barfly
19-12-03, 10:05
By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD=
Associated Press Writer=
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) _ Was he an Arab hero or a dictator?
This is the question being debated in newspapers in the
Middle East and by Arab intellectuals faced with the image
of a bearded, bedraggled Saddam Hussein in the hands of
American captors.
Many are asking, too, if Saddam's downfall was a
humiliation to the entire Arab world, not just to the
ousted Iraqi leader. Others say that with Saddam's capture,
it's time to drop any expectation that a great hero will
unite the Arab world.
«A new humiliation to Arabs» was the headline on a
column this week by Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the
London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi.
«It was a shock for us, and a humiliation to millions of
Arabs who saw the TV shots of the Iraqi president being
subjected to the humiliating medical checkup. We hoped that
he would have fought until the end, and fallen as a martyr
like his two sons and grandson or chose ******'s end,»
Atwan wrote, referring to the Nazi leader's suicide.
But Atwan was quick to find excuses for Saddam's
succumbing to U.S. forces without a shot being fired after
he was found in a hole in the ground near his hometown of
Tikrit.
«We only heard the American version of the story. Maybe
they drugged him because if Saddam wanted to surrender this
way, he would have ... accepted the many offers to leave
power,» Atwan wrote.
Instead, he added, Saddam had chosen «to stand up to
American arrogance.»
Apparently, many Arabs shared Atwan's view of Saddam's
arrest on Saturday as a collective humiliation _ and an
intentional one.
In a telephone poll, the popular Arab satellite channel
Al-Jazeera asked viewers if showing Saddam being probed by
U.S. military doctors was meant to humiliate Arabs.
Al-Jazeera said that of the 1,500 people who called in, 97
percent said it was.
Kuwaiti columnist Ahmed al-Robei expressed anger at such
talk of a hurt afflicting all Arabs. He wrote in the
pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat that the worst thing on
Middle East satellite channels since Saddam's arrest was
the idea of «humiliation to Arab dignity»
He added that Arabs were continuing to ignore that the
Iraqi leader was a villain. «The mass graves are not
enough to wake the minds of some of us. Are we people who
adore despots? It is a sad question,» he wrote.
He said he wondered how long Arabs would go on
«glorifying oppressors and despots and portraying them as
the saviors and leaders of this (Arab) nation, which is
handed over from one executioner to another.»
Some writers have described an Arab need for heroes and
said it stems from an education that glorifies the past _
when Arab armies conquered much of the known world _
leaving people today looking with discouragement at a world
where the West, and particularly the United States, has all
the power.
Fouad Ajami, director of Middle East Studies at Johns
Hopkins University, said in his 1998 book «The Dream
Palace of the Arabs: A Generation's Odyssey» that too many
Arab intellectuals prefer invoking Arab unity and
anti-Western defiance to dealing with real problems in the
Middle East.
«The political culture of (Arab) nationalism reserved its
approval for those who led ruinous campaigns in pursuit of
impossible quests,» Ajami wrote.
The argument over whether Saddam should be praised or
criticized has spread across the Arab world, from pan-Arab
dailies published in London to newspapers in the Gulf
nations.
Sayed Nassar, an Egyptian journalist who had close ties to
Saddam, wrote in the British-based Asharq Al-Awsat that the
question of whether Saddam was a dictator «deserves a lot
of research.»
Nassar praised Saddam for building a large army to defend
his country and said that without harsh policies Saddam
wouldn't have been able to rule Iraq's different ethnic and
religious groups. Saddam's only mistake was invading Kuwait
in 1990, Nassar wrote.
In Saudi Arabia, Abdallah Nasser Al-Fawzan, expressed
quite another view in the Saudi daily Al-Watan: «We all
saw the pictures ... Saddam was miserable, and I, as an
Arab, felt humiliation. But my other feelings against
Saddam were stronger. He was a paper knight.»
Bahraini columnist Mohammed Jaber Al-Ansari wrote Thursday
in the London-based daily Al-Hayat that Saddam's arrest
posed a challenge to all Arabs.
«Saddam is out of the hole,» he wrote, «but we have to
get him out of the corners of our political psychology,
which is still draining us with its nightmares.
«This is the test,» he added, «and it's one the
Americans can't take for us.»
Toch verbaast me dit, ik zie niet waarom een dictator van dit kaliber als held der Arabieren moet fungeren.... :vreemd:
Associated Press Writer=
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) _ Was he an Arab hero or a dictator?
This is the question being debated in newspapers in the
Middle East and by Arab intellectuals faced with the image
of a bearded, bedraggled Saddam Hussein in the hands of
American captors.
Many are asking, too, if Saddam's downfall was a
humiliation to the entire Arab world, not just to the
ousted Iraqi leader. Others say that with Saddam's capture,
it's time to drop any expectation that a great hero will
unite the Arab world.
«A new humiliation to Arabs» was the headline on a
column this week by Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the
London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi.
«It was a shock for us, and a humiliation to millions of
Arabs who saw the TV shots of the Iraqi president being
subjected to the humiliating medical checkup. We hoped that
he would have fought until the end, and fallen as a martyr
like his two sons and grandson or chose ******'s end,»
Atwan wrote, referring to the Nazi leader's suicide.
But Atwan was quick to find excuses for Saddam's
succumbing to U.S. forces without a shot being fired after
he was found in a hole in the ground near his hometown of
Tikrit.
«We only heard the American version of the story. Maybe
they drugged him because if Saddam wanted to surrender this
way, he would have ... accepted the many offers to leave
power,» Atwan wrote.
Instead, he added, Saddam had chosen «to stand up to
American arrogance.»
Apparently, many Arabs shared Atwan's view of Saddam's
arrest on Saturday as a collective humiliation _ and an
intentional one.
In a telephone poll, the popular Arab satellite channel
Al-Jazeera asked viewers if showing Saddam being probed by
U.S. military doctors was meant to humiliate Arabs.
Al-Jazeera said that of the 1,500 people who called in, 97
percent said it was.
Kuwaiti columnist Ahmed al-Robei expressed anger at such
talk of a hurt afflicting all Arabs. He wrote in the
pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat that the worst thing on
Middle East satellite channels since Saddam's arrest was
the idea of «humiliation to Arab dignity»
He added that Arabs were continuing to ignore that the
Iraqi leader was a villain. «The mass graves are not
enough to wake the minds of some of us. Are we people who
adore despots? It is a sad question,» he wrote.
He said he wondered how long Arabs would go on
«glorifying oppressors and despots and portraying them as
the saviors and leaders of this (Arab) nation, which is
handed over from one executioner to another.»
Some writers have described an Arab need for heroes and
said it stems from an education that glorifies the past _
when Arab armies conquered much of the known world _
leaving people today looking with discouragement at a world
where the West, and particularly the United States, has all
the power.
Fouad Ajami, director of Middle East Studies at Johns
Hopkins University, said in his 1998 book «The Dream
Palace of the Arabs: A Generation's Odyssey» that too many
Arab intellectuals prefer invoking Arab unity and
anti-Western defiance to dealing with real problems in the
Middle East.
«The political culture of (Arab) nationalism reserved its
approval for those who led ruinous campaigns in pursuit of
impossible quests,» Ajami wrote.
The argument over whether Saddam should be praised or
criticized has spread across the Arab world, from pan-Arab
dailies published in London to newspapers in the Gulf
nations.
Sayed Nassar, an Egyptian journalist who had close ties to
Saddam, wrote in the British-based Asharq Al-Awsat that the
question of whether Saddam was a dictator «deserves a lot
of research.»
Nassar praised Saddam for building a large army to defend
his country and said that without harsh policies Saddam
wouldn't have been able to rule Iraq's different ethnic and
religious groups. Saddam's only mistake was invading Kuwait
in 1990, Nassar wrote.
In Saudi Arabia, Abdallah Nasser Al-Fawzan, expressed
quite another view in the Saudi daily Al-Watan: «We all
saw the pictures ... Saddam was miserable, and I, as an
Arab, felt humiliation. But my other feelings against
Saddam were stronger. He was a paper knight.»
Bahraini columnist Mohammed Jaber Al-Ansari wrote Thursday
in the London-based daily Al-Hayat that Saddam's arrest
posed a challenge to all Arabs.
«Saddam is out of the hole,» he wrote, «but we have to
get him out of the corners of our political psychology,
which is still draining us with its nightmares.
«This is the test,» he added, «and it's one the
Americans can't take for us.»
Toch verbaast me dit, ik zie niet waarom een dictator van dit kaliber als held der Arabieren moet fungeren.... :vreemd: