I have no more faith in the Arab world.
I may be an ethnic Iraqi, but I am completely unable to associate myself with the Middle Eastern world - and this feeling is reinforced every day.
Growing up, I could never make friends with other Arab kids, because I didn't have the right culture or mindset. As a result, most of my friends were a melting pot of others like me, who never really quite "fit in" anywhere.
I'm glad I didn't.
I wrote this, this and this almost two years ago to explain (mostly to myself) how I was feeling, and these feelings have only become more and more crystallized and radical since.
Yes, a Hummer with Lebanese flags, protesting the Israeli action. The irony is blinding.
It isn't all bad of course - my lack of faith in the Arab identity pushed me to focus my work on Latin America, where people are much more interested in taking active control of their own lives and pushing for real change instead of remaining comfortably dependent on a system that lets them drive Hummers and drink Starbucks at the costs of the lives of their brothers and sisters.
What happened in Iraq, what happened in Palestine what's happening in Lebanon, and what will end up happening all over the Middle East is the bloody appropriation of the resources and land needed to control our own destinies not as "arabs", but as "human beings". We were once compassionate humans before being Iraqi, or Syrian, or Saudi, or Lebanese, or Palestinian, or Egyptian, or Emirati, or...
Our rallies and protests are all nice and dandy, but they ultimately lead nowhere. "Awww - how nice... we're organizing a rally!". They will not help us one bit until we acknowledge that we need to change our outlooks, our lifestyles and our actions.
Every drop of oil into your SUVs, every fast food meal you order, every TV sitcom you watch, and everytime you watch the bad news on Al-Jazeera, then turn it off and go back to reading "The Da Vinci Code"... means that you're directly responsible for the death of another Lebanese civilian that you pretend to support, another Palestinian town that is destroyed to make way for an Israeli settlement, and the genocide of countless Iraqis who are dying so that you can continue to live your cushy lives so dependent on Free Market capitalism and the American and European military industrial complex.
Yes, that's an Israeli flag with a swastiska painted on it. I have no more faith in the arab world.
The enemy isn't "America" or "Israel". No, to see the problem - to see why our brothers and sisters are dying in droves - all of us Middle Easterners need only look in the mirror at our guilty souls, or in the sink at our blood-drenched hands. The leaders we chose to guide our nations are morally and ethically corrupt, and what are they if not reflections of ourselves?
If this post makes you angry, fills you with rage, then good. Get mad. Get angry. Break something. Break everything. Go outside and tear it all down. Raze everything you see. Che Guevara famously hoped for the "new man to emerge from the ashes of the old world".
I'm starting to understand what he meant.
Comments
Richness/kindness
- But yeah - no matter what we try, it seems that us, or at least the vast majority, are bred into a system that commends wealth and greed. Everything we do in our lives that would seem "wrong" if looked at by an external observer now is perfectly "normal" to us. Our quest for comfort, pleasure and numbness has made most of us unable to break free of this cycle.-
I too feel that somehow, (exceptions do exist) but many cases have been seen that the richer the people the less caring or ill faithed. I have found that most caring people and most generous are those that 'have' little.... in material and posession... althought that concept to me makes me uncomfortable. As many people do not consider owning much and yet they do... while as other who are considered 'underpriviledge' are actually much richer in spirit, autonomy, growth, knowledge.
Like ou were saying earlyer, many people in Latin America have few possessions yet they share, give and lend without a blink of an eye... as it is not @precious@ to them... people are important and valued over mere things... we seem to have lost that...
Here we focus on work, results, achievements, posessions, titles, sucess and no more have time for people, sharing, caring....
I have to say that being here too and aspiring to live there... I too get caught in the wheel of speed and have trouble balancing the values and ideals with practice... but one phne call, one email, one gesture at a time... building and maintaining the network of tlc which needs nothing but time to grow... but thanks to active people we are awoken from numbness!
(Reading about all those identity crises, makes me think of our own in Quebec as a nation, I never felt like I fitted anywhere either... still wondering....)
Re: I hear ya
I came across you post by way of my friend Jules (inoveryourhead.net), and I just wanted to take a minute to comment on some of your thoughts. Being of euro-arab descent myself, I also grew up without any real connection to my Egyptian heritage, and never really had any arab friends per se, apart from a couple of 2nd, 3rd generation ones.
I agree largely with your observations with regards to human folly, and the detriments of mob mentality or corrupt leadership. I'm uncertain whether the so-called "arab community" is really to blame here, or if instead, it is much more likely that the major cause of this continuing aggression can be found in the deterioration of the founding prioncliples of society.
Human beings are simply unable, it seems, to exist in any kind of sensible community for more than a little while, before disputes and jelousies screw the proverbial pooch to death. We are a race of often-well-meaning, but ultimately self-destructive brats.
We are the Willie Loeman's of the universe.
Cheers
Re: I hear ya
Jason,
Thanks for your level-headed comments. I think we more or less agree, and I maybe didn't make it very clear that I don't think the arab community (both in the middle east and the diaspora) is the sole culprit here. It's just that when you consider, economically, what the Arab States could've become, and instead what they ended up as, it's frustratingly difficult to understand how "we" could end up like this, with such a corrupt, fascist elite class ruling over the masses.
You're right that that's not limited to arab countries, but the tribalism and bickering that's the staple of arab culture has exarcebated it many times over.
But yeah - no matter what we try, it seems that us, or at least the vast majority, are bred into a system that commends wealth and greed. Everything we do in our lives that would seem "wrong" if looked at by an external observer now is perfectly "normal" to us. Our quest for comfort, pleasure and numbness has made most of us unable to break free of this cycle.
Cheers,
s.
Sometimes, words are not enough
I just finished back traking and reading... my head is still very much filled with new informations and knowledge that I had llittle or no idea of. Thanks! I do share many values with your view and I think also that the path is similar in getting there, being here, and wishing (working) at a better road ahead. Thanks for that, and many congratulations on all the material (I put tags and notes to come back and read more about the referrals and links you've placed everywhere).
May our combined effort bring more light and joy, peace and open minds to the people that surround us. May we create a group of growing human beings... caring and loving for one another.
Tambien me considero humana, con aspiraciones latinas ;-P