To all my detractors: Curse be upon thy mustache!
So there.
Those words were uttered some weeks before the Iraqi invasion when Arab leaders gathered for a powwow. The reps from Kuwait and Iraq bitterly mixed it up, climaxing with the Iraqi delegate hurling this monstrous insult at the Kuwaiti guy.
Which brings us to Yasser Arafat and the Saddam Hussein.
When Saddam was captured over the weekend, no self-respecting Arab Muslim could feel anything but humiliation. The humiliation that has struck at their hearts for what seems forever.
It took Americans to apprehend him, not Arabs. Just as it took Americans to invade Iraq and topple the government. And just as they have been occupied by foreign forces in past years and were defeated each time they attempted to destroy Israel. Nor can they thrive like modern Western nations, despite their trillions of dollars in oil money.
Their honor is so crucial to them. Nobody likes to lose, but there is a limit to pride and there are certainly considerations that are far more important.
Did it ever occur to them that their sense of honor is the force that is holding them back? This sense of honor is more important to them than living in peace or building better lives for their families. It signals a collective immaturity that thwarts any effort at progress. Even children at recess are smart enough to know when the game is up.
Suleiman Nyang of Howard University puts it this way in The Philadelphia Inquirer: ?If it is a humiliation for the Arab people, it is one that Arabs themselves are accountable for. It is unfortunate that a guy like Saddam Hussein should have remained in power for so long. The Arab people don?t fight for their freedom the way other people fight for freedom.?
Among the comments from Arabs in the Middle East, Moroccan journalist Khalid Jamai said, as quoted in The Washington Post, ?No Arab and no Muslim will ever forget these images. They touched something very, very deep. It was disgraceful to publish those pictures. It goes against human dignity, to present him like a gorilla that has come out of the forest, with someone checking his head for lice.?
To most people outside the Middle East, Jamai?s comparison dishonors gorillas all over the world.
The three-year war in Israel is blamed on Yasser Arafat?s sense of honor. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently wrote that Arafat refused to accept Israel?s offer for a peace settlement in 2000 partly because it was being handed to him. It would wounded the pride of him and many of his followers that he could not retake the land by fighting. Craig Horowitz wrote in the December 15 New York magazine, ?It robbed him of his dignity as a Muslim man because peace was offered not won; it required signing an end-of-conflict clause, which meant the Palestinians would have to give up their dream of all the land.?
Even peace activists who belong to the Pity-the-Poor-Palestinian Club have to recognize this rigid kind of pride is a bigger barrier to peace than any border wall will ever be.
And if they don?t like it, then curse be upon all their mustaches. If they don?t have mustaches, then the curse is working already.
So there.
Those words were uttered some weeks before the Iraqi invasion when Arab leaders gathered for a powwow. The reps from Kuwait and Iraq bitterly mixed it up, climaxing with the Iraqi delegate hurling this monstrous insult at the Kuwaiti guy.
Which brings us to Yasser Arafat and the Saddam Hussein.
When Saddam was captured over the weekend, no self-respecting Arab Muslim could feel anything but humiliation. The humiliation that has struck at their hearts for what seems forever.
It took Americans to apprehend him, not Arabs. Just as it took Americans to invade Iraq and topple the government. And just as they have been occupied by foreign forces in past years and were defeated each time they attempted to destroy Israel. Nor can they thrive like modern Western nations, despite their trillions of dollars in oil money.
Their honor is so crucial to them. Nobody likes to lose, but there is a limit to pride and there are certainly considerations that are far more important.
Did it ever occur to them that their sense of honor is the force that is holding them back? This sense of honor is more important to them than living in peace or building better lives for their families. It signals a collective immaturity that thwarts any effort at progress. Even children at recess are smart enough to know when the game is up.
Suleiman Nyang of Howard University puts it this way in The Philadelphia Inquirer: ?If it is a humiliation for the Arab people, it is one that Arabs themselves are accountable for. It is unfortunate that a guy like Saddam Hussein should have remained in power for so long. The Arab people don?t fight for their freedom the way other people fight for freedom.?
Among the comments from Arabs in the Middle East, Moroccan journalist Khalid Jamai said, as quoted in The Washington Post, ?No Arab and no Muslim will ever forget these images. They touched something very, very deep. It was disgraceful to publish those pictures. It goes against human dignity, to present him like a gorilla that has come out of the forest, with someone checking his head for lice.?
To most people outside the Middle East, Jamai?s comparison dishonors gorillas all over the world.
The three-year war in Israel is blamed on Yasser Arafat?s sense of honor. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently wrote that Arafat refused to accept Israel?s offer for a peace settlement in 2000 partly because it was being handed to him. It would wounded the pride of him and many of his followers that he could not retake the land by fighting. Craig Horowitz wrote in the December 15 New York magazine, ?It robbed him of his dignity as a Muslim man because peace was offered not won; it required signing an end-of-conflict clause, which meant the Palestinians would have to give up their dream of all the land.?
Even peace activists who belong to the Pity-the-Poor-Palestinian Club have to recognize this rigid kind of pride is a bigger barrier to peace than any border wall will ever be.
And if they don?t like it, then curse be upon all their mustaches. If they don?t have mustaches, then the curse is working already.