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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (13148)	2/19/2003 12:15:18 PM
From: Crimson Ghost	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Where Were the Arabs? from MotherJones.com This past weekend's antiwar demonstrations were truly global in nature. From Europe to South America, from the US to Asia and Australia, opponents of war poured into the streets in scores of cities in dozens of countries. In fact, the only part of the world largely untouched by the worldwide protest was the very region where the war in question will take place. While there were large, government-organized protests in Iraq and Syria, most of the Arab world tave the day of demonstrations a pass. Which has Robert Fisk frothing with bewildered annoyance. "What on earth is it with the Arabs? Of all people, they Ð and they alone Ð are likely to suffer in this American invasion of their homeland. They Ð and they alone Ð have the will and the ability to understand that this US military adventure is intended -- as Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, frankly declared last week --to change the map of the Middle East. Yet, faced with catastrophe, the Arabs are like mice. Their leaders may agree with their people -- but they will not let their people say so." The Daily Star of Beirut angrily dismisses the few protests in the Arab world as "meaningless." And, like Fisk, the paper's editors argue that the Arab silence was less a measure of public sentiment than a reflection of Arab leaders' rigid desires to control their subjects. "The most devastating indictment of weak Arab participation was that while even Tel Aviv saw 2,000 protesters, Cairo had just 600 -- surrounded by 3,000 police officers. ... The point is that Saturday should have been a bigger day in the Arab world than anywhere else. Instead, the people with the most to lose from an outbreak of hostilities managed only a pale shadow of what was achieved abroad. Obviously this poor performance is not due to any lack of feeling: The grand majority of Arabs are steadfastly against another assault on Iraq and all the repercussions it would have for the Iraqi people. It is also not because Arabs are so rich and happy that the instinct to complain has been dulled by complacency: Nothing could be further from the truth. The problem is that Arab governments are so backward that they prefer not to see mass demonstrations of popular sentiment -- even when that sentiment is aligned with their own public positions. It is a classic case of tyranny imagining that by preventing the expression of the peopleÕs will it can prevent that will from existing. Contrary to the myth, ostriches do not stick their heads in the sand at any sign of danger -- but Arab rulers do." Pepe Escobar of Asia Times echoes those sentiments, writing that while Arabs "can scream in private... they cannot shout in public." "In Cairo, for example, they were afraid, very much afraid, like the concierge of a five-star hotel surreptitiously mimicking the gesture of a man handcuffed. On Saturday morning, government officials 'had no idea' where the protest would take place. Less than 600 people eventually showed up, surrounded by no less than 3,000 security police. Even in Tel Aviv, 2,000 people protested against the war. Mubarak, the Saud family, King Abdullah in Jordan, they may all agree with the anger and the fatalistic feeling of impotence of their own populations, but still they don't allow people to express it. Tyrannies anywhere assume that to prevent the expression of popular will is to prevent the will from existing."