The Middle East’s Disease Infects the West; The West Feeds the Middle East’s Irrationalism
By Barry Rubin
If you want to understand the Middle East, don’t read the Western media, read Arab writers like Mshari Al-Zaydi. His September 9, 2009, op-ed in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, "They Feed Our Illusions," is aimed at those who write or speak in Arabic about how all the problems of the Arabic-speaking world is the fault of those who don’t live there (Israel, the West, conspiracies).
If this were to be true a solution would require not reform within the Arab-majority countries (democracy, human rights, equality for women, etc.) but merely a struggle to defeat the external enemies. That is, of course, precisely what happens.
Zaydi is inveighing against conspiracy theories, particularly regarding the September 11 attacks, whose anniversary prompted the article. It speaks volumes, for example, that Muhammad Husanayn Haykal, the Egyptian who many routinely say is the best journalist in the history of the Arabic press, claimed shortly after the attack that it was carried out not by radical Islamist followers of Usama bin Ladin but by Serbian nationalists
Of course, Zaydi says, all societies have conspiracy theorists and irrational people. But:
"Societies that are free of injured pride…and regrets of being backward in civilization do not allow such people to make decisions on important and sensitive issues. In these societies, such issues are studied with complete, or as close as possible to complete, objectivity–so as to protect the state and decision-making from the impact of fleeting emotional [reactions].”
He suggests:
“While facing up to the truth is bitter and painful, it is temporary bitterness and pain that will soon go away–and putting up with that is better and more beneficial than resorting to intellectual drugs and evasion tricks."
If you want to understand the Middle East, don’t read the Western media, read Arab writers like Mshari Al-Zaydi. His September 9, 2009, op-ed in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, "They Feed Our Illusions," is aimed at those who write or speak in Arabic about how all the problems of the Arabic-speaking world is the fault of those who don’t live there (Israel, the West, conspiracies).
If this were to be true a solution would require not reform within the Arab-majority countries (democracy, human rights, equality for women, etc.) but merely a struggle to defeat the external enemies. That is, of course, precisely what happens.
Zaydi is inveighing against conspiracy theories, particularly regarding the September 11 attacks, whose anniversary prompted the article. It speaks volumes, for example, that Muhammad Husanayn Haykal, the Egyptian who many routinely say is the best journalist in the history of the Arabic press, claimed shortly after the attack that it was carried out not by radical Islamist followers of Usama bin Ladin but by Serbian nationalists
Of course, Zaydi says, all societies have conspiracy theorists and irrational people. But:
"Societies that are free of injured pride…and regrets of being backward in civilization do not allow such people to make decisions on important and sensitive issues. In these societies, such issues are studied with complete, or as close as possible to complete, objectivity–so as to protect the state and decision-making from the impact of fleeting emotional [reactions].”
He suggests:
“While facing up to the truth is bitter and painful, it is temporary bitterness and pain that will soon go away–and putting up with that is better and more beneficial than resorting to intellectual drugs and evasion tricks."
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