Ramsco's Women Empowerment Initiative Recognized Among Top BRICS Businesswomen Practices for 2025    Egypt, Elsewedy review progress on Ain Sokhna phosphate complex    Gold prices end July with modest gains    Pakistan says successfully concluded 'landmark trade deal' with US    Egypt's FM, US envoy discuss Gaza ceasefire, Iran nuclear talks    Modon Holding posts AED 2.1bn net profit in H1 2025    Egypt's Electricity Ministry says new power cable for Giza area operational    Egypt's Al-Sisi, Italian defence minister discuss Gaza, security cooperation    Egypt's FM discusses Gaza, Nile dam with US senators    Aid airdrops intensify as famine deepens in Gaza amid mounting international criticism    Health minister showcases AI's impact on healthcare at Huawei Cloud Summit    On anti-trafficking day, Egypt's PM calls fight a 'moral and humanitarian duty'    Federal Reserve maintains interest rates    Egypt strengthens healthcare partnerships to enhance maternity, multiple sclerosis, and stroke care    Egypt keeps Gaza aid flowing, total tops 533,000 tons: minister    Indian Embassy to launch cultural festival in Assiut, film fest in Cairo    Egyptian aid convoy heads toward Gaza as humanitarian crisis deepens    Culture minister launches national plan to revive film industry, modernise cinematic assets    Rafah Crossing 'never been closed for one day' from Egypt: PM    I won't trade my identity to please market: Douzi    Two militants killed in foiled plot to revive 'Hasm' operations: Interior ministry    Egypt's EHA, Huawei discuss enhanced digital health    Egypt, Oman discuss environmental cooperation    Egypt's EDA explores pharma cooperation with Belarus    Foreign, housing ministers discuss Egypt's role in African development push    Egypt reveals heritage e-training portal    Three ancient rock-cut tombs discovered in Aswan    Sisi launches new support initiative for families of war, terrorism victims    Egypt expands e-ticketing to 110 heritage sites, adds self-service kiosks at Saqqara    Egypt's Irrigation Minister urges scientific cooperation to tackle water scarcity    Palm Hills Squash Open debuts with 48 international stars, $250,000 prize pool    On Sport to broadcast Pan Arab Golf Championship for Juniors and Ladies in Egypt    Golf Festival in Cairo to mark Arab Golf Federation's 50th anniversary    Germany among EU's priciest labour markets – official data    Paris Olympic gold '24 medals hit record value    A minute of silence for Egyptian sports    Russia says it's in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban    It's a bit frustrating to draw at home: Real Madrid keeper after Villarreal game    Shoukry reviews with Guterres Egypt's efforts to achieve SDGs, promote human rights    Sudan says countries must cooperate on vaccines    Johnson & Johnson: Second shot boosts antibodies and protection against COVID-19    Egypt to tax bloggers, YouTubers    Egypt's FM asserts importance of stability in Libya, holding elections as scheduled    We mustn't lose touch: Muller after Bayern win in Bundesliga    Egypt records 36 new deaths from Covid-19, highest since mid June    Egypt sells $3 bln US-dollar dominated eurobonds    Gamal Hanafy's ceramic exhibition at Gezira Arts Centre is a must go    Italian Institute Director Davide Scalmani presents activities of the Cairo Institute for ITALIANA.IT platform    







Thank you for reporting!
This image will be automatically disabled when it gets reported by several people.



The underlying fault lines of the region
Published in Daily News Egypt on 30 - 12 - 2009

CAIRO: In 1989, the prominent Orientalist Bernard Lewis argued that the Arab world was disintegrating into fragmented ethnic and sectarian enclaves, dissipating any sense of collective solidarity and identity. Looking at the Arab world today, from the ugly spat between Egypt and Algeria, countries once identified with pan-Arabism, to the openly sectarian and ethnic power struggle in US occupied-Iraq, Lewis ominous prediction is gradually becoming a reality.
The imperial theorist, however, was not making predictions but advocating policies to be implemented through American and Israeli wars. Lewis was never simply an academician, but a main pillar of neoconservative thought and a direct participant in decisions leading up to the Afghan and Iraqi wars. The guiding idea was that post-colonial Arab nation-states did not have solid foundations as modern states and would eventually crumble.
I am not talking here about a grand conspiracy theory nor am I blaming Lewis or the West for the deep divisions that are tearing through the Arab world. The American empire, which succeeded Britain, is mainly bent on consolidating its domination over the region s resources and securing Israel, the front line against pan-Arab nationalism. Certainly, US wars of destruction and Israeli aggression are major culprits in the prevailing regional sense of defeat and demoralization that is largely responsible for the spreading entrenchment behind ethnic and sectarian tribalism. But Lewis was merely dutifully serving the empire by justifying and instigating policies that aim at inflicting consecutive defeats not only on Arab armies but also the Arab spirit. Consecutive defeats would see a strong sense of collective Arab belonging be replaced by a collective sense of defeat - triggering ethnic and sectarian struggles and competition among the ruling elites.
It is our part in this shameful saga of petty destructive rivalries and unabashed power struggle in the name of sects and religion that we should start seriously scrutinizing. True, it was the 1967 military defeat of mainly pan-Arab regimes that proved the strongest blow to what then appeared a powerful and progressive wave of pro-independence pan-Arabism. But it was the dictatorships and erosion of political freedoms that not only contributed to the military defeats but deepened an individual as well as collective sense of humiliation and powerlessness.
The Arab states failure to pursue development policies, reliance on western support in place of domestic legitimacy, and continued suppression of political freedoms have prevented any genuine resurgence of an Arab movement or parties that could effectively ensure citizens rights and participation. The ongoing crack down on social and political movements allows political leaders to manipulate poverty and a sense of loss into sectarian divisions. It pushes a desperate Arab citizen, deprived of any real sense of citizenship, to focus on false victories, the football game between Egypt and Algeria being a case in point where a sporting event becomes an occasion for defeating an imaginary other .
In Jordan, fear of Israeli expansion that would turn the kingdom into a substitute homeland is being used by the power elites to foment and widen a Palestinian-Jordanian divide. The failure of Palestinian reconciliation is producing a geographic divide that enables Israel to complete the fragmentation of any Palestinian homeland. Our utter failure to solve, and the disgraceful mishandling, of minority and ethnic grievances and problems, from the Kurds in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, Darfur in Sudan to the Sahara in Morocco, have invited foreign intervention and threaten to break up Iraq and Sudan.
The regimes sense of impotence is trickling down, becoming a collective sense of helplessness as a function of repression and increasing poverty. The international criminalization of resistance, including peaceful forms of resistance, through blockades and the exercise of American power also function to deepen social, class, sectarian and ethnic fault lines. The alarming cooptation of Arab intellectuals by Arab and particularly Gulf states reduce their rhetoric on pan-Arabism to vacuous slogans that deceive people into believing in hollow acts of resistance fought on satellite TV and talk shows. New fault lines will appear as the region s social and political conflicts, especially the Arab-Israel one, are gradually presented as religious conflicts, threatening to distort what in the latter case is essentially a struggle for liberation and justice.
But there are glimmers of hope in this gloomy picture. The movement against an inherited presidency in Egypt, the spread of human rights watchdogs and initiatives to deal with serious social problems in the Arab world are all promising acts of resistance to bigoted ideas and hatred. The continued Palestinian resistance, from Bili in to Gaza, is also a sign of a rejection of submission to despondency that could turn into civil war.
But without a serious movement in the Arab world, and inside Palestine, to put a halt to violations of human rights by all sides, the Palestinian struggle and all social movements will suffer even more. One of the most dangerous signs of increasing divisions in the Arab world is the ideological entrenchment that justifies human rights violations by political parties as if all is fair in support of a political agenda. As it is between Fatah and Hamas, so it is in most Arab states: human rights are merely used as tools to serve political elites rather than as a means to bring about the kind of accountability that is our only guarantee against descending into an abyss.
Lamis Andoniis a veteran journalist and commentator on Middle East affairs. This commentary is published by Daily News Egypt in collaboration with bitterlemons.org.


Clic here to read the story from its source.