IN THE "ARGENTINEAN INSTITUTION FOR THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS" C.A.R.I.

AN ARABIC READING TO THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST 

10 September 2004

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 I am so happy to be here with you in C.A.R.I. Institute, this institute that enjoys a great reputation in the world over. And also I’m happy to be here and to speak to your excellencies personally at an age of electronic media that instead of making communication, a tool to understand each other, it has in some cases, unfortunately become a tool of distorting communication and conveying the wrong images to us about each other.

Perhaps the Arab people feel that more strongly than any other people in the world for two reasons; First is that our region is targeted and is under the focus of operation that target our civilization, our culture and our countries. And second  because the Arab presence in  international media is very little and therefore we’re presented to the world by others who are targeting us and we rarely have the chance to represent ourselves, and therefore, also, I’m very happy for this opportunity to bring you from the Middle East a first- hand perspective, an honest perspective, a true perspective of what is happening in our region.

Perhaps as we’re approaching, we’re in the eve – in fact- of the fourth anniversary of 9 September, it’s appropriate to begin with the consequences of 9 / 11 on Arab people.

No matter who designed, or who carried out the attacks of 9 / 11 on American people. The end result of these attacks of both; American people and Arab people are the victims of these events. Four years after 9 / 11 we as Arab people find ourselves crime victims of terrorists attacks, of distorting propaganda that tries to project all Arabs and Muslims as terrorists. Even the terminology that is used speaks of “Islamic terrorism”, of “Arab terrorism”. And if you would like to pose with me for a moment and think about these two idioms you find that it’s unbelievable that such these idioms are being used in the twenty-first century because they accuse two billion Muslims of being terrorists. They accuse four hundreds millions Arabs of being terrorists. And they try to divide the world into a “civilized world” - that seems to be the victims-  and a “terrorist world” – that is acting in terrorism-.

For years the Arab people as well as the American people now had become the victim of what is called “the strategy of fighting terrorism”. And as intellectuals we have the right to pose and ask: Where did this strategy on terrorism lead us?? Did it really make the world a safer place for all of us?! Did it really reduce terrorist acts?! Did it really make people feel safer or feel more fear?!

As an Academician when I read the newspapers every single morning I say to myself “What could terrorists want more than this??” every day we’re reading about them, they are making the papers all over the world busy with their news. It is as if  we - the other people- do not exist, they are running the show. Instead of talking about our lives, about our problems, instead of conducting dialogue, instead of making efforts to make peace, instead of thinking hard to find ways of making peace and live together. We read about distorted individuals whom we don’t know if they exist really in reality, and we’re keeping the world wide busy with them while killing, death and destruction prevail particularly in Iraq and in Palestine.

On the eve of the fourth anniversary of 9 / 11 I think it’s crucial for American people and for Arab people to think of a different strategy for combating terrorism, because it was in the name of fighting terrorism Iraq was occupied, and it was in the name of fighting terrorism thousands of Arab people and Americans soldiers were killed in Iraq, it was in the name of  fighting terrorism that thousands of Palestinian people were killed, more Palestinian territories were occupied, more than a million of Olives trees were uprooted, about fifteen thousands of historical houses were destroyed. Is this the way to fight terrorism??

Thapatero in Spain has said: the Arab- Israeli conflict is the cancer of the Middle East, and the Middle East cannot enjoy peace or stability unless this cancer is removed. I would like to bring back  to your kind attention that this was the stand of my country Syria before the war on Iraq.

 In February 2003 we traveled four times to New York, to the Security Council, trying to press on the world opinion that addressing the Arab- Israeli conflict is the key in the Middle East to bring a just and comprehensive peace is a key in the Middle East, and that once this conflict is addressed as a result all problems would be easier and the fight against terrorism would be easier to win. But of course the war on Iraq went on and we find ourselves facing a lot more hatred, and a lot more resentment the world over.

I think we’ve reached a point that is extremely dangerous in world history. But it is a point that the entire world is in one boat either with a process of generating hatred and resentment and racialism, because this is where the words “hatred” and  “resentment” are leading to; they’re leading to “racism”. Either we end off this process and start another process that our grandfathers were very primitive tours started centuries ago. They started a process which is the process of love, of construction, of living together, of concord.

I went to Brazil before coming here and I saw that in 1922 a group of Syrian and Lebanese women sat together and started NGO which is now the best hospital in the Latin America, it is a Syrian and Lebanese hospital. Syrian and Lebanese started hundreds of institutions; blocks, hospitals,… this is what the Arab really do. Most of these institutions are still running by women, that started a century ago, and yet I met with a journalist this morning who said to me: “Are the first Arab woman to speak English, or to come out of Syria, or to get the PhD?” 

I was taught by Grandmothers in my country fought for liberation, they made history, they built institutions, they were the pride of women the world over. It was Zeinab Fawaz from the south of Lebanon who wrote to American women in 1882 asking them not to stick their role to the house, but to be active in the social and the political domains, and she sent them a book “الذر المنثور في طبقات ربات الخدور”  in which she registered the achievements of five hundreds women both from East and West.

I’m not coming here to speak about Arab achievements  or the Arab pride, but I want to say that the image of the Arab that’s being now used in international media is so false and so irrelevant to our history, and to our identity.

Perhaps one of the problems is the electronic and the fast media and the lack of personal communication, personal encounter and personal cooperation with each other.

What is happening in the Middle East is extremely dangerous. It seems to me that this is a campaign against Arab culture, Arab civilization and Arab history.

I don’t believe that the occupation of Iraq happened either because of WND or  because of Saddam Husein or even because of oil, because to me the victims are somewhere else; the first victim was the Iraqi museums. The second victim is Byblon, Nenwa, Zei Kar. The third victim was the Iraqi scientists, intellectuals, university professors, doctors. Hundreds of them have been killed since the occupation of Iraq. It’ll take fifty years to have great scientists or great doctors or great intellectuals. Killing these intellectuals in such a way – no matter who is responsible or what is happening- but certainly chaos and lack of security is one condition in which these things could take place. And the problem is that all these are being killed without names, without even mentioning that they have loved ones, without even mentioning the human pain and the human agony that Iraq is subjected to.

I only heard on T.V. today morning when they were speaking about the Australian victim I heard them speaking about a loved one and I remembered that I never heard of such a thing about a Palestinian that’s been killed or about an Iraqi that’s been killed. And I wonder if we as Arabs do not have loved ones, do not have families who worn our death, we don’t either have names. Over three hundreds Palestinian children under the age of ten were killed, no body in the world knows who they are. Seven thousands and six hundreds Palestinians went on hunger strike in fighting occupation in a peaceful way. The world wanted a peaceful way to fight occupation and where did this way lead were to hundreds of strikes, to have physical pain and hunger in order to bring to the world attention the suffering the humiliation that occupation is bringing to them and yet their news will not take the first page in any international media. And in many times it was not mentioning at all, their suffering was not mentioning at all.

To me and from an intellectual perspective this is racism because the life of Arab doesn’t a matter. You only hear if a foreigner is abducted in Iraq, if an American is abducted, or if a French, with my total disapproval to any abduction to anyone in the world, or killing anyone in the world because this is a crime no matter  what the nationality of a person is. But then you never hear of Iraqi people abducted or taken hostages or what is happening to them. Iraqi people have always slept on the roof of their buildings because it is so hot in Iraq and then military people were hunting them and killing them because they think that terrorists were standing on the roof.

This is what is happening with our region. The only answer to this region is to follow the Arab-Israeli conflict, is to bring peace to the Middle East and stability and security to all people and that is why I say we are in one boat. And accepting violence against one side does not protect the other side. We are living in the same region and we have to learn from our grandfathers what they did in Argentina, in Brazil, they came here to live together. We have to learn from Argentinean people, how they accepted Arab as people, they accepted their way of life, they accepted what they did, they made them feel at home. This is the way of life that we need to promote today. This is the way of life that will be able to present a salvation to us today. Not to look at the Syrian musicians who are going to the United States because they are talking in Arabic, they are musicians and fine artists, they accused them of being terrorists because they were talking, you know how Arab people talk so warmly and love and they raise their voices, they are very happy because they were in the United States, and they were arrested because they were suspected of being terrorists. Just being an Arab is a suspicion that you are a terrorist, isn’t this a racist attitude toward anyone in the world??

I would like to bring back to your kind attention what all Arab governments decided in Beirut in March 2002, all Arab governments put on the table a peace proposal to make peace with Israel if Israel would withdraw to the lines of 4 June 1967. and then all Arab countries, together, wanted to make peace with Israel. That was the first time in an Arab summit that all Arab countries decided to put one single offer that could save the region from a lot of deaths and destruction that is prevailing today, who is the one who didn’t accept this offer??! It was the other side.

Today in the boos of Madline Ulbrighte, the ex-secretary of state, president Bill Clinton, Denis Ross, the three books are published now, and in the three books, the three writers stress time and time again that in Sheverdstown in the year 2000 Syria was extremely forthcoming to make peace with Israel. That president Assad was extremely serious to make peace with Israel and it was Barak who cut down because of his fear about the poll and the election that in Israel and he didn’t want to make peace with Syria. Yet what you read in the media all the time is that the Arabs are the ones who don’t want peace and that Sharon is the one who is going to withdraw and before he’s withdrawing he is destroying the entire infrastructure and kill people just as he did in Qunaitra the city in Syria.

 However the  way to make a future is to look forward, and we do not want to engage in project or in accusation and  counter- accusation. But we know that this moment in our history in the region is a very decisive moment. What we need is the complete reversal of what is called the strategy for fighting terrorism. The only strategy for fighting terrorism should be in ending occupation of Arab territories, of ending humiliating of Arab people.

There is no doubt that  Arab countries and Arab people are passing through a very weak period. They are not able to bring their voice to the attention of the international community, but this doesn’t mean that they are going to remain that way, that doesn’t mean that they are going to accept what is being done to them from others. The crimes that are committing today against Arab are unbearable. As a mother I honestly stopped watching T.V. because every single day children are being killed, women are being killed, for no reason, houses are being destroyed. They did nothing to deserve this way of life, they are civilians. And what the news tell you. They tell you that the Palestinians have enough water, and almost enough food. Is this why people live?! Is it enough for the Arab to have water and food?! While other people are enjoying the Olympics. Isn’t it our right to read literature or write poetry and contribute in the world civilization just as we did before?! Isn’t  this a racist attitude towards Arab?! This is not how Arab people live. They live in order to contribute to the world civilization.

Centuries ago Arab contributed to the world civilization at every level. And today they would like to contribute in making peace in the Middle East, in making a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. The Syrian president, our president – Dr. Bashar Assad- never gets tired from saying that Syria is always ready to make peace on the bases of the international legitimacy and Security Council resolutions. He never gets tired from saying that dialogue is the way to go forward, it is not missile or war or destruction. This is the language we speak, this is the logic we believe in.

The late president Hafez Assad had always said that peace in the Middle East had to be a just and comprehensive peace for two reasons; it has to be just peace because people –no matter of what governments think- people if it’s not “just” they are going to reject it one day, and fight against it, and therefore peace has to be just. And peace had to be comprehensive because Arab people- again no matter of what governments think- are one people. They always were one people and they always feel one people. Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, we are one people. We speak one language, we have the same history, we have the same culture, we have the same feeling and we are one people. We’re not able to make it now  we are going to be able to make it in the future.

Why is Europe with so many languages allowed to try to become one entity, and for Arab it is an accusation to be one nation?!

I couldn’t study the literature of Syrian woman, I had to write a book on Arab women novelists because there is not such a thing that it is a Syrian novelist; it is written in Arabic language, and many Syrian or Lebanese women are married to either Egyptian or to an Iraqi, or had a grandfather from Libya and a grandmother from Cairo. I couldn’t tell who is who. We are the same nation, and we would like to be the same nation. Once the stress of force and destruction are circulating us on a daily basis. And I do believe that all this stress targets our unity because some one doesn’t want us to be one nation. That we have to be aware that this is the only way for us to go forward and to go back to contribute to world peace, to world security, to world civilization, just as our grandfathers did before.

Despite all the human pain we clinic to the spirit of our culture, the spirit of love, of co-existence, of peace and security.

As a Minister of Expatriates, I only have been less than a year as a Minister of Expatriates, president Assad talked to me before leaving to visit countries and he said: there are no reasons that Syrians should have their own associations, they could have societies of friendship with the people with who they are living. We never lived in gitto. We have nothing to hide, our message is clear to the world; it is the message of love, of enriching each other, of living with each other.

 We never had any problem with religion; the struggle in our region, the conflict in our region has nothing to do with religion. The real Muslim is the Muslim who believes in Jewism and Christianity others who don’t are not real Muslims.  In our region all religions live together. It is the cradle of religions, a cradle of civilizations.

 We see no coflict between our people here being constructive, loyal Argentinean and being proud Arabs. Quite the contrary those who cannot be loyal to Argentina cannot be loyal to the Arab world.

This is the spirit of our civilization. This is the spirit of our culture. This is what we truly believe in. the problem is that we are not able to spread this message now in the world because the other message promote power, terror, missiles, economy, forget about the spirit, who cares about the spirit or about culture what they care about is how strong you are. No matter how wrong you might be, this is what has to be reversed. We have to go back to the ethical roots of humanity. We have to go back to the balance of justice, of ethics, of nobility because  the language of force, of power, of missile cannot be prevailed, only human values, right human values would prevail■

Thank you very much