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The Arabic – Islamic world in 2007: Borders of terrorism and politics collide

By Riad Awwad

                 As we leave behind the year 2007, with its good and bad parts, we must conclude that the Arabic Islamic world today is the same as it was yesterday and will remain the same tomorrow.

                 The international situation is marked by conflicting debates upon Islam, conflicting because of, in the first place, the interference between the borders of politics and the terrorist phenomenon in this Arabic Islamic world marked by political crisis and territorial debates.

                 The Arabic economies pas a regressing process, while the huge energetic and material resources from these territories are controlled by dictatorial regimes who, not in a few cases, use them to emaciate their own people and fund terrorist organizations and networks, for the export of future martyrs who kill innocent civilians in the name of Allah.

                 While the price of a barrel gets close to 100 dollars, the economic state of Islamic regimes is far from stable and progressive.

                 A short retrospective on the events that took place in 2007 will bring up the following:

                 1. The fall of the Palestinian government not more than 1 year after its birth because of the lack of representation for the expectancies of the people and its “serving” towards Iran and Syria who, frightened by the results of the international investigation regarding the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al Hariri, try to stop by any means the election of a new president in Lebanon.

                 2.  In Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorist and destructive manifestations continue uninterrupted, as if the Muslims are trying to demonstrate to the occident that they are their own enemies.

                 3.  The continuing of internal tensions and torment in Pakistan, after the return of Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Butho, and after the proclamation of the “exceptional state”.

                 4.  The tensions between Turkey and P.K.K, on the background of the claims of Kurd ethnics in Syria, Iran and Turkey to have their own country in this geographical area, claims considered a natural fact.

                 5.   The continuous degradation of the situation in the Sudanese province Darfur, where the government in Khartoum, controlled by Sudanese Arabs, denies the existence of African origin tribes and imposes the canonic Islamic right by force on the provinces where non Muslims live

                 6.  On the gulf level, Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad has been invited, for the first time, at the reunion of the Gulf Cooperation Council, participation which, far from offering the occasion of conciliation between Iran and the surrounding Arab world, has deepened even more the already existing hostility, mainly because of the territorial debates upon the three islands in the Gulf, now under the occupation of Teheran – Abu Mussa, Great and Small Tomb.

                 The American options for military interventions in Iran linger from inefficiency to danger, and start to loose their “charisma”, after the report of the American secret services stating that Iranian nuclear programs have been stopped for four years now.

                 In his book “State of democracy”, Israeli writer Nathan Sharansky underlines with no regret de paradoxes launched by Samuel Huntington about the clash of civilizations, based on the idea that underdevelopment in the Islamic world makes living with it impossible. In an era of fast inter reasoning, politics and universal economics and social matters, in an era of globalization, the Arabic Islamic world lives, continuously, isolated within itself and in conflict with its own identity, in a climate of civil conflicts and wars, of disorientation , anarchy and waiting. Moreover, this is happening while the importance of the geographic and economic role of the Islamic Arabic world increases; the hard competition for its oil resources becomes harder, Arabic brains leave their countries for the occident. In the USA and Europe live, today, over one million citizens holding a masters degree obtained in the Occident, not to remind of the businesspersons, artists, experts and workers in different areas, whom all come from this territory. Islamic and Arabic capital placed abroad surpass 1 trillion dollars, while more than one million Arabs are looking for work in Europe because of the scarce situation in their home land.

                 In 2007 as well as in the past years, the Arabic Islamic world is lead by totalitarian and overwhelming regimes, too little interested in what is going on around them. Israel, the only democratic state in the region, continues to be criticized by the Arabic dictators and Jerusalem, city of peace, continues to be the main obstacle in the way of this peace.

                 The Annapolis conference, held in November, brought to light the existence of several differences: the lines of the future borders of the Palestinian state to exist by the Israeli state, the “breaking” of Jerusalem, the tearing of Israeli colonies, the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes etc.

                 Where can it begin? We think the treatment of the illnesses that the Arabic Islamic world suffers from, which brings it every day closer to the unknown, and in which Islamic extremists, who do not accept criticism or dialogue, are convinced that the only purpose of human beings is to idolatrize God, that the earthly world is only a pathway to paradise and to eternal allegiance to terrestrial dictatorial regimes, to the conversion of sheep like people to the Islamic religion. There are Muslims who believe themselves to be the holders of absolute truth in the name of which they committed the acts of September 11th, then the crimes in Madrid, London, daily crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, Algeria, Kosovo. The freeing from political totalitarism and the inherited traditions is the only way for the real Muslim to overcome fear, because the fatidic allegiance to the will of terrorism and dictatorship dehumanize him, mostly in the contemporary world where the Arab governments lead a taught campaign to denigrate the occident, in order to keep their own privileges and positions, to flush away the “ghost” of democracy, freedom and peace. The Arabic Islamic regimes cannot forgive the Americans for bringing down a power – the one in Iraq – and for appealing for democracy and reform in the region, just like the Taliban people cannot forgive them for bringing down the regime in Afghanistan. This is mainly why we believe this kind of politics will continue uninterrupted and with no perspective of some kind of change.

                 During the soviet missiles crisis in Cuba, president Charles De Gaule refused to analyze the pictures taken by the satellites, of the missile launching ramps in the country, stating he needs no proof of such things to convince himself. “President Kennedy’s word is enough for me”, he said at the time. Yes, in those times the word of the American president was a sufficient warranty by itself. Today, under president Bush’s administration, things differ on an elementary basis and this is why, perhaps, the forces of extremism and terrorism find space under the warm sun, and the danger of a third world conflagration in the name of man and civilization lurks  ever closer.

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