Deja Vu?!
Once again Christians of the East are under attack, from Egypt to Malaysia. The question here is what drives this intense hatred that seems to be misdirected against native populations whose only crime is belonging, on teh face of it at least, to the same general faith as the United States. The US, a country whose currency claims to trust in God but whose forces flaunt its imperialist might in oppressing the weak and poor of this world.
The answer, for Arab countries at least, is that in the absence of a strong 'national cult' that binds us all together we are really just a loose confederation of tribes and sects searching for what we miss: a sense of belonging and a sense of empowerment. To many Arab Muslims that sense of belonging and empowerment comes from their faith.
When the glue of Arab nationalism fell apart in the closing decades of the last century, or rather when the disolute Arab regimes revealed the concept to be a great farce as they clamoured for peace with Israel, a realization began to dawn on Arab Muslims: nationalism was too weak to fight against Israeli and American imperialism.
So for many fundementalist Muslims all bonds to any national state were meaningless, the only bond that mattered was the bond of faith. In many ways the weakening, by the US, and co-opting of Arab regimes into the US imperialist club, spurred the creation of a new movement in the struggle against imperial forces: militant Islam.
We are all paying the price of a failed US foreign policy. But as Arab peoples we also bear part of the blame and the responsability for our failure to ensure the creation of national democratic institutions to fully replace or at least curtail corrupt regimes' powers. Sadly that did not happen.
As the US 'carrot and stick' tactic slowly wittled away at Arab regimes' resistence to the very idea of recognizing Israel, Arab populations could only look on in shock and horror, as those who spoke in their name were giving it all away. Peace at a discount! No land, no solid assurances from the opposing side, and no change to Israeli tactics towards Palestinian civilians. Arab peoples were helpless and seething and still are.
US raids killing civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, an Israeli-Egyptian blocade of Gaza keeping urgent aid away from women and children, oppresive regimes in the Gulf curtailing the freedom of the press. This is the landscape many of the young and angry Arab Muslims are faced with and when they can't find an Israeli target to vent their anger on to, they find a Christian one. In their minds both faiths have made themselves the enemies of Islam.
To fight terrorism and end it once and for all the US has to face up to the reality that its own foreign policy created this monster. The only way to end terrorism is to remove its root cause, it is for the US to remove all its forces from the region and end its support for corrupt Arab regimes and force Israel to end the seige of Gaza. Let the people of this part of the world decide for themseleves who they want to speak in their name, maybe then the people will have cause to hope in a renewal of national pride in the Arab world.
The answer, for Arab countries at least, is that in the absence of a strong 'national cult' that binds us all together we are really just a loose confederation of tribes and sects searching for what we miss: a sense of belonging and a sense of empowerment. To many Arab Muslims that sense of belonging and empowerment comes from their faith.
When the glue of Arab nationalism fell apart in the closing decades of the last century, or rather when the disolute Arab regimes revealed the concept to be a great farce as they clamoured for peace with Israel, a realization began to dawn on Arab Muslims: nationalism was too weak to fight against Israeli and American imperialism.
So for many fundementalist Muslims all bonds to any national state were meaningless, the only bond that mattered was the bond of faith. In many ways the weakening, by the US, and co-opting of Arab regimes into the US imperialist club, spurred the creation of a new movement in the struggle against imperial forces: militant Islam.
We are all paying the price of a failed US foreign policy. But as Arab peoples we also bear part of the blame and the responsability for our failure to ensure the creation of national democratic institutions to fully replace or at least curtail corrupt regimes' powers. Sadly that did not happen.
As the US 'carrot and stick' tactic slowly wittled away at Arab regimes' resistence to the very idea of recognizing Israel, Arab populations could only look on in shock and horror, as those who spoke in their name were giving it all away. Peace at a discount! No land, no solid assurances from the opposing side, and no change to Israeli tactics towards Palestinian civilians. Arab peoples were helpless and seething and still are.
US raids killing civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, an Israeli-Egyptian blocade of Gaza keeping urgent aid away from women and children, oppresive regimes in the Gulf curtailing the freedom of the press. This is the landscape many of the young and angry Arab Muslims are faced with and when they can't find an Israeli target to vent their anger on to, they find a Christian one. In their minds both faiths have made themselves the enemies of Islam.
To fight terrorism and end it once and for all the US has to face up to the reality that its own foreign policy created this monster. The only way to end terrorism is to remove its root cause, it is for the US to remove all its forces from the region and end its support for corrupt Arab regimes and force Israel to end the seige of Gaza. Let the people of this part of the world decide for themseleves who they want to speak in their name, maybe then the people will have cause to hope in a renewal of national pride in the Arab world.
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