Articles
Arab-American Activism, Pages 44-45
The Arab World: Extremism or Reform?
LEADING EGYPTIAN-American human rights activist Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim spoke on a sensitive topic—“The Arab World: Extremism or Reform?”—at the University of Maryland (UM) in College Park on Dec. 4, 2009. Dr. John Townshend, dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the university, welcomed guests to the second annual Ameen Rihani lecture series, which honors the Lebanese-American writer who was part of a flourishing literary movement in North America. Dr. Suheil Bushrui, who holds the Kahlil Gibran chair at UM, named for another famous Arab-American writer, introduced Dr. Ibrahim, a leading advocate for democracy and human rights. Dr. Ibrahim is founder of both the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies in Cairo and the Arab Organization for Human Rights.
Dr. Ibrahim and his assistants were arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned in 2000 on charges of using European Union funds for election monitoring, and also of defaming Egypt’s image abroad with his criticism of President Hosni Mubarak. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and retried three times, winning each appeal. He finally was released from prison in 2003 and cleared of all charges. In 2007, however, he was driven into exile, and currently is a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
“There’s a balance sheet of violence involving the United States and Muslims over the last 30 years,” Dr. Ibrahim told the dinner guests, noting that far more Muslims have been killed than Americans. “My American friends think I should know who they mean when they say ”˜terrorists’ and ”˜extremists,’ but I’m not so sure...,” he said with a wry smile.
“The so-called extremists represent no more than a fraction of one percent,” he explained. “The rest of the people—like you and I—are trying to make a future for their children and grandchildren. Half of one percent have colored our image in the world.
“One way to combat this tiny fraction of extremists is to understand them,” Dr. Ibrahim pointed out. As a sociologist and human rights advocate, he said, he’s visited incarcerated extremists for decades. Then he was sent to prison himself and was able to continue his study first hand, he added with another smile. One person he interviewed 25 years ago is still in prison—even though he completed his sentence, Dr. Ibrahim stated. “Prisoners are angry.” There are three or four generations of angry militants who have spent time in prison and who’ve been treated unfairly. “The world fussed about my own imprisonment,” Ibrahim said. “There were 21 of us...Human rights activists are one tribe; we defend one another. There are thousands of other political detainees that no one cares about.”
To explain why that fraction of one percent of Arabs may have become angry extremists, Dr. Ibrahim gave a fascinating history lesson, beginning with the secret Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, which carved up the Ottoman Empire into spheres of influence between the governments of Britain and France, with the assent of Imperial Russia. This was “a grand betrayal of Arab dreams—which became a nightmare,” especially after deals were made with Zionists, Dr. Ibrahim declared. The betrayals continued after WWII and the Cold War, when America supported autocratic regimes in order to counter the Soviets.
Many Muslims support democracy in the Arab world, “but our voice is muffled,” Dr. Ibrahim said.
“There are 1.4 billion Muslims, and two-thirds of them are living under democratically elected governments in Indonesia, Malaysia, Senegal and Turkey. Where are the other third?” he asked. “In the Arab world!”
For a whole century, Dr. Ibrahim noted, Arab lands were liberal, with elected parliaments in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Morocco. When did the liberal Middle East come to an end? In 1948, with the establishment of Israel—that was the beginning of the end. Arabs blamed their defeat on civilian governments, and one by one there were coups d’états in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Tunisia and Sudan. The military took over—and always evoked Palestine as the reason for ending civilian governments.
People in their early 20s looking at their future see no hope with a dictator in charge and the West supporting that dictator, Dr. Ibrahim said. “They’re angry. If we want to contain terrorism, recognize how it starts. Give them hope for their future.
“The West asks, ”˜Why do they hate us?’” he continued. “The majority don’t hate us. They admire democracy, freedom, science and technology. They don’t like Western sexual morals” but, he reminded the audience, “only 50 years ago Americans had the same Puritanic attitudes.”
Arabs don’t hate America, he emphasized, and explained how he knows: “I call it ’the embassy test.’ You can see where there is the longest line outside trying to get a visa. It’s the American Embassy.” Arabs, he concluded, “want an American education.”
—Delinda C. Hanley
