Mahboob A Khawaja

Nobody can predict which way the ‘Arab Awakening’ will turn this year… Over the decades of unchallenging aggressive adventures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and now in Syria, West and North Africa and soon in Saudi Arab, America has earned the distinction of being a leader in intrinsic and endless corrupted wars to dismantle, humiliate, kill and destroy the Arab people and maintain the surge for more bloodsheds anytime – anywhere…. Iraq? Its own latent civil war will go on grinding up the bones of civil society while we largely ignore its agony; there are days now when more Iraqis are killed than Syrians, though you wouldn’t know it from the nightly news. And the Gulf? Arabia, where the first Arab awakening began? Where, indeed, the first Arab revolution – the advent of Islam – burst forth upon the world. There are those who say that the Gulf kingdoms will remain secure for years to come. Don’t count on it. Watch Saudi Arabia. Remember what that British diplomat wrote 130 years ago. “Even in Mecca...” (Robert Fisk Could Saudi Arabia be Next?” The Independent).

Superpowers are Complacent in the Destruction of the Arab world?

For centuries, the Europeans (British, French, Italian and Dutch) built empires by colonizing the Islamic world. They used millions of subjugated people to fight the First and 2nd World Wars. They viewed the subjects as unworthy creature at the ballot box and imposed Whiteman’s superior thinking, culture, language and laws on the colonized Muslim people. Out of favors, loyal tribal agents were transformed into kings, royals, presidents and dictatorship role. This is how Britain stole Palestine from its people. Now the people are awakened to pursue democratic change and the absolute rulers are a liability. The US led few West Europeans want to replace the historical dummies to articulate a different future of their own. All the superpowers are collaborating military operations to destroy the entire Arab region under the pretext of “war on terrorism.” This planned scheme of things will sideline the core issue of the Arab Middle East - freedom of Palestine and normalization of relations with the State of Israel. After the US planned destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, Syria is virtually a collapsed country. It’s economic, civic and political infrastructures are in ruins. Millions of Iraqi and Syrian civilians are victims of insanity because of the authoritarian regime of Bashar-al-Assad, Al-Abidi or the coalition of the US-Russia and Europeans. Most West Europeans except Germany, used the Arabs as soldiers during the Two World Wars are now treating the refugees as animal herd to be barricaded under razor wires. Is there a responsible global governance to safeguard the mankind?

The UNO is fast becoming a wait and see institution - just to make declarations, the same chronic sickness that caused the downfall of the League of Nations and brought about the catastrophic curse of the 2nd WW. Complacency joined by wickedness, authoritarian Arab leaders are engaged in wars that make no sense to rationality of intent and purpose. Yemen, Libya, Egypt are targeted to be politically destabilized and torn apart by sectarian conflicts. Iran and Saudi Arabia’s reactionary policies are flaring up more disastrous sectarian killings. Many Iranian-backed extreme groups including Hezbollah are fighting in Iraq and Syria to maintain the cruelty of sectarian warfare. Their support to Al-Assad dynasty and fighting against fellow Muslims are a shame to the unity and teachings of Islam. Nothing looks optimistic if these countries could ever recover what is destroyed and was built since the ancient time. Unpredictable but paranoid and vengeful political monsters have incapacitated the human faculties of rational thinking across the Arab-Muslim world to be morally and intellectually crippled nations in global affairs. The Western coalition and Russia are collaborating, it is planned and aimed at large scale deaths and annihilation of the entire Arab world. After the WW2, it was Palestine, now the entire Arab Peninsula will be occupied by the superpowers. Russian-American bombing are destroying the masses and habitats. If few millions – just the numbers are abstracted from the population data, it is statistic and nothing about human casualties. Arabs are vanishing somewhere, not the Americans or Russians. The police apparatus planned and managed by the Western nations have dehumanized the Arab population with fear and hatred of the authoritarianism. The Arab citizens are just helpless statistic. They could be easily broken and slaughtered. The civilians are escaping the insanity of foreign bombing and tyranny of authoritarianism.

The wars against the oil enriched Middle East are a distraction from the home-based political and economic issues, be it the US or Russia. “U.S. Spy Chiefs Think The World Is Pretty Much Going To Hell” reads the headlines of the Foreign Policy (February 9,2016)…..from the Islamic State gaining strength in Libya to Kim Jong Un shopping some of the world’s most dangerous weapons, here are the top takeaways from a grim day with the nation’s top spooks. The magazine wonders, “Why are Russian Engineers Working at an Islamic State-Controlled Gas Plant in Syria?” The world knows Russia and the US are collaborating the Middle East warfare for their own interests. Secretary Kerry alleges that Russia is not helping in peace talks. One wonders, who has the focused mind and rational agenda for peacemaking in the Arab world? The need is urgent for the informed global community to intervene and to stop the daily carnage happening across the Middle East. Pepe Escobar (“Empire of Chaos Preparing For More Fireworks in 2016” Global Research: 12/24/2016), an independent geopolitical analysts and author of Empire in Chaos (2014), explains that “The Empire of Chaos, today, is not about complacency. It’s about hubris – and fear. Ever since the start of the Cold War the crucial question has been who would control the great trading networks of Eurasia - or the “heartland”….. Whatever happens in the so-called Syrian peace process the proxy war between Washington and Moscow will continue.”

“Terrorism” is a Political Myth of Action vs. Reaction

What is more alarming in the 21st century when the corporate world’s hired big affluent minds and news-making intellect offer fabricated facts of history to keep the masses under constant fear and red-alerts that American and other Western societies face outrageous trends of “extremism” and “terrorism” coming from the Islamic societies. In a rational perspective “terrorism” does not grow out of any particular land or culture but it is a global historical phenomenon of action vs. reaction game. It was best explained by British author and producer Adam Curtis (The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear: BBC documentary challenging the American version of the “War on Terrorism”), spells out the myth with clarity: “international terrorism is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services and the international media.”

Let us be absolutely clear that the US-led forces including the Europeans were not sent to Afghanistan or Iraq to defend democracy, freedom, human rights and liberty but to occupy those nations and exploit their natural resources and in some instances to test new and invisible weapons on easily available civilian targets. The mankind all over the planet is the net casualty of this horrible crime. Who gained most out of the planned miseries, bloodbaths and cruelty to fellow human beings? The Western oil companies, Washington-based military-industrial complex and the weapon manufacturers in the US and Western Europe.

Across the globe, “terrorism” whether it originates in the Western political culture or reactionary “terrorism” fast growing in the Muslim societies, the problem is critical and consuming too much time and energies which should be used for the good of the mankind living in peace not in adversity and continuing warfare. Do the Americans or other allied with warrior cliché know or have the ability to opt out of the degenerating warfare and its consequential ripple effects for the future of the mankind?

We Need New Vision and Proactive Thinking for Change and Adaptability to the Future

Aggressiveness, police raids and irrational harsh legal judgments do not articulate cooperation and respect for human dignity or social harmony and peace in human society but divide people in hatred, fear and more conflicts. You cannot change a society with law and order dictum. When a problem is misunderstood, its diagnostic approach will be wrong. An out of the official box approach to understand the problem is urgently needed. The major news media corporations in North America and Western Europe are aligned to the establishments and tainted with biased coverage as they get paid via ads and secret dealings. None of this is helpful to foster change and societal advancement for a peaceful future. The mankind looks for change in strategic thinking and actions. “In the name of “System Change, Not Climate Change”, points out Paul Street (“For Intelligent Civilizations on Earth”) “we can rescue and preserve humanity and livable ecology through mass resistance and a revolutionary transformation that takes us beyond the world’s unelected and interrelated dictatorships of money, profit, empire, and eco-cide.”

Most egoistic leaders once triumphed into political powerhouses; they ignore primary human values of peace, co-existence, freedom and liberty? If Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln were alive, their moral and intellectual souls must have been painfully disturbed - how George W. Bush, Blair and Obama tortured the innocent people at Guantanomo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The future generations must not be entrapped by the vengeful reactionary politics of the post 9/11 decade. Human decency and futuristic priorities would deserve rethinking and change in global policies and behaviors. Time and emerging opportunities warrant new societal thinking and approaches, and new visions for change and the future-making. But change and creativity and new visions will not emerge out of the obsolete, redundant and failed individualistic absolutism of the few insane leaders. Intelligent and effective leaders offer hope and optimism in situations of adversity and share proactive vision, and demonstrate flexibility for navigational change when facts of life warrant a change; and eagerness to learn the art of good communication and to do the best for the mankind.

The informed global community wishes to see meaningful dialogue, reconciliation and opportunities for peaceful settlement of the merging conflicts in the Arab world. Have the Two World Wars resolved any problems facing the humanity? What is the cure to raging indifference and cruelty to the interests of the whole of the mankind? The 21st century new-age complex political, economic, social and strategic challenges and the encompassing opportunities warrant new thinking, new leaders and new visions for change, conflict management and participatory peaceful future-making. Is the 21st century political genius more redundant, backward and unable to speak against the political drudgery and wickedness of the few sadistic warlords to destroy the humanity? Perhaps, Robert Burns - the poet (“Man’s inhumanity to Man”, from his poem Man was made to Mourn: A Dirge, 1785), knew better and had unraveling and passionate moral and intellectual understanding of the human nature and interests of the global mankind to clarify:

'Many and sharp the num'rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And Man, whose heav'n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, -
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!

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(Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution, and comparative Western-Islamic cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest one: Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany, May 2012)