American Discourse Nullifies Arabs

The term “Arab” is no longer used in statements by American officials. In official White House discourse, Arab nations have come to be associated with doctrines and sects, majority and minority. The echoes of these statements are heard in the discourse of our own liberals.

These, by the way, are liberals in the style of war propagandists John Bolton and John McCain (the latter called for the formation of an army of 100,000 Sunni fighters) and of neoconservatives, whose views are still widespread in research centers, newspapers and cultural centers even though their direct political influence has waned. The borders of our nations have become sectarian in the political sense of the term. References to nations and states are now minimal.

This transformation was no surprise, and there was no conspiracy. As a matter of fact, it has local roots, with supporters and theorists in the West. In Europe and America, prominent intellectual movements are reconsidering the philosophy of the Enlightenment, considering that it set off the French Revolution and subsequent revolutions in Russia, China and Vietnam, as well as in most of the third world, where people were able to rid themselves of colonialism and establish standing republics, at least if we look at the basis of equality among citizens regardless of their religion or race (Georges Corm). These [intellectuals] are calling for a return to religion in drafting international and local policies, including French philosopher Francois Furet and famous philosopher and neoconservative father Leo Strauss, who singlehandedly converted a number of Marxist Trotskyists into right-wing conservatives — mostly Jews — including Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz, who occupied high positions in the administration of “believer” President George W. Bush. They were behind the invasion of Iraq and supported, and continue to support, Netanyahu in his declaration of Israel as a Jewish nation. (In America, there are a number of Lebanese neoconservatives.)

This American trend has found its strong echoes in Europe, especially with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who converted to Catholicism and transformed the Labour Party into a Washington-oriented right-wing party.

In the Arab world, where everything is imported, this American trend has had a significant effect among intellectuals, especially Marxists, who have gone from thinking about class war and nationalism to thinking about conflicts of doctrines and sects. [This has been] further affected by the failure of secular and nationalistic regimes, and the success of the Iranian revolution and its transformation into a state with an ideological nature, as well as the “Islamic revival.” They ignore the bloody experience in Afghanistan, which is drowning in tribal conflict and has broken into groups of rivals. They also ignore Iraq, which has turned into another Afghanistan, and Syria with its “revolution” and its “Islamic State” and its “Nusra Front.” They justify their thinking, citing the religious wars in Europe, particularly the Hundred Years’ War.

It’s true that the administration of Barack Obama has distanced itself quite a bit from the trends of the Bush administration, bringing an end to pre-emptive wars and deciding to pull out of Iraq, but it’s also true that it has retained some of the Bush trends when it comes to depending on religion to redraw the geopolitical map of the Middle East. [The Obama administration] is currently arming and training “moderate” religious groups in Syria and Iraq to change the equation in the Middle East and to confront Russia in its gateway to the Mediterranean Sea, and Iran is now hopeful because it is becoming a greater regional power. [The Obama administration] has nullified the expression “Arab” in official discourse, just as we have nullified it ourselves.