Arabs should embrace non-violence
Christopher Dickey argues that Arabs need to study the approch taken by Martin Luther King in his quest for racial justice and civil rights in America.
What the vast majority of Arabs have been slow to realize, however, is the profound connection that exists between the history of the struggle that opened the way for Obama to become president, and the future of their own fight for freedom and dignity, and not only in the face of Israeli occupation, but under the tyrannies of so many Arab dictators. We talk about remembering Martin Luther King because of the power of his vision, of his language, of his morality and of his faith. But mainly we remember him because he adopted a strategy of nonviolent confrontation with an insidious and pervasive system of repression—and broke it—and broke through it. We remember him because his way worked.
What we know about the Middle East today is that wars no longer end in victories, and the process of peace never delivers more than the process itself. A new approach has to be found, and the leaders of the governments in the region don’t seem up to the task. The most promising is nonviolent resistance: mass protests, boycotts, refusal to obey unjust laws.
When one considers what figure like King and Ghandi were able to accomplish using non-violent protest, it’s still stunning to me that this tactic is not used in the Middle East. Perhaps it’s a cultural issue. I’d love to see Obama make this point all around the world.
Gerard: I think you nailed it, it’s culture. I have had the occasion here in Italy to know quite deeply many Arabs. They are wonderful folks with much in common culturally with Latin cultures but where I have found a radical difference is in the perception and uses of emotion in every situation. Western folks rationalise everything, often even the most sophisticated Arab will in any case react immediately and emotionally. I personally find it very very hard to bridge that gap, and when I do, i have to do a sort of George Costanza thing and do the “opposite”. To get to the solution you want, you have to have a strategy about which emotions you need to provoke to get there. It’s incredibly difficult.
That stated, Arabs love their kids just as much as we do, and in many ways it’s a love that is Latin, open and affectionate. As an Italian friend of mine likes to say, Arabs really are lovely people.
Therein lies where the peace will be made someday.
( I acknowledge all the above is hardly a scientific observation, it based on a few friends and a lot of acquiatances)
One thing that may not be clear in my post is that more often than not these emotions are subtle. I don’t mean to imply that there are outbursts. It’s just that to my experience Arabs balance their interpretation of nearly everything between emotion and reason. And often emotion will be held to be more important than anything else in assessing a problem.