Dr. Mohamed Berween
What the Arab people might expect from those rulers who control their future? Do we really expected them to work toward achieving the Arab unity and eventually making the dream of the Arab World a reality?!
Secondly: The War on Gaza has revealed to all freedom loving people that the Palestinian Cause is a cause of freedom, justice and human rights, more than an issue of race, region, or religion. In other words, it is a cause of fighting for their dignity, equality, and the right of self-determination.
Thirdly: The Palestian war against the aggressors and occupiers, has shown that all what the Arab rulers care about it, shamelessly, is to stay in power as long as they can at any cost, and they are willing to ally themselves even with the devil to achieve that goal. Fourthly: This War on Gaza should be considered the official end to the era of what had been known as the Arab World, and also it should be considered a new starting point in the region history.
Fifthly: As result of this brutal war on Gaza, the vast majority of the people in the region and all over the Globe, have been convinced that the U.S. and European foreign policies have been so out of sync toward the Palestinian Cause and also the concerns and interests of the Arab people in general. And all the slogans declared by the American and European politicians, such as freedom, democracy, equality, and justice for all, are nothing but disguise to legitimize the state of Israel and defend its reckless actions, and secure the flow of the cheap Arab gas and oil, and to continue their hegemony of the region for many years to come.
Some Tools and Policies There are numerous tools and policies have that been used, by the U.S. and European politicians, to obstruct the concept of the Arab world of being implemented successfully, and eventually led to its death.
The following are just some of them.
1- They used “symbolisms and historical memories” to disrespect the people and their leaders in the region, for instance:
(a) When the U.S. and European soldiers rolling their tanks into the center of Baghdad, on April 9th, 2003, and hoisting the American flag on a statue of Saddam in Firdos Square, made the people in the region watched their television sets with disbelief and despair, and that moment reminded them with the defeat of the Byzantines in 1071, which was the impetus for the Crusades. It also reminded them with the defeat of the Ottoman empire at the gates of Vienna in 1683, which marked the beginning of the Western colonization of the Islamic countries.
(b) Another symbolism used by the Americans was on December 15, 2003, when the U.S. soldiers captured Saddam Hussein, his pictures deliberately beamed around the world, having his hair examined for lice, looking at his teeth, and a saliva DNA swab taken from his mouth were intended. All of these were intended by the Americans to destroy Saddam mystique and all fear surrounding him in Iraq and the rest of the Arab World.
(c) These humiliating and degrading treatments, in the eyes of the majority of the people in the region, even those Iraqis and others who hated Saddam and were happy for getting rid of him felt so sad and wished that his end was different than the way he was captured, some of them went even further by wishing that he had killed himself instead of giving up this way without a fight, the vast majority of the people in the region thought that way he surrendered humiliated all Arabs Muslims and non-Muslims in the region.
2. Another policy used by the American and the European politicians is what I will call “the right to use all means necessary to destroy your opponent.” For example, when the Israeli, on October 7th, 2023, flied their airplanes and rolled their tanks and marched their soldiers into the Gaza Strip, started destroying everything came their way and killing every human being they found regardless of his or her age or religion! their responses have been, Israel has “the right for selfdefense” and they vowed to stand by her all the time and gave her all the weapons it needed to accomplish its goals.
3. Another tool used by the American and the European politicians is the “politics of fear”. It has been used to scare and threaten any potential regional power (s) that might pose threat to Israel or their interests in the region. For instance, in 2003, when the US and the European states attacked Iraq, it drew an angry response in the Arab streets and in the whole region, and their first reaction was: “today is Iraq, tomorrow it will be the rest of the Arab countries.” The response by the American and the European politicians was using “more fear” as a political tool to accomplish their objectives.
This political tool (meaning the politics of fear) has been advocated by many thinkers in the United States, and especially by the Neo-conservatives during president Bush administration. Patrick J. Buchanan, an American conservative author and a formal political commentator and politician, in one of his articles entitled: “No End to War: the Frum-Perle prescription would ensnare America in endless conflict,” stated this way: “The neo-cons do not want to narrow our list of enemies, they do not want to confine America’s war to those who attacked us, they want to expand our list of enemies to include Israel’s enemies. They want to escalate and widen what Chris Matthews calls ‘the Firemen’s War’ into a war for hegemony in the Middle East.
They had hoped to exploit 9/11 to erect an empire, and as they see the vision vanish, their desperation knows no bounds”. In other words, the fear of everything will become American, has been advocated by many American pundits and politicians. For instance, Michael Wolff, a media columnist for New York magazine argued that: “It’s part of this enormous faith, this unquestioned faith, that when the people in the Middle East are introduced to American values and style, and look and feel, they will fall for it, … And it’s virtually unchallenged. It’s almost missionary-like”.
4. The US and the European politicians have also used the “Politics of Double-Standard” when it comes to the Palestian cause. For instance, the American and European politicians give direct and unconditioned support to Israel for self-defense and allow her to do whatever it pleases against the Palestinian people, whereas, they reject the right of the Palestinians for self-defense and standing against giving them their own independent state, and they consider every Palestinian freedom fighter as a terrorist and they believe that he must be killed.
5. Establishing “Token Institutions” to give a false impression and feeling that these something could be call “Arab World”?!!! One of these institutions is “The League of the Arab States”, which was established in Cairo on March 22, 1945. Since then, and for more than seventh-eight (78) years has accomplished nothing toward Arab unity, sadly, it is on the reverse, it has legitimized the major plans and policies of the “Great Powers”, and helping them to continue their hegemony in the region.
In short, it is a meaningless institution, which has cost the Arab people billions of US Dollar, on employees who have nothing and meaningless activities, and conducted numerous meetings resulting in “talk too much and say nothing.”
The Alternative I would argue that the Israeli war on Gaza should be considered an obvious evidence to declare the death of the Arab World, and therefore, it is time for all intellectuals and politicians in the region to start looking for new alternative to this dead idea. This new alternative should be simple and practical instrument to unite all peoples in the region on the bases of common denominators.
I believe that one simple and practical political umbrella that might unite the peoples in the region is what I would call “The Confederate States of the Middle East.” This new model will allow the five different and distinct sub-regions (namely, al-Maghreb, al-Neel, al-Mashreq, al-Khaleej, and Al-Janub) to cooperate closely and to give chance to all peoples to achieve their ultimate shared goal, which is “to be united in one nation.” And in order for this ultimate shared goal to be achieved, it has to be accomplished gradually and subsequent in two main and necessary stages as follows:
The First Stage The first step in this process is to encourage the individual states within the five different and distinct Sub-regions to work closely together to establish a strong and prosperous “Five Confederate of Sub-regions.”
The following map illustrates these five sub-regions:
The Second Stage Once the first stage has been successfully accomplished, and the states within the five sub-regions are working and cooperating closely with each other, and are able to establish a strong and prosperous “Five Confederate of Sub-Regions.” Then, and only then, the five sub-regions can start working together to accomplish the second stage on the bases of common denominators to achieve their next common goal, which is to establish a strong and successful Confederacy.
By confederacy, here, I mean to establish an alliance between all five subregions in order to achieve unity, that will allow each member state to govern itself and at the same time to cooperate with others for achieving common objectives they could not achieve individually. In other words, confederacy is a union of sovereign states, rather than a strong central government.
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Dr. Mohamed Berween – Emeritus Professor of Politics and Administration, Texas A&M International University, Laredo, Texas, USA
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