Obama, Osama and the Fear of Muslims

Ask an Israeli what he thinks of his next door neighbors – Syria, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon – and he will probably say: we are the last safeguard before the Arab invasion. We are the cork. In Holland, the extreme right-wing party PVV, the People’s Liberty Party of Geert Wilders, was the second biggest party in the European elections. Wilders, with his shiny hair, surrounded with security due to death threats, defends the expulsion of Muslims, the prohibition of the Koran and the end of immigration.

Part of the PVV ideology comes from the Pym Fortuyn party, named after the anti-Islamic gay extremist murdered in 2002. Wilders is a ferocious pro-Israeli and gay supporter. To him, the Islamic world is a world that has to be suppressed from the West and by the West. One in every seven Dutch person agrees. In the Financial Times, an Arab from Tilburg University, Jan Jaap de Ruiter, was quoted: if you live under a Moroccan family with 10 noisy children that don’t respect you, you can be sure that you get a very different sight of the multicultural society. De Ruiter states that the political Europe didn’t learn how to deal with the ethnic tensions residing in big cities. In Portugal, recent events seem to make him right. In France the suburbs have gunpowder barrels exploding cyclically.

In Lebanon, despite the latest electoral defeat of Hezbollah, hegemony persists, backed by Syria and Iran. In Syria, as in Egypt, one finds corrupt dynastic dictatorships that perpetuate themselves in power (Mubarak’s son is next in line), crushing or buying the radical movements and thus neutralizing free elections. In the occupied territories, the division between Palestinians is not solved, Fatah and Hamas are hated rivals. In Israel the rightwing is in power, and Lieberman wants to expel Israeli-Arabs and allow the two state solution, even knowing that the annexations in Jerusalem keep perpetuating the construction of settlements. The Palestine issue is central.

In Iran Ahmadinejad continues denying the Holocaust and, despite the fact that for the first time a moderate and democratic opposition to his populism is materializing, he can still win the election with the rural vote. In Pakistan a civil war between the military and the Taliban is being fought, with imprecise contours that lead to the creation of a safety belt around Islamabad. It’s unlikely that the government’s popularity would withstand a military victory that crushed, with American aid, the Waziristan tribes from the ‘lawless’ Northern Province. In a country with nuclear technology (that has been exported, amongst other countries, to North Korea) these movements are most dangerous, much more so than the Iranian nuclear program. Pakistan is the most unstable nuclear power. In Iraq no one can predict what is going to happen or draw a coherent policy that prevents the killings between Sunnis and Shiites once the U.S. Army retreats. In Afghanistan the economy is based on corruption, opium and military aid. Kabul is a protectorate. The Afghan Taliban are nationalists that want foreigners expelled from their land and they will not rest until they do so, as they have always done.

Osama is still around despite many secret services considering him dead. His last message contradicts them. And Al-Zawahiri continues to remain hidden and lethal, not only because he can reply to the spectacular attacks, but because he made Al-Qaeda a symbol and an ideology. Al-Qaeda, more than a mere organization or training ground, is a brand. And it has subsidiary bases from Algeria to Morocco, Kashmir to Somalia, and from the Philippines to Malaysia and Indonesia. Mumbai was an example. Children are commonly named Osama. Osama is a hero for many Arabs. The Saudis are stagnated in the Saudi clan vices, and in the Persian Gulf countries Arab capitalism is built on enslaved man power, oil prices and market wealth. Qatar is the most moderate one and, like in Jordan, it’s not a democracy. An economic crisis over the errors of the Bush administration doesn’t tranquilize anyone.

Obama, in his Cairo speech, used wise words and offered a hand extending negotiations, but he still didn’t avoid saying the truth. The Middle East is not a democratic world. If it was, it would prosper. And with it there would come the respect for human rights. Without a historical American attempt to disarm radicals (including the western ones well noticed by the European rightwing victories) and revitalize the moderates, and without a stronger and less egocentric European policy, the world can slide into a clash of civilizations. Those who wish Obama fails are idiots. His failure will be ours. And it will be Osama’s victory, dead or alive.