New Submission: Barbarians Are Coming - Western or
Arabs?
Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja
Moral
and Intellectual Abyss
The US and the
Europeans see war as an instrument of political hegemony and control over the
precious natural resources of the Arab-Muslim world. The super-ego American and
the allied Europeans are missing sense of guilt for the vice and ruins of
decade long occupation and destruction of Iraq
and Afghanistan.
To heighten the demands of human conscience, Arab masses view them barbarians
of a new age more savage than their predecessors crusader of the 12the century.
Incapacity joined by insane egoism makes complacent oil producing Arab rulers
to follow the Western dictates despite internal challenges and intrigues of
their governance. Temptation and compulsion of evil and failure of moral and
intellectual leadership have jeopardized the present and future of whole of the
Arab-Muslim world. Viewing the mental microscope, aggressive sectarian daily bloodbaths
and militarization have articulated a sense of unreality. Morally indifferent
and intellectually exhausted and incapacitated as they look, Arab and Muslim
leaders are waiting and waiting to see what happens next, missing initiative and new imagination to the world of reason and
prevalent reality – planned violence and resulting cruelty are becoming the
societal hallmark across the Arab-Muslim world. They wait for miracle to happen out of
nothing. Exclusive materialism and militarization have devastated the Arab traditional
culture and psyche. Perhaps petro-dollar transitory prosperity has removed the
sense of fear and shame to embolden them to commit any crimes against the human
nature and the people. The struggle is between the Western supported
authoritarianism and the reasoning for political change by the Arab masses. All
and everybody are fighting. Throughout the century, Arabs have lost the
battles. The leaders appear entrenched in a new barbarianism unknown in human
annals. If one is asked, what are they fighting for? There is no logical connection
to the on-going American-led war against ISIL or the Iranian-operated Shiite group
Al-Badr and others committing crimes against the Sunnis-Shiite and minorities. There is no moral in a proxy war. All
belligerent acts enjoin their own intents and motives. Peace and co-existence
do not grow out of cruelty and savagery.
The Arab
and Muslim world is turning into complete political cruelty and quagmire. Man
killing fellow man, all killing all, and reason not to be questioned. The
leaders and people appear to be on the same page of bloodbath, insecurity and
breathing oxygen in a conflicting time zone falling apart into the unknown.
They believe in nothing as if the Earth was dormant, as if there is no God and
life ceases to have a noble purpose of peace, harmony and co-existence. Western
war strategists are a crucial factor in bringing them to this perverted status-quo
of moral and human equilibrium. In an advanced 21st century of
knowledge, wisdom and information, man remains ignorant and arrogant of his
wrong thinking. Arab-Muslim authoritarianism enforced by the self-image to
commit planned violence and aggression against the revolutionary masses is
radiating across Syria, Iraq, Yemen,
Egypt, Libya and Bahrain. After five years, the global community is
just a symbolic spectator watching the heinous crimes of the few against many.
There is no World Order in place to protect the victims of the on-going bloody atrocities.
There is no International Law to forbid the disorder. Most Arab-Muslim leaders lack
capacity to imagine a viable political future and understanding of the purpose of human life and
its priorities within the scope of living Earth and living Universe in which
there is stern accountability of man in relation to time and place. How should
this man-made cruelty and prevalent anarchy be stopped and mankind is saved
from the scourge of bloody sectarian and highly politicized war gone so wrong
and becoming unthinkable in consequences?
Had they believed in God,
humanity and purpose of life with defined accountability, the Earth could have
been a better place for all to co-exist peacefully. The outrageous sectarian
divides and killings of Sunnis, Shiite, Christians and other minorities in the
Arab societies are reaching to an appalling catastrophic magnitude. Does the
informed global community want to see the Arab world to determine its own sadistic
ending? Killing unjustifiably one
innocent human being is like killing of the whole of the humanity. The global
warlords represent cruel mindset incapable to see the human side of the living
conscience. William T. Hathaway (“America is
under Attack!” Dissident Voice), author of
A World of Hurt and an adjunct Professor
of American Studies, University of Oldenburg, Germany, attempts to clarify how the US and Britain
have culminated havoc world of atrocities in the Arab Middle East:
“The USA and Britain committed similar atrocities in Iraq, Syria,
Lebanon, Libya, Indonesia,
and Afghanistan.
We overthrew their governments, installed dictators, undermined their economies
— all to strengthen our business interests. In every nation where we now have
terrorism, we had first assaulted them. America is under attack only
because it is on the attack. It’s no wonder they hate us. Imagine how we would
feel if a foreign country were doing this to us. We’d be fighting back any way
we could…… If people knew this — knew how easy it would be to
stop terrorism — they wouldn’t want to fight this war. That’s why the media
ignore al-Qaeda’s demands. Western leaders don’t want people to see that the
war’s real purpose isn’t to stop terrorism but to control the resources of this
region. They actually want the terrorism because that gives them the excuse
they need — the threat of an evil enemy.”
Who
are the Barbarians - Western or Muslims?
“It was under the influence
of Arabian and Moorish revival of culture and not in the fifteenth century,
that the real Renaissance took place. Spain not Italy, was the cradle of the
rebirth of Europe...It is highly probable that but for the Arabs modern
European civilization would never have arisen at all; it is absolutely certain
that but for them, it would not have assumed that character which has enabled
it to transcend all previous phases of evolution. For although there is not a
single aspect of European growth in which the decisive influence of Islamic
culture is not traceable, nowhere is it so clear and momentous as in the
genesis of that power which constitutes the paramount distinctive force of the
modern world and the supreme source of its victory.” Robert Briffault, Professor Cambridge University
(The Making of Humanity, London, 1919).
Arabs were once the
pioneer of knowledge-based sustainable civilization
lasting for 800 years – the longest period in human history. Today, the former
colonial thinkers and occupiers describe the Arabs and Muslims as “extremists”,
‘terrorists” and barbarians.” Throughout the 20th century and well
into the 21st century, the oil richness failed to deal with emerging
social, moral, intellectual and political problems. Instead with militarization
of the region, increasing bloodbaths depict a havoc political spectrum-
floating without roots and reason. Islam enriched the Arabs to become global
leaders of a progressive civilization, but the oil enhanced prosperity
transformed them into ‘camel jockeys’ and object of hallow laughers after
dinner jokes in the Western culture. When the Arabs had a missionary zeal to “forbid
evil and invite mankind towards goodness”, they excelled in human change, moral
leadership, material progress and civilization. Money cannot buy wisdom, honor
and human integrity. The late Saudi King Abdullah and Sheikh Sabha al-Sabah of
Kuwait were both complacent in providing logistic support to George Bush’s 2003
invasion of Iraq and the resulting massacre of approximately three millions
Iraqis during the prolonged occupation. The bogus “war on terrorism” could not
have happened if the Arab leaders - the frontline bogyman of the US Empire had
useful mind, intellectual capacity and integrity to challenge the most
irrational and cruel act in human history. The Arabs created a knowledge-enshrined
pioneering culture of tolerance, encompassing various ethnicities, faiths and
languages -- thus inspiring the development of everything from mathematics to
astronomy, medical sciences, poetry, and imagination of futuristic human civilization,
education, law and justice, splendid architect defy gravity onward to library
science and lot more.
But the Arab-Muslim world failed
to produce any leader of vision and intellectual integrity for the changing and
complex global affairs of the 21st century. When Arabs were the
leaders in Faith (‘Emaan’) and human values, they articulated a unique
civilization tolerant of diversity and varied cultural ethnicities and built
upon the unity of Islamic faith to nurture peaceful co-existence and human
development. If you list the discoveries and contributions of Muslim scholars,
they are countless. Do you know any other scientists or scholars whose
contributions were used in text books for six centuries in European medical
schools? Consider Mohammad Hussein Bu Ali Sina's Cannon of Medicine.
The Europeans changed his name to Avicenna so that nobody would recognize that
he was a Muslim scholar. It is said that Ibna Sina alone discovered and
authenticated 36 pharmaceutical formulas being used to this day. Marai
Rosa Menocal (A Golden Reign of
Tolerance: The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created
a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain, 2003), explains:
"The lessons of history, like the lessons of
religion, sometime neglect examples of tolerance. A thousand years ago on the
Iberian Peninsula, an enlightened vision of Islam had created the most advanced
culture in Europe....In Cordoba, the library housed some 400,000 volumes at a
time when the largest library in Latin Christendom probably held no more than
400."
Daily barrel bombs across Syria, Jehadi car bombings in Baghdad,
Houti’s led Iranian-backed Shiite militancy in Yemen,
bloody street encounters in Cairo and Tripoli – millions are
being displaced and wiped out in seconds as if they were not human beings - all
tell of a dehumanized Arab culture of irreversible frightening trend. The
future is darkened by the forces of evil.
The coalition Arab leaders are wasting time and opportunities in
pursuing the US-war agenda. Violence and hatred are fast sinking the large
landscape of Arab-Muslim societies into massive deaths and societal destruction.
Daily killing statistics generate media-frenzy supporting Samuel Huntington’s (“The
Clash of Civilizations”, Foreign Affairs, 1993), claim of “Islam has bloody
borders.”
Would America and Israel
Determine the Future of the New Middle East?
Some Arab leaders are collaborating
with the US and Israel policy agenda to undermine the freedom
and the future of Palestine. The
ultimate goal is aimed at complete militarization, destabilization and
continuous destruction of the people, culture and economic environment of the
Arab peninsula. Throughout the oil exporting Arab world, some of the
contemporary rulers have turned out to be complacent in the US-Israeli strategic
plans for the future of the Middle East. The
recent outcomes of the Israeli political elections and return of PM Netanyahu
gives ample concerns that Palestinian will face formidable problems in pursuing
the freedom goal out of the continued occupation. Perhaps, Palestinians need
new, educated and proactive coherent leadership to deal with the 21st
century’s critical political challenges. Somehow neglecting the history,
Israelis and Palestinians are not overcoming the missing humanitarian, moral
and intellectual communication norms and linkages. When the European massacred
and displaced Jews, Arabs welcomed them in their own hearts and governance
extending excellence in human dignity and political prominence in An-Andalusia
(Spain)
and elsewhere. There is an urgent societal need on both sides to rethink and to
capitalize on moral, social and intellectual communications between the
Palestinians and Israelis to avert violence and reject political hatred. Whenever
any antagonists keep means of communication open and accessible, human problems
could be tackled by reason and necessity of the human nature. Israelis and
Palestinians are living and informed entities and they must come up with action
plans to co-exist at human level of decency and sustainable future. Denying
freedom to Palestinians would be a denial to the freedom of self-oppressed
Israelis politically and intellectually with continuing occupation and wars. None
of the Arab leaders have ever come out to represent logically the public
conscience on the issue of Palestine and the
establishment of an independent homeland for the people of Palestine. An internationally acclaimed Canadian author,
Eric Margolis (“Middle East
Peace is Buried”, Information Clearing House: 3/21/2015) brings home the
much perceived reality:
Who is going to force Israel to
follow this sensible, two-state solution to the misery of the Palestinian
people? Obama could not even stop Netanyahu from coming to Washington and
humiliating him before Congress. Is Obama going to force Israel and its 650,000 armed settlers out of the
West Bank? …..As for the Palestinians,
they don’t seem to have much hope. Chances for even a rickety, feeble
Bantustan state on the West Bank are
gone. Netanyahu declared no Palestinian state at the end of the elections
race. He will, of course, continue flirting with the US and EU over this
worn-out question, making small tactical concessions to allow his western
allies to continue going along with the charade that “peace talks” are still
alive. They are not and have not been for a decade. It just suits the
western powers to continue this deceitful game while Israel
relentlessly annexes the Occupied
Territories.
In view of the unstoppable cycle
of political killings and daily bloodbaths in so many Arab states - Syria,
Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Tunis, Bahrain and spill-over to other oil producing
Arab nations - and continuing militancy of the ISIL and its chain reactionary
rivalries of other extremist groups, vengeful deaths and destruction unleashed
by the Iranian backed Shiite militias in Iraq, Syria and the Houtis in Yemen
and dismantling of the socio-economic infrastructures - is the Arab world
coming to its own end? None of the Arab
leaders seem to care or to think of creative political initiatives and measures
to stop the cycle of sectarian killings and massive destabilization of the
region. Any objective-oriented analysis will point out that Arab authoritarian
leaders interdependent on America
and Britain
expect their masters to come and rescue them in political crises. Obviously, America and Britain enjoin their own political
and military agenda and follow it through.
How to Change Political Insanity into Moral
Reasoning?
One finds
a fatal deficiency in the mindset of the Arab-Muslim leadership – a moral and
intellectual behavioral sinking with missing soul of curiosity and internal
mindedness. In situations of crisis and unusual emergencies, competent and responsible
leaders do not look towards convenient escape from reality but get engaged and extend
intellectual security to manage problems. What is the cure to raging
indifference and cruelty to the interests of the people of the Arab-Muslim
world, America, Europe and for that matter to the whole of the global
community? Looking at the Nature of Things, the
universe encompasses many challenging opposites - time, space, sun, moon,
gravitational rotation of the earth, fire, water, air, sand, floods,
earthquakes, tsunami, disasters, explosions, wars, destructions, bombing and
all that can be imagined to destroy the mankind and endanger the continued
movement of the splendid, inspiring and harmonious Universe. How it is that Man
- a creation of God cannot co-exist with fellow Man? Is Man by nature a blood thirsty
creature? Why should few West European
leaders and President Obama have free hand in launching bombing campaigns and
killing the innocents in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Syria? Would they dare to do the same against Russia in the Ukraine crisis? What rights do
these insane barbarians enjoin to engage in military intervention and massacre
the innocents in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Yemen and Syria day in and day out? American shifting metaphor in policy will not
end the Syrian bloodbath. It shows how the ill-fated bombing coalition against
ISIL is futile and meaningless. All Western leaders are playing sadistic games
of survival and exploitation. Dictators never reason but dictate and so the
landscape of the Iraq-Syrian conflicts.
When
would this planned and continuing cruelty come to an end? Is there a sense of
superiority and indifference to the interests of the global mankind? In its 2014 Global Thinkers statistics,
Foreign Policy (“A World
Disrupted: The global Thinkers of 2014”) pinpoints that “something big requires a team rather than
an individual….” To enhance global peace and to undo the bogus wars on
terrorism, there is an urgent need for teamwork by all concerned not just the
few self- addicted warmongers who have consciously undermined the vital
interests of the mankind. The teamwork
if undertaken with unbiased mind and
without pre-conceived notions could usher sustainable change and a new
beginning between those who claim to be at peace and somewhat superior than the
ordinary folks and those who are fighting reactionary wars of freedom against
insanity and catastrophic devastation of the human habitats.
To change the
world into peaceful co-existence and sustainable harmony, it is incumbent upon
the intellectuals, academics, visionaries, poets, philosophers and thinking hub
of the informed contemporary global community to perceive and articulate new
and creative ideas, new political imagination for the 21st century
organizations to be functional for the people, by the people and accountable to
the supremacy of the people’s will. Time and encompassing opportunities warrant
new thinking and new leaders enriched with new and innovative visions for
change and coherent future-making - The One Humanity. But change and creativity
and new visions will not emerge out of the obsolete, redundant and failed
authoritarianism of the few insane leaders. None have the understanding of tangible
peace or respect for human life and co-existence in a splendid Universe. To
challenge the deafening silence of the US and Europeans (the powerful and
hegemonic forces of the world governing system), for global peace and security,
the global humanity must find ways and means to look beyond the obvious and
troublesome horizons dominated by the few warlords as if there were no rational
being and people of reason populating the God-given living Universe. The
informed and mature global community looks towards those Thinkers, educated and
honest proactive leaders enriched with coherent unity of moral, spiritual,
intellectual and physical visions and abilities to be instrumental to rescue it
from the planned encroachment of the few Western warlords. Wars never end but obsess
the succeeding generations with unthinkable physical pains, psychological, injuries
and tormenting anguish to dehumanized effects for ever. Pete Dolack (“The
Art of Becoming Human”, Counterpunch: 3/13/2015) an activist, writer, poet
and photographer, blogs Systemic Disorder; attempts to share the first-hand
life experiences of the few US combatant soldiers fighting the bogus war on
terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan:
. …That 22 veterans commit
suicide per day is a grim reminder not only of the harsh demands of
military life but that the Pentagon effectively throws away its veterans after
using them.
There are those whose injuries are
obvious, such as Tomas Young, whose struggles were shown in full intensity in
the documentary Body of War. In the letter
he wrote to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney when his death was impending, he
put into words his agony:
“Your cowardice and selfishness
were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our
nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be
sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the
garbage. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our
mental and physical [disabilities and] wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps
of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have
been abandoned.”
Kelly Dougherty, “talk about my
feelings of shame for participating in a violent occupation.” She writes:
“When I returned from Iraq
ten years ago, some of my most vivid memories were of pointing my rifle at men
and boys while my fellow soldiers burned semi trucks of food and fuel, and of
watching the raw grief of a family finding that their young son had been run
over and killed by a military convoy.
Are the Arab-Muslim leaders waiting for the unthinkable
catastrophic end to their own life cycle and time in history? To inhabit the world of new political
imagination beyond the obvious horizon, these leaders could imagine the same
ending as happened to the Romans by their own wishful constructs. Would the estranged Arab leaders ever know
and understand the cruelty of Wounds that can be seen and those not
seen!
Mahboob A. Khawaja
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