Opinion

Nicolas Sarkozy succession to the presidency has been welcomed with a certain enthusiasm and ambivalent skepticism by several administrations in the Arab World. After more than a year in power, French policy towards Syria seems to be placed under the sign of change and pragmatism. However, it remains to be seen if Sarkozy’s diplomacy will bring concrete advancements for both parties.

The last few months have seen a rare and concrete evolution in the French-Syrian relationship, unexpected for some, long awaited for others. With the invitation of President al-Assad last July to France by his counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy within the framework of the plan for “Mediterranean Union”, a clear will to engage in fresh dialogue and direct review of the principal “casus belli” between Paris and Damascus took shape.

Our story is one many families with autistic children will know well – the worry, the confusion, the desperation and the lack of understanding from society. Our eight year old son Fares, the eldest of our three children, is autistic.

In the past, I used to associate autism with the movie “Rain Man.” I didn’t really know much about it, until the early 90s, when I met the adorable 5-year-old son of a friend of mine in London. He was a bright, intelligent boy who was suffering from a mild form of autism called Asperger syndrome, and who sensitized me the fact that every child regardless of his health conditions is unique in his own way.
Autistic children are still hardly understood in Syria; in fact, many people don’t even know what autism is. Autism is a neuro-developmental disorder that affects the function of the brain and makes it difficult for the child to communicate with others and to relate to the outside world. It is as if the child is trapped within himself, unable to interact with others. First discovered in the 1930s, autism was considered a rare disorder. Only ten years ago one in every 10,000 children was diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorder. In the last few years there has been clearly a sudden increase in autistic children worldwide, and today the latest figures show that it may be affecting as many as one in every 150 children.

“De l’audace, et encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace!”
“Audacity, more audacity and always audacity!”—Napoleon Bonaparte speaking to his generals
When he spoke these words to his generals, Napoleon was in the depths of both national and personal and despair, standing at the gates of Moscow, suffering the bleak prospects of a failed attempt to bring the Russian giant to heel, and the biting Muscovite cold. He was trying to inspire his generals to rally their creativity and “audacity,” to make the dream of a greater France come true. They did fail, but what a gallant statement coming from such a true giant!

breaking the stereotype against Muslims in Europe and the United States
“Give that back, you thieving Arab!” I would hear that quite a lot, as a young lad in Britain, in the late 1960s and early ‘70s.
Ironically, it was usually said with affection.
Conflict had driven my family from our home in Aden, Yemen, to a cold and wintery London in late 1966, as the former British colony gave way to an independent South Yemen.
My family roots are originally Punjabi and Gujarati a non-political mix of Indian and Pakistani, born in the Middle East into a family that had been established in Yemen for a couple of generations.
I wasn’t so aware of it at that tender age being more concerned with having gone from blistering desert heat to the bone-chilling cold of a British winter but the English language was heavily littered with phrases that had tenaciously clung to life even after the Empire had crumbled.
Another, for example, was “play the white man” or the more innocuous “that’s not cricket” (cricket being the sport of gentlemen, where one’s word and reputation are more valuable than one’s life!).
I actually had a friend shout “play the white man” at me when I was first learning to ski.
I had cut him off as I swayed, unsteadily, at high speeds thinking more of personal survival than style.
At the bottom of the slope, the friend apologized profusely.
“I didn’t mean to be racist, honestly,” he pleaded.
“Play the white man” basically means don’t be like one of the natives show yourself to be of the higher standard of the white person.
That’s to say, even if you can’t be white don’t behave like one of the primitive natives conquered by the empire! I casually dismissed it as I knew his intention was far from racist.
He had simply fallen back on a phrase that, whether he realised it or not (I think not), perpetuated a negative stereotype.
The funny thing is that he said it again when we went skiing the next year! Even though I had improved considerably as I hurtled along, feeling cool, but looking like a helicopter with a broken rotor, I managed to cut across my friend’s path once more just missing the opportunity of a collision with him for the second time in twelve months.
“Oi! Play the white man!” came the echo of a year past.
When I caught up with him at the bottom of the slope, panting (me not him!) his face was visibly red.
He had remembered.
“I can’t believe I said it again!” To his credit, he was feeling really miserable about it even though I didn’t really care.
As I said, I knew his intention was not bad.
In retrospect, the phrases “thieving Arab” and “play the white man” seem rather palatable taken against the current backdrop of fear and hate of Muslims and Arabs that prevails in some parts of the world, particularly the West.
The reason Arabs were stereotyped as “thieves” was because of the Hollywood diet (not carb-free in those days) of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (all Arab, of course), Sinbad (brown-skinned pirates and thieves welcome), and Arabian Nights (generally a good time for burglaries).
Okay, maybe I’m stretching it a bit… but there’s no doubt Hollywood contributed to the image of the Arab world then, much as it has done in more recent years.
In the 1970s, “thieving Arab” was forgotten as it became replaced by “Palestinian terrorist,” following the attack on the Munich Olympics and then a spate of airplane hijackings.
That phrase then went through an evolution over the next thirty or so years, becoming everything from “Arab terrorists” to “Muslim terrorists,” to “Islamic extremists,” to “radical Islamists,” to the more recent and rather bizarre “Islamofacists.
” Recently, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released extensive guidelines, following widespread research and consultation, on what words and terms could be used - and those that should be avoided.
The latter included “jihadi”, for example, and even the term “moderate Muslim” because many of the Muslims the DHS spoke with explained that describing someone as “moderate” implies that they don’t necessarily follow the rituals and practices of Islam that rigidly.
It suggests that a Muslim who is not inclined to pray regularly or fast during Ramadan, or more visibly, grow a beard in the case of men and wear a headscarf in the case of women must be more “flexible” and therefore more friendly towards America and the West.
I sat in on a conference and discussion session held by the DHS with many young Muslims attending.
They echoed this sentiment, saying that they felt that they were very much mainstream Americans with a patriotic love and loyalty for their country as much as they were “mainstream” Muslims, meaning they could practice the true edicts of the religion fully without there being any conflict with their nationality American.
The guidelines suggest using the expression “mainstream” instead of “moderate” when talking about Muslims who are in no way radical or extremist.
As someone once pointed out to me, the Pope is a “Christian fundamentalist” because he follows the fundamentals of Catholic Christianity which promote positive values.
Equally, a Muslim fundamentalist should be regarded as someone who follows the true fundamentals of Islam which are very tolerant and positive.
“Muslim fundamentalist” still has too much negative sticky stuff clinging to it from past misuse… so let’s go with “mainstream Muslims.
” I give credit to those at the DHS who’ve tried very hard to close the huge gap between the perception and reality of American Muslims.
I’m not sure how effective the guidelines will be in the short-term (I’m still expecting to get the occasional suspicious look by the border security officers when I land back in the USA from an overseas trip) but perhaps in the long run, these kinds of suggestions will sink in.
America is, after all, a country of immigrants.
It’s easy to focus on the negative differences rather than work on the positive commonality that has helped this nation to succeed.
An issue I note with sadness is that there’s almost as much misunderstanding in the Arab world about America, as there is of Arabs by the average American.
Most Americans (don’t have passports!) get their perspective on the wider world from television (Desperate Housewives, Sex in the City, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, American Idol, etc.
) or from Hollywood (Blackhawk Down, Three Kings, Rambo, Rocky… Rocky VII Meets Rambo IX, etc.
)

I am Palestine. 
I am permanently temporary. Everything about me has this temporary, this momentary sense to it: I “temporarily” left my house on May 15th, 1948. I “temporarily” took refuge. I “temporarily” made a shabby UN tent my home, which turned into a “temporary” neighborhood, in a “temporary” camp. I have a “temporary” ID card, and a “temporary” travel document. My life, my work, my children—my entire being is “temporary” because I might, just might, someday return to my homeland. Or at least, that is what I dream of. The only thing that is permanent in my life, is this sense of “temporariness.” I am fate’s cursed wayward son—I have no choice to make of my own will, not even how or when to die. 
I am the long miles marched by thousands of people like a pariah tribe, searching for a place to shelter themselves. I am the pungent sense of defeat, futility, betrayal, and paranoia of people who were thrown to the lions—perennial collateral victims of the game of nations. I am the food rations, the fuel quotas, the blankets donated by compassionate people to give me warmth in my open-air tent. But what warmth will I have, when I was stripped naked to the bone of my home, my land, my culture, my small joys and sorrows, my music, my tastes and aromas, my vistas, my life? I am the tent’s fabric, the tin roof over my shed, the bricks in the walls of my house of shame in my camp of permanent exile. 
I am the anger, the agony, the anguish that fed countless coups and revolutions, the fodder of all the futile wars—all of which were purportedly launched in my name, and for my sake. I have become the sacred cow of every madman, tyrant, sycophant, revolutionary, king, and court jester across the Arab World. It is in my name that the ‘Voice of The Arabs’ harangued the masses from Fez to Muscat day and night, vowing to avenge my plight. It is to my anguish that divas from Oum Kalthoum to Fairuz crooned their sad and nostalgic tunes. It is in my suffering that poets found an endless source of inspiration for their angry words. It is my impending return to Palestine that everyone clamored for, believed in, died for—but I am still light years away from even seeing Palestine. I am the crowded homes, the crowded schools, the crowded neighborhoods. I am the crowded wombs of women bringing even more refugee children into this world, to fight and die for the return of Palestine. 
I am the soot on the rooftops, the chaos of traffic, the din of the Muezzin, the whiff of Arabic coffee drunk by old ladies in the narrow alleys of dilapidated camps. I am the well-kept but rusted keys to doors of houses that will never see their original owners again. I am the endless monotone of my septuagenarian grandfather in his decrepit suit and kuffiyeh, his hands gesticulating passionately describing his bayyara which used to carry oranges the size of water melons. I am the nostalgia of my silver-haired grandmother remembering her wedding night, and her first kiss under the sycamore tree. I am my father, my noble and tragic Hamlet, consumed by the rage and longing for the country he lost that burned his fiber and sucked the very essence of life out of him. I am my mother’s silent aching every night, watching the pointless suffering of innocent children and mothers on the 8:30 news.  

At the turn of the 20th century, Syrians fleeing the dire straits imposed by WWI and the Ottoman stranglehold over their country migrated in droves towards the New World searching for safety of life and limb. Through a mixture of their famed trading skills, social attitude, affable manners, and thriftiness; Syrians’ in most cases met success in their new countries, and reached new heights. They achieved success in every domain— whether politics, economics, academia or the arts. Names like Carlos Menem, Steve Jobs, and Paula Abdul have become famous the world over, symbolizing Syrians’ success in their new countries. Syrian immigration historically was of an involuntary nature: Syrians were always loathe to leave. They only migrated out of necessity and under difficult circum-stances (wars and occupations, famines and droughts, etc.).

The upcoming parliamentary elections of April 2007, and the presidential elections to follow in July may be the fairest, most free, and open elections in Syria since 1963. Critics, nevertheless, are charging that they fall well short of international standards. Yet both critics and defenders of Syria’s elections miss the point.

The current Republican administration in the United States points to the invasion of Iraq, the replacement of Syrian peace-keepers in Lebanon with an international force, and the retreat of occupation forces from Gaza as developments contributing to the democratization of the Middle East. It is ironic that a brutal invasion and occupation of a sovereign state is marketed with moral equivalence to the peaceful withdrawal of forces, as equally contributing to democracy in the region. It comes as no surprise then that this past summer will be remembered as another chapter in the so-called War on Terror rather than the War on Democracy that it was, in which the United States directly supported the destruction of democratic Lebanon and the continuing brutalization of a democratic Palestine, who have the distinct honor of being the irst occupied people to also be placed under economic sanctions as punishment for the results of their internationally supervised democratic process.

Are Syrians creative? If measured by billboard ads in Syria, the answer will probably be: “no.”But why? Why this unfair self-perception? To find a real answer we decided to delve into the ‘advertising world.’ A country with a well developed advertising industry after all, usually enjoys a higher degree of cultural appreciation. But let us re-consider this question. Doesn’t it sound a little strange, as if one were asking, “Are the French smart?” or “Are the South Africans punctual?”

The more I see,
The more I know;
The more I know,
The less I understand…

‘The Changingman,’ Paul Weller, Stanley Road, 1993

I really do not understand the world around me!