Dear Friends,
I have four confessions to make by way of introduction.
One: this is the first time I deliver a ‘keynote speech’ if that may be called one. I have heard a few and noticed that there was a strange relationship between words and food. So, I shall opt for democracy, presumably a ‘light’ topic least condusive to indigestion.
Two: today is my birthday and I am happy to be celebrating it with you. I am mentioning my birthday because of a mistake my father made and rectified it in an even worse manner. No, I am not lamenting the mere fact that I was born, along the lines of Abu’l’`Ala’ al Ma`arri famous dictum (Haza ma Janahu alyya abi—). My father- not willing to pay the heavy fine imposed under the French Mandate for late registration of births- registered me as having been born on January 10, 1941. A strange occurrence, as my father was a very generous man. That white lie of my father has added a lease of 27 days to my ‘life’, as it were. On the other hand, this conflict between my real and my official birthrate has infested me with a keen sense of guilt: officially, – i.e. in my ID, passport, on CVs, job and visa applications, etc.- since I am lying both ways: my real birthdate is not the official birthdate and my official birthdate is not my real birthdate.
Three: I have always wanted to become a medical doctor. The idea of being able to deliver life and save lives appealed to me tremendously as a mission in life while in secondary school. Earlier on, I do confess to have ‘played doctor’, as many ‘normal’ children are supposed to have done in some Lacanian phase of their development (Freud is no more trendy these days). But I was so terribly bad in biology at AUB that I failed that course more than once. Short of being able to deliver and save lives I decided to change people’s lives and destinies armed with PSPA (sounds better than PS). I will not bore you here with my political itinerary. What I am interestedin here is the affinity I find between politics and the medical sciences. Of course, this goes beyond the fact that many medical doctors indulge in politics from Che Guevara onwards (I shall not mention other names for fear of comparisons), and become MPs and Ministers (I even know a medical doctor in this hall who became, to his honor, a PM for a short and tragic while). The point I wish to make is that that affinity hinges on the related notions of diagnosis and cure.
I wish to apply that maxim to a concrete situation
Fourth, in case anybody asks or is interested, I still consider myself a Marxist, as I am greatly unconvinced that man is only radical in youth and succombs to the status quo in mature life. Wiser, unorthodox, ecclectic and critical, Among the many identities I uphold, refusing any reductionism, prime of which is the identity of citizen, Marxism still is a major influence in my life and thought.
Trying to make sense of globalization and democratization.
Diagnosis and cure: cures without diagnosis, cures without sickness, cures for other sicknesses and of course no cure for sicknesses: a mumbo jumbo of confusions between the geopolitical and economic masquarading as demcratic and freedom
What with the bizarrre things that are happening to us: the massacres of Falluja that have put Saddam to shame, at a time while, in the first anniversay of his capture, Abu `Udayy, like Voltaire’s Candide, is peacefully planting his own garden and even writing poetry, we are told.
Democracy in the AW: Manicheanism
Let me begin by saying that I am greatly worried about the predominant schyzophrenia resulting from the war on Iraq: either
you are either for democracy and US occupation of Iraq or you are against the occupation and so you end up supporting despotic regimes. I somewhat foolishly believe that one could be both againt the US occupation of Iraq and for democracy in Iraq and the rest of the Arab World.
Is the US trying to impose democracy on the AW? My answer would be mainly in the negative. I am sure there are men in the US adminstration who believe in the naïve notion that democracy is the
Double standards:
Pluralism is being lauded in Egypt, Yemen, but no mention of the prevailing Jamlaka by which Ahmad Ali Salih and Jamal Mubarak are being groomed for succession, not to speak of the Sword of Islam, the name by which goes the successor of Ghaddafi.
There should be elections in Palestine, Mr. Powell tells us at the close of the Rabat Future Forum. Greta. There are already ten candidates and the IDF has already managed to beat one of them at a mahsoum (roadblock for the non-initiated to Israeli democracy). But there are no calls for elections in Saudi Arabia- the land where women are allowed to fly airplanes but not drive cars. No calls for elections but the KSA has promised municipal elections in which women will not vote. But did anybody hear of a US official asking for the release of `Abdallah al-Håmid, Matrouk al-Fålih `Ali al-Dumayni the three Saudi intellectuals in prison in Riyad since last March 16, whose only crime are their demands of political and constitutional reforms?
Despite the fact that we boast our incomplete what the democracy project boasts is Jordan, Bahrein and Kuwait, whose monarch is the nephew of the PM
Lebanon is not mentioned because of geo-political considerations: it should disarm its Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias and secure the
The only proof is what is happening in Iraq where the US army destroyed not Saddam’s regime but the Iraqi State, army, adminstration and all. That is not only me saying this, but the present interim Iraqi President of the republic Ghazi `Ajil al-Yawir! That was done for geo-strategic and geo-politicl reasons (mainly serving Israel) rather than for democratic purposes unless we want to believe the ‘liberal civil society mythology that weakening the State is a precondition for increasing citizen’s rights!
The other, the acceptance of the communitarian basis of political representation: Iraq viewed as being of one ethnicity and two religious sects: Sunnis and Shiites. Under this manipulation of idnetity not only the Arab identity of Iraq is dispensed with but the right of an Iraqi to be a mere Iraqi citizen is also obfcused.
The pyroman firefighter
Legitimacy of our rulers has increasingly become an external affair, mainly in the hands of the US. This is where the symbiosis is taking place between the present Arab rulers and the US: all concessions to the US none to the people.
How much our rulers hold their people in contempt should be further highlighted us: concessions galore to external pressure, none to meet
Soon the sixth withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanese territory is going to happen. Not once did an official of the sister country deign say that these withdrawals are designed to meet the requests of their Lebanese brothers everytime, the withdrawal was time to meet an American pressure or event such as the discussion of the Syria Accountability Act in Congress.
Does that make us question intentions or reject democracy. Is democracy being imposed from outside. Or say yes, but we want it modified to suit our culture and national/religious specificities? I know of three major forms of rule that history has produced: the one resting on God; the one on the Idea and the one on people’s will. Dem is about the latter. Some politically correct gentlemen in Europe and the US object saying: democracy should not be imposed from the outside. What is imposed from the outside is a modifies stautus quo, not democracy
The point I wish to make is that there are two agendas for democratic reform: the US-Arab regimes and the Arab democrats
Two demonstrations tell a lot these last few days: the anti hereditay one ion Cairo and The demonstrations of the unemployed (al-mu`attalîn, not the `tilin, as they want to be called) in Ribat Morocco.