Dina Ezzat reads warning signs on Arab interests, image and language The threat the Arabic language is facing due to the very few efforts being exerted by Arabs to maintain and develop it, much less encourage foreigners to translate from it, was echoed this week in the daily Saudi-owned and London-based Asharq Al-Awsat. The warnings that Asharq Al-Awsat carried on its news pages had originally been made by top Arab linguists at a meeting held in the Lebanese capital to discuss the future of the Arabic language and the limitations imposed on translations from Arabic which is spoken by 22 countries. "The Arab Forum on Translation" voiced concern over the failure of Arabs to adapt their language to modern technology and the huge variations between spoken and written Arabic in North African Arab states and that of the Mashraq Arab countries. However, the key concern expressed in the forum, according to Asharq Al-Awsat was the limited volume of translations from Arabic into the major languages of the world. The warning of this particular story could be read in and between the lines of many other news and opinion pieces run by Arab papers throughout the week. In Tunisia, Sudan, Syria and Saudi Arabia, several papers offered ample warnings about threats to one or another Arab interest. The one issue that rang most alarm bells in the Arab press this week was Iraq. The growing concern throughout the Arab world that Iraq was taking a course that may separate it from its Arab identity could not have been more obvious. Front page headlines as well as news and opinion pages warned that Iraq -- "founding member of the Arab League" as writers relentlessly reminded -- was being lost to the influence of the Kurds, Iran and even Israel. The main source of concern was the diluted reference to Iraq's Arab identity in the Iraqi constitution. But there was also the unmistakable stories of the attacks on Arabs not only by US forces but by Shia and Kurdish militias. Even commentators who had previously been arguing that the best favour the Arab world could render to Iraq was to let it be, this week adopted a new tone suggesting that the time had come for Arab countries to reach out to Iraq and abandon their apathy. "Arab countries need to realise that confining themselves to the sidelines when Iraq is suffering a bloodbath and is faced with serious divisionist plans, is harmful not only to the interests of Iraq but certainly to the interests of all the Arabs. The sectarian-led damage that is befalling Iraq today will soon hit other Arab countries -- Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, other Gulf countries and then Egypt, Libya and Yemen," wrote Mohamed Haroun in another London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi . "Arab countries do not really have relations with the Iraqi government as such and so they cannot really be of much help to the state. They also do not have close relations with the Iraqi society. For its part the Arab League does not go beyond criticising developments in Iraq and issuing negative statements," Ahmed Al-Robai wrote in Asharq Al-Awsat. Al-Robai called on the Gulf Cooperation Council, in its capacity as the umbrella of some of Iraq's most immediate and influential neighbours, to face the challenge and present a prompt initiative to help the Iraqis out before it is too late. But for Arabs to be able to reach out to Iraq, argued Lebanese writer Hani Fahs in Al-Hayat, yet another London-based daily, they first need to overcome their painful experience with the concept and practices of pan-Arabism and to abandon the romantic slogans of pan-Arabism that never really paid or took off. "Today, out of our genuine concern for Iraq and for the sake of all Arabs, we are invited to pursue an Arabism that avoids confrontation," Fahs said. But for Arab regimes to pull their act together, argued Shafiq Nazim Al-Ghabra in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Raai Al-Aam they need to work on overcoming their many differences. Moreover, according to Joseph Samaha, senior commentator in the daily Lebanese As-Safir, Arab regimes must stop counting on the US to prolong their existence. "Some Arab countries believe that their strength comes from their ability to threaten the US and that their failure would simply bring about radical and certainly hardline regimes," Samaha wrote. This, he added, is harmful to the image of these regimes in the US and to their own people.
