As an assignment, I was to write a review of the movie Lawrence of Arabia. Part of the such review included, of course, a comment on the Arab Revolt, which I think might be relevant to share. In any case, for the relevant parts, here we go:

The status of the Arab Revolt is complex, especially when considered by an Arab. While on the one hand, the Arab Revolt signifies a rebirth of the Arabs, in which attempts for independence re-emerge, and in which the yearning to greatness after years of dormancy is rekindled. In that respect, there is a big chance that Sherif Hussein’s correspondence with the British to secure an independent Arab future lead to the existence of the modern Arab states. One the other hand, however, while the Arab Revolt might signify the birth of Independent Arab entities, it also embodies some sort of death; a more serious Arab decline.

The deep involvement of the British with the Arab Revolt, as well as the Hashemite-British alliance have given leverage to Britain over the Arabs and allowed it to secure an autocratic role in handling the remains of the Ottoman Empire after its dissolution. The Arab Revolt, instead of resulting in the Birth of a unified and independent Arab state in the Arab regions of the Ottoman Empire, lead to the partitioning of the entire empire, the creation of artificial nation states, often with imported regents or rulers, the birth of the Palestine Question and the greater Arab-Israeli Conflict, the continued ‘colonization’ of the fragmented Arab states as a weak periphery ever supporting the west.

This complex two-sidedness of the Arab Revolt makes it particularly hard, especially for an Arab, to determine one’s views towards it. While an Arab might owe it to the revolt to still call oneself ‘an Arab’, its long term political failure means that an Arab also owes it to the revolt that he probably is, with an increased probability, regretful of being ‘an Arab’.

I do not think I am in a position to comment if the Arab Revolt was benign or not, worth it or not, positive or not. My point is not to comment on Sherif Hussein’s efforts in the revolt, nor the efforts of the Arabs as a people, because I think it is largely irrelevant. Regardless of the motivation, goals, and intentions of the revolt, the reason I view it with some sort of melancholy or regret is the end result of fragmentation and instability. And I do not think that Hussein or any of his peers had an impact on that. I look at the revolt with melancholy because of the British involvement, the broken promises, the double-alliances, and the way history unfolded. What a shame.

… unless something changes, that is.

And its a general PR mess that I’m talking about here, not actions.

I was in the process of writing an article about the recent attack in Camp Chapman that killed Shareef Ali Bin Zeid, a senior GID official, along with several CIA agents in the base. In the meantime, I noticed that Naseem Tarawnah, had already written up a post about the issue. Instead of writing a virtually duplicate post, I decided to follow the comments there, and a separate idea formed; Jordan is sometimes so sensitive about possibly appearing pro-Western that it chooses silence, denials, or bogus arguments that end up hurting their reputation among Arab states, not retain it.

It is indeed depressing that apparently, King Abdullah’s vision of transparency – while it applies to the government – doesn’t apply when the names “Israel” or the “U.S.” come to play. Which is a shame, really. Because I think if the government was in full disclosure of some of these facts (ones that do not play into issues of national security, of course), only few would contest the actions of the government.

As mentioned in the comments over at the blog, fighting terrorism, al-Qaeda, and Taliban is a legitimate cause that 90% (if not more) of the Arabs would agree to. If Jordanian spokespersons were as frank as Wikipedia, for instance,  was with me, telling me that Jordanian GID officials only went to the CIA base to deliver Humam Khalil al-Balawi, who claimed to have information about the location of Ayman al Zawahiri ,then most would be content! Instead, when the issue broke, no official source spoke of the CIA-GID connection, that many assumed the GID itself was somehow a ‘follower’ or a ‘subset’ of the CIA, and assumed also that the “connection” was somehow at a functional level (which would be scandalous), instead of an operational level (which is acceptable, especially in cases of combating global terrorism networks). Instead of receiving facts that would’ve made me examine things in an unbiased way, I only heard rumors, assumptions, and weasel words, and I was armed with no information to fight back with.

And if Humam al-Balawi is indeed the bomber, then don’t be ashamed because he’s a Jordanian. Did we forget al-Zarqawi is a Jordanian as well? Its fine to have one or two terrorists out of 6.5 million. And if the government is just ashamed because they vouched for al-Balawi, then how about just blame the CIA for not searching him or something?

But, here’s an interesting quote, pasted from Wikipedia:

Jordanian government officials, while acknowledging that al-Balawi was a Jordanian doctor, insisted that there was no proof that the suicide bomber was a Jordanian. They pointed to contradictory reports, including a statement from Afghan Taliban that claimed the attacker was an Afghan. A Jordanian official living abroad said that al-Balawi would not have been a double agent, and stated he was a sometime contact of the Jordanian intelligence who had no formal role as an intelligence officer. (source)

So I won’t jump into conclusions that it is indeed al-Balawi; it can be people from al-Qaeda or Taliban who tracked him and decided to stop him from leaking information or whatever. Still, the official story needs to shift from strict denial to something more informative.

This whole issue reminds me of Mohammad Hassanein Haikal’s saga, in which he bashed Jordan over and over, and it took weeks, if nor a month or so, for Zaid al-Rifa`i to come up with an answer. And that’s what kills me, we have the answers! 90% of the time, facts are on the Jordanians’ side. Our PR still messes up, comes up with little answers, and is reluctant to share the very information that will vindicate us!

Today, a spokesperson released some clarifications, and I think that’s satisfactory on some level, information-wise. But how far reaching is a late response?

This one has been on my mind for a while. The current political situation in the Middle East is one of the topics I’m truly interested in, and I’ve been writing numerous posts related to the issue. One thing that caught me attention was that I was addressing a lot of Arab concerns against Israel and its regime (which I firmly believe in), and in so forgot to address my personal concerns about Arabic politics when it comes to the conflict.

I also decided to write this after a long conversation I had with a friend (whose also Arab) who believes that Jordanian politics regarding the issue, especially the 1994 Wadi `Araba Treaty, indicates that Jordan (or the government/king) has – in a sense – betrayed The Cause and other Arab countries.

I think that’s a completely wrong approach, and I believe the truth is that Jordan is a pioneer in seeking peace, and a Just Solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Had other Arab countries followed Jordan’s footsteps in large, then Arabs would’ve done their part in promoting a just peace, and stability in the region would’ve been a much more probable reality.

Since I think such belief that Jordan went against the Palestinian Cause (and Pan-Arab Values, fraternity, and unity) is utterly misconceived on numerous levels, I find it hard to find where to start. This is why I’ll divide the post into separate arguments that will hopefully complement each other.

(The outline is basically as follows: 1: Jordan was not alone in pursuing peace in the 1990’s, 2: Jordan did not go against Palestine, 3: While Jordan has peace, Jordan is not a neutral nation, 4: Other Cases of Jordanian Commitment to the Pan-Arab Cause).

1) Jordan was not alone in pursuing peace in the 1990’s

King Hussein of Jordan had Middle East peace aspirations even before the war of 1967. That did not stop him, or the country, from being properly aligned with the Arabs in the war of 1967, where Jordan, lead by King Hussein, entered a full-force war against Israel, and lost a considerable amount of land from the West Bank, which, at the time, was part of the Kingdom of Jordan. (Many people have doubts about Hussein’s intentions in the 1967 war, these will be discussed in future articles). As a matter of fact, while King Hussein talked to Israelis (as did Egyptian, Lebanese, and Syrian officials), he only allowed such talks to translate into a treaty much later on.

While Anwar El-Sadat was alone in signing a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, King Hussein’s 1994 treaty happened in a different light that Arabs of today forget:

Jordan is one of the most misunderstood nations in the region; an observation that is bothering me. While it is true that that the Middle East as a whole, Arab States, Islamic States, and Islam are all misunderstood entities, the problem with the outside-looking-in view on Jordan is that it is sheerly misunderstood even by fellow Middle Eastern and Arab states. It seems like topics such as Jordanian Foreign Policy, our approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and democracy and society in this country are all misunderstood, or sometimes marginalized, subjects.

As such, I’ll be writing a series of articles under the category of “Jordan – Know More!“, of which this is the first part.

Jordan and Democracy: Know More

Recently, on November 23rd, King Abdullah issued a Royal Decree calling for the dissolution of the 15th Jordanian Parliament, and carrying out early elections, previously slated for 2011. Following news of the Royal Decree, 85% of Jordanians rejoiced from across the political spectrum,while almost every non-Jordanian I have encountered used this as ‘tangible evidence’ of oppression of democracy and exploitation of power. Why? Why the discrepancy? Alas, they just don’t know any better.

Throughout this post, I’ll go through several misconceptions about this recent event, perhaps such discussion will make a difference.

Who wilt it?

Granted, the direct translation of Royal Decree (إرادة ملكية) gives ‘Royal Will’ or ‘Royal Wish’, a rather straightforward indication that it is the King’s wish that is being executed here. But ‘Why’ is a much more interesting and qualitative question; why is it that the king would wish for a parliament to be dissolved? I’ll quote a couple of sources.

Jordanian newspaper Alghad writes (translated):

“Furthermore, politicians confirm that the poor performance of the Council of Representatives, both legislative and regulatory framework, was the most important reason for issuing the Royal Decree to dissolve it, expecting carrying out the coming elections under a new law.”

Jordanian blogger Naseem Tarawnah quotes the same poll I linked to above, saying:

“The poll [...] revealed that 78% of respondents believe the reason for the decision to be due to incompetency of the MPs. Interestingly enough, 90% strongly support early elections, 69% strongly support a new election law, and 88% strongly support establishing an independent body to administer the elections.”

Poor performance. Incompetence.

Sure, the king is dissolving a parliament elected by the people, but here’s an undeniable fact: the people are very keen on seeing the parliament they elected dissolved. Very.

For those of you wondering about the reliability of the poll, it was conducted by Ammonnews, an independent, non-governmental, alternative media website and seld-described news agency based in Jordan. The poll addressed 200 individuals, amongst them (translated) “leaders, polititians, party members, media activists, academics, tribal leaders, and members of civil institutions in an effort to reflect public opinion trends”. Check out the details yourself if you can read Arabic.

An ‘Incompetent Parliament’ Says a lot about Your Democracy

No, it doesn’t. An incompetent parliament only says a lot about the social and socio-political structure and atomsphere within Jordan. It just so happens that we have a fragmented majority supporting the government (with countless political parties), and a unified, centralized, minority forming the opposition (with a single dominant political party: the Islamic Action Front, IAF). Such societal structure, combined with our flawed electoral law, leads to poor and biased representation within the government, and promotes tribal leaders and non-intellectuals, giving them the upper hand in voting. Indeed, the Jordanian Parliament often stood in the face of progress, barring numerous proposed bills, including Women’s Rights bills.

Aha! So your flawed electoral law has been forged by your autocratic leaders to hijack your liberties!

Again, not really. Assuming people who make such arguments refer to the King as the ultimate autocratic figure (who, indeed, is the single most powerful  individual in Jordan), such argument fails for one basic reason: the overrepresented groups in the parliament are those who are the most responsible for hindering the King’s effort in this country.

Indeed, the previous partliament (also elected under the same Electoral Law), were responsible for failing a bill suggested by the Queen herself, pertaining to the status of women in Jordan.

So how was the 15th Parliament ‘incompetent’ to the people?

Those unfamiliar with internal Jordanian politics would be quick to assert that words such “incompetent”, “dysfunctional”, and “poor performance” are in reference to the King’s Agenda. In other words, many might assume that anything that opposes the King’s agenda, whatever it may be, is deemed incompetent by our biased media.

In fact, that cannot be further from the truth. Incompetence of the 15th Parliament is a result of the outcry of the people, not a biased decision by the king.

Indeed, for the 15th Parliament,  Jordan Times writes:

“[...] in the last extraordinary session, lawmakers approved only 13 laws out of 29 listed on their agenda, which included laws of interest to the public.

The extraordinary session was adjourned while deputies were still discussing the income tax draft law, having only finished 11 articles of the 70-article law.

The government also withdrew the energy draft law and the income tax draft law to amend them in accordance with developments in these two sectors.”

An extremist propaganda organization called FLAME (meaning Facts and Logic About the Middle East) has been publishing anti-Arab advertisements in the form of articles in numerous newspapers for a while. Newspapers that published its message include the New York Times and MIT’s The Tech.

You can check out an example article on the bottom of page 14 of Issue 46 of this year’s The Tech. The issue in question was published on October 20, 2009.

In response to the false claims and strong language of this article, I collaborated with John Mikhael, an interested friend, to write up an article that responds to all of the false claims in the FLAME article.

You can either download and view the PDF here or view it using the flash object below:

The essay below was written as a mid-term assignment for a class I’m doing at MIT. I thought it was worth sharing, so here it is below:

More often than not, it may seem to many as if the world, historically, evolved under the leadership of Europe. As Europe went ‘dormant’ in the Dark Ages, many believe that, with it, History stood still. Certainly this can be witnessed in science and technology as well, where the history of knowledge, invention, and innovation almost consistently begins in Europe with Newton and his local contemporaries. Moving further into the past, one would mainly come across the Ancient Greeks, who, widely, are alone recognized as the “intellectual precursors” to the more recent European intellectuals.

In fact, however, such approach to world history neglects invaluable contributions of the rest of the world in shaping itself. Far East, African, and Islamicate Civilizations all advanced knowledge, culture, and politics, paving the way for the Renaissance, Industrialization, and Global Development.

Consequently, an approach where non European contributions and achievements are downplayed is known as a Eurocentric approach. Eurocentrism stems from ethnocentrism, a perhaps-widespread belief in past eras, where one possessed the belief of preeminence of one’s own culture and civilization over that of the ‘insignificant other’. Eurocentrism, as a prominent and unified belief, started as a response to Europe’s achievements during the Renaissance, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment (Goody, 1995, p. 2), which began in the fifteenth century, and lasted well into the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Ethnocentrism in Europe in general, however, saw various significant peaks well before the fifteenth century. The prominent form of Eurocentrism referenced above indeed stems from such beliefs, common in Europe centuries ago. The Church’s doctrine constructed a hierarchy of peoples, where those of Europe would “dwell in the tents of” Asians, while Africans were designated as “servant[s] of servants” (Lockman, 2004, p. 18). Such belief was designated by the Church to be the Word of God, a long-lasting attitude used both to espouse and stimulate conquest of other nations (Lockman, 2004, p. 19), but also invigorating a “culture of dominance” in Europe that persisted until modern colonization periods.

The arrival of Islam to Europe was the first major threat to the established doctrine of The Church, and, as such, was eventually portrayed as a blasphemous religion practiced by infidels. Indeed, Pope Urban II said, in his famous speech that fueled the First Crusades in the eleventh century, that Muslims were an “accursed race […] utterly alienated from God”, and designated them “[God’s] enemies” (Munro, 1895). Such descriptions indicate the beginnings of the development of a distorted view of understanding the Middle East and Islam; such misunderstandings are formed as direct implications of a Eurocentric approach. Accordingly, primary European historical accounts often viewed the Middle East as an inferior region with a backwards and stagnating culture and values. It is a common misunderstanding of Middle East history to deem Europe as the savior of the Middle East and Arabia, exporting values, ideals, and systems, such as capitalism and bureaucracy and ‘modernizing’ the region.

Reality, however, is contrary to such views; the Islamic Civilization realized ground-breaking achievements that, not only shaped World History, but also explains the subsequent Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe. Islamic achievements in thought, philosophy, the scientific method, natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering exported to Europe through trade and conquests constitute the direct foundations of the European intellectual movement. Certainly the Islamic Civilization has contributed heavily to the development of the world, and must be taken into account to understand the global propagation of Human Knowledge historically, and the subsequent evolution of civilization and society. Throughout the rest of this paper, the role of Islam in shaping both the history of Europe and the World’s will be discussed.

I have initially wrote when I was applying to universities as a response to one of the questions. I recently went through it and felt it was relevant to share here. Once the actual website is complete, I’ll probably have a copy of this in my ‘writings’ section. For now, here is it:

The Arab-Israeli conflict is a regional issue that has plagued over sixty years of Middle East history; nearly a hundred thousand on both sides died of direct military clashes, more died as a result of occupation and living conditions, hundreds of thousands have been injured, and millions have been deprived of their most basic rights due to this conflict. Living conditions have been deteriorating so rapidly that light and running water have become luxuries.

As an Arab Middle Easterner, it is very easy to get carried away amidst such conflict, to get carried in the current of hate, bigotry, and intolerance. How can I not take sides? How can I – when the status quo has bred such pain and agony to my people?

To be honest, I must take sides, and I do. But what I must not do is lose perspective.

When millions are suffering on both sides, it is my human compassion that wakes me up to remind me that human anguish and distress on either side is unacceptable; this is the perspective that I strive to maintain: no matter how strong my political dedication to one side is, it should never reward, justify, or even belittle the ugliness of human pain on either side of the conflict.

The problem we are currently faced with is that most people have lost that perspective; most people have lost respect to, or even acknowledgement of, the other side’s humanity. Sadly, the sixty years of conflict shaped a generation unwilling to compromise.

I compiled a list of the top 10 misconceptions about Arabs for foreigners, in an attempt to dissect them and set the record straight. For most of these, I’ll be taking direct examples from Jordan – my country – since that’s the place I know most about, however, most of the points I make will likely apply (in one way or another) to other Arab countries as well.

10) Arabs live in tents, ride camels, and wear different clothes

Just because Native Americans used to live in teepees doesn’t mean they do now, its as simple as that. Arab tradition – dating from a few hundred years ago – revolves around utilizing camels for transportation and tents as an ideal way of living. That doesn’t mean that this applies now; we have technology as do others and thus have access to all resources that can improve our living conditions. Even outside the capital and main cities, Jordanian villages are far from the form that some people in the west imagine. If you were planning to visit an Arab state in hope of exploring an Aladdin-esque world, think again .

In desolate areas of the desert, we still have native tribal Jordanians who – by choice – decided to remain following their traditional Bedouin lifestyle. Even these people, though they might appear closest to the western image of Arabs, still blend in quite well if/when they need to visit the city for errands, etc.

9) Arabs are rich, own oil wells, and control the world

I WISH! I really do … First of all, I need to reiterate that some countries (like Jordan over here) have absolutely no oil. Second, lets take a look at the figure to the right:

This is a list of countries sorted by their GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per annum, courtesy of Wikipedia. It is quite clear what I’m trying to point out: in the top 25 GDP countries, only one Arab state exists: Saudi Arabia, with a rank of 25. The U.S., Italy, Mexico, Australia, Indonesia, and Norway, among many others, exceed Saudi Arabia. So, considering that the Arab country with the highest GDP is rather “average”, I guess that points out how we measure with other countries. You can check the full list, too.

To further emphasize my point, we may want to see the Gross Domestic Product per person and the rankings of countries accordingly. This list on Wikipedia shows this; when sorting all countries by Rank, we see that the United Arab Emirates is ranked 17-19, Saudi Arabia is ranked39-44, and all Arab countries have even lower ranks.

I’m not doing this to negatively describe the standards of livings in Arab states; a GDP per capita ranking of below 44 is still quite fine, but surely does not reflect that Arabs are – in any way – in financial control of the world.