Arab World:  Fleeing from Insanity is Not a Choice

Mahboob  A Khawaja

Could a blood stained tyranny and authoritarianism free the Arab masses from an ultimate cold blooded massacre?  This is what millions of strained human beings are asking today in Aleppo, Baghdad, Mosul, Idlib, Yemen and greater parts of the Arabian Peninsula. Could Bashar Al-Assad be tried for war crimes as was the case with the former Serbian President convicted by the ICC at The Hague?  Over the decades, the global community has witnessed massacres after massacres - a new normal that logic will question and future generation will curse the global leaders for their deliberate indifference and inaction to stop the sadistic cruelty. The crimes against humanity are not new but arepeated cycleof history. The UNO stood by when several thousands of Muslim Bosnian were massacred by the Serbs in Bosnia Herzegovina. Three million Rwandans fell victims to ethnic cleansing and the UNO forces were there and capable to stop the bloodshed but did nothing. American and British killed more than three millions in Iraq under a false pretext and the UNO and the world community turned a blind eye to these heinous crimes against humanity. For over five years, Bashar Al-Assad was emboldened to commit the same crimes against the civilian population of Syria. The Western leaders watched and watched and allowed Russia to intervene and supersede the Assad’s crimes against humanity. Could it be that the Arab life is not as valuable as of the Anglo-Saxon race to warrant swift action?  While innocent civilians are daily starved to death and bombed, the UNO and Western leaders speak of peace,diplomacy and human rights – baggage of jargons full of empty eloquence and meaningless global order and justice. Is there another name for hypocrisy and wickedness? Are we at the end of formative history?

Arab Dictators and the Masses live in Conflicting Time Zones

For long, Britain, France, Italy and now America divided and ruled the Arab Middle East. Historically, Arab people enjoined the unity of faith “Ummah” – One Nation without geographic borders, national flags and foreign assigned identities. The Western invaders divided the Arabian landscape into ethnic and sectarian pieces and defeated the Arabs for strategic reasons. F

President Obama issued paper-based warning of “crossing the Redline” to Syrian dictator but failed to honor his commitment to safeguard the interest of the mankind. American, British, French and other Western leaders knew that authoritarian Arab leaders never care for logic and reason to decide the future. Did President Obama learn anything from the past to change his strategic policies because of the knowledge, history and facts of life?  Incapacity joined by leadership complacency is the outcome of the current catastrophic civilian casualties throughout the Arabian Peninsula.  Millions of innocents are bombed, massacred and deliberately uprooted just as herd is moved around the pastures. Arab authoritarian leaders are not open to reason or listening and learning. In view of the unstoppable cycle of political killings and daily bloodbaths in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and spill-over to other oil producing Arab nations - and deliberate destruction of the socio-economic infrastructures -  is the Arab world coming to its own end?  The Arab leaders and the masses live and breathe in conflicting time zones being unable to see the rationality of people-oriented responsible governance. Once in history, Arabs had moral superiority with the relation of Islam as an “Ummah”- One Nation defying superficial geography and marked national borders. But can they still claim what is not part of the contemporary political culture?

America and Europeans have divided the Arab-Muslim world in sectarian identities, clichés and antagonism. The cruelty of unwanted wars is raging across the Arab world bringing bloodbath between the Shiite-Sunnis as if time and history lacked meaning and purpose.  None seem to share any sense of accountability. Who is going to cure the irretrievable historical mistakes of human judgment? History shall see the engaged people and the leaders by their actions, not by their claims.  Paul Craig Roberts (“Truth is Offensive”, paulcraigroberts.org) provides a unique insight to American political psyche, not previously explained by other contemporary intellectuals: “Most Americans go along with unaccountable murder, torture, and detention without evidence, which proclaims their gullibility to the entire world. There has never in history been a population as unaware as Americans. The world is amazed that an insouciant people became, if only for a short time, a superpower. The world needs intelligence and leadership in order to avoid catastrophe, but America can provide neither intelligence nor leadership. America is a lost land where nuclear weapons are in the hands of those who are concerned only with their own power. Washington is the enemy of the entire world and encompasses the largest concentration of evil on the planet.  Where is the good to rise up against the evil?”

Are the Arab Leaders Waiting for the Unthinkable?

Many Arab states had the capacity to correct the incurable historic malicious ironies born and repeated by the same folly of ruthless power and one-track thinking.  Saudi Arabia bought $60billion worth of armaments from the US and its forces were trained by US-British experts. Why did Saudi Arabia not intervene to stop the raging bloodbath in Syria especially at the fallen Aleppo? Egypt was capable to do the same. Yet it is pre-occupied to kill its own people led by a military dictator General Sisi who toppled a democratically elected President Morsi. Rationality wonders what they are fighting for. None of the leaders are fighting for Islam or Muslims or humanitarian purpose?  Are they not entrapped by the US warmongering in the region?  America is fighting to support the failing Shiite regime in Iraq, and it is supporting Saudis so to speak against the Shiite Hotis in Yemen and now bombing Mosul in support of the Iranian-backed Shiite militia. Iran and Hezbollah of Lebanon are killings Sunnis in various parts of Syria and Yemen. There is no sense out of the political and intellectual nuisance. Arab authoritarianism and the US-led bogus wars are the focal problems to be tackled with. The critical issues call for thoughtful analysis and change and new ideas to phase-out the old and obsolete thinking and obsessed values flourishing across the Arabian Peninsula. Global politics is not fixed but a constantly changing phenomenon of life. Arab leaders do not comprehend the imperatives of political change. But reality will not diminish because nobody is conscious of its impact. The American-British wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the resulting sectarian bloodbaths, none of the aftermath crises are tackled in their proper context by any rational analysis. Across the Arab world, there are no independent public institutions or expertsto analyze the political problems and find workable peaceful solutions. No proactive thinking exists in any Arab quarters to strive and re-enactpolitical unity of the Ummah and to have proactive intelligent leadership. Leaders who cannot think intelligently or understand the nature of the current crises, how could they lead to any plausible strategic direction? 

Almost 70 years later, when the European imperialism ended on paper, the freedom movements ill-conceived the continued role of neo-colonial leadership in Muslim societies mostly occupied by those who were uneducated feudal lords or tribal clan leaders seen as being ignorant, corrupt, and subservient to the neo-colonial master, not the much sought proactive leaders to make the future.

It is clear that undeserving oil wealth and illegitimate power associated with the governance have removed sense of fear and shame to the extent that over several decades of cruelty has embolden the Arab rulers to commit any crimes, bloodbaths and rob the people of their originality of thinking, values and culture. Would the future generations free of captivity hold these monsters accountable for their vicious crimes and political cruelty? The Western news media reports more than several million civilians having been cold blood murdered in various parts of Syria in the past five years. Millions have become homeless and refugees in their own backyard. Millions have fled to other neighboring Arab and West European countries. Do any of the Arab leaders realize the plights, pains and sufferings of these innocent people? If not, why not? Do Arab leaders have no intellect and institutions to deal with problem solving?  Are they that impotent to rely on the Western Master for all their political needs? America and European waited for years without action and now Russia is a warrior supporting the falling regime of Bahsar Al-Assad. Have the egoistic rulers misread the dictates of history?  Have they forgotten how Saddam Husein was hanged, Gadhafi was brutally murdered by the US-led forces and disgraced Hosni Mubarak disappeared. Is Bashar Al-Assad waiting for the same fate? If Bashar al Assad had any relationship to the people of Syria, would he be bombing and killing them? Have the Arab rulers solved any of the important problems confronting the Arab masses over half of a century?

Who will deal with the pressing problems of life and deaths facing the Arab masses?  Who will deal with restoration of peace, normalcy and conflict management? Do these leaders have any moral and intellectual capacity to extend security and sense of protection to the helpless people? Rationality is replaced by insanity. The coward and sadistic Arab rulers preoccupied with their greed and need are crossing the limits of the Laws of the Nature to kill the innocent masses just because they demand rights, human dignity and a voice to reason the unreason in political governance. Time and history are not on the side of the despotic rulers doomed to be crushed by the power of reason and political imagination of the people. As it stands now, Arab leaders have no other thought and priority except to count the dead bodies - soon they will be part of the dead statistic available to global observers and historians.

The solution must come out of new thinking and new vision for change, dialogue between the sectarian divides and competent leadership to achieve the stated goals. What if they were organized as morally and intellectually conscientious people and knew the complex nature of global politics and had proactive thought and freedom to think and act and communicate with moral strength to the enemies within the Arab societies. That is, if there were enlightened and competent leaders of vision and moral integrity to use moral and intellectual strength and values and were flexible to listen and learn from the other side. Many if not all man-made problems could be resolved peacefully through dialogue and listening and learning with an open mind and without resorting to bloodshed and committing crimes against the innocent humanity.

(Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja as an academia spent more than a decade in Saudi Arabia and pioneered the development of two new liberal education universities and teaching the new generation. He specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including: Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Germany, May 2012), and a forthcoming publication - One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Security, Peace and Conflict Resolution).