'The tunnel at the end of the light'

Prince El-Hassan of Jordan was guest of honour at the Arab League's conference on 'Civilisations: Dialogue Not Confrontation' last week. Amina Elbendary met the prince the morning after
The tragic events of 11 September, the subsequent war against terrorism and its accompanying Western rhetoric have sharpened a sense of besiegement among Arabs and Muslims worldwide -- so much so that this war has been viewed by many as a war against Islam. Indeed the Arab League's conference on "Civilisations: Dialogue Not Confrontation" could very well be construed as a manifestation of the heightened concerns over the image of Arabs and Muslims abroad. Yet as His Royal Highness Prince El-Hassan explained a day after the conference, "The feeling of Islamophobia existed for years before the tragedy of 11 September, and the concept of the dialogue of civilisations is based in my view, on one world and ten thousand cultures. However, we do not live in a world of cultural exchanges. In terms of the new laws against terror, Arab Americans have used the term McCarthyist; and there has been a likening of the situation of Arab Americans to that of the Japanese during World War II. It's not for me to judge whether these examples are extreme in themselves, but I think it is clear that you have religious fundamentalism or extremism on the one hand and also a certain liberal extremism which might be described as fundamentalist on the other; preservation of the American way of life, with particular reference to modernisation, democratisation, secularisation -- possibly in the face of traditional convictions. As a bridge builder I feel that developing institutionalised conversations and a context of civil society, participation of women and youth, is the only way out of this predicament or the siege mentality. But building international citizenship is not possible without building universal values."
Yet despite the talk about those universal values and international citizenship, Arabs are still obsessed with 'the West' and even though the conference discussed civilisations in general and there was a nod towards 'the other' we seem to repeatedly reduce that 'other' to the West. This is in a sense understandable in light of the political situation we are living under, but aren't Arab reactions also always oriented towards the West?
"I think you're right. Let's start with the Arab other, and the Muslim other and recognise our shortcomings," Prince Hassan replied. "If we speak of terror, then there is the terror of working for a dollar a day, the terror of the exclusion of women from the labour force, the terror of the constriction of public freedom in the name of security. I personally believe in not only hard security, but in soft security, human security as well.
"The Arab Renaissance movement which admired many of the aspects of Westernisation at the turn of the twentieth century is constrained by the fundamentalist view that says 'no' to everything Western and in that sense is exclusionist. However, on the other side of the equation you have the Western liberals who say no to much of what is traditional.
"The Balkanisation process, the dismantling of Yugoslavia, perhaps could have been avoided if there had been an advance crisis avoidance capability based on cultural affinity. In all my adult life I've heard nothing other than Sarajevo, Kosovo, Balkans, Greek-Turkish confrontation; I always ask why do the dominoes have to fall? Today after the Afghan war we have a Dayton-type process and people are beginning to discover the plurality of Tajik, Uzbek, Pashtun. Why wasn't this information available before the tragic consequences of 11 September? And if we look at [the Arab] region, I think that the ethnic and sectarian differences are either an opportunity to develop pluralism and respect for the other (the Arab Christian respect for the Arab Muslim and vice versa, promotion of the identity of the East whether Christian Arab or Muslim Arab), or we succumb to ethnic and sectarian stress and strife which will undoubtedly lead to the bloodshed that the Balkans and now Afghanistan have witnessed."
'We have to rediscover the public realm, if you will, the public good. Otherwise, I think that we are going to find that our society will be dismantled. The ethnic and sectarian tensions are out there, the growing disparity between the rich and poor'
The Civilisations Conference has called for several measures to address the issue of cross-cultural dialogue, including the establishment of a special board of intellectuals and the appointment of an Arab League commissioner for cultural affairs. In that, and indeed in much of Arab political discourse, there is this ultimately simplistic and naïve idea that if only the rest of the world were to know the truth about the Arab and Muslim world, discrimination would disappear. Could this really work in practice -- especially given the fact that in many cases the truth about the Arab world is ugly? Prince Hassan has his own ideas on how to tackle these biases.
"I have proposed three regional concepts that should be revisited," he explained. "In our conversations with Europe priority is usually given to security and economy while culture is an afterthought. I would like to reverse this. A cultural conversation can be developed through the creation of a parliament of cultures, one not appointed by governments but based on an independent foundation. The criteria for membership would be the involvement of the silent majority: civil society, women, and the development of a policy dialogue where we judge the song and not the singer.
Prince Hassan also argued in favour of management of resources on a regional level. "Resources are not or should not be a zero-sum game. For example, you may find that water will soon be sold as a commodity. The European Community started with coal and steel, we have to start with the super- national, extra-national concept of water and energy and link that with the development of the human environment," he said.
"And thirdly we should visit the question of security on the basis of this North African, Middle Eastern or West Asian region being bereft of any conflict avoidance capability. The question of weapons of mass destruction should be addressed inclusively on the basis of MAS (Mutually Assured Survival) and not MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction)."
Yet these ideas for regional cooperation and international dialogue have been there for a while. Can we discern any real beginnings for action now in that direction? Or are we just going to talk to ourselves again and again?
"There is a loss of will," the prince lamented. "The Arab public is fully justified in feeling frustrated, and I think the fact is that the map of the Arab world and the new scenarios that are being suggested in the world of globalisation mean that we turn to the WTO, for example, and sign 10 Arab agreements. It's the cumulative effects of those agreements that invite us to talk to each other. We are not proactive; we are subjective. We complain about a world that we can change but we are not demonstrating that we have the will to change. So I am afraid of the tunnel at the end of the light. As you say, every time we have a meeting there is a glimmer of light and then we end up going back into that tunnel once again.
"I am not pessimistic and I'm always hopeful but I think this region needs a dynamic, centrist, forward-thinking platform. We need to bridge the gap with our own public and with the international community and to give people-politics priority over any other consideration. Hydro-politics, petro-politics should be oriented to the service of people's interests; we have to rediscover the public realm, if you will, the public good. Otherwise, I think that we are going to find that our society will be dismantled. The ethnic and sectarian tensions are out there, the growing disparity between the rich and poor...
"An [Arab] enlightenment will have to involve Arabs abroad. Many of them have been involved and responsible citizens. But to invite their participation we have to address the reasons for their migration; they excelled in a competitive environment away from cronyism and bureaucracy.
"I think a moment of truth is coming, either we continue with a culture of existence or we accept to develop a culture of participation and only through participation can we build peace.
"But it's not enough to say that governments can't do it alone; a full mobilisation of intellectuals and of the general public is required. We as Arabs discover each other every time we meet -- and then we forget. It's extraordinary that in the Arab world today we're talking about the need for the Arab database. But we can understand the reasons for that because our censuses are not updated and there is no analysis, and for so-called security reasons we are not really aware of what our people's aspirations are. So we are studied as laboratory tests -- by others.
"I think the [futuristic] scenarios of 2020 are the way to proceed.
"When I started speaking of Israeli settlers, the colonists, (in the early 1970s) they were less than 1,000. They have approached the 200,000 mark now -- excluding Jerusalem -- and I think that one of the problems was that we did not see the writing on the wall, because no one could have predicted the migration of up to a million Russian Jews, but in any case these are the realities on the ground. If we are to prepare for new realities on the ground the hope is that we can accept an intermediate vision. Scenarios of change have been presented in the Egyptian context; Ismail Sabry Abdallah and others have worked on this for some time, and in Jordan, UAE and a number of Arab societies I noticed the beginning of inviting preventive strategies, so the hope lies in a stitch in time. We cannot continue with knee-jerk reactions, with adhocracy, and expect that anything will change. Because if we're interested in change we have to take the forces of change in both hands."
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Message from the Arabs 29 Nov. - 5 Dec. 2001
The civilising process 29 Nov. - 5 Dec. 2001
A grain of salt in the wound 29 Nov. - 5 Dec. 2001
The clash of understanding 29 Nov. - 5 Dec. 2001
Dialogue, not clash of civilisations 29 Nov. - 5 Dec. 2001
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