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 ubai
— This amazing entrepot on the Gulf is an ideal place
to sample regional — if not world — opinion. A subsistence
smuggling and fishing port 30 years ago, Dubai has become a booming,
bustling city-state, at once very cosmopolitan and very oriental.
With every
Arab nationality plus Indian, Iranian, Pakistani, Filipino, British,
Armenian, Greek, Russian, and uncounted others making up well over
half of its 700,000 residents, Dubai today is home to a broad mix
of trading, oil services, finance, and industry. Here, during the
Muslim holy month of Ramadan, residents and visitors can fast —
or not. Alcohol is allowed, even advertised, all year long, although
strictly prohibited in neighboring Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar,
and Iran.
Here Christians
and Hindus worship freely, in churches and temples whose land has,
in many instances, been provided by the ruling Maktoum family —
in sharp contrast to Saudi Arabia and Iran, where clandestine meetings
of infidels will result in worshippers being expelled from the country,
if discovered by the religious police.
Dubai serves
as a kind of safety valve for the region. As with Beirut before
its descent into chaos in 1970, factions of all sorts come here
to relax, plot with cohorts from different countries, or meet their
antagonists on neutral ground. After radical ayatollahs captured
Iran in 1979, it was from Dubai that everything from Pepsi syrup
to Winston cigarettes was smuggled by sailing dhows to ports
just across the Gulf, with caviar and Persian carpets exported in
return. In Dubai, in short, virtually anything goes — including
the free expression of political opinion.
A commercial
trader from Palestine fervently expresses his frustration with both
the Israeli and PLO regimes: "Yasser Arafat is as much the
problem as Ariel Sharon. Nothing will be accomplished while he is
in power." Does he have a solution for the Israeli-Palestinian
dilemma? "The only chance is young leaders, who have not been
corrupted by the frustrations of the past 20 years. The current
leaders on both sides believe that a peaceful settlement does not
serve their selfish political interests. Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres
are partial exceptions, but Yitzak Rabin was the real fighter for
peace, and his Israeli opponents assassinated him."
A Pakistani
entrepreneur, while supporting the reformist regime of General Pervez
Musharraf, worries that extremist elements inside and outside the
government could still bring him down and "throw the country
back to the abysmal state it was in, just two years ago."
A Saudi businessman
from Riyadh, who formerly served as a government minister, wonders
aloud if the Saudi Arabian regime can long continue its "schizophrenic
balancing act" between the West (read: the United States, where
more than 300,000 Saudis have studied) and its ultraconservative
Wahhabi Muslim clerical partners. Indeed, many of the Wahhabi mullahs
actively support, if not Osama bin Laden personally, at least the
cause of violently expunging everything western from the Islamic
countries of the Middle East — at the same time as the Saudi
regime continues to support the war on terror, as diplomatically
as possible.
"How long
can this balancing act continue?" the Saudi senior, himself
U.S.-educated, asks. "The house of Saud has been in power for
70 years, precisely because it has agreed with the Wahhabis to leave
religious affairs to them, while they handle the politics. But religion
and politics are becoming more and more mixed. Mullahs across the
country are openly speaking in support of al Qaeda, and I know at
least two dozen well-placed Saudis who have contributed financially
to the organization.
"What
is worse, schools and universities are emphasizing two things in
their teaching: rote memorization of the Koran and a radical interpretation
of the teachings of the prophet Mohammed. Then, when you learn that
15 of the 19 suicide bombers on September 11 were Saudi nationals,
you must recognize that the revolution is underway in your midst.
You ignore it at your political peril."
An extraordinarily
broad worldview was exhibited by a retired senior Lebanese military
officer. Trained in the United States as a young man, he eventually
became director general of security during the tumultuous 1970s.
In the trilingual (French-English-Arabic) dialect of educated Lebanese,
he observed, "So far, the Americans have done the right things
since September 11. You have applied force and prevailed. Now, you
must capture 'Mullah' Omar (he's no more a trained Muslim cleric
than I am) and bin Laden, and bring them to justice.
"I believe
you will do so before the end of the year, but that cannot be the
end. You must continue to show your commitment to ending terrorism,
and that means setting up the circumstances that allow you to rid
Baghdad and the world of Saddam Hussein, just as the Israelis are
finally getting rid of Yasser Arafat.
"I know
you will go after the small fish, in Somalia, perhaps Sudan, and
elsewhere; but unless you eradicate Saddam, you will be seen not
to want victory over terrorism, just vengeance for the atrocities
of September 11. There may have been an argument for not taking
him out in 1991. I believe your Pentagon planners were concerned
that his removal would cause the southern part of Iraq, which is
overwhelmingly Shiite Muslim, to defect to Iran. If this had happened,
it could have created a single strong and radical power in Tehran
and this would have been a major problem.
"Today,
however, Iran is very weak, both internally and with its neighbors.
The regime is widely hated by Iranians, and the prestige of Ayatollah
Khomeini throughout Islam has not been approached by any of his
successors.
"If the
United States removes Saddam Hussein from power, you will see an
end to terrorism for generations; if not, there will be a steady
continuation of increasingly bad incidents as the terrorists seek
to reclaim the disaster that has befallen them in Afghanistan."
Asked why the
Sharon government would be dedicated to ending Arafat's leadership
of the PLO, the retired Lebanese leader turned sarcastic. "I
have known Arafat for more than 30 years. The man has been such
a liar for so many years, he doesn't know himself when he is telling
the truth. When I headed security in Beirut during the most difficult
years, he was based there. We negotiated cease-fires — 32 of
them — but every time we agreed on a cessation, he ran to the
media and announced it, and there would be a terrible incident within
a few hours.
"Finally,
I said to him, 'This time, please don't announce it in advance,
and maybe there will be quiet for a few days.' He looked at me as
if I were mad and said, 'It won't do any good, and the media expect
me to keep them informed.' In fact, we all knew his media announcements
were signals to his fighters to get ready for another terrorist
incident."
Virtually every
observer, from virtually every political and ethnic orientation,
echoed the old Lebanese soldier's crowning comment: "In this
part of the world, we respect power and might above everything.
The United States has it, and if you do not continue to use it effectively,
we will think you do not have the will to win."
The single
exception to this sentiment was a longtime Indian resident, a Hindu
by religion. Curiously, he spoke with a vehemence exhibited by no
Arab or other Muslim. "You people have no understanding how
much the man in the street despises the United States. You come
here and do business; when it suits you, you make war; then, you
leave. First you make money and then you drop bombs. When it is
over, you never take time to help the country you have destroyed,
rebuild — unless of course they can pay for it, like Kuwait."
When asked
what he thought about American food drops over Afghanistan since
the inception of hostilities, and President Bush's pledge of an
initial $350 million to aid in the country's reconstruction, he
showed harsh skepticism: "The man in the street says the food
drops were simply propaganda, and no one believes you'll actually
provide real help when this is all over."
A devout intellectual,
a mainstream Sunni Muslim, spoke feelingly about aid programs, with
concerns that went far beyond food and rebuilding cities. Granting
that, as ever, the United States was providing salutary emergency
supplies to the Afghans, he noted, "This aid, together with
Red Cross and United Nations assistance, should see the Afghan people
through the winter, but you have a greater challenge: You must attack
the root causes that lead so many people to such desperation that
they become willing tools of terror."
A career educator
from Iraq, he exhibited a refreshing and objective outlook: "The
education system in this region, except in Lebanon, is abysmal.
State schools are totally ineffective, and our religious schools,
the madrassas, focus almost solely on memorization and interpretation
of the Koran. No reading, no writing, no mathematics… no worldview.
Indeed, a majority of the madrassa teachers are so radicalized,
they teach their students to sympathize with — if not actively
support — terror.
"There
must be major emphasis on establishing a liberal education for all
children, boys and girls. Although this is fundamental, it will
only be accomplished if it is strongly supported by the United States
or United Nations. We have not done it yet, and there is no sustained
will to do so now.
"But that's
not all: Young people need to be taught about the free market. Apart
from the merchants in our bazaars, we have no established tradition
of free enterprise. Industry and finance are in the hands of a privileged
few, whether private or state-owned. Until we break this and show
young people they can participate profitably in the economy, we
will simply create more and more educated but economically frustrated
citizens. We Muslims like large families, you know!
"We need
programs like Grameen Bank in Bangladesh to provide start-up loans
to entrepreneurs, and your own Ashoka to support innovative social
activists."
The Iraqi educator
gets my vote. Important as it is to use every force necessary to
eradicate terrorists — whether headwaiters or heads of state
— it is equally important to root out the seedbeds of terror.
The passing of Osama bin Laden, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein,
the elimination of terror cells wherever found — all are crucial
for what must follow. School systems throughout the region need
to be reconstructed; serious economic opportunity must be exemplified
as well as taught. It is a matter of survival, for them and for
us.
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