror. "

"These are the disastrous outcomes that the Arabs themselves produced with
their own hands, because of their obsession with vengeance..."

Notes:

(1) The Elaph website is the first daily Arab independent on-line newspaper.
It was established by Saudi businessman, journalist, and author Othman
Al-Omeir, former editor of the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq
Al-Awsat as well as former editor of the Saudi papers Al-Jazira, Al-Riyadh,
Al-Yawm, and Al-Majalla. ( http://promo.elaph.com)