Far from taking any steps towards institutionalized political unity, the Arabs of today appear incapable of reaching any agreement in response to any of the serious and dangerous situations facing the Arabs collectively. Any follower of mediatised intra-Arab political or social debates would note the absurd pattern where the majority of debates amongst Arab representatives turn into un-intelligible disputes, worthy only of sighs of frustration and disbelief.

The divergence in interests combined with an inability to communicate has rendered the thought of mere collaboration between Arabs naïve and utopian.

The impotence of the Arabs in Palestine, Iraq, Sudan and now Yemen has saddened and frustrated generations, leading them either to utmost indifference or, more seriously, to religious fanaticism.

Whilst we are aware that the depressed tone of this article so far would appeal to many of our cynical readers, our actual purpose is to show that the spirit of Arab Renaissance still exists and is capable of making a major comeback.

The first Arab Renaissance started in the second half of the Nineteenth century as a corollary to the cultural and educational awareness raised after Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and the contact with the western world. A significant Arab movement led by Sherif Hussein of Mecca grew under the shadow of the First World War. It did not however survive the Ottoman Empire and disappeared with the British and French division and dominance of the Arab world. A more mature Renaissance movement saw the light in the 1950’s focusing on the struggle against the establishment of Israel and the support of national independent movements growing in the “post colonial” countries.

The death of Jamal Abdul Nasser followed by the Camp David accord in 1978 ended a movement which could not survive with Egypt out of the equation. The military resistance to the Israeli invasion in Lebanon in the summer of 1982 followed by the First and Second Palestinian Intifada in 1987 and 2000 is considered by certain authors as the Third Arab Renaissance movement.

According to Issam Noman, a Lebanese politician and thinker, the Third Renaissance has progressed to a new civilized project, in line with the globalisation movement of the 21st Century. A project, which according to Noman, should be based on“mutual exchange, the removal of constraints and borders amongst countries, people and cultures in response to the telecommunication and technological revolution”.

And it is here that we contend that a spirit of Arab unity persists and grows in the region today, despite all political realities and agendas that push doggedly in the opposite direction. First and foremost, a pan-Arab mentality is manifesting itself in the world of business. We are not talking here of any significant pan-Arab economic initiatives at the government level. With the exception of the good work being done at the level of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), efforts at economic coordination amongst Arab governments are pretty much dead in the water.

Still, Arab businessmen and companies are approaching the Arab world as one market. This comes not as the result of some rosy ideological attachments, but from a pure sense of business opportunities. Start–ups are springing up across the Arab world, starting in one Arab country and then moving swiftly to establish a presence in other Arab countries.

This trend is most visible in businesses that are grounded in the knowledge economy. Internet and new media enterprises must approach the Arab market as one, as it speaks one language. The success of enterprises like Zawya.com, Yamli.com, and Koora.com speaks volumes about the need to adopt a holistic approach to conducting business in Arabia.

Samih Toukan, co-founder of Maktoob.com, said at the recent ArabNet conference (http://www.arabnet.me/) in Beirut: “Investors look at Arab world as a whole…as one market.” In fact, nothing embodies the point of this article as the vibrancy and exuberance that was manifested at ArabNet. Speakers talked with passion about the need to foster and support the growing digital and entrepreneurial spirit in the Arab world. Young innovators from Jordan, Lebanon and many other Arab countries presented their projects to various investors who were focused on the Arab world as one unit.

Contrast this enthusiasm with that surrounding the annual Arab Summit that was held at the end of March in Sert, Libya. The level of popular interest was possibly at an all time low. Arabs, including their leaders, fully appreciate that a pan-Arab approach to regional challenges is at best futile.

However, there continues to be a strong Arab connection at the human level that pierces through this collective cynicism towards a unified political approach. For despite all the intelligentsia’s newfound realism that confines any form of Arab unity to obscurity, no one in his right mind would or could deny that basic, emotional link that still binds one Arab to another. It is that link that transcends the daily conflict that marks Arab politics.

This article aims to start a conversation. It is not about adopting slogans for or against Arab unity. It is about rational debate. Is the growing sense of one Arab market, driven by innovators and businessmen, a precursor to a grass roots movement towards the adoption of a truly integrated Arab economy? Is such a development worthy of our focus and effort? Could the human bond between Arabs be a driving force for unified Arab effort towards change?

Decades of failure will naturally lead many to respond negatively to these questions. But this is ultimately a knee jerk reaction that is, in and of itself, yet another manifestation of our decline.

We should seek positive conclusions from the encouraging realities on the ground. Whether it’s in the emerging success of Arab businesses, or in the engagement of the sense of Arab civil society to address our common regional challenges, there lies somewhere, potentially, the seeds of reform.

Furthermore, the global economic downturn has led to a significant increase in the number of disputes in various sectors, and this in turn has provided an impetus behind the need to enhance the procedures applied by the various arbitration centers in the Arab world.

This development is not solely linked to the realities of modern commerce. In fact, the conciliatory approach and the notion of deferring to a neutral and objective personality for a decision, that ultimately underline all forms of ADR, are well steeped in Arabic and Islamic traditions.

There are at least two verses in the Koran that sanction the notion of arbitration and mediation. Furthermore, one of the most famous stories of the Prophet Mohammad’s early life involved him being chosen by feuding tribes, who could not agree on a vital element of the reconstruction of the Ka’aba, to resolve the dispute. The Prophet bridged the gaps between the quarreling parties by suggesting an original solution that was essentially a win-win for all. Other examples of arbitration and mediation abound in Islamic history.

At the outset, let us distinguish between mediation and arbitration. There are a number of differences between those two mechanisms.

Firstly, these methods differ in terms of the role of the appointed third party; in arbitration, an arbitrator is like a judge and his or her decision is final, whereas in mediation, the mediator works to try and bridge the differences between the parties and move them closer a settlement or conciliation. In a sense, mediation is the preferred option when the parties are still attempting to resolve their differences in a way that would allow them to continue their working relationship; whereas, arbitration is usually sought in order to reach a final determination on the overall dispute at the end of the relationship.

Secondly, the authority of an arbitrator is much wider than that of the mediator.

Thirdly, there are differences in terms of time limits, and venue considerations, between the two methods. In essence, arbitration is an attempt to replicate the judicial process but in a manner that is more specialized and streamlined. Mediation is a process whereby the parties agree to nominate a third party who would be tasked with trying to find common ground between the parties and resolve their differences, usually through the organization of meetings which are of a rather informal nature, at least in comparison with arbitration proceedings.

Finally, one of the main advantages of mediation is that it is far less costly than arbitration. In fact, it can be said that the costs of arbitration are its Achilles heel.

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One of the most significant trends is the adoption of laws that deal specifically with mediation. In Jordan, the Law on Mediation for the Resolution of Civil Disputes was adopted in 2006. The law organizes the process of judicial mediation that takes place at the Court of First Instance. In accordance with Article 3 of the said law, the presiding judge may, upon the agreement of the parties or further to their request, refer the dispute to a mediating judge or a private mediator for the purposes of amicable resolution of the dispute. The mediator is then obliged by law to complete the mediation process within three months of the date on which the dispute was referred to him or her.

A similar development has taken place in the Emirate of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. By virtue of Dubai’s Law No. 16 of 2009, a Mediation Centre was established. The Mediation Centre will be annexed to Dubai’s Courts. The Centre is entrusted to review types of disputes that are defined by its Chairman. Disputes will be reviewed and amicably resolved through a number of experts, under the supervision, of the concerned judge, within a period that would not exceed one month from the date of the attendance of the parties before the judge.

The creation of such centers in Jordan and the UAE, as well as the existence of various mediation mechanisms through international organizations such the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Arbitration Centre, is likely to lead to a surge in the use of mediation as a method for the amicable resolution of disputes. This would be a welcome development, as it would entail the effective resolution of so many disputes in a conciliatory and timely manner, well before the matter escalates to reach a court room or an arbitration panel.

As for arbitration, we have also seen a number of positive trends in this regard in the Arab world. On the one hand, the trend towards the effective adoption of the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Arbitration Convention) has solidified. The New York Arbitration Convention mainly enshrines the principle that a properly made arbitration award in one member country must be binding and enforceable in another member country, unless the award can be rejected on the basis of certain grounds for refusal of enforcement, which are narrowly defined in the Convention. The Convention also confirms the principle that if a court is presented with a dispute which the parties had agreed to refer to arbitration, then the court must refer the matter to arbitration upon the request of one of the parties.

Historically, the rate of adoption of the New York Arbitration Convention in the Arab world has been good. Jordan was amongst the first countries to adopt the Convention, which came into effect in 1959. Almost all Arab countries have since joined, with Kuwait joining in 1978, Saudi Arabia in 1994 and, more recently, the United Arab Emirates in 2006.

The challenge is to ensure that the exceptions that would allow a member country to refuse the enforcement of an arbitral award are applied in a strict and narrow manner. Under Article V(2)(b) of the Convention, the enforcement of an arbitral award may be refused if “the recognition or enforcement of the award would be contrary to the public policy of that country.” The parameters of what a country regards as “public policy” can be wide. In Saudi Arabia, an arbitration agreement or award is respected provided that it is not contrary to the principles of Shari’a law. Such a limitation falls within the “public policy” exception, but the key lies in the way such an exception is applied.

In the UAE, Articles 235 and 236 of the Civil Procedures Law (Federal Law No. 11 of 1992) confirm the principle that foreign arbitral awards will be enforced in the country, provided a number of conditions are met. These include procedural issues such as the proper notification and representation of the parties before the arbitral tribunal that issues the decision in the foreign country. Also, UAE courts may refuse the enforcement of a foreign arbitral award if it contradicts a previous judgment already issued by a UAE court or if it includes elements that “contradict public policy or morals.”

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While in the past “public policy” exceptions have been defined in a wide manner that allowed courts to reject a number of foreign arbitration awards in various Arab countries, there is a discernible trend towards limiting the use of this exception, and applying it only in clear cases of contravention of the country’s moral or public policies.

Furthermore, in the recent past, various Arab countries have upgraded their arbitration laws to be in line with international best practices. This is evidenced by the increasing use of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. This model law was drafted by the UNCITRAL with a view to assisting countries that seek to improve their laws in such a way as to ensure the best possible procedures for commercial arbitration.

For example, Egypt adopted Law No. 27 in 1994, the Commercial Arbitration Law, which is based on the UNCITRAL Model Law. This aimed to enhance arbitrations procedures and resolve complications that arose under the provisions that dealt with arbitrations in the Egyptian Code of Civil and Commercial Procedures and provide a law dedicated to arbitration. Also, in 1994, Bahrain adopted a new international arbitration law (Decree no. 9/1994) that was based on the UNCITRAL Model Law. In 2008, Syria issued an arbitration law that is based on the Model Law as well.

The UAE is also presently considering a new Federal arbitration law and it is widely reported that the new law would be based on the UNCITRAL Model Law. Once enacted, the new Federal arbitration Law will replace the existing provisions in the Civil Procedures Law.

Finally, there is no greater proof of the growing popularity and importance of arbitration than the increasing use of existing arbitration centers in the region, and the founding of new centers. The Dubai International Arbitration Center (DIAC), whose rules are UNCITRAL based, has proven to be an excellent success. The number of cases that the DIAC is handling has been growing at a very impressive rate. According to one report, while the number of new cases with the DIAC in 2008 was 100, there had been 180 new cases registered with DIAC by August 2009. The Cairo Regional Center for International Commercial Arbitration, which was established in 1979, continues to be a great success.

Earlier in January, Bahrain announced the launch of Bahrain Chamber of Dispute Resolution, in partnership with the American Arbitration Association. It is reported that the Chamber will operate what is being called an “arbitration free zone.”

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In conclusion, various Arab countries have engaged in an active process of upgrading their arbitration laws and those dealing with other alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. Arab arbitration centers are growing in significance, as more parties resort to the use of their services. These important developments can only serve to facilitate the infrastructure supporting international commercial contracts in the Arab world and, in turn, this will have very positive effects on investment and business growth in our region.

Amid this whirlwind of activity, it is fair to say that the average Arab’s assessment of US policy is rather puzzled. Arabs have gotten used to the US government’s absolute bias towards Israel, a bias that reached its ultimate climax under the forgettable George W. Bush.

President Obama has spoken a different language. He seems genuinely focused on trying to build a bridge over the long years of mistrust between the Arab masses and the US political establishment.

This of course came to a head in Obama’s extraordinary Cairo speech, a speech of grand ambition that was historic in every sense of the word. Suddenly, it seemed that there is an American President who has at least an inkling of Palestinian suffering, and who wanted to talk of Palestinian rights on an equal footing with those of Israelis. Obama went as far as comparing the Palestinian struggle to that of African Americans in the US over the last two hundred years.

The tone and body language were of a kind that Arabs have not seen in years. The focus of the US administration on putting pressure on Israel to stop all settlement activity, as well as the language on how resolution of this conflict is the key to other conflicts in the region, was refreshingly empathetic.

Faced with this barrage of messages from the US administration, Arabs are reacting in various ways. On the one hand, you have so many who still find refuge in the safety of cynicism; nothing will ever change when it comes to US policy, the US administration is beholden to the agenda of AIPAC… Etc. Some Arab writers, whilst acknowledging the existence of some divergence in views between Israel and the current US administration, argue that signs of slight conflict do not represent the beginning of any real crisis in relations. A more resigned view also exists, which holds that Arabs are clutching at straws and, in fact, there is no real change in American policy.

On the other hand, you have a large number of optimistic Obama admirers who are convinced Obama will bring real and lasting change to this issue as he did to American politics. They have bought in wholesale into the Obama mantra which saw him declare on the eve of elections, “together, we will change the world.”

While we are strong admirers of Obama, we feel that the best approach, as always, is somewhere in the middle. There is the air of change in Washington for sure. We must acknowledge that element of change, and assess Obama’s policy regarding this issue with a sober and calm head. Most importantly, Arabs must react to this new policy with a positive and enabling attitude to ensure that we seize the momentum and guide it towards a just and fair solution.

Let us analyze in a measured manner some of the changes that the Obama administration has introduced into this issue. Firstly, the matter of continuing settlement activity was covered in great detail in the press. This was not a publicity stunt. Obama’s insistence on ceasing any expansion of Israeli settlement in the West Bank was stronger in both substance and tone than that of previous administrations. While some writers like Noam Chomsky claim that Obama did not match his words with any radical action, such as linking Israeli compliance to US aid, it is self-defeating to pretend that positions have not changed in the slightest.

Secondly, unlike George Bush, Obama has so far refused to follow Israel’s argument that the root of the problem is Iran and not occupation. Obama has clearly distinguished between the issues of Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While any nuclear proliferation is a cause of concern, it is good to see that Obama has not fallen for the trap of ignoring all the wrongs of Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights in the interest of pursuing a separate foreign policy challenge. To quote Time magazine’s Tony Karon,

“the US President won’t buy Netanyahou’s sequencing …. Netanyahou will say no progress is possible on the Palestinian front until Iran is defanged; Obama will argue that rallying Arab support against Iran’s ambitions requires resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Thirdly, the US administration has introduced the sense of urgency into the necessity of salvaging the two–state solution. While this has been the position of previous administrations, the Obama team is eager to see the vision materialize with speed.

Uncertainty still reigns over many aspects of the current administration’s policies. For example, the US approach to Jerusalem is not clear at all. In a campaign speech last year to AIPAC, Obama made it clear that Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of Israel. This seemed to deny all Palestinian rights to parts of Jerusalem in line with United Nations resolutions. Although Obama has since toned down his position in this regard, seemingly as a result of the advice of seasoned advisors like former President Jimmy Carter, he has not yet proclaimed a definitive position.

It is our view that there is some form of change taking place. This new-found flexibility in the American approach is primarily due to two interrelated factors:

Obama is first of all a man of the world who listens intently to all sides of a story. He brings a fresh analytical approach to the highest office in the US.

Secondly, this change is the result of the Obama administration’s analysis of the long term interests of the United States in the region. Certain commentators have argued that Obama’s team sees the necessity of integrating Israel into the region in order to guarantee a more secure future for its ally.

However, the issue is not the rationale behind Obama’s stance on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The question is whether there is a momentum of change, and how can Arabs seize the initiative in the interest of Palestinian rights and justice for all. We cannot sit back and let our inherent cynicism destroy the opportunity of the moment, yet again. What good is there to achieve from burying our heads in the sand and bemoaning our misfortune, yet again.

Whatever conspiracy theory one can concoct out of thin air to justify Obama’s words and actions, it is high time for a proactive approach. Real change in politics can never come from resignation and passive aggression, which have dominated Arab political emotions for the last century.

Let us try to analyze the seeming shift and see how we can contribute to any momentum and actively encourage it. It is time to believe in our own capacity to contribute to the shaping of the future of the region.

Alright, some of you out there will point out that a similar election exists in Iraq. But we must say that there aren’t many in the Arab world who are ready to sing the praises of a fragile democracy that literally came on the backs of hundreds of thousands of lost innocent lives, not to mention that the war in question was brought about by a certain W, whom the world is desperate to consign to the dark corners of the brain’s memory.

On the other hand, there are the details of the Lebanese elections. And in so many of those details Arabs cannot help but find signs of concern.

There is concern that the Arabs are perhaps historically and genetically unsuited to liberal democracy. While it is common to have long-lasting political dynasties in places as far and wide as Argentina, the US and India, the Lebanese have taken the art of political succession to new heights or, more accurately, unparalleled lows!

We are not talking here about one or two political dynasties. In Lebanon, it seems that a large number of the seats in Parliament have turned into family fiefdoms. Father passes on the mantle to the son, or the son to the brother, or the husband to the wife, and on and on. And we cannot help but marvel at how the Lebanese electorate is so ready to align its support in line with wherever the movement of genes takes them.

It has to be acknowledged that many of the political acts of inheritance were brought about after spates of assassinations that have marked Lebanese history since the 1950s. While the human angle to these tragedies is heartbreaking and must be condemned in the clearest terms, it should not serve as a justification for the persistence of a monarchical form of democracy. In fact, it can even be argued that a system that honours legacy over principle is the worst form of memorial for those who gave their lives for Lebanon.

Let us survey some of the leading illustrations of this democratic system of neo-feudalism:

Obviously, world famous Saad Al Hariri has inherited both the business and political leadership of the Lebanese version of Camelot. He controls the 14 March coalition, currently holding the majority of the outgoing parliament. As for the Phalangist party, also members of the 14 March coalition, political powers have been passed on vertically, horizontally and in every other possible direction. First cousins Sami Gmayel and Nadim Gmayel, both sons of former presidents, are running in Matein district and Beirut’s first district respectively. Not to mention that Sami’s father, Amine, is still the leader of the Phalangist party. After a long successful career as university students, supporters and friends, not to mention relatives, have unanimously agreed that the time for Sami and Nadim to bring change to Lebanon has come.

Without any doubt, the star of the 2009 elections is Nayla Tueini, the political child prodigy par excellence. Nayla, 26, is crowning a long and memorable 2-year career as a journalist by running the leading newspaper in Lebanon and by running to succeed her father in Beirut’s first district. If successful, she can look forward to sharing a cozy family experience in Parliament with fellow candidate and grandfather, Michel Al Mur (running in Matein district), and uncle Marwan Hamade, running in El Chouf district.

This political inheritance business is not limited to the forces of the March 14 majority, as it applies in equal measure throughout the list of candidates of the Opposition Alliance. Names such as Suleiman Frangieh (Zgharta), Omar Karami (Tripoli), Ahmad Karami (Tripoli), Raafat Ali Eid (Tripoli), Karim Al Rassi (Akkar), Prince Talal Ursulan (Aley) and Maarouf Saad (Saida) come to mind, all having inherited their political power and right to run from their families. As for Ghassan Rahbani (Matein), he is practicing the arts of asymmetrical political succession. For his authority does not stem from family members long steeped in the world of politics, but from the sound of music.

The list goes on and on. There are no guns or tanks on the streets that impose these hereditary choices on the people of Lebanon. And it is there that the heart of the deadlock lies. The people are voting, with a free will, for representatives on the basis of name and rights of succession.

However, it must also be said that the system in Lebanon has encouraged the perpetuation of such narrow choices. The electoral system, adopted in the Doha Agreement of 2008, served to limit the districts along narrower family and communal lines.

Any observer of the Lebanese political scene would agree that it seems rather utopian to foresee any change of the current status quo in the near future. In fact, any call for a white revolution à la Obama would most likely be labeled as unrealistic or naïve.

Yet history has proven that change will come as soon people will want change. Voices calling for independent choices in Lebanon have always existed. One could only hope that our cynicism will be swept away by 2013.

The last annual summit of Arab Heads of states in Damascus, in March this year, was met with a chorus of apathy on the streets of Amman, Cairo, Casablanca, Gaza and every other corner of the Arab world. The only thing that seems to get people to turn on their TV sets is the perennial (and always entertaining) Gaddafi speech, with the average Arab viewer wondering just how far the Colonel will go in his latest oration.

It is difficult to blame the Arabs for deriding their league. The seeming impotence of the Arab League in the face of adversity is quite legendary. As the situation in Palestine, especially Gaza, deteriorates, as the cruel civil war wages in Iraq (not to mention the illegal invasion that sparked it), as the Darfur situation worsens, the Arab league stands totally powerless. And this is just a snapshot of the current crop of crises in Arabia. The history of the last six decades since the founding of the League in 1945 is deluged with examples of the Arab League’s inefficiency and incapacity to resolve any of the major issues facing the region.

But then, in the midst of all this inaction, we woke up one morning last week to the sight of a truly extraordinary and improbable achievement: a real Arab League success. The Arab League’s success in brokering an agreement between the endlessly feuding Lebanese factions is a major triumph of unprecedented caliber. Of course, particular credit is due to the Qatari Government and the few Arab Foreign Ministers who devoted their time and energy towards the attainment of this goal in the period leading up to the agreement. But it was the institution of the Arab League that made this entire effort possible and, despite all our instincts to disbelieve, we should all recognize that.

The success is particularly laudable in light of the initial inability of the Arab League to put a meeting together quickly enough to respond to the surge of violence in Lebanon that started earlier this month. When the decisions of the Lebanese government to dismantle the telecommunications network of Hezbollah and to remove the security chief of Beirut airport unleashed an unprecedented reaction by Hezbollah on the streets of Beirut, it took the Arab League almost a week to get the Foreign Ministers of its members to meet.

When the Foreign Ministers finally managed to congregate, most Arabs didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. With Beirut burning for several days, the sight of this belated meeting was discouraging to say the least. And we all were betting on the usual result, i.e. a few speeches, a couple of incidents, and then the dignitaries pack up and head home on the earliest flight.

Somehow, Arab will manifested itself, with the rival factions of Lebanon compelled to agree to attend a meeting in Doha, Qatar, as a direct result of the meeting of the Arab League. Even then, we all thought it was a meeting doomed to failure. As the days wore on in Doha, we were sure it was all going nowhere. As leaks broke through informing us of the latest disagreement, we all shook our heads with the usual air of resignation mixed with disbelief.

And then, despite all of our misgivings, the Arab League managed to do what Sarkozy, Bush, the United Nations and many others have failed to do: Secure a deal amongst the forces of the great Lebanese divide that had brought the country to a standstill for 18 months and was about to take the country down the dark tunnels of civil war.

Lebanon is now celebrating the election of Michel Suleiman as its new President, filling a vacancy that has persisted since November last year and that could not be resolved through 19 previous attempts in Parliament.

In all of this, credit is due to the indefatigable nature of the Arab League’s Secretary General, Amr Moussa. I have always marveled at his extraordinary capacity to soldier on despite the failure of Arab countries to reach agreement on any major political issue.

As we reflect on this achievement, there is a lesson for us Arabs that is worth noting. We seem to have taken cynicism in the Arab world to new highs. We are artists of self-deprecation, and not of the charming, Hugh Grant variety!

I am not belittling the reasons for our cynical or defeatist outlook. We sure have tons of reasons to be downcast about the present Arab predicament. From coast to coast, Arab countries face daunting challenges ranging from civil wars to a seemingly unstoppable and downright scary proliferation of religious extremism. The helplessness with which we watch crisis unfold is enough to put anyone in a state of anxiety or depression.

But it is time to try and snap out of it. And one way to do that is to try and inject a few more ounces of self-belief and belief in some of our institutions. Or, to be more precise, perhaps part of the answer to all the problems we face in the region lies in applying ourselves to work patiently to improve the lot of our institutions and systems, such as the Arab League and various national institutions.

The answer could be in a little bit of application and effort towards our current systems. For example, many Arabs rightly worry about the chronic lack of democracy in Arab countries. And in this state of eternal concern and sarcasm, they leave any institutions that have some semblance of democracy to fall prey to either the thoughtless or the extremists amongst us. Any knowledge of the history of true democracies shows that many of the oldest democracies developed with time, with Parliaments and their processes improving through the effort of citizens. The British Parliament was a highly imperfect institution and it took the dedication of people throughout centuries to work within that institution and lead it to where it is today.

The same is true of more effective models of regionalization. The European Community did not reach where it is today without the commitment of people to its symbolism and the effort of a number of thought leaders. This process managed to turn centuries of war into a period of great economic harmony that was unimaginable to most in the aftermath of World War II. The Gulf Cooperation Council is fast becoming almost EU-like in its ideals and practice. The Arab League could in turn yet prove itself to be the nucleus of a major change in Arabia. One important area is that of the economic role of the Arab League.

HH Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashed, the Ruler of Dubai, suggested two years ago an idea that could prove pivotal if applied. He suggested an annual summit of Arab leaders that focused purely on economics, and ways to improve the economic situation of all in the region. In other words, the League could have one annual summit for politics and one for economics. How refreshing would that be? With Arab Presidents and Kings gathered to focus entirely on economics, the room for rhetoric would diminish further and the opportunity for effective brainstorming would widen.

And so, today, as we reflect on a major achievement of the Arab League, and the sense of timid hope that prevails in Lebanon as a result, let us for one small moment exercise that emotion that has eluded us Arabs for so long: Optimism.

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is tragic. There can be no doubt about that. But what shocks me today, as I am shocked on a daily basis with the stream of murders and suicides in Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, and so many other countries is this nagging question: Where on earth do they find them?? Where on earth do the plotters and schemers find so many willing men and women of young age to mould into their insane vision of the world? How did those who planned this latest act of violence stumble upon this latest specimen of misguided fervour and convince him (at least it seems to be a him at the time of writing) to go and end his life by assassinating a mother of three children. How did they get through to this guy? And more importantly, why is it so goddamn easy to find self-terminating assassins in our region?

(To read this article in full, please visit GlobalComment)

These summer attacks, particularly those in London , have generated an unprecedented level of debate. If compared to 9/11, it is quite extraordinary how mature the reaction of the British Government and people has been. It is true that the scale of 9/11 cannot be compared to that of 7/7, but it is still amazing to consider the speed with which the majority of British journalists and commentators moved on to consider the underlying causes behind the carnage in London . Post 9/11, any attempt to review the causes was deemed almost sacrilegious. I still clearly remember the hysteria with which erstwhile considerate writers, such as Christopher Hitchens, attacked Noam Chomsky for daring to analyze what lay behind the crimes of Mohammad Atta and his band of mass murderers.

While I respect and salute the maturity of debate around these events, it is important not to overdo it. The simple truth that we must face is this: There can be no political rationale behind the insanity of the attacks of 7/7, Sharm El-Sheikh, Baghdad or anywhere else. These are not a reaction to the invasion of Iraq .

How can these attacks be linked in any way to Iraq when the so-called insurgency in the heart of that country is more focused on killing Iraqis than any other nationality? This is not a perfunctory point that we passively reflect on before moving on to consider the bigger picture. Let us just stop there. What kind of a ridiculous insurgency or revolution focuses on the killing of its own people? What kind of a movement is this that thinks it is worthwhile to kill scores of Iraqi children in order to kill one American soldier who was handing them sweets (as happened in Baghdad on July 13 th , 2005, when a suicide bomber intentionally rammed his vehicle into a large crowd of children, killing 27 people)? This is not a simple detail. Let us look at it again and again. This is the creed of Zarqawi, Bin Laden and others of their ilk. And don’t tell me that, for them, this is collateral damage! The suicide bomber headed straight into the children. These Arab and Muslim children were as much a target for Zarqawi as the US soldiers. All those who want to believe otherwise are deceiving themselves.

Similar obvious questions can be asked of the other acts of madness we have witnessed lately. One of the suicide bombers in Sharm Al-Sheikh intentionally and knowingly drove his car of death straight into a café serving hard working Egyptians, killing 17. That’s because of Iraq ? Or could it be Palestine ? What on earth could have driven the mad bomber to do this? Did he really think he would put pressure on Husni Mubarak by killing his fellow citizens?

The same applies to London . Londoners and other Britons staged the world’s greatest anti-war rally in the run-up to the Iraqi invasion. Anti-war opinion floods the daily newspapers and magazines. Why on earth, in such a country, did British suicide bombers decide to kill their fellow citizens on buses and trains? The naïve say that this is a strategy to influence the British people, so that they put pressure on their government to withdraw from Iraq . But let’s think about it. Imagine this British-born bomber on the tube, as he looks around and sees the fellow passengers he is about to kill or maim. Is he really thinking of justice for Iraqis at that particular moment? As he sees a mom or teenager going about her or his business, is he ecstatic with joy at the thought of bringing justice to Iraq by killing these commuters? Absolute nonsense.

Surely, if the bomber had one tiny brain cell, he would have realized that most of the people he was about to kill were vehemently opposed to the war on Iraq . If he had two brain cells, he would have asked the inevitable question: Who is actually dying in Iraq nowadays and why? Most of the civilian deaths caused in Iraq are the result of acts committed by the brothers in arms of the London bombers. Did these suicide bombers really think that such a bomb would change anything in Iraq ? If they were so passionate about stopping the war in Iraq , why didn’t they consider joining the Liberal Democrats? Did they not realize that there were also Muslims who would be killed? At which point did they lose their humanity?

Once again, let us pause there in order to understand. Before we get to the big picture, let us imagine these killers as they go about their grisly business. Let us analyze that moment to death. When we do pause and think, we realise that the big picture is actually as pathetic and outrageous as we all feared: It is beyond doubt that these killers were brainwashed by the Ben Ladens and Zarqawis of this world into believing a number of outright lies about Islam to be true. This ignominious list of Ladenesque lies that is sweeping the minds of non-thinking Muslims worldwide includes:

• Islam allows the killing of non-Muslims (if anyone disputes that this is what they are being told, please check one of the latest statements by Zarqawi in which he misquotes the Holy Koran and claims that non-Muslims should be killed wherever they can be found);

• The definition of non-Muslims includes the vast majority of Muslims who are not followers of the Zarqawi/Ben Laden brand of Islam. This explains why they don’t give a damn about killing Muslims. In fact, I am sure that for these bombers killing modern Muslims like myself and Shahara Islam (a victim of 7/7) is even more valuable than killing US or British soldiers;

• The Koran fully supports all these actions. One way or another, the brainwashers of the bombers must have constructed an interpretation of Islam that not only condones their actions, but absolutely supports them;
• The life of the Prophet Mohammed contains stories and incidents that support these types of actions. Al-Jazeera broadcast an interview a while back with one of the masterminds of 9/11, and he was saying that the Prophet had allowed the killing of civilians in a couple of incidents during his lifetime.

• The ultimate and greatest goal is to establish an Islamic Caliphate. We don’t need to look far in history to understand what type of Islamic super state they are looking to build. They want a replica of the Taliban’s Afghanistan . That living hell is, apparently, their idea of heaven on earth.

Only this could explain how these young men and women are brainwashed into wasting their and others’ lives. It is a massive misconstruction exercise, centred on the definition of Islam.

The ensuing conclusion is obvious: We Muslims are facing a battle for the soul of Islam. And the choice that faces us all is this: either we give way to the Islamic definitions used by Ben Laden and co, and the undying culture of misinterpretation of Islam, or we fight back to reclaim Islam. There needs to be a revolution of thought that would bring back our religion to its beautiful core.

It is not enough to go around repeating parrot-like that Islam is a religion of peace and these acts have nothing to do with it. We, the modern and true Muslims (if we are going to win this existential battle, we have to start getting a bit more self-confident!), need to re-conquer our religion and clutch it out of the choking grip of backwardness which had befallen it over the last few centuries. It is not just the wild misinterpretations of the terrorist masterminds. Even the mainstream application and interpretation of Islam, in the mosques and schools of the Arab and Muslim world, has gone off-track in various ways over the last few centuries. I am amazed at the smallness and pettiness of several of the Friday prayer sermons that I attend. The Islamic religion has been turned by the average preachers into a religion of fear, petty rituals, self-glorification, and outright xenophobia at times. The clerics focus almost all of their fiery rhetoric on hair-raising depictions of hell for alcohol drinkers and adulterers, wild theories on how the Muslims are victims of conspiracies by almost everyone else on earth, belittlement of Christianity and Judaism (not to mention Buddhism), and much worse. Even in the arts, to which the Islamic civilization contributed so much, the fundamentalists want to put the icing on the cake by decreeing that Islam prohibits all beautiful and spiritual disciplines such as music, film, painting …. Etc.

I remember attending a Friday prayer a year ago, in which the preacher decided to devote his entire speech to the issue of whether or not Muslim men are allowed to have sexual relations with their wives during the month of Ramadan. Is this subject worthy of an entire Friday sermon?

On another occasion, I attended the funeral service of the mother of a friend in Amman . The mosque was filled with the dignified sadness and piety of the relatives and friends of the deceased woman. Some of her friends and relatives, including some hapless Muslims who thought they were exercising their right to freedom of worship, decided not to enter the mosque for the funeral prayer. Suddenly, the preacher bust into an impromptu tirade against the “so-called Muslims” who did not attend his service. He started cursing them and praying to God that they rot in hell! He mocked the non-attendees for standing outside with the non-believers, i.e. Christians! I presume the preacher failed to see the irony of the current misinterpretation of Islam, whereby these Christians could not enter the mosque even if they wanted to.

Is such vengefulness part of the Islam that spread from a small town in the desert of Arabia to the four corners of the world? Is this the Islam of the Prophet Mohammad and his “sahhabah” (companions)? Is this the Islam of Omar Bin Khattab, the second ruler of Muslims after the Prophet and a man who would qualify for the title of history’s fairest and most just ruler? Bin Khattab, a friend of the prophet’s from the outset of the revelations, had an almost superhuman obsession with Justice. Every decision, every action was considered, reconsidered over and over again in the interest of Justice. He would roam the streets at night incognito to see whether the people were well-fed. He would castigate his lieutenants and province governors for the slightest mis-treatment of the people. He treated people of other faiths with extreme respect, famously refusing to pray in the main Church of Jerusalem upon the peaceful conquest of the City; he was worried that, if he prayed in the Church, Muslims would afterwards use that gesture as an excuse to turn it into a mosque. He also signed a treaty in which he assured all the inhabitants of Jerusalem that none of their churches or any other places of worship would be touched under Muslim rule, and providing a written guarantee of freedom of worship to all inhabitants of the city.

This is Islam. This is the Islam that truly conquered the hearts and minds of the world. If there are shameful episodes in our history, and each civilisation has its share of shame, then it is the deeds of Muslims and not the teachings of Islam. If our religion was as static and unforgiving as the current interpreters would have us believe, how could it have reached the hearts of millions and so quickly. It was Islam’s obsession with justice, fairness and equal rights that endeared it to the world in the Seventh century. And it is those same principles that we must use to save Islam today.

Compare the life of Mohammad and his companions with the Taliban, with their despicable destruction of Buddhist temples (compare that with Bin Khattab’s treatment of Christian monuments in Jerusalem, or even the Pyramids in Cairo; why didn’t the early Muslims lay the Pyramids to waste?), not to mention their systematic demolition of all facets of dignified life for those who had to endure their rule in Afghanistan for a few abhorrent years; compare it with Zarqawi’s stream of bombings targeting Shia mosques and institutions.

The lists are endless on both sides. On the one hand, the stories of the life of Mohammad and his companions are flooded with compassion and the pursuit of justice and equality. On the other hand, the stories of the systematic and wilful misconstruction of Islam by today’s terrorists and certain so-called “ulama” are as numerous as they are shameful.

It is surely time for us to reclaim our religion. It is time to re-connect Islam with its history. It is time to read Islam in context. The context is the life of the Prophet and those who were there at the outset of the Islamic revelation. The context is their actions in the time in which they lived. Omar Bin Abdul Azeez, another Muslim Caliph in the golden age of Islam, strove for the greatest standards of justice and equality a thousand years before the European enlightenment. It is the fact that he strove for such excellence in such an unlikely time and improbable setting that should give us, as Muslims today, room for sober reflection. It is the fact that the Prophet gave absolute equality in opportunities and dignity of life to both men and women during his time that should shame current preachers who would confine women to their homes and a life of servitude. It is the fact that the Prophet gave women rights of inheritance one thousand years before many European countries that we must dwell upon. This is how advanced and avant-garde Islam was. If Islam made the Prophet and his contemporaries aim so high then, how can we allow it to go so low today.

It is not about confining the text to its most rigid and mindless interpretation. It is how those texts were applied, and the spirit of that application, by those who understood them best, i.e. the Prophet, his companions and the early bearers of the message.

It is our historic responsibility to save Islam. Never before has our religion been under such a concerted attack. And the attackers are neither Bush nor Blair. The real blasphemy is spreading insidiously from within. With the forces of misinterpretation as powerful as they are, it is no easy task to devise a specific plan to reclaim our religion. But surely the first step is to speak out without fear. And today I wanted to join the increasing ranks of Muslims who have chosen to raise their voice in defence of a religion that is longing to reclaim its place as a beacon for graceful spirituality, justice, tolerance and equality.

“The Fourth Hand” is one of those novels that started life as an excellent idea and yet, upon elaboration, the author found it impossible to make the novel as intriguing and engaging as the clever premise on which it was based. Patrick Wallingford, the protagonist, is a television journalist whose life is changed forever when he loses his left hand to a lion whilst reporting on a story in India. The story then follows Wallingford’s life as he opts for a landmark hand transplant surgery and ends up falling in love with the deceased donor’s wife, one of fiction’s most hollow characters – Doris. Admittedly, the possibilities for drama and subtle exposition of the human condition seem unlimited. The novel starts well and the reader can only be intrigued by this extraordinary context for a love story. It smacks of the honesty and beautiful absurdity of Irving’s “The World According to Garp,” an outstanding book by any standard.

But then “The Fourth Hand” loses itself in banality. The quality of the writing deteriorates to such an extent that one is tempted to think that Irving must have been temporarily possessed by the spirit of a second-rate writer. The reader finds himself almost cringing at times. This state of embarrassed reading is exacerbated by the fact that it’s IRVING for god’s sake. What happened? Some characters are developed for no apparent reason before they are lost never to be seen again. Events from the news rear their heads into the narrative every now and again. The plane crash that tragically ended the life of John F. Kennedy Jr. in July 1999 is used as a pretext to comment on the moral bankruptcy of the news media; but some of Irving’s comments here are as lacking in depth as some of the shallow news reporting he is berating. Wallingford, whose charms no woman on earth could ever resist, finds himself effortlessly bedding the entire female population of the novel – repeatedly. This doesn’t stop him from pursuing the love of his life – Doris of Wisconsin!

And it is in that highly uninspiring love story that the novel finds its only salvation and the reason why I shall be forever grateful for exerting so much effort (and it hurt) forcing myself to finish it. Doris doesn’t return Wallingford’s affections and so, to weave his way into her life, he starts looking for any common denominator. He starts reading “The English Patient”. “The English Patient” was apparently the last film Doris saw with her husband Otto before his tragic death. She had liked the film so much she decided to read the book. Doris opines that the book is “too well written.” “I’m reading it very slowly because I like it too much,” she adds.

Thank you Doris, Wallingford, Irving and Wisconsin!! For Doris’s only believable line in the novel led me to read “The English Patient” by Michael Ondaatje. Like Doris and Otto, I thought that Anthony Minghella’s 1996 film starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche was a masterpiece. But, unlike Doris, I didn’t feel compelled to read the book after watching the film. I thought that the film was so exceptionally good that there’s not much that the book could add to it. It took 6 years, and “The Fourth Hand,” to change my mind.

The main purpose for writing this article is to make you read “The English Patient,” if you are lucky enough not to have read it yet. “Lucky” because there’s a world of wonder waiting for you in Ondaatje’s 300 pages of breathtaking prose. It is simply a book like no other. It reads like a magical web of phrases that are at once gloriously poetic and achingly beautiful in their simplicity.

There’s an added poignancy to reading “The English Patient” in these troubled times. The horrific attacks of September 11, the sad events in Israel/Palestine, the jingoism of reaction and counter-reaction, the “axis of evil” that sprung out of the pen of a tired spin doctor, the incredulous masses all over the world … etc. “The English Patient” deals with another time and another war. But the message is the same: Underneath all that, there lies a beautiful yet complex individual humanity that is more enduring than war, fiery rhetoric, and all attempts to paint the world with the brush of temporary boundaries, civilizations and nationalities.

The four unlikely characters who find themselves in the Villa San Girolamo in the dying days of World War II – the fatally wounded desert explorer, a former thief-turned-spy, a Sikh sapper working for the British army, a Canadian nurse – belong to the world. War and history always seem like unwelcome visitors to the reader whenever they force their tensions on the unfolding events in the decrepit Tuscan villa. The English patient, though burnt beyond recognition and drained of life, seems the wisest. His tales of exploration in the Libyan desert reveal a more genuine and humbled view of the world: “There was a time when mapmakers named the places they travelled through with the names of lovers rather than their own. Someone seen bathing in a desert caravan, holding up muslin with one arm in front of her. Some old Arab poet’s woman, whose white-dove shoulders make him describe an oasis with her name.”

The English patient fails to save Katherine, the love of his life who lay dying in a desert cave, because of doubts about his nationality. The soldiers who arrested him instead of helping him to save her thought he was just another “second-rate spy. Just another international bastard.” Hana, the nurse, also refers to herself and the sapper using the exact same term and provides a definition: “Born in one place and choosing to live elsewhere. Fighting to get back to or get away from our homelands all our lives.”
The English patient sums it up best, after recounting his heart wrenching tale, in an outstanding piece of descriptive prose:

“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography – to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.”
“The English Patient” is, above all, a novel about love. Not “love” in the hackneyed faultless sense. But “love” as an inescapable truth, a fact. The relationship between the patient and Katherine defies both social and moral ethics. It leads us reluctantly to a difficult yet inevitable conclusion. Love as a bare emotion is stronger than our natural or socially imposed notions of propriety, and it is impervious to the demands of logic. The English patient notes:

“There are betrayals in war that are childlike compared with our human betrayals during peace … A love story is not about those who lose their heart but about those who find that sullen inhabitant who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing – not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.”

In contrast, the budding relationship between Hana and Kip, the Sikh sapper, seems free of complications. Two characters who find complete solace in each other after having suffered a series of losses during the war. As a nurse, Hana had to witness patients withering away on a daily basis, not to mention the death of her father. Kip’s bomb-disposal work was in essence a daily brush with mortality. His mentor in England, several of his friends, pulled the wrong piece of metal, made one small wrong move, and they were lost forever. The Villa San Girolamo and the quiet grace of Hana provided a sanctuary that he was at first reluctant to get into. But with time, Hana and Kip flow effortlessly into each other. Until the tensions of the world set in. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki weigh heavily on the four citizens of the world in the Tuscan hills, especially Kip. “From now on I believe the personal will forever be at war with the public. If we can rationalize this we can rationalize anything,” Hana notes in a letter to her mother in which she tries to make sense of how the war affected her, Kip and those around her.

“The English Patient” is a novel that makes you re-examine so many of the givens that seem to run our lives and the world. It challenges the reader to delve into the essence of humanity and revel in its beauty and challenges. But most important of all, there is a distinctive pleasure to reading Ondaatje’s narrative and his wonderful use of language. At times, you just find yourself sighing with disbelief at the mastery with which Ondaatje phrases his thoughts and the subtlety of his delivery. In recommending this book to you, I would like to leave you with what the English patient says when describing how he fell in love with Katherine. It was right after she stopped reading aloud a story of passion from “The Histories” by Herodotus. “With the help of an anecdote,” he fell in love. “Words …they have a power,” he concludes.

-”The Fourth Hand” was published in 2001 by Random House. Copyright © John Irving 2001
-”The English Patient,” was first published 1992 by Bloomsbury Publishing Limited. The edition I used for this review was published 1993 by Picador. Copyright © Michael Ondaatje 1992

I will always remember my conversation with a friend on the day it transpired that Baghdad was about to break all records in the speed of city surrender in conflict (so much for Stalingrad!). He said in despair: “Call me back in a few minutes. I think I’m going to kill myself.”! This friend is a modern Arab. His education and work life had been almost entirely in Europe and the pragmatism of that continent marks his character. And he has always believed in the sanctity of democracy. He was far ahead of Bush and Rumsfeld in the anti-Saddam stakes. He hated Saddam so much he would have recurring nightmares in which he sees a scarily grumpy Saddam threatening to kill him. Yet he was hoping, like that overwhelming majority of Arabs, for a victory for the Iraqi people.

Other enlightened Arabs were hoping against hope for a miracle: the Iraqi people, in a moment of inspiration at once rivaling the American War of Independence and the Czech Velvet revolution, would put up a stoic resistance to the Anglo American invasion while simultaneously getting rid of Saddam. People power like never seen before in the Arab world.

But that was too much to ask of a people who have lived for at least six hundred years under dictatorial or colonial rule. That is too much to ask of other Arab people who have also lived for at least six hundred years deprived of freedom. There can be no turning point in Arab fortunes without a structured and pragmatic agenda. An agenda that would be wholeheartedly adopted by big sections of that proverbial Arab street. Another friend of mine (an Arab too) has so long despaired of the Arab street, he frequently taunts me by saying the street is entirely populated by lackadaisical Shawirma sellers. But it’s our own laziness in thinking up a solid vision for the future that leads us to this interminable cycle of self-mockery, desperation and empty dreams of easy salvation.

There is no salvation from an Anglo American invasion of Iraq. Not even if Bush and Blair were angelic reincarnations of Mother Teresa and Thomas Jefferson. Not even if it’s proven that we were all too skeptical of the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle and, contrary to all reasonable analysis and the facts, they were actually selfless warriors who dream of nothing more than assisting the Iraqis and other Arabs in establishing democracies. The fact of the matter is that the US, like every superpower since the beginning of time, is working to further its own self-interest. And as the historical record shows, the US has almost always worked against true democratic movements in the Middle East. But US intentions are ultimately irrelevant in this debate. Nothing good will ever come to the Arab world unless Arabs start willing it for themselves.

Most Arabs are presently caught between a rock and a hard place. The governing regimes are, for the most part, the antitheses of democracy and the rule of law. Yet, if elections were held tomorrow, it’s acknowledged that the winners would be extremist religious parties that fundamentally reject the notion of democracy. So where do we go from here? Do we simply accept the status quo, as so many do, on the ground that the relative tolerance of the regimes in power is infinitely better than the unpalatable alternative that awaits us in the ballot box? Do we simply accept the religious parties’ almost absolute dominance of the hearts and minds of the majority? Do we simply resign to our seemingly eternal role as spectators? Just hang around and hope Bush doesn’t bomb Syria next? Just watch television and cry tears of shame and hilarity as Arab governments yet again demonstrate unparalleled impotence towards every important issue of the day?

Surely, there is a way out. A way that is not confrontational, reactionary or revolutionary. We definitely don’t need any more so-called revolutionary movements in the Arab world. God knows we’ve had enough of those and they have almost succeeded in destroying what the colonial powers and dynastical systems couldn’t get to.

What is needed is a new movement that seeks to unite the “we” I took the liberty of using so far. I am talking of Arabs who are tired of an Arabia that is light years behind realizing its true potential. Arabs who firmly believe that Islam is the greatest and most positive force in the history of the region, yet understand that the notion of mixing politics and religion is at best an act of self-serving deception. Arabs who are wise enough to realize that talk of democracy being incompatible with Arab culture is nothing more than racist claptrap propagated by apologists for the pervading dictatorial rule. Arabs who are open to the culture of the world and believe that there is a lot of good to be learnt from the economic and political success stories of Europe, Asia, and, yes, the United States. Arabs who believe in our potential to play a key role in a vibrant free market economy. Arabs who will settle for nothing less than real and lasting justice for their long suffering compatriots in Palestine. And last but not least, Arabs who believe, whether by conviction or necessity, that Arab unity is the only real bedrock for sustainable development in the region.

This movement need not focus on political change. It should direct its efforts at real cultural, social and economic change in the Arab world. On the economic level, while it is still lamentable that inter-Arab trade represents only around 9% of Arab countries’ trade, there are signs that regional business is on the rise. This is particularly the case in the Information Technology and other copyright-based industries. A new breed of young Arab businessmen is coming to the fore. Businessmen who tailor their economic models on the region, racing to set up branches in Amman, Cairo, Riyadh and other Arab cities. While such regional expansion is of course not novel, the passion with which these new age traders seek Arab synergies is.

A concerted effort must be made to raise the level of cultural awareness in the region. A starting point should be book-reading. We must do everything possible to make reading books cool in Arabia again! The Arab book publishing business, let alone the business of reading, is in terrible disarray. I am always amazed when I travel in the region; plane passengers almost never carry a book on them. Whilst any flight in Europe is a mobile air library. We are in desperate need for public awareness initiatives to increase book reading. This is an important step in fostering the culture of democracy in the Arab mind.

This movement would give voice and structure to the impressive outburst of expression spreading across the internet. Every day, I am bombarded with articles and thoughts on Iraq, Palestine and the world from friends, friends of friends, distant acquaintances… The internet is providing the forum that empires and armies tried to deny us for centuries. It is finding its way to every office and home. It’s the voice of new Arabia.

I do not purport to write a program for this movement in this short article. I simply wanted to express the obvious need for it. In the Arab world, we will not have the strands of political thinking that pervade in Europe and the US. There will not be an Arab equivalent of the Tories and Labour. No Arab Gores and Bushes fighting it out in a bye-election in Karbala! The slow and hard road to democracy in Arabia will be traveled by three schools of thought, the same schools that will compete in any eventual democracy that we hope to achieve in the region: the “status quo” movement (arguing that what we have now is better than any alternative), the political Islam movement, and the modern freedom-aspiring pan-Arab movement. It is this last movement that needs to spring into action immediately, bringing the disparate personalities and groups that believe in its tenets together. It’s a historic opportunity that we cannot miss.

Of course, each side was represented: on the right corner, you had the two debating champs representing the Israeli point of view, one of whom is the editor of one of the leading “current affairs” magazines in the US, and the other the head of one of the myriad Israeli lobbies. And for the Palestinian side, you had two protagonists (how admirably neutral of CNN): one was a spokesman for an Islamic organization that is as famous in the United States as the author of this article, and another who heads a Jerusalem Studies Centre that must have been established on the day on which “Diplomatic License” was recorded! And so the debate raged on and on.

Richard Roth, the program’s presenter and debate arbitrator par excellence, presided over the proceedings and portrayed an image of utmost impartiality. Equal time was given to each side to air its views, Richard acted graciously, both sides raised their issues, and the program concluded with a quote from Kofi Annan’s speech before the recent Arab Summit in Amman. Kofi Annan, god bless him, was of course a picture of justice and righteousness. His quote had something for both sides – yes, the Arabs had every right to be miffed by the continued occupation of Palestinian territories, but Israelis had a right to worry for their security.

On the other side of the world, on the same day, Slobodan Milosevic was being arrested.

In the news programs and the hastily arranged debate shows on CNN, BBC World and all other major Western news media, the storyline was simple. It was fairytale-esque. It was a good day for Serbia and all those who believe in freedom and basic human rights. The “Butcher of Belgrade,” the “dictator,” the “war criminal” was being arrested – let the world rejoice! During that day’s coverage and on subsequent days, those news media organizations were not obsessed with the need to seem impartial vis-à-vis Slobo and his band of buddies in Belgrade. The analysts who appeared on our screens were congratulating the Serbian authorities and the world on the great news, and talked mostly logistics – will Slobo live it out in a Belgrade jail or will he eventually be given over to the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. And I see nothing wrong with that. A man who is a war criminal has been arrested, and in times like these, when all reasonable persons can agree on what the parameters of basic justice are, there is no need to be as obsessive as usual about impartiality.

And that’s when I realized why people in Europe and the US never really supported Palestinian rights. Since the existence of Israel, Western media has presented the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a struggle of equals fighting it out in the name of colliding causes that are at best vague and at worst indecipherable to the average viewer. Whenever there’s a crisis in the seemingly endless saga that is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, analysts from both sides are woken from their sleep and dragged into our TV sets to champion their side of the great divide.

What’s wrong with that? Am I actually denouncing impartiality? Of course not. Fair reporting and neutral coverage of events are the hallmarks of a free society in which the press is not restricted by government propaganda. But even in the fairest and most neutral of media outlets, a certain practice, let’s call it a human practice, has evolved over the years: YES, you should be evenhanded with almost all issues in the world. BUT, there are certain issues on which all average human beings can agree that there is one side that is clearly the aggressor, the undoubted violator of the other party’s rights. And in such cases, it is only natural, and acceptable to the average viewer, that the media need not be fanatic about equal air time to both sides of the argument. It’s OK to show some human bias.

There are a multitude of cases in point: the Anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa, the genocide in Rawanda, the democratic movement’s struggle against dictatorship in Eastern Europe, Kosovars pursuit of basic human rights, Kuwait’s resistance to Iraqi occupation …. Etc. In these cases, even the most respectable of media institutions allow themselves a good deal of partiality. When reporting on the fact that thousands of people were either massacred or detained in Kosovo, it was naturally OK for CNN and its viewers if each report was not immediately followed by an equally compelling piece about how Milosevic’s gangs were actually in the right and sadly misunderstood by the world!! I remember, for example, that wonderful day in February 1990 when Nelson Mandela was freed from jail. The commentary that accompanied the BBC’s live broadcast was closer to poetry than news reporting. The presenter waxed lyrical about the beauty of that moment and how the evil system of apartheid was beginning to crumble. I loved every minute of it, and I didn’t give a damn that P.W. Botha wasn’t given equal time to defend apartheid.

The common thread running through all of these cases is that of moral certainty. Of course, we can engage in philosophical discussions and argue that there is no such thing as an absolute truth. But let’s just say that there are a few issues on which the great majority of human beings can agree on what’s right and what’s blatantly wrong. In the South African case, there was a moral as certain and absolute as we are ever going to get: it is wrong for a state to be constituted and run on the basis of racial segregation. In the Kuwait example, all reasonable human beings could agree that the forceful invasion of an entire country is not a reasonable way of settling a slight border dispute. The list goes on and on until we get to the most obvious example facing the world today – the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the ongoing intifadah.

There are a number of inalienable truths about this conflict that should not be obfuscated by any respectable media organization. First, there is the fact of forced evacuation and ethnic cleansing. The armed groups that created the Jewish state in 1948 precipitated the forced exodus of over 750,000 Palestinians. Israel has refused to allow the return of those refugees, who are now estimated to number 1.5 million. There is a moral certainty that those who are kicked out of their homes and lands have an indisputable right of return. Any argument to the contrary is at best morally bankrupt and, at worst, downright sinister.

Secondly, the state of Israel is founded on the notion of religious superiority. Any Jewish person wherever he or she may be living at present and regardless of his or her specific history or national heritage has a right to immediate citizenship in the state of Israel, in effect a right to supplant the local Arab population that has been there since time immemorial. The argument is sometimes formulated on the lines that Jews originally lived in the land of Palestine and were forcibly evacuated there-from thousands of years ago – hence, every Jew can now return to his or her original home. Well, let’s leave for now the obvious point that if this were true, then the same logic would apply more strikingly to all the Palestinians who have been forced to leave their homes by the returning Jews only 53 years ago – in fact, some of those Palestinians still have the keys to their houses! But let’s just look at this argument in the context of the world we live in. Imagine if every country in the world granted immediate citizenship to anyone who claims that his ancestors used to live there hundreds or thousands of years ago. The world would be surely thrown into chaos. Spain would have to grant citizenship to all Arabs on the basis of the fact that Arabs lived and ruled in Andalusia for hundreds of years before being kicked out 5 centuries ago; all Americans of non-Indian origin would have to evacuate the USA forthwith … The potential list of absurdities that would proceed from this warped logic is endless. In fact, the logic of citizenship in Israel can only be comprehended if one accepts that Judaism is a superior form of religion. According to the rules of this religion, the land of Palestine belongs to the Jews. This religious commandment overrides all other national, religious and historical claims that any other group of people may have over Palestine – that’s the only way in which one can accept that Jews have an exclusive right to this land.

Thirdly, there is the fact of the illegal occupation of Arab lands in 1967. This is so indisputable even the United States has never questioned the United Nations’ resolutions calling for Israel’s immediate withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza strip and the right of self-determination for the Palestinians living in those territories. Fourthly, there are the means and methods used by Israel to perpetuate its illegal occupation of these Arab territories. I would argue that no people in history have ever suffered under occupation as much as the Palestinians. Examples of Israeli state terrorism can be seen on our TV screens on any given day; soldiers in tanks throwing bombs in response to helpless stones thrown by an oppressed population living under occupation, soldiers ganging up on detainees breaking their bones with the back-ends of their rifles, children shot intentionally on the head, and, last but not least, the demolition of houses in order to expand illegal settlements or to teach the innocent family of a suspected freedom fighter a lesson.

And these are just some of the basic facts about this conflict. And that’s without getting into some other current issues regarding which most Western media outlets evince a shameful ambivalence. For example, Ariel Sharon, the current Prime Minister of Israel. Ariel Sharon is a war criminal. He is directly responsible, amongst other ignominious things, for the murder of at least one thousand innocent people in the Sabra and Chatila camps during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. And that’s not just according to some Arab or international sources; the Kahan Commission, formed by the Israeli Government to investigate the Sabra and Chattila massacres, reached the conclusion that Sharon bore “personal responsibility” for the atrocities, and requested the then-Prime Minister of Israel to fire Sharon from his Government post.

Yet, despite all of the above, most Western media institutions refuse to place the Palestinian conflict in the human and moral context in which it belongs, the same context in which they gladly place cases such as the anti-apartheid struggle and the Milosevic-induced massacres in the Balkans. Well, it’s not for want of moral justification. It is simply a case of the media reflecting the balance of power in our times. Israel, for a multitude of reasons that are beyond the scope of this article, is the favorite child of the United States, the world’s greatest power. Consequently, the world is subjected by and large to a Western media spin on the conflict which reflects the policy of this age’s Roman Empire and its main allies. In the same breath, we are told that Mandela is a hero, yet the 13-year-old boy who braves the tanks and gun-fire in Ramallah to throw a defiant stone in the face of aggression is just part of a “cycle of violence” or, even worse, an innocent boy manipulated by his parents to go and die for a vague cause. The sense of outrage at this ridiculous degradation of a struggle for freedom cannot be overstated.

In that CNN program, Richard Roth ended the neutral segment on the conflict by praising the neutral Kofi Annan for being the only one in the Arab Summit to see the “Big Picture.” I plead with those reading this article to keep their eye on the big picture despite all the half-truths, contrived impartiality, hazy commentaries and downright manipulation that cloud almost all coverage of the intifadah in Western media. The storyline is simpler here than in the most basic story you read to your children at night. There are people in the Middle East who are currently being denied the right to return to their homes, whose land is occupied in defiance of all international laws, who lost the right of citizenship in their own homeland because they don’t belong to the right religion, whose houses are being demolished, whose bodies are being shattered by the bullets of occupation and arrogance. Let the newscasters and commentators strike their pose of fake evenhandedness in line with the present power balance, but please make sure that you as an intelligent observer stand on the right side of history. Empires and their propaganda machines come and go; the ideals of freedom and justice are eternal.