G.G. Peterson, March 2003

One way to understand thinking in the Arab world on the eve of an American attack on Iraq is to hang out in a local Amman bar and drink arak until the early morning. You tend to hear unvarnished views and opinions which flow more freely as the evening becomes more convivial. The scene, though, is surreal, especially to an American. How to explain drinking alcohol with men who dress like bin Laden, or wear Arafat kefaya headdress, when in the American popular imagination, this could never happen?

Whispers of prejudice like cigarette smoke hanging over the counter being blown away by conversation. "I’m drinking with ARABS! In the Middle East!" It struck me how childish that thought was, how much it betrayed a one dimensional understanding of an entire area, people, culture. I forgave myself a bit based on my own experience; I had lived for two years in a remote desert village in the Sahara in a strict Islamic culture. This was different, new.

One stereotype of the Arab world certainly holds true whether they be in the Sahara or in the nightclubs of Beirut: a devotion to hospitable behaviour. There is something very comforting about a cultural dynamic which encourages people to behave in a very civilised way to outsiders, even if that dynamic, like all sustainable cultural phenomena, ultimately derives from a sense of self interest. That doesn’t mean hospitality isn’t a wonderful way to run a culture. To be ungenerous is to lower oneself beneath the foreigner in general; for the pious, it is simply an un-Islamic thing to do. So an American in Amman on the eve of the latest American assault on a Muslim citadel finds himself in the odd position of being warmly welcomed, even as his government is described in terms usually reserved for the former Third Reich.

"Please, I love American people. My cousin lives in Michigan. He is a doctor. He says the Americans are very warm. But this Bush, this Cheney--why are they so greedy? Sure! Yes! It is power and money my friend! Sure!"

The way of talking was infectious, ending most exclamations with "sure!", which is a literal translation of the Arab word for "true". It was said in such a way as to make every sentence and conclusion self-evident, as if I knew the truth in the first place, and needed only someone to repeat it.

"This Bush and Sharon will make the genocide against Arab people, sure! Wait until the war, (against Iraq), and you will see Sharon take Gaza one street at a time, sure!"

I found myself using this elocution more and more as the evening wore on. "But the American people didn’t vote for Bush, he stole the election, sure!"

Palestinians and Arabs in general seem stoic in the face of what seems, on its face, to be a general encircling of their cultural and religious sphere by vulgarity, control of their economic systems, and by extension, their capacity for military expression. This stoicism seems to me to come from an innate sense of cultural superiority that they know ultimately will triumph over what is perceived to be an inferior system. Every Palestinian knows the cultural and scientific heritage of the Arab world. The fact that so much Western science derives from Arab learning, that Spain once flourished under their dominion (especially the Jews), the art, the poetry, the architecture, everything speaks to a golden past now impossible to regain largely because of two perceived obstacles: America and the Zionist entity Israel.

"Europe still has real people, like the French, because they are rooted in the land and have culture. The same with some of the real Jews in Palestine. But the Zionist state is the same as America, made up of people with no roots, rabble from all over the world, who view values and culture in terms of acquisition and conquest, sure!. Where is the romantic attachment to the land? Where is your sense of belonging?"

This is the verbatim opinion of one Palestinian refugee endorsed and elaborated open by every man i met that night. There is a sense of utter disbelief that such "rabble" could have acquired hegemony and sway over the Arab world. Israel’s existence in the long term will never be accepted as long as this romantic attachment to a glorified past exists. Israel is the symbol of power imbalance, Arab helplessness, the thin edge of the western wedge in the heart of the middle east. Every Arab knows that the attack on Iraq and the Palestinian situation are inherently linked; how could it not be so? Righting this imbalanced situation is at the core of the internal debate going on in the Arab world at the moment.

The western, especially American fear, is that the Arab world will embrace the Saudi Wahhibist, reactionary brand of Islam in order to throw off the infidel yoke, restore Muslim dignity, and regain a Golden Age. The September 11 terrorists gambled that a spectacular act of war against the heart of the enemy would radicalize the political climate, and hoped that such a change would ultimately galvanize Arabs as they watched an enraged giant react with force against Muslim targets. If that was their aim, they appear to be succeeding spectacularly. The West is divided, the Americans are haemorrhaging what is left of their moral capital as they plan to attack Iraq in the face of worldwide opposition, and the Arab street from Rabat to Cairo is taking to the streets in protest. Oil, the narcotic on which the west depends, is in the balance.

The Arab world is far more complicated of course, than the almost cartoonish image of radical bearded men slamming airplanes into skyscrapers. It includes a range of opinions and backgrounds. Al Qaeda is an embarrassment to many sophisticated Arabs. It is seen as an utter betrayal of a civilization which is thought to be the mother of all civilizations. In public there was an initial denial that 15 of the September 11 men were Arabs, much less Saudis. This denial derives from the sense of shock that Islamic culture could have stooped so low, that the land which gave birth to algebra and astronomy was now reverting to a state of barbarity, a land of Huns with high tech means. In the bar, many persisted in saying that while the men were Arabs, the puppet master was Israel. This was a common view, and it speaks to the depth to which Arab self-confidence has sunk. If they are not the masters of the universe anymore, then they are masters of nothing, not even terror.

If most Arabs aren’t terrorists, then who are they? Who are the ones yearning for a world where the power imbalance is not so skewed in their disfavour? A world where lost momentum of centuries past can be regained? Washington naively hopes that this majority is "the moderates", as if they existed somewhere between Democrats and Republicans, a suburban swing vote, Americans in waiting. The words"moderate" and "radical" in the Arab context do not reflect the reality of the metric by which the Arab world judges itself. There is nothing really "moderate" about these moderates, to judge by their ultimate interests, which is restoring Arab power. To the Americans, Saddam Hussein and bin Laden are both "radicals", and thus linked. To everyone I met, they were opposite ends of the spectrum: Saddam a secular nationalist and bin Laden a reactionary visionary using Islam a s a vehicle for, ultimately, control of Saudi Arabia, and by extension, western economic interests.

Most then are people who pose various questions about means, and not ends. Should Saddam be supported as a man who represents Arab strength and pride? Should he be condemned as a man who has shamed them and brought the Americans into the Holy Lands? Should governments continue accommodation with the West while agitating for more political and economic reforms to build up local strength? To what degree should internal political struggles against repressive local regimes include religious organizations such a s the Muslim Brotherhood? Or should a "devil’s" alliance be made with Al Qaeda in an all out war against Israel and the US? Listening to these questions being posed I was dumbstruck at just how clumsy US policy is: the Americans are almost begging for the Arabs to resort to the last option, boxing people in, radicalizing the means.

Mostly these conversations exist in private--they are not part of spirted public debate in most countries because the freedom of expression is quite limited. I tried to explain that in the opinion of the Washington power circle--Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle et al--the Iraq war is justified because it would bring regional regime change, spurring democratic movements across the region and therefore helping limit the conditions under in which terrorists are made. Under this idealistic scheme, it would strengthen "moderation", and "democrats", creating space to move away from the bin Laden or Saddam model of change and growth.

There was widespread laughter in the bar, an idea so ludicrous nobody really bothered to take it seriously. One man did say this though--"do you know why that will never happen? Do you remember Algeria? When the west supported free elections-they held them--and guess who won? The Islamic fundamentalists--and then the French-supported by the Americans simply accepted the military government when it cancelled the election--and now we have had years of civil war there. No way--if elections were held in Egypt today, or in Saudi Arabia--the results would not be what the west wants--so why would they want it? These men are dangerous dreamers, these Washington men. Dangerous like Bin Laden."

This seemed to be a valid point, and I couldn’t help wondering if the timing was impossible for this now, that the strength and force of reactionary Islam had been made possible through repeated humiliation and repression, and that as an organizing force in an open election, it would be unbeatable, much as is right-wing Christianity in the suburban Southern USA. Perhaps every Arab country needs to go through the Iranian model--revolution, reclaiming of an owned destiny, then evolution towards real democratic freedom. Where the US was least able to interfere over the past two decades, Iran, there is the greatest hope for positive change. Where the US has had most control and influence, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, there is the potential for a social explosion. Regarding Iraq, I got the feeling that the US was about to open the gates of hell.

At that point I was wondering how it all came to this. For some reason I thought of Rome, and the negative effect of the second Carthaginian (Punic) war on Rome’s political development. Hannibal remembered the humiliation of Carthage at the hands of Rome during the first Punic war, and vowed revenge, by any means. He then attempted a daring assault on the heart of the Republic as he crossed the Alps, striking fear into Rome’s citizens, who had thought themselves impervious to attack. Fighting Hannibal required a re-alignment of internal Roman power, and helped to make the democratic institutions of republican Rome less relevant, strengthening the hand of the elitist Senate, paving the way for Caesar’s ascension two hundred years later, and an open declaration of Empire.

I wondered what two hundred years meant in 2003 dollars.

I thanked my hosts and walked out to hail a taxi in the foggy Amman night. Maybe Caesar is already here, sure.