THE HANDSTAND

AUGUST 2004

Impiety of Arab societies serves as main problem
in middle East

By Tamim al-Barghouti
Special to The Daily Star
Tuesday, July 20, 2004


Arab liberals and neoliberals typically believe that the European Renaissance was in essence a process of cultural selection. The new Europeans slowly but surely rejected the backward elements in their culture, namely religion, in favor of the more progressive secular ones. Accordingly, Arab liberals argue that we need to do the same; we need to quarantine Islam out of political and social life and depend instead on other secular historical institutions.

The main difficulty faced by the proponents of such ideas, however, is that there are almost no such institutions. As far as the vast majority of the region's population is concerned, before the first colonial encounters in the Middle East it was truly difficult to find any institution, from family to Empire that was not affected by Islam.

Only the modern nation state, designed and installed in the Middle East by European colonial powers, is truly secular in that sense. This historical relationship between liberalism and colonialism has therefore caused many in the region to be suspicious of truly honest liberals. Many a Cambridge and Harvard educated Arab liberal were unable to overcome this obstacle.

On the other hand, Islamists argue that the main problem is not our lack of secular modern
institutions, but rather the impiety of our societies. To an Arab Islamist, the problem is not that we have too much of Islam in our social and political life, but quite to the contrary: we do not have enough of it. But our Islamists forget that they have been making the same argument for the last 800 years, from the second Abbasid era on. If a solution to a problem was being proposed for so long and the problem still persisted, it is only legitimate to doubt both diagnosis and prescription.

Moreover, many medieval Islamic thinkers imagined the movement of history as a steady linear decline from the time of the Prophet to the Last Day. Many modern day Islamists believe in the same. Not only does such an understanding of history prevent positive efforts
towards the betterment of society, it also contradicts the main argument of the same Islamists that more piety and religiosity can save the world. It seems the world can never be saved. The overwhelming power of such a prescription has been the backbone of Middle Eastern politics from the time of Ibn Taymiyya on, that is, from the Crusades up until today, and still it did not work.

How do people move from a period of defeat to one of triumph? How do the holders of a certain set of creeds overcome historical moments of confusion? Copying the experiences of others is definitely not the way; the failure of colonially created states to do anything other than colonizing their own peoples is good proof. Reducing one's rich culture into only one of its dimensions does not work either - our history since the Mamlouks bares witness to that. This is true for us and  true for Europe.
Ralph Nader: First of all, we have been supporting despots, dictators, and oligarchs in all those states for a variety of purposes. We supported Saddam Hussein. He was our anti-Communist dictator until 1990. It’s also cultural; they see corporate culture as abandoning the restraints on personal behavior dictated by their religion and culture. Our corporate pornography and anything-goes values are profoundly offensive to them.
Selected Members of Sumerian Pantheon
Anu......................sky god, head of pantheon
Ishtar...................queen of heaven, wife of Anu
Abu.....................god of vegetation
Enki....................god of wisdom, ruler of waters
Enlil....................."lord of breath," lord of the winds and of the earth
Indugud...............storm god
Nanna.................moon god
Shamash............sun god

Looking at the art of the renaissance, the beautiful churches of the thirteenth century, one cannot see any process of cultural selection and exclusion, rather, one sees an indulgence in culture with all it elements. The frescos showing the trinity, the Madonna and the child or the annunciation, as well as the works of sculpture could very well be works of pagan Romans, the Heavenly Father looks very much like Zeus, the image of Christ is not very different from that of Apollo, Michelangelo's David looks like statues of ancient Greek athletes, but still the works are extremely Christian. This amalgam of two contradictory elements in European culture is fascinating.
Ziggurat of King Urnammu, Ur (El Muqeiyar), Iraq. c. 2100 BC
But that's not all; the dresses of the characters from the Bible and their surroundings are those of the Italian Renaissance. The effect of seeing the Madonna in a 13th century gown must have had a similar effect to depicting Moses in a pair of jeans today. Culture was not left hanging up in heavens. Rather these frescoes brought the divine images back to earth. Legend is brought to the breakfast table and culture in all its complexity, without selection or exclusion, is mixed with the people's everyday bread. Moreover, culture is not fortified against foreign influence; rather, whatever is foreign is absorbed and made absolutely native.

Bull headed lyre from the tomb of Puabi, Royal Cemetery, Ur, c. 26,000 B.C. Gold leaf and lapis lazuli over a wooden core, approx. 5' 5" high.
The black and white stripes on the walls of the Cathedral at Siena have an amazing story. They directly recall the stripes of the Damascene Mamlouk houses and mosques, something Italians must have learned about from their continuous trips to the Middle East during the Crusades. But here is how they fit it into their own story. After Romulus killed his brother Ramous, the latter's children fled the newly founded Rome to Siena. Before they reached the city, they burnt offerings to the gods and two columns of smoke rose to the sky, one black and the other white. The black and white stripes which were adopted for aesthetic reasons were woven into the culture of the region. Dante's Divine Comedy is also like that, very Roman, very Christian and very much the product of Renaissance Italy.

The Standard of Ur. Front and back sides. C. 2600 B.C. Wood inlaid with shell, limestone, and lapis lazuli, height 8".
In the Arab world such indulgence in our culture is needed. Islam too is needed - not one that turns the Companions of the Prophet into distant demigods but rather one that brings them to our breakfast table. For they were but some of us. An engagement  with our culture is a key to any process of selection among the elements.


Tamim al-Barghouti is a Palestinian poet who writes a weekly article
for The Daily Star

Ancient Near Eastern History
     
Chronology   Provenance
3500 BC - 3000 BC Protoliterate Period Sumer
  Wheeled carts & potter's wheel in use  
  Invention of writing  
3000 BC - 2300 BC Early Dynastic Period Sumer
  Epic of Gilgamesh  
2300 BC - 2150 BC Akkadian Dynasty Akkad
2150 BC - c.1960 BC Third Dynasty of Ur Sumer
c. 1760 BC - 1600 BC Babylonian Empire Babylonia
  Babylonian mathematics flourish: use of whole numbers, fractions and square roots  
1600 BC - 1000 BC Kassites and Mitanni Mesopotamia
  Hittites Anatolia
  Middle Elamite Period Elam
c. 1350 BC - 612 BC Assyrian Empire Assyria
612 BC - 538 BC Neo-Babylonian Empire Babylonia
  Conquer Egypt 605 BC  
  Conquer Jerusalem 586 BC  
538 BC - 330 BC Persian Empire Persia
330 BC - 224 AD Greco-Roman Period Mesopotamia
224 AD - 636 AD Sasanian Dynasty Mesopotamia


Amilcar Cabral, the Great Son of Africa who founded the modern African Liberation Movement had this to say in his book Return to the Source. "When all else has failed, it is to our culture that we turn." He points out, "When you take up arms to dominate a people, it is above all to destroy the cultural life of a people, or at least to neutralise or paralyse their cultural life."................. "History teaches us that what ever may be the material aspects of a peoples domination, this domination can only be maintained by the permanent organised oppression of the cultural life of a people."


BERLIN, GERMANY.   ARAB MUSLIM CONGRESS 
       
FRIDAY -SATURDAY-SUNDAY 1-2-3 OF OCTOBER 2004

A call for the congress of Berlin

A call to the nation, to the country and to the Arab and Islamic communities

The Arab and Islamic World and the whole humanity are suffering under hatred, under catastrophes, under bloody massacres and under occupation and oppression . Instead of reaching liberty and self determination and living in peace the struggle is still going on between the Arab people in occupied Palestine, in occupied Lebanon, in occupied Iraq and in occupied Syria, and the part of injustice, of occupation and of aggression against the peaceful towns and villages as well as against people, civilisation and religions. The colonial countries steadily assisted this aggression, first of all by the USA The last chain in this barbaric aggression lies in the offensive against the resistance movement that is defending the bare existence of the people in their countries and abroad.
The resistance movement is carrying to the international community the principle and the goal of life in freedom independence and self-determination

The whole world is carrying and facing a historic responsibility in the defence against occupation, oppression, aggression and injustice

We declare the constitution of our congress in the city of Berlin / Germany
No, to colonialism, - no to slavery, - no to Zionism and racism, - no to imperialism
No ,to American hegemony,
No, to the globalisation of death and aggression, - no to the destruction of moral and virtues
No, to the commerce of slaves and countries
No, to the American Zionist terror

Yes to the world's popular and general resistance for the sake of freedom, independence and just peace

:For the realization of these goals we propose the constitution of a broad popular European coalition to face American and Zionist terror
Intensifying and strengthening the brotherly ties and relations between the descendants of the same nation in the countries of immigration
Finding the suitable ways to coordinate the efforts to unify our people in the countries of origin and immigration
Sending a clear message to whom it may concern that we are deeply related to our countries of origin and that we are well concerned with the daily suffering of our people and its pleas and its disrespected rights

All of you are called to contribute, assist and attend the works of the first constituting Arab Islamic European congress of the Arabic, Islamic and friendly communities in Europe: Parties, organisations, societies, syndicates, politicians, thinkers, people of culture and literature, all among the broad parts of society in the European continent and from the different parts of the Arab and Islamic World

We call for the days of support of the resistance and its people in Palestine, Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab countries and all over the world  For the support of the right of peoples to defend against aggression, war and occupation For the right of people in independence, freedom, sovereignty and peace

    BERLIN, GERMANY.   ARAB MUSLIM CONGRESS        
FRIDAY -SaTURDAY-SUNDAY,1-2-3 OF OCTOBER 2004

For more details- applications -donnations-informations            pls call

lccpress@yahoo.com      EFAMC2004@YAHOO.COM     lccpress@lebanonview.com

from togethernet@yahoogroups.com
dear friends I think that it is important that the Asembly in Berlin decided to have a plenary in Lndon at the ESf 2004 about Palestine It' called What future for Palestine   I do think it's important that we try to network around the countries to organize a workshop about actions to be taken at an international level after the ESF in Europe   We cannot carry on only  with single separate actions which are important, but it will be great to call for European and world wide actions about several issues like:   The occupation ;The wall ;The boycott campaign the distruction of housesAfter the decision of the ICJ (International Court of Justice) in Hague it's time for us to become stronger and united   mariangela Manchester Forum for Palestine