Could anything be more
pathetic than the Arab demonstration against war? A million Britons marched in
London, more than half a million Spaniards in Madrid; 200,000 in Paris and New
York. And Cairo? Well, just 600 Egyptians turned up in their capital to protest
at America's forthcoming invasion of brotherly Iraq - surrounded by 3,000
security police. By way of contrast - brave contrast - 2,000 Israelis protested
in Tel Aviv against the war.
What on earth is it with the
Arabs? Of all people, they - and they alone - are likely to suffer in this
American invasion of their homeland. They - and they alone - have the will and
the ability to understand that this US military adventure is intended - as Colin
Powell, the Secretary of State, frankly declared last week - to change the map
of the Middle East.
Yet, faced with catastrophe,
the Arabs are like mice. Their leaders may agree with their people - but they
will not let their people say so.
President Mubarak of Egypt
has made it all too clear there is little he can do to rein in President Bush.
King Abdullah of Jordan has said there is almost "nothing" the Arabs
can do to avert war. Which means Arabs ask, more and more, what their leaders
are for. The presidents and kings of the Arab world agree with their people, it
seems, but do not wish them to express the views they themselves hold.
It's one thing for Mr.
Mubarak to criticize the United States - quite another for Egyptians to do so.
What on earth, one wonders, did the 3,000 Egyptian security police think as they
surrounded their protesting brothers and sisters?
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True, 200,000 Syrians
protested against the war in Damascus. But no one protests in Syria unless they
are in accord with their government, which means that this particular
"popular" protest was arranged by the Arab Socialist Baath Party of
Syria. But at least the Syrians did not carry, as their neighbours in Beirut
did, portraits of Saddam Hussein. For in Arab capital cities, there is a special
problem. Repeatedly, Arab opposition to war is trammeled up with Arab support
for the Iraqi dictator.
In Cairo two weeks ago,
pictures of the Iraqi leader detracted from anti-war protests. In Beirut on
Saturday, men who had fought each other in Lebanon's 15-year civil war came
together to oppose America's invasion of Iraq, but were then demeaned by far
greater numbers of Lebanese who supported Saddam Hussein and carried pictures of
the wretched man to prove it.
Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the
head of the Lebanese Hizbollah guerrilla army, castigated the Arabs for their
"silence" and urged them to "re-evaluate" their attitude
towards Europe following the protests against war - this, remember, from the man
who leads an organization whose satellite groups once held dozens of Westerners
hostage in Lebanon during the 1980s.
Sayed Nasrallah also deplored
the fact that "the greatest Muslim demonstration in history" - the
gathering of two million Muslim pilgrims at Mecca for the Haj - had not used the
slogan "Death to America" or "No to War". Nasrallah also
accused "certain" Arab regimes of "supporting the war or
approving of it in secret". And, of course, we all know who they are.
Source: The
Independent
