Adonis Diaries

An entire century for Nothing: Nothing to show for in the Middle-East

Since 1918, after WWI, and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and the partition of its territories, the Arab people developed high hopes for independence…Only to be subjugated by the western colonial mandated powers of France and England.

France and England had decided to split the Arab territories among them in 1916, way before the war ended in 1918,  France was to be mandated over Syria and Lebanon, and England over Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine. England was governing Egypt since 1988.

France dispatched troops, commanded by General Gouraud, to militarily crush in 1920 the first Syrian independent State under Faisal of Hijaz.  Syria defense minister Yussof Al Azmeh knew full well the imbalance between the two forces, but he decided to take a stand: “The worst shame is not to even try to confront aggression…”

Worse, England promised a Jewish State in Palestine in 1917, a document that the new Communist Bolshevik revolution divulged to the world. The US, the Soviet Union, France and England voted in 1947 to partition Palestine into two States: Jewish and Palestinians. Though the Palestinians represented 60% of the total population living in Palestine, they were offered only 40% of the land.  An unfair partition that they refused.

Israel imported weapons from the Soviet Union via Czechoslovakia and defeated the haphazard Arab armies in 1948. The armistice was to resolve and find a “definitive solution” to the Palestinian case.

After Israel was voted in as a Sate by the UN in 1948, Israel resumed the war and committed genocides to pressure the Palestinians to vacate their villages and conquered more lands.  Up to this date, 2012, Israel is still proceeding to transfer all Palestinians from all Palestine.

The 50 and 60’s witnessed a series of military coup d’etat in Syria and Iraq.

After Nasser of Egypt managed to nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, he was viewed as the sole legitimate leader of the Arab States. Governments of Arab States flocked to Egypt to demand unity with Egypt under Abdel Nasser in order to stop the rapid successions of unstable rules, and have a legitimate President, by popular demand.  Nasser could unsettle any government by just taking the radio airwaves and dictating his wishes…

The north Yemeni government, visiting Nasser for discussion, was put in prison under the pretense that the Prime Minister Mohsen Al Aini was a Baathist. Nasser would not deal with political parties, within or outside in the Arab World.

After Nasser, the Arab States were ruled by dictators and absolute monarchs for many decades, such as Saddam Hussein, Hafez Assad, Qadhafi, Bourguiba of Tunisia, Algeria of Boumedyen, and Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Jordan absolute monarchies…

If you read the documents and Arab newspapers in the 20 and 30’s you realize how the Arab People and their intelligentsia were far literate, had comprehensive knowledge, read a lot and were far more aware of the dangers…than our current generation. There were plenty of political parties and they did discuss issues very extensively.

A century later, the discussions are rare, replaced by banners, posters, short sentences, slogans, no ideas developed and commented…

Each one of the successive 5 generations vowed that:

“This generation will be different from the older obsolete generation. This generation will see to it that true independence from foreign powers and true self-autonomy will be accomplished. This generation will defeat Israel and return the Palestinian refugees in their State back to Palestine. This generation will establish democracy, freedom of expression, freedom of gathering…This generation will set the feet of Arabs on the Moon and compete technologically with the western nations…”

Every generation got more and more impatient, more edgy, more humiliated, and more inclined for military resolution to their problems…This time around, the war will settle the entire problem, once for all, only to be defeated in no time, and another round of military coup to replace the previous lousy one…

Every generation experienced worse kinds of indignities, subjugation  repressions, humiliation, and getting poorer and poorer, standard of living diminishing by generation, as the birth rate exploded, and the destitute searching for a loaf of bread before going to bed…

An entire century has gone in flame, a total waste, people in abject indignities, totally disoriented…

If the US thinks that the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers is an unfathomable terror, it must rethink its foreign policies in the Middle-East: A retribution for a buckled century is tearing at the heart and mind of the Arab people.

It had crossed the mind of Israel to attack the Twin Towers even in the 70’s, if the US failed to totally support their policies.  The idea of attacking the Twin Towers by commercial airplanes was not new. And the idea was disseminated to many groups, and the underground of World Trade Center was bombing in 1998.

The total impunity that Israel enjoys from its continuous apartheid system, and constantly covered by the US in the last 6 decades, is not a small matter to ignore and blame terrorism on radical obscurantist Moslems…

The Arab Spring uprising was targeting the little people around the world since the traditional western media refused to cover the real story in the Arab World, and preferred to wallow and sink deeper in the same frame of mind, of doubting the potential of the “Arabs” for progress, development, mass peaceful democratic movements…

Unless the international community demonstrates justice and fairness in dealing with the Arab people, “terror” attacks by radical jihadists will resume unabated  regardless of many times military drones are dispatched to decimate Al Qaeda leaders.

Note: Jean Lacouture in “A century for nothing” recounts his meeting with General Giap, the leader who defeated both the French and US forces in Viet Nam. Asking his opinion on the 9/11 attacks, Giap reflected for a while and said: “Interesting. The US is indeed vulnerable. Never crossed my mind…”

Attacking inside US territory never crossed the mind of Giap for good reasons: The people in North Viet Nam were united under one resistance national movement, had a homogeneous culture, they enjoyed the backing of another superpower the Soviet Unions, and they have already defeated the French armies, and were confident to beat the US invasion…

General Giap had all the necessary connections from many groups who high-jacked planes and conducted “terrorist attacks”, and the US of the 70’s was wide open to all immigrants and very lenient and welcoming...Giap could have transferred violent activities to inside the US, but it never crossed his mind…for good reasons.