20 April

By Daniel Kimmage

Qatar's "Al-Rayah": Dr. Abd al-Hamid al-Ansari, dean of the faculty of law at the University of Qatar, criticizes the theory of the "hostile other" in the formation of Arab public opinion.

     "Our Arab masses have been raised for half a century on media designed to mobilize and incite. This is the opposite of how public opinion is formed in democratic countries. Such public opinion is fragile and unreal. Someone accurately termed it the 'political street.' On the one hand, it is turbulent. On the other, Arab public opinion has fed on a tremendous storehouse of slogans from two broad sectors in Arab political life: nationalist thought and politicized religious thought. The Arab masses have been fed a steady diet of these two currents for the last half century. The central idea in this entire corpus of thought is that of the conspiring other who has sown division among us, hampered our awakening, and stymied our democracy. The propaganda apparatus in all Arab societies rests on this theory in education, culture, intellectual life, politics, and religion. We are always and ever suspicious of this other. The stranger never brings good and is a constant source of danger."

Lebanon's "Al-Nahar": Sayyar al-Jamil, an Iraqi historian and former professor at the University of Mosul who now lives in the United Arab Emirates, casts a sad glance at what he sees as a destructive tendency in Arab political life.

     "...But [a war took place,] because of American pigheadedness, Iraqi self-importance, and Arab impotence. The Iraqi regime was not solely responsible for what happened. It was aided by the majority of Arab countries, regimes, societies, and political organizations. All of the tragedies and disasters that then occurred came as a surprise to the Arab nation. Arab newspapers and television stations loaded people up with slogans of resistance, victory, and honor. As usual, all of the Arabs were misled until the historic moment. They couldn't imagine the magnitude of what would occur. They were struck dumb in amazement and disbelief. It seems to me that the shock was greater than the defeat of 1967. I have always told my friends that throughout their modern history the Arabs have never expected destructive consequences to result from the momentous events that take them by surprise or come about through their risk-taking. After the disaster breaks their backs, they endure the tragedy without learning any lessons. Time passes, but they never examine the underlying causes of their bitter experiences."

Britain's "Al-Sharq al-Awsat": Ahmad al-Raba'i advises Syria to return to a more cautious foreign policy.

     "Then the war came and we heard hasty analyses and media campaigns that bet on the wrong horse. Some people who represent the official Syrian point of view began to write in the press and appear on television with fiery speeches divorced from reality and distant from the self-possessed foreign policy that had been Syria's trademark. They presented Syria as though it were fighting alongside Saddam Hussein's regime. Syria, however, took the correct stand on this regime when everyone else was carried away by emotion during the Iran-Iraq War.

     "Damascus should recall that there is Zionist influence in the campaign against Syria. This influence wants an escalation. It rejoices at the fierce rhetoric emanating from some of Damascus' proteges. We feel that Syria needs to review its rhetoric. It needs to act responsibly and realistically. This was the hallmark of Syrian foreign policy for many years. The excessive zeal that has recently reared its head only benefits Syria's enemies."