H.E. Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban in ADC- Arab American Anti Discrimination Committee- Conference in June 2006, WASHINGTON D.C.
15 June 2006
Senator James Abu Rezk (Founder of ADC): Our guest today is a Syrian Cabinet Minister, she is Minister of Expatriates. She's a well-known academic, scholar, writer, journalist and a politician. She has a long list of publications in both English and Arabic. These publications are including essays, articles and books. She's also a public speaker for a long time. In addition to her immediate career she's well-known in the Arab world for her fighting for the women rights. One of her books that addresses women is "Both Left and Right Handed: Arab Women Talk about their Lives". She's got her Ph.D. in English Literature from Warwick University in England. She was a lecturer in the faculty of English literature in the University of Damascus. She became a Fulbright scholar in 1997. Please ladies and gentlemen let's welcome Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban.
Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban: First allow me to thank my friends Senator James Abu Rezk and Ms. Mary Rose Oaker who really do their utmost to bring this event and dialogue between our two worlds. I'd like also to thank all of you to come here such an early morning and to listen to what I'll say and I hope what I'll say will be interesting to you.
I was asked by a woman at the table I was sitting on whether I'm going to speak about Syria. I said "No". She said "I hope you'll not going to speak about Palestine because all Arab officials come here to speak not about their countries but about Palestine". I'd like to say that I'm not here as an official, I'm here as an Arab woman who lives, sleeps and eats with the agony of the world not just the agony of the Arab world. (applause).
I want to stop to presenting few pictures I brought with me about what's happened in the last two weeks, just in the last two weeks, this is just to let you know how I was living in the last two weeks in Syria, what my main issues I were thinking about all the time. And how this issues shift when I crossed the ocean and came to the United States, and I want to find out the danger and why that's happening, and how we could all work together in order to do something about it.
In the last two weeks perhaps all the world were watching the World Cup which was the most important event, we have been watching the pictures you now see on the screen. We've been watching the massacre in Gaza, on the beach. We were thinking about Huda Ghaliah and how she's going to live, we were thinking about these children who were killed and for us these events go beyond the T.V. 60 minutes presentation of this event. It goes beyond to orphan families, orphan children after all these lack of food, water and medicine. We were further angered by the investigation that's made by the very general who committed the crimes and who that these were not their responsibilities.
So, this is something that once I lift Syria and I sat on the plane and I found people, you know, not knowing about what's happening in our region. It's very minor piece of information which not many people want to see.
There're few things that happened also in the last two weeks like the report that was published by the Human Rights Watch which spoke about the secret prisons both in the United States and in Europe. There are many things that are not transcend the ocean and come here. When president Bush went to Iraq he said that if you're going to judge success in Iraq by illuminating violence this is going to be an impossible measure to achieve. It's very easy to him who has such a security to arrive in Iraq for ten minutes and live, but for the Iraqis and for the Arab people have to live there, there is no another place for them to live in. Security is the most important thing that anyone of us wants, and anyone of us needs. President Bush turned to the Prime Minister of Iraq, Al-Maleky, and said to him the future of Iraq is in your hands. You know, he brought Iraq into absolute chaos, into absolute destruction for the last three years. If you want to turn to someone who knew about the arrival of President Bush just fifteen minutes before that arrival and you mention that the future of Iraq is in your hands!!
I'm saying all these beside the report of the investigation about the Arab – Americans in the United States which concluded that in the year 2000 there were 28 discriminations considered against Arab Americans. There were 484 in the year 2001. There's another report issued in the Netherlands that all the emigrants in the Netherlands feel that there is a racial or color or religious discrimination against them. The reason I'm bringing all these threats together is to say that there's something after 9/11 that's extremely dangerous and that's happening to all of us.
The work of the media besides the blockage of course, you have blockage of news, this media tries to bring to the western audience that all Muslims and Arabs are terrorists and suspects of course. In the last two weeks three young men supposed to have hanged themselves in the Guantanamo Bay and that news did not deserve even to stop and question who is responsible and why this happened to people who are only suspects.
Now I'm going to mention what has happened in London grading a house of a Muslim family accusing them of having weapons and then they discovered that they had nothing.
The question I want to ask after all of these: who's feeding these intelligence forces against Muslims and Arabs?? And how long is it going to continue and where is it going to lead the world??
What's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan is not the most dangerous thing we're going to face in ten years time, we're going to face something that's a lot more dangerous. We're going to face racist societies that's not only Arabs and Muslims are going to pay the price for but everyone in the world.
What I'm trying to say is that we're all going to read the very bad effects of what's happening today unless we stop and ask the real question: What was 9/11 all about?? Why Arab and Americans have to pay for such a huge price for 9/11?? This will lead us to the fact that both the Arabs and the Americans who are paying such a huge price of 9/11. The problem as I see is that there are two kinds of extremism feeding each other and building on each other; one in the west and one in the east. And each one takes the doings of the other as a pretext to exist and to flourish as well. Here there are the new cons., there are the people who have the patriot act who are illuminating some paragraphs from Geneva Accord in order to allow the torture of prisoners. Of course the execute for that is there's Bin Laden, we're not if there is really Bin Laden or if he really exists and we don't know why he wasn't caught up till now, any way the pretext is that there are few people who are making the world a lot dangerous and there are some extremists who also carry on their crazy attack and their execute for that is that there are some governments in the west who are targeting Islam and the Arabs.
The solution in my opinion is that whole people who believe in justice, who believe in human family, who believe in Christianity, Judaism and Islam lead to one God, that we all worship one God and that I can't be a Muslim unless I believe in all the Prophets of Judaism and Christianity, otherwise I'm not a Muslim.. (applause) I think all these people have to stop and to think what we're going to do about this. The extremists are feeding each other and working with each other, but we who believe in justice, who believe in human integrity, who believe in human dignity we are not networking as much as we should. We're not helping each other as much as we should. We have to help each other and to network and we have to build the bases for what's right and what's wrong.
What I saw in the last two months is a behavior that some in the west believe that Arab life is not equal human life, and yesterday I read a very interesting article in the Washington Post by David Ignatius in which he said: those who are imprisoning people in Guantanamo Bay are turning out to be the prisoners, the prisoners of their own style, and he said a very important sentence he said what war does is to make you stop to see the others as human beings. This is the danger. We should not stop to see each other as a human being, we should not stop to see the Palestinian child as not being a human being but to see him/her as our own child. We should not also stop to see the lost of families in Iraq, In Palestine, in Afghanistan, in Darfor as that but we have to feel exactly the same of a family in New York, or in Washington or in London because we have the same human feelings and we have the same human capacity to feel the same.
As I was coming here through Heathrow airport I saw a very huge posture by British Airways saying "ONE WORLD". What it meant is that British Airways can take you everywhere in the world and transport has made the world one. The most basic that will make our world one world is to feel exactly the same about issues, is to ask about the same justice everywhere, is to have the same respect for human life, for human dignity, for human integrity.
It's not by coincidence that I speak this language in Washington D.C.; first as Americans you have huge role to play in this coming juncture, and I think we do have the responsibility that we should stand up to it. The other thing is if you ask any Arab citizen from Morocco to Iraq what are you going to do as the United States has such a militarily strong country which gives Israel the green light to occupy Arab territories the Arab citizens will say that American public opinion is the savior. This is wonderful because this shows that Arab people in the Arab world trust American people, Muslim people trust the American people, they trust American sense of justice. Let's work on that trust and build bridges on it because it's a real treasure. It might not last for a very long if they continue to present to the Arab people what the British Court said about three British soldiers dragging a young man in front of the eyes of hundred witnesses and then they concluded that these three soldiers were not responsible!!
You know, such decision will make our people, Muslim and Arab people, loose confidence in the western systems, in the democracy, in the court systems, in whatever you like. We cannot afford to loose confidence in each other. What we have to do is to try to build on each other confidence.
One serious danger to us is to try to adopt books, literature, films that truly magnify this discrimination between each other. If I'm to write an article, you know a good article about what's happening in the Middle East no one is interested, but if there's a trash written by Ian Hersi Ali who claims to be a Muslim and who's all her sayings proved to be false and lies and then she gets her book published and promoted and it becoming the best seller because she is a self-hating women and a self-hating Muslims and what she is saying in this book (Dr. Shaaban shows a copy of the book0 is absolute trash. This kind of books should find no way to publication anywhere in the world because once we have the perspective that we are all one human family and we're all sailing in one boat, whether we liked it or not, and we're all responsible for the creature of the future human family we have to start to understand each other and only promote books and literature and ideas which promote this confidence with each other, which promote this respect with each other.
I'll conclude by saying that in the Middle East for thousands of years Jewish, Christians and Muslims have lived with each other, and by the way Christianity started in the Middle East so we're the first Christians in the world… (applause). I said to German journalist that I'm planning to have this summer a ceremony called "Christmas in Damascus", he said to me if I print that in a newspaper in Hamburg people will think that there's a printing error, they wouldn't appropriate that with Christmas although as you know it was from Damascus that Christianity started spreading to the whole world. The only question you'll not been asked in Syria is "What's your religion?" because it's not something to ask or something to build on. We all born to our religions. A very few of us think about changing to a different religion so we should think only of the humanity that combined all of us.
I'm conveying to you the arguments and resentments of people in the Middle East who feel that they are victims of the might military powers and they have really a very little to do. What we have to do is to work with ideas, with media, with each other from all religions and from all countries in order to counter the extremists both in the United States and in the Arab world and in the Muslim world and everywhere because the extremists are extremists and we should have no room for them instead of that we should be networking and working together as true and not only I can move from London to Washington in seven hours but I can move and find people happy and have the same feelings and the same considerations about the region and the world.
Thank you very much
Questions: When the United States invaded Iraq the Iraqi people didn't support Saddam Husein, so what will Syria do to establish democracy so the Syrian people fight the United States if it invades Syria?
Dr. Shaaban: First of all I refuse this comparison between Saddam Husein and the government of Syria. I think any reasonable person should not draw this comparison at all; we have parliament, we have multi national parties, we have empowerment of women for years, we have institutions and if you come to Syria you'll see that what I'm saying is correct. However I'm not saying that we don't need to do a lot of work, we are now discussing a law for a multi political parties, and discussing giving the nationality to the Kurds, we're doing a lot of things and when Syria was under pressure in 2005 the entire Syria rallied around the government and they expressed a very strong stand to defend their country. I don't think anyone in the Arab world now will trust that the United States cares about Syria, about Lebanon or about Palestine. I'm sure if something bad our people will rally to defend their country. I don't know exactly how familiar with what's happening in Syria you're but I think we're doing everything we can in order to bring our democracy into a better state. However the pressure from the outside and what's happening in Iraq or in Palestine the least thing I can say it's a true shameful way the way the democracy is imposed on the entire Arab world, and for Syria the try to isolate Syria or to impose sanctions on it will not help the reform in Syria. They should take the right steps that will help Syria but what they're doing now is exactly the opposite. Syrian system is the only secular system in the region and probably they want to change the whole region into Muslim fundamentalist countries (applause).
Question: from Kamal Barazi (Can't be heard)
I think it's very easy to take any case and to make it as a national case while it's in fact a personal case which is being solved by the law. I don't want to comment on personal cases but I can say that there's a law, there's a court and there's a system in Syria, and the system is being applied. It's right to any country and to Syria to take its national security and national unity in the first order. Syria, and the Middle East also, is made up of many ethnics groups and I think any sectarian divisions or talking above sectarian lines is extremely harmful for our country and threaten the unity of the country and what we're witnessing in Iraq after the invasion of it and this sectarian language which is extremely dangerous. So Syria doesn't allow anyone to speak against or to work against constitution which prevents anyone to speak a sectarian language and this is written and announced and therefore it's the right of the government to bring to court anyone who tries to attack the national unity or security anywhere.
Question: (Can't be heard)
Dr. Shaaban: in the last week the Times Magazine and the Newsweek spoke about the massacre of Al-Hadetha (in Iraq), although Hadetha is only one massacre out of hundreds massacres. I think that the reason it's being investigated is to promote the popularity of George Bush because his popularity is going down so much, so he wants to do something that makes him more popular. So, the Times and the Newsweek published very important articles, very important statements, very important pictures saying that Haditha is a massacre and unfortunately this hasn't been reflected in the Arab press. I think to Arab journalists and to Arab people who care about this world they should think a little bit more about what's needed to be done rather than to co-opted in the hands of some people in order to raise their issues. Michael Kilo wanted to make Syria look as a responsible for the civil war in Lebanon for everything has happened and is happening in Lebanon. He harmed the good relations between Syria and the most Lebanese, there's only one fraction in Lebanon who differs with us. So, I'd like to invite these Arab young women and men to think a bit more about what needs to be done rather than of those people who had been taken in the trap not only in our region but the whole world.
Question from Mary Rose Oaker (president of ADC): I have a question but first I want to thank Ms. Shaaban because she was extremely representative. I met with president Clinton after he visited Syria and he sent me before this visit saying "Mary do you think that Syrian people really greet me?" when he went to Syria he saw that all Syrian people are carrying American flags and Syrian flags waiting for him. Now the United States administration are imposing sanctions on certain Syrian people not on the government, so what do you think that the attitude of the Syrian people, the people themselves not the government, towards the west and the United States.
Dr. Shaaban: Can I ask Senator James Abu Rezk to answer this question because he has just come back from Syria with an American group and he can tell what the situation is.
Mr. James Abu Rezk: Oh, I can say that Syrian people don't like George Bush intensely but they still love the American people.
Question: (Can't be heard)
Dr. Shaaban: holding seminars and making conferences and talking a lot is something good but I think what we have to do is to break out from the Arab Malls and join forces with people all around the world because what I read in the western press is that there's so many people who are a lot more concerned about what's going all therefore my call for people from all religions, Jews, Muslims and Christians, to join forces and to put strategy. The media is really now is a big problem and I don't think that just Arabs or Muslims are concerned about all these because I really believe that it's an issue that concerns all of us and that we all have to face. We have plans for a think-tank and we're negotiating with think-tanks in the United States to make partnership and I hope in a year or so we will have tangible things on the ground. Thank you.
Question: (about the role of Arab women in what's going on in the Middle East).
Dr. Shaaban: I really think that Arab women has a huge responsibility in what's going on now mainly because they have a big stake in changing things and because probably they're more heard once they go out to the world due to the fact that probably women receive now more attention. In Syria we have 12% percentage of women in Syria which is a small percentage but it's unfortunately the biggest in the Arab world and we're really fighting hard to bring that up. In Syria there're only two women ministers but we have women ambassadors and directors and business women all over the place. I think the percentage of educated women in Syria is fifty fifty and even at the level of the university professors. And lately the first vise president was named in Syria who is Ms. Najah Al-Attar, the portfolio for education and culture. We really want to also promote the cultural understanding among people because that also will bring political understanding. I totally agree with you that we really have to work hard and we're. we're working very hard in Syria for the rights of women. For the last thirty years women in the Arab world has really occupied a very good place in education so now we have them in all fields and I think it's only a matter of time what we're doing. It's not a long time and probably it's just few years and you'll see women in all positions. Now the objective of the women in all Arab world, and I've been to Morocco and to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, everywhere, the objective of them is to take an important place in the decision positions and to play a very positive role for the future of the Arab world and they will. I have no doubt that in ten years the present of the Arab women in the Arab world is going to be very different and very positive. (Applause)
Question: (about the investigation in killing Rafik Hariri and about Detliv Mehlis- the investigator-)
Dr. Shaaban: I don't want to pre-judge things. What we could say is to compare the way Mehlis was working and preparing his report by bringing witnesses and from the first day accruing Syria and the Security Council to make decision against Syria on the bases of uncertified report that was presented by Mehlis. I think this is something that we should question and anyone of you who listened to writers in Germany who investigated the Mehlis case and his history and what's he able to doing and what he tells and how Syria is absolutely targeted and accused guilty even before the investigation started, so I think what we should do is to make comparative study between the two reports of Mehlis on the bases of which decisions were made by Security Council against Syria which is unbelievable to any sort of criteria. But what I can say is that we in Syria would love to know the bottom of that issue and to know who killed Rafiq Al-Harriri because for certain the two countries who are damaged most are Syria and Lebanon. We're in Syria and Lebanon one people and we share the same history and future and we find it ridiculous what has been happening in the last year in order to try to show Syria as responsible for the assassination. There was an assassination later on in Syda for two brothers, Nidal and Mahmoud Majzoub, and the investigation confirmed that they had been assassinated by Israeli agents and this was published in all report. And these agents confessed that they're not only responsible for killing the two brothers but for other killings also Salameh and other people from the south of Lebanon. Only our enemy has the interest to kill our best people and that's what they are doing in Iraq and in Lebanon and Syria would never ever do such a thing because the fate of Lebanon and the fate of Syria are one. (applause)
Question: How could you reach out Arab and American people?
Dr. Shaaban: This is a very important question how to reach Arab Americans and how to reach Arab everywhere. I'd like to stress the word "Arab" because I don't see myself as a Syrian minister of the Syrians expatriates. We're working with the Arab world and we're working with the Arab League also and I have a dream that Arab people outside the Arab world who want to feed the Arab culture and the Arab identity so they have to transfer the best they can back home for the Arab world. I hope we will be able to establish a council or something like that. We don't have anything to hide. We want this council for Arab Americans and for Arab Brazilians.. we want the world to see what's happening in our region and take the stand. Once we support ourselves the world will support us.
Thank you so much