WSJ Editorial
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From: Phoenix
WSJ Editorial
I love the last paragraph.
Arabs Have
Nobody to Blame
But Themselves
Bin Laden heads a frustrated and failed generation.
BY FOUAD AJAMI
Tuesday, October 16, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT
We should be under no illusions about our struggle against Osama bin Laden and the cultists and terrorists arrayed around him. Although we control the sea lanes and skies of that Arab-Muslim world, he appears to hold sway over the streets of a thwarted civilization, one that sees him as an avenger for the sad, cruel lot that has been its fate in recent years.
A terrible war was fought between rulers and Islamists; the regimes in Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt won, but the insurgents took to the road, and vowed to return as triumphant conquerors after the dynasties and the despots were sacked.Rich, famous, free and young, bin Laden taunts the rulers of a silent, frightened Arab world seething with resentments of every kind. He and his lieutenants cannot overthrow the Arab ruling order, so they have turned their resentments on us.
Consider the three men who taunted us in the video that came our way on Oct. 7, courtesy of the Qatari satellite channel, Al-Jazeera. In it, bin Laden is flanked by two lieutenants. The older one, a man of 50 years, is an Egyptian physician, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, a sworn enemy of the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Twenty years ago, he had been picked up in the dragnet that followed the assassination of Anwar Sadat. He was tortured, and imprisoned for three years. He drifted to Pakistan, then made his way to the Sudan and Afghanistan, and took to the life of terror.
The younger man, spokesman for bin Laden, is a Kuwaiti theocratic activist by the name of Sleiman Abu Gheith, who hails from a quaint, stable principality, with generous welfare subsidies and an American trip-wire to protect it against a predatory Saddam. Abu Gheith had been an employee of the Kuwaiti state, an imam of a government-sponsored mosque, and a teacher of Islamic studies. Those who know him tell of a man who had become fanatical in his view of Islam's role in political and social life.
A foul wind had been blowing in Arab lands. The rulers had snuffed out endless rebellions and the populace had succumbed to a malignant, sullen silence. It prayed and waited for the rulers' demise. It dreamt of an avenger and a band of merciless followers who would do for it what it could not do for itself.
It is no mystery that reporters from Arab shores tell us of affluent men and women, some with years of education in American universities behind them, celebrating the cruel deed of Mohamed Atta and his hijackers. The cult of the bandit taunting the powerful has always been seductive in broken societies. Bin Laden and Zawahiri and Abu Gheith and Atta did not descend from the sky: They are the angry sons of a failed Arab generation. They are direct heirs of two generations of Arabs that have seen all the high dreams of Asr al Nahda (the era of enlightenment and secular nationalism) issue in sterility, dictatorship and misery. The secular fathers begot this strange breed of holy warriors.
A suffocating hate separates the ruler from the ruled in Arab lands. The former own those lands, they have closed up the universe, and their dominion stretches as far as the eye can see. Their scions stand at the ready to claim the good things of the earth. Imagine the way Arabs read the ascendancy of the sons of the dictators of Syria, Egypt and Iraq in public life; a trick has been played on them. Under their eyes, the republics have metamorphosed into monarchies in all but name. Alone, in God's broad lands, it seems to them, they are to be excluded from a share of today's democratic inheritance. The rulers can't deliver to us these sullen, resentful populations and--shrewd men--the rulers know it. They have ducked for cover as America blew in asking them to choose between the terrorists' world and ours.
We were "walk-ons" in this political and generational struggle playing out in Araby. America and Americans have a hard time coming to terms with those unfathomable furies of a distant, impenetrable world. In truth, Atta struck at us because he could not take down Mr. Mubarak's world, because in the burdened, crowded land of the Egyptian dictator there is very little offered younger Egyptians save for the steady narcotic of anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. The attack on the North Tower of the World Trade Center was Atta's "rite of passage."
In the same vein, bin Laden and Abu Gheith can't sack the dynastic order of the Gulf. (Were they to do so, they would replace it with a cruel reign of terror that would make the yuppies of Jeddah who have been whispering sweet things in the ears of foreign reporters about bin Laden yearn for the days of Al Saud). So the avengers come our way. Our shadow, faint and mediated through hated rulers and middlemen, has fallen across their world. They struck at the shadow, but it is the order that reigns in their lands that fuels their righteousness. And it is the sense of approval they see in the eyes of ordinary men and women in their societies that tells them to press on.
The military campaign against bin Laden is prosecuted, and will surely be won, by the U.S. But the redemption of the Arab political condition, and the weaning of that world away from its ruinous habits and temptations, are matters for the Arabs themselves.
A darkness, a long winter, has descended on the Arabs. Nothing grows in the middle between an authoritarian political order and populations given to perennial flings with dictators, abandoned to their most malignant hatreds. Something is amiss in an Arab world that besieges American embassies for visas and at the same time celebrates America's calamities. Something has gone terribly wrong in a world where young men strap themselves with explosives, only to be hailed as "martyrs" and avengers. No military campaign by a foreign power can give modern-day Arabs a way out of the cruel, blind alley of their own history.
Arabs Have
Nobody to Blame
But Themselves
Bin Laden heads a frustrated and failed generation.
BY FOUAD AJAMI
Tuesday, October 16, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT
We should be under no illusions about our struggle against Osama bin Laden and the cultists and terrorists arrayed around him. Although we control the sea lanes and skies of that Arab-Muslim world, he appears to hold sway over the streets of a thwarted civilization, one that sees him as an avenger for the sad, cruel lot that has been its fate in recent years.
A terrible war was fought between rulers and Islamists; the regimes in Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt won, but the insurgents took to the road, and vowed to return as triumphant conquerors after the dynasties and the despots were sacked.Rich, famous, free and young, bin Laden taunts the rulers of a silent, frightened Arab world seething with resentments of every kind. He and his lieutenants cannot overthrow the Arab ruling order, so they have turned their resentments on us.
Consider the three men who taunted us in the video that came our way on Oct. 7, courtesy of the Qatari satellite channel, Al-Jazeera. In it, bin Laden is flanked by two lieutenants. The older one, a man of 50 years, is an Egyptian physician, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, a sworn enemy of the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Twenty years ago, he had been picked up in the dragnet that followed the assassination of Anwar Sadat. He was tortured, and imprisoned for three years. He drifted to Pakistan, then made his way to the Sudan and Afghanistan, and took to the life of terror.
The younger man, spokesman for bin Laden, is a Kuwaiti theocratic activist by the name of Sleiman Abu Gheith, who hails from a quaint, stable principality, with generous welfare subsidies and an American trip-wire to protect it against a predatory Saddam. Abu Gheith had been an employee of the Kuwaiti state, an imam of a government-sponsored mosque, and a teacher of Islamic studies. Those who know him tell of a man who had become fanatical in his view of Islam's role in political and social life.
A foul wind had been blowing in Arab lands. The rulers had snuffed out endless rebellions and the populace had succumbed to a malignant, sullen silence. It prayed and waited for the rulers' demise. It dreamt of an avenger and a band of merciless followers who would do for it what it could not do for itself.
It is no mystery that reporters from Arab shores tell us of affluent men and women, some with years of education in American universities behind them, celebrating the cruel deed of Mohamed Atta and his hijackers. The cult of the bandit taunting the powerful has always been seductive in broken societies. Bin Laden and Zawahiri and Abu Gheith and Atta did not descend from the sky: They are the angry sons of a failed Arab generation. They are direct heirs of two generations of Arabs that have seen all the high dreams of Asr al Nahda (the era of enlightenment and secular nationalism) issue in sterility, dictatorship and misery. The secular fathers begot this strange breed of holy warriors.
A suffocating hate separates the ruler from the ruled in Arab lands. The former own those lands, they have closed up the universe, and their dominion stretches as far as the eye can see. Their scions stand at the ready to claim the good things of the earth. Imagine the way Arabs read the ascendancy of the sons of the dictators of Syria, Egypt and Iraq in public life; a trick has been played on them. Under their eyes, the republics have metamorphosed into monarchies in all but name. Alone, in God's broad lands, it seems to them, they are to be excluded from a share of today's democratic inheritance. The rulers can't deliver to us these sullen, resentful populations and--shrewd men--the rulers know it. They have ducked for cover as America blew in asking them to choose between the terrorists' world and ours.
We were "walk-ons" in this political and generational struggle playing out in Araby. America and Americans have a hard time coming to terms with those unfathomable furies of a distant, impenetrable world. In truth, Atta struck at us because he could not take down Mr. Mubarak's world, because in the burdened, crowded land of the Egyptian dictator there is very little offered younger Egyptians save for the steady narcotic of anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. The attack on the North Tower of the World Trade Center was Atta's "rite of passage."
In the same vein, bin Laden and Abu Gheith can't sack the dynastic order of the Gulf. (Were they to do so, they would replace it with a cruel reign of terror that would make the yuppies of Jeddah who have been whispering sweet things in the ears of foreign reporters about bin Laden yearn for the days of Al Saud). So the avengers come our way. Our shadow, faint and mediated through hated rulers and middlemen, has fallen across their world. They struck at the shadow, but it is the order that reigns in their lands that fuels their righteousness. And it is the sense of approval they see in the eyes of ordinary men and women in their societies that tells them to press on.
The military campaign against bin Laden is prosecuted, and will surely be won, by the U.S. But the redemption of the Arab political condition, and the weaning of that world away from its ruinous habits and temptations, are matters for the Arabs themselves.
A darkness, a long winter, has descended on the Arabs. Nothing grows in the middle between an authoritarian political order and populations given to perennial flings with dictators, abandoned to their most malignant hatreds. Something is amiss in an Arab world that besieges American embassies for visas and at the same time celebrates America's calamities. Something has gone terribly wrong in a world where young men strap themselves with explosives, only to be hailed as "martyrs" and avengers. No military campaign by a foreign power can give modern-day Arabs a way out of the cruel, blind alley of their own history.
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From: Laurel
Sorry, but that was absurdly simplistic. 
For example: Many of these countries are suffering the common fate of the formerly conquered. In that way, they are just like the Balkans and have responded similarly.
The conquerors keep a check on inter-tribal violence but don't eliminate it's sentiments. Then, when the conqueror is vanquished, both these intertribal rivalries and the political system revert to their last known forms rather than evolve into a more modern political system. In this region, Britain was the conqueror; Sudan is a great example. Conquest stunts political growth. And yes, India is perhaps the exception even though they still have a caste system.
Another: The attacks on us are vengeance against the perceived "conqueror." Whether that sentiment is right, wrong, or stupid, we would be naive to pretend like it is insincere merely because it is unfathomable.
To portray the situation in the Middle East as merely a political/moral failing of the people/leaders in that region misses several important external and historical factors.
For example: Many of these countries are suffering the common fate of the formerly conquered. In that way, they are just like the Balkans and have responded similarly.
The conquerors keep a check on inter-tribal violence but don't eliminate it's sentiments. Then, when the conqueror is vanquished, both these intertribal rivalries and the political system revert to their last known forms rather than evolve into a more modern political system. In this region, Britain was the conqueror; Sudan is a great example. Conquest stunts political growth. And yes, India is perhaps the exception even though they still have a caste system.
Another: The attacks on us are vengeance against the perceived "conqueror." Whether that sentiment is right, wrong, or stupid, we would be naive to pretend like it is insincere merely because it is unfathomable.
To portray the situation in the Middle East as merely a political/moral failing of the people/leaders in that region misses several important external and historical factors.
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From: Phoenix
jschmidt,
I think you are incorrect. The U.S. is seen as the big guy on the block, but not as the conqueror. If they were after the conqueror, why aren't they blowing up Britain, France, Italy or Germany? They all had colonies in the region and are still very influential...heck, read up on France's dirty war in Algeria if you want to see a country that SHOULD be the Islamist's target.
Most of these countries haven't been beaten in a war since WWI, so how can they be 'suffering the common fate of the formerly conquered'? You can make the dusty, old argument that the whole problem was the poor post-WWI split of the Ottoman empire into the Arab countries, but again the U.S. had ZERO to do with it.
Ajami makes the point that the these countries are split between dictators and the absurdly poor. Islamists use the resentment that this creates as a weapon against the West. Try re-reading it and I think that you will agree that he makes valid points and is not 'absurdly simplistic'.
Tanq
P.S. on a different topic, I read that the U.S. has had troops in Saudia Arabia since 1946! Guess who's family built the bases and airfields? Yep, Osama's.
I think you are incorrect. The U.S. is seen as the big guy on the block, but not as the conqueror. If they were after the conqueror, why aren't they blowing up Britain, France, Italy or Germany? They all had colonies in the region and are still very influential...heck, read up on France's dirty war in Algeria if you want to see a country that SHOULD be the Islamist's target.
Most of these countries haven't been beaten in a war since WWI, so how can they be 'suffering the common fate of the formerly conquered'? You can make the dusty, old argument that the whole problem was the poor post-WWI split of the Ottoman empire into the Arab countries, but again the U.S. had ZERO to do with it.
Ajami makes the point that the these countries are split between dictators and the absurdly poor. Islamists use the resentment that this creates as a weapon against the West. Try re-reading it and I think that you will agree that he makes valid points and is not 'absurdly simplistic'.
Tanq
P.S. on a different topic, I read that the U.S. has had troops in Saudia Arabia since 1946! Guess who's family built the bases and airfields? Yep, Osama's.
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From: Laurel
Actually, I did reread it a few times before I commented to make sure I understood it. I got what you got which, I give you, is part of the story.
I wasn't clear enough about my salient points, though.
1. When a country is formerly occupied (conquered) over an extended period, then unoccupied, they seem to revert to the pre-occupation period in democritization, no matter how long the occupation lasted. Imagine how much less democratic and different from modern our government was 200 years ago (hints: women didn't count at all and there was a raging debate about whether they should be schooled. Slavery was well accepted. Landed gentry ran the country and considered themselves the salvation from chaos.)
All peoples seem to move to greater democracy over time (my theory). Occupied countries have stunted growth.
2. And an unrelated point. The perpetrator countries you name are members of the non-muslim, white, christian, european-decent, segment of the world. Arguably the United States is the leader of this racial/religious/political segment. I don't think the average Middle-Eaterner thinks about the political subtleties of this group any more than the average American thinks about the subtleties of the Middle East. How many of us could even name half the countries? To them, we are the peoples you mentioned.
That (and our ambitious economic and military support for Isreal) is why we're the target, I think. I don't think it is because Middle Easterners don't really know who they are mad at. Remember, we still sing "Onward Christian Soldiers" as if it is a relegious song. (Oh Jeez, there I go adding another layer of complication to the issue
)
Thanks for your good natured response, BTW.
I wasn't clear enough about my salient points, though.
1. When a country is formerly occupied (conquered) over an extended period, then unoccupied, they seem to revert to the pre-occupation period in democritization, no matter how long the occupation lasted. Imagine how much less democratic and different from modern our government was 200 years ago (hints: women didn't count at all and there was a raging debate about whether they should be schooled. Slavery was well accepted. Landed gentry ran the country and considered themselves the salvation from chaos.)
All peoples seem to move to greater democracy over time (my theory). Occupied countries have stunted growth.
2. And an unrelated point. The perpetrator countries you name are members of the non-muslim, white, christian, european-decent, segment of the world. Arguably the United States is the leader of this racial/religious/political segment. I don't think the average Middle-Eaterner thinks about the political subtleties of this group any more than the average American thinks about the subtleties of the Middle East. How many of us could even name half the countries? To them, we are the peoples you mentioned.
That (and our ambitious economic and military support for Isreal) is why we're the target, I think. I don't think it is because Middle Easterners don't really know who they are mad at. Remember, we still sing "Onward Christian Soldiers" as if it is a relegious song. (Oh Jeez, there I go adding another layer of complication to the issue
) Thanks for your good natured response, BTW.
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From: Phoenix
jschmidt,
But who were they conquered and occupied by? The Ottoman empire! Muslims. Turks and Arabs. Bin Laden's video comment about 80 years of evil has been interpreted to mean the 80 years since the defeat of the Ottoman empire. The Islamists idealize the 11th and 12th centuries when the Caliphs ruled all Arab land --- that is awfully far back to agree with your thoughts about rebounding to the last free period.
If I interpret you 2nd point correctly, you are saying that it doesn't matter if the U.S. wasn't involved or to blame for Muslim problems, since we are the leader of the West. In other words, Muslims are intentionally disregarding the proximate causes of their problems and attacking us; I claim that this is because we are the targets of Islamists, not because we would naturally be hated by poor Muslims.
Islamists are fighting a battle of ideas -- Muslim purity vs. Western decadence. In this battle, we are clearly the best target as the leader of Western culture. The Islamists are the ones who point the poor, suicidal and obsessed at the U.S..
If our past behavior was the problem, Russia (Chechnya, oppression of Muslim majorities in Tajikistan, et al), Britain (set the map for the Middle East, invaded Egypt in the '50's, former colonial power in the region, allowed creation of Jewish state) and France (Algeria, support of dictatorships throughout region, former colonial power) would be the victims. They are not. Why?
With regard to Israel:
1) We have been pressuring Israel for 30 years to make peace. Carter, Reagan, and Clinton wasted years concentrating on solving the problem, with no success.
2) We have always supported UN Resolution 242 which calls for the creation of a Palestinian state. We wouldn't even recognize Israel as a valid state until 1958!
3) Arab countries were nearly all Soviet-supported dictatorships, while Israel was a democracy. Of course they are our allies, and of course we sell them arms. Today, the Arab countries are still dictatorships and Israel is still the only real democracy. Of course we still sell them arms. We also supply Saudia Arabia and other Arab countries.
As has been posted a dozen times, the U.S. has intervened several times in the last decade to help Muslims. Our behavior towards Muslims isn't the problem -- our culture is! Which leads us back to Ajami.
Thanks,
Tanq
But who were they conquered and occupied by? The Ottoman empire! Muslims. Turks and Arabs. Bin Laden's video comment about 80 years of evil has been interpreted to mean the 80 years since the defeat of the Ottoman empire. The Islamists idealize the 11th and 12th centuries when the Caliphs ruled all Arab land --- that is awfully far back to agree with your thoughts about rebounding to the last free period.
If I interpret you 2nd point correctly, you are saying that it doesn't matter if the U.S. wasn't involved or to blame for Muslim problems, since we are the leader of the West. In other words, Muslims are intentionally disregarding the proximate causes of their problems and attacking us; I claim that this is because we are the targets of Islamists, not because we would naturally be hated by poor Muslims.
Islamists are fighting a battle of ideas -- Muslim purity vs. Western decadence. In this battle, we are clearly the best target as the leader of Western culture. The Islamists are the ones who point the poor, suicidal and obsessed at the U.S..
If our past behavior was the problem, Russia (Chechnya, oppression of Muslim majorities in Tajikistan, et al), Britain (set the map for the Middle East, invaded Egypt in the '50's, former colonial power in the region, allowed creation of Jewish state) and France (Algeria, support of dictatorships throughout region, former colonial power) would be the victims. They are not. Why?
With regard to Israel:
1) We have been pressuring Israel for 30 years to make peace. Carter, Reagan, and Clinton wasted years concentrating on solving the problem, with no success.
2) We have always supported UN Resolution 242 which calls for the creation of a Palestinian state. We wouldn't even recognize Israel as a valid state until 1958!
3) Arab countries were nearly all Soviet-supported dictatorships, while Israel was a democracy. Of course they are our allies, and of course we sell them arms. Today, the Arab countries are still dictatorships and Israel is still the only real democracy. Of course we still sell them arms. We also supply Saudia Arabia and other Arab countries.
As has been posted a dozen times, the U.S. has intervened several times in the last decade to help Muslims. Our behavior towards Muslims isn't the problem -- our culture is! Which leads us back to Ajami.
Thanks,
Tanq