Alaa al-Ameri
At the heart of the instability of the Middle East is the myth of ‘Arab unity’. It’s a myth that is often promoted by the United Nations which, since 7 October, has repeatedly shown itself to be sympathetic to the most reactionary forces in the Arab world.
Speaking at the Arab League Summit in Bahrain in May, UN secretary-general António Guterres blamed divisions within the Arab world on ‘outsiders stoking sectarian tensions’. He urged the attending Arab states to break ‘the vicious circle of division and foreign manipulation’, which he condemned for causing terrorism and undermining a ‘prosperous future for the people of the Arab world’.
Far from promoting a stable and prosperous future, this mirage of ‘Arab unity’, and the obsession with blaming nefarious ‘outsiders’, is only holding the Middle East back.
Indeed, the illusory quest for ‘Arab unity’ is what gave us Islamism and Baathism. These ideologies, at the heart of both brutal regimes and terror groups, have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the Middle East and beyond. They have also distorted and erased thousands of years of cultural richness, nuance and diversity – not unlike the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century.
No comments:
Post a Comment