The Arabic Unhappiness

What happened  some days ago at the U.S. embassy  in Benghazi, Libya, simply shocked the whole world. It remembered us that it’s not true that we’re living in peace times. We’re into at least one conflict.

In fact crowds immediately gathered in different squares so quick to take the breath away. Suddenly different kinds of posters and slogan were shown , praising death, holy war, sharia and hate. The protest and the anger of entire people literally exploded as a bomb. But this one is not a common mass destruction weapon. This one has been carefully assembled with such tools as desperation, poverty, ignorance and rebellion, the last resource left. Instead of dynamite and explosive powders the desire of identity and self-determination were handled precisely and these found no better way out than the Orthodox affirmation of their difference. This is a bomb which has a decades long fuse and it is kept alive from generation to generation. A fuse which was wanted and lighted up from those who now are trying to turn it off by fighting it and giving it the extremism and fanatic labels.

But if we focus a bit more on the problem itself, we find out that anything of this is new. Even though these protests are the result of the publication of “the innocence of Muslims”, a provocative anti-Islam movie, we cannot simply forget what happened in the past.  Events like that already took place in our recent history. How can we forget about the awful chaos provoked by the publication of “Satanic Verses” by Salman Rushdie. Book which cost the writer, also Islamic, a fatwa, a death sentence, from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeyni.

So now a question spontaneously rises up, how can a book and a low value movie with a questionable level of comprehension cause such a huge reaction?

The answer is that they cannot. Behind the people’s protests, economic, politic and religious interests are hidden. The example of the Pakistani prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, matches perfectly. Once he had put a reward on the movie director’s head, he tries to stop somehow the people’s anger, which has already burnt several cinemas in sign of protest, owned by the prime minister himself. However the exploitation of the hatred goes on. This chaotic situation provides a prolific ground for extremist groups such Salafis, Jihadis, Wahhabis and so on, which thanks to their plotter skills they try some sort of surprise attack. In fact it is no secret their involvement in all of the most sensitive areas of the Middle East. Military actions in favor of the rebels in Syria, attacks on Christian churches in Nigeria, attempts to attack Libya and more generally the all areas of the "Arab spring". Finally, how can we forget the incredible success legally and democratically obtained by the “Muslims Brothers” in Egypt?

Meanwhile the Occident was and remains divided between those who defend dictatorships and through them their profits, those who simplistically label the whole thing as "not our business" and those who joy simply because the nation is in turmoil. Without knowing the complex backgrounds, the real causes, the reasons, which inspire this revolution, they are trying to use this not easy handle tools their self in order to make their regimes fall. They started affirming that a moderate Islam is possible and that the Arab Spring brings with it that modernization wind which should take-away the more extreme elements and increase the value of the more democratic, more human and more free features. In a word more Western, in a society that will never be Western civilized.

Meanwhile, the engines of fanaticism are set in motion, they open gaps, spread discord and take advantage of the divisions. The market is now open and hatred is the most traded product, it generates profits more than prosperous. Doing so, that open and deep wound which divides the western edge from middle east edge, gets infected and it begins to bleed profusely. The conflict, or perhaps we should call it clash, between the secularized Western civilization and the Eastern society, on the contrary dominated by religion, is now more than real and has one common denominator: the misunderstanding. Sometimes desired and sought, fed by hatred and rejection, feelings brilliantly exploited by anyone who can find some kind of interests. Other times simply result of random misunderstandings driven by the normal difficulty of the everyday life habits.

In any case the difference is huge. In Middle Eastern societies religion is the basis of the everyday life. On the other hand the Western societies decided to dismiss and replace it with new gods, new idols which may be real and concrete but they still maintain a strongly ethereal features.

A good example comes from Lebanon, the last country in the Arab world where the number of Christians and Muslims is pretty much proportional. A country in which the assignment of the highest offices of the state is governed by the constitution according to the religion they believe in and not by law. The level of sacredness of such societies is so high that it’s necessary to go back  for centuries until the Middle Age, until the time of Crusades to find the same level in Europe. The Middle East society needs religion, just as the West one needs laicism. Arab people need to have faith in something, they use their confession to stay together. Within this kind of environment every religion shows its orthodox side, even Christianity.

Defined by Samir Kassir as the only still standing bridge between Occident and the Middle East and because of its nature continually trampled by all travelers. Punctually reduced to minority, abandoned and left without strength, in the same measure by the Islamic fundamentalists and the occident, which has decided to ignore its origins. As one who wiped the mud from his shoes, polishing them and perfuming a bit, hopes to enter into the leading elite. In doing so, the West has decided to raise their own culture as a lighthouse of humanity. Ignoring the specific demands of a people who is seeking for understanding, showing, instead, only their most extreme and rough features.

Arabs, however, are not only like that. They are heirs of a great civility, which gave birth to the modern world. Arabs can regain their destiny independently. Only if they get rid of the victim role defined by the modern International order. Besides they finally have to face with modernity that for many continues to be a threat and remove any kind of extremism which does not allow  to show an alternative way of modernism but Western modernization. The Arabic unhappiness, mother of hatred and violence, can be cured, but it needs brave decisions and sacrifices.

Nader Moukarzel