Gerald A. Honigman is a Florida educator who has done extensive
doctoral studies in Middle Eastern Affairs. He has created and
conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth, has
lectured on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has publicly
debated many Arab spokesmen. His articles and op-eds have been
published in dozens of newspapers, magazines, academic journals and
websites all around the world.
Read more by the Author
February 8, 2012
But my fears and some nasty facts of life get in the
way.
May G_d forgive me.
A good friend, Sherkoh Abbas, President of the
Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria, is also
Secretary General of the Syria Democracy Council. He
wrote the Foreword to my own book which gets into
the very issues we're seeing unfolding right now in
the Middle East…events involving the quest for
justice for all peoples in the region. His
organizations have been meeting in Washington and
elsewhere regarding the recent upheavals.
You see, while dubbed the "Arab Spring," the quest
for human and political rights goes far beyond those
involving just Arabs in the region. Sadly, however
(and not by accident), if left to such folks as the
American State Department, most of academia, and the
mainstream media, one would be hard pressed to
discover that scores of millions of native,
pre-Arab/non-Arab folks have perhaps an even greater
stake in the outcome of the current turmoil than the
Arabs do themselves.
As a student who has been engaged in extensive
research involving the Middle East for almost five
decades now, the anquish that I feel for the
thousands of Arabs mowed down in the streets by
fellow Arabs in Syria is unfortunately offset
somewhat by the knowledge of whom is fighting whom
over there.
Sure, I want to see "democracy" prevail.
But democracy over there will very likely be far
different than what we in the West come to think of
by the meaning of that word. Think the Salafi and
Muslim
Brotherhood win in
Egypt--and what that will very likely mean for
non-Arab folks like the Copts (about ten million
people)--as an example of what I mean.
Too much evidence suggests that the tolerance,
inclusion, egalitarianism, and broad extension of
rights we have come to expect in the West with
democracy will simply translate into the rule of the
majority in the so-called "Arab" world. And that
majority is in no sharing mood.
Back in the '60s, Syrian Arabs launched a major
campaign against millions of Kurds in the country.
The title of Ismet Cherif Vanly's book, The Syrian
Mein Kampf Against The Kurds (Amsterdam, 1968), says
it all. Things deteriorated even further until the
recent Arab uprisings when the Assad regime acted to
grant some rights to Kurds formerly deprived of them
in attempt to keep them quiet during the current
upheaval. among other things, the Kurdish language
and culture had been routinely outlawed.
But, to get a picture of what can be expected if the
Assad regime of Syrian Arab Alawis--a minority
offshoot of the Shi'a (as in the Arabs of Hizbullah
in Lebanon and the non-Arab mullahs of Iran)--falls
to the dominant Sunni Islamist parties leading the
revolt (like those which toppled Mubarak in Egypt
and other despots in adjacent countries), please
consider the following…
When Kurds in Qamishly rose up against Assad and the
Arabist Ba'th in the spring of 2004 and were
slaughtered, Syrian Arabs of all stripes remained
quiet. There was no mention of the Kurds' courage in
confronting the brutality and repression of the
regime, their revolt was condemned, and they were
accused of being mere separatists. By the way, New
York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman,www.ekurd.net
can also only manage to call some 35 million truly
stateless Kurds by that same "S" word while
repeatedly lionizing the Arabs' quest for a 22nd
state.
It's that same old subjugating Arab mindset--again,
and again, and again.
In the Arabs' own words, the whole region is simply
viewed as "purely Arab patrimony"--and to hell with
everyone else who dares to protest, be they scores
of millions Copts, Imazighen/Berbers, black African
Sudanese, Kurds, native kilab yahud ("Jew dogs"), or
whomever.
As I like to reiterate, here's how this concept is
proclaimed in Syria's Ba'thist Arab Constitution--an
idea espoused by Sunni Arabs now seeking to topple
Alawi Arabs at least as much--and probably
more--than the latter...
The Arab fatherland belongs to the Arabs. They alone
have the right to direct its destinies...The Arab
fatherland is that part of the globe inhabited by
the Arab nation which stretches from the Taurus
Mountains, the Pacht-i-Kouh Mountains, the Gulf of
Basra, the Arab Ocean, the Ethiopian Mountains, the
Sahara, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean
Sea.
Now, in case you think that things have changed a
bit in light of recent events, please consider that
over the past months when the Syrian opposition held
many conferences to draw up a plan for Syria’s
future, Kurds attended as well. For the most part,
they were totally ignored--even by the American
State Department, an apparent fan of Islamists of
all stripes.
Reports stated, for example, that during the
opposition conference in Istanbul in mid-July 2011,
the Kurdish demand that Kurds be recognized as a
second ethnic group in Syria simply fell on deaf
ears. The Kurds’ second demand--to rename the Syrian
Arab Republic to simply the Republic of
Syria--angered many opposition leaders who
interpreted the Kurdish suggestion as a plan to
strip Syria of its "true" (i.e., Arab) identity.
Compounding the Kurds' Arab problem is the fact that
the main Arab opposition parties in Syria are
primarily supported by like-minded anti-Kurdish
Islamist parties in Turkey. and, as usual, the Kurds
will likely be used and abused yet again by all
parties involved--including their own leaders.
The main problem is that when it comes to what
"democracy" would likely look like, the weight of
the evidence does not look good for a post-Assad
Syria.
Too many Syrian opposition leaders fighting the
Assad regime appear to adhere to concepts and
policies similar to those of Assad or any of Syria's
earlier Arab dictators.
While an Arab more preferred Sunni regime would
replace Assad's Alawis, non-Arabs such as Kurds in
Syria will have no more to look forward to with it
than Egypt's non-Arab
Copts now do. Both peoples have a history of being
subjugated and ruthlessly massacred by their Arab
neighbors. The Arab Ba'th in neighboring Sunni Arab
Saddam's Iraq killed hundreds of thousands of Kurds
over the years as well. While there may be more
liberal voices in both Egypt and Syria, the power
lies elsewhere and those wielding it will likely be
no more tolerant than the regimes which they
toppled.
Some may say that since democracy is so new in that
region of the world, it must be given time to
evolve. Fair enough...America's own democracy needed
time too.
But, the problem with this line of thought is that
the ability to evolve into something better requires
a tolerance of diversity for "the other" almost
entirely missing from the age-old subjugating Arab
mindset...despite claims to the contrary--the
"Golden Age of Spain," and so forth. Perhaps Egypt's
best known Copt, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
President Sadat's (of blessed memory) Foreign
Minister, summed this up best when he met Israeli
author, Amos Elon.
In Elon’s Flight Into Egypt (New York, 1980, pp.
84-91), he reviewed his encounter with
Boutros-Ghali. Here's some excerpts…
In his office, there is a map of the Middle East on
which Israel is still blacked out…Israel must
integrate by accepting the nature of the area…that
nature that is Arab.
In a tape of a long discourse delivered in 1975 to
Professor Brecher he proclaimed that…in the vast
area between the Persian Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean
everyone had to be Arab or risk continuing strife.
Still, Boutros-Ghali felt that there might be a
solution. How? Well, Israel could become an Arab
country. Most Israelis were (Jewish) immigrants from
Arab countries anyway.
Whether a Copt in Egypt, Kabyle/ Amazigh ("Berber")
in North Africa, Jew, Kurd, or whomever, the only
way for non-Arabs to be tolerated is for them to
accept the Arab rules of the game (whether their
Arab masters are Sunni or Shi'a) and turn themselves
into Uncle Tom Uncle Boutroses. All had to accept
forced Arabization.
And take note, please, that the problem is really
two-fold here--having both religious and racist
dimensions--and committed by the same folks who love
to lecture about allegedly racist Zionism. You see,
unlike the non-Arab Christian Copts, the non-Arab
"Berbers," Kurds, black Africans in Darfur, and
others are indeed Muslim…but not Arab.
What must also be remembered is that up until very
recently, for a variety of reasons, Washington and
others have largely turned a blind eye to the
numerous atrocities committed by the Syrian
regime--whether they were directed against Lebanon's
quest for freedom, Israel's Jews, native Kurds,
native Sunni Arabs in the elder Assad's infamous "Hama
Solution," or whomever.
Indeed, despite all of the above, Israel was
repeatedly offered up on a silver platter to the
Syrians in exchange for just a bit more cooperation
in Lebanon and in Iraq.
There were active plans to force Israel into a total
retreat from the strategic Golan Heights which
Israel took, at great cost, after it was forced to
fight--largely due to Syrian instigation and
machinations--in the June '67 war. Prior to that
time, the Heights (part of the original 1920 Mandate
of Palestine, by the way) were used by Syria to
bombard Israeli fishermen and farmers repeatedly.
Since that war, Israel has repeatedly offered to
exchange the vast majority of the land in exchange
for true peace--something the Arabs have rejected.
As usual, the latter expect that their repeated
aggression will come totally cost free. Please note,
however, that territory has indeed repeatedly
changed hands all over the globe due to such
aggression.
Early in President Obama's administration, he sent
his good friend and Arafat's bosom buddy, Robert
Malley, to the younger Assad with the same offer
President George H. W. Bush's Secretary of State,
James Baker III, offered to his father…a complete
Israeli withdrawal from the Heights in return for
some nice gestures--towards America and others, not
Israel.
What's even more disturbing is that, with all that
has recently transpired during the so-called "Arab
Spring" (and the uncertainty and instability
inherent in these events), the American State
Department will still expect that the Jews will
expose themselves yet again to such folks--whether
Arab despots or alleged Arab "democrats."
Even worse, the man now occupying the White House
(and who may very well get re-elected next year,
largely due to American Jewish support) is on record
repeatedly stating the Israel would be crazy (exact
words) not to accept the Saudi Peace Plan, the basis
of the current non-negotiations.
Among other things, that Saudi "peace" (of the
grave) plan calls for a total withdrawal by Israel
to its pre-'67 armistice lines (not borders) which,
among other things, made it a mere 9-15 miles wide
at its strategic waist--where the vast majority of
its population lives. Most people travel further
than that just to go to work. The final draft of
UNSC Resolution 242, the main post-'67 tool for
peacemaking, specifically does not call upon Israel
to do this, as has often been noted elsewhere.
So, given all of this, I indeed have mixed feelings
about what is now transpiring in Syria.
One part of me wants to see the bloodshed stopped;
but, my other consciousness warns that those now in
revolt will be no better to their own perceived
enemies than those whom they seek to replace. One
set of massacres and victims will simply be replaced
by another. And, if anything, as with what is
evolving in Egypt and
elsewhere in the region, what will likely replace
the reigning despot in Syria (is there any other
type of ruler in the "Arab" world?) will only prove
to be even more hostile to Jews, Kurds, and scores
of millions of other non-Arab peoples in the region.
Now, another fairly good argument could be made for
severing Iran's link to its Hizbullah proxies--who
have all but taken over Lebanon and who have scores
of thousands of missiles aimed at Israel from just a
bit over the border--by toppling the regime in Syria
which serves as the primary middle man for such aid.
The problem, however, is that--once again--the devil
which will replace Assad will very likely be as bad
or worse than the current regime itself when it
comes to Israel, Kurds, true democracy Western
style, and so forth.
While most Arabs distrust Iranian Shi'a connections
with the offshoot Syrian Arab Alawi and the Lebanese
Arab Shi'a Hizbullah, there is no doubt that Sunni
Arab attitudes towards the issue of non-Arab rights
in the region are, for the most part, as bad or
worse. Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood are Sunni,
for example--and all call for the death of Israel
and the slaughter of Jews. The butchers of Kurds
during the Arabs' Anfal campaign in Iraq in the '80s
were Sunnis…ditto for most of the Arab genocidal
maniacs in the Sudan. And so forth…
Again, using Egypt as the model, the same Islamists
now in control there--from whom the Hamas rulers of
Gaza earlier sprung--will likely be calling the
shots (both figuratively and literally)--when the
dust finally settles in Syria.
Given this likely outcome, I find it hard to shed
any tears for the tragic events now unfolding in
that country.
Gerald A. Honigman is a Florida educator who has
done extensive doctoral studies in Middle Eastern
Affairs. He has created and conducted counter-Arab
propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured
on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has
publicly debated many Arab spokesmen. His articles
and op-eds have been published in dozens of
newspapers, magazines, academic journals and
websites all around the world. Visit his
website at
http://www.geraldahonigman.com/
Gerald A. Honigman, a longtime contributing writer
and columnist
for ekurd.net. Honigman has published a major book,
"The
Quest For Justice In The Middle East--The
Arab-Israeli Conflict In Greater Perspective."
By Gerald A. Honigman for eKurd.net, February 8, 2012. You may reach the
author via email at: honigman6 (at) msn.com.
Copyright © 2012 ekurd.net.
All rights reserved
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