Many Muslims do Condemn Terrorism
Published by the Washington Times
Dec. 22, 2005.
Click here to view column.

Letter to Karen Hughes: Why Your Mission is Doomed to Fail
Published on Thursday, October 20, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Click here to view column.


The Charlotte Sun,
The Free Press of Fort Myers, and the
Herald Tribune of Sarasota and Port Charlotte, Florida.
They are reprinted here by permission and listed in reverse chronological order ending with
May 5, 2002.

CONTENTS
April 14, 2004--War in Iraq: The Failure of the American Media
March 2004--The Trial Of Saddam
January 22, 2003—Iraqis to the American People--Don’t Drop Bombs on Us to Oppose Saddam
Dec. 28, 2002--First Muslim Miss World
August 30, 2002—What They Are Saying About the Strike on Iraq?
May 8, 2002--Imminent Strike on Iraq
May 16, 2002--“Orientalism and Tents”
May 5, 2002--Why We Do Not Like Them COLUMNS April 14, 2004

War in Iraq: The Failure of the American Media
by Samar Jarrah

I just returned from a 10-day visit to London. Between savoring mounds of clotted butter and scones (if you do not know clotted butter, you do not know what real butter tastes like) and dealing with rain, wind, and sunshine in an hour’s time, one topic was ever-present—the U.S. war in Iraq. During futile attempts at shopping when the dollar has no value in the face of the mighty Pound Sterling and Euro, the trip was a constant reminder of how lax our media have always been.

Every single time my husband and I sat down to eat or drink we heard people making comments about the war in Iraq or the events in Palestine.

The papers were full of in-depth coverage of the latest developments in Iraq. Not how many troops, tanks, dead, or injured — but interviews with people in Iraq who are staunch supporters of the toppling of Saddam and others who still lament his arrest. In England there was extensive media coverage of civilian leaders — who are not part of Paul Bremmer’s General Council — and their democratic schemes and plots.

There were many interviews with foreign service British subjects, Arabs, Iraqis, and others. Anyone paying the least attention to the media in London has a better view of the mess in Iraq than we do back in the states. With so much news from all sides, people can no longer explain the War in terms of black and white, good and evil — such terms are too simplistic to explain the complexity of any global situation.

In one interview, a BBC correspondent in Iraq gave Ahmed al Jalabi, the baby doll of the masterminds (mastermind-less) architects of the war on Iraq (Paul Wollfowitz, Richard Perele, Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, et al.) a serious investigative effort. I could not believe my ears. Al Jalabi is widely thought of as the morally corrupt source of the false intelligence used by the Bush administration to deceive us into believing that Iraq was an imminent danger to the USA.
The BBC correspondent asked him about the false information that he provided to the Bush Administration, from the mobile labs to the Niger uranium fiasco. This is the same information that Colin Powell admitted to have been weak evidence provided by a Jalabi crony. Yet, Powell used it at the United Nations to make the case for the war on Iraq,

The BBC correspondent politely corrected Al Jalabi when he ranted his usual lies, citing his contradictory statements to other media. She used the intelligence information that we now know as fact to confront his land deception and expose his close ties to the Pentagon and the special intelligence office set up by Cheney and Rumsfeld.

At first, nothing shook al Jalabi. He finally wavered when the reporter reminded him that he was currently being investigated by Congress over millions of dollars of our tax money not accounted for. Then she dropped the bombshell: “But, sir, you were indicted and sentenced to 20 years in jail for embezzling more than $20 million from the Al Petra bank in Jordan.”

Finally, the lips of the false prince of Washington trembled. He took offense only at this fact–not at the fact that his lies have so far caused the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis, more than 600 American soldiers, and tens of thousands of injured on all sides.

The interview ended and no meteor fell out of the sky because Al Jalabi was finally asked the hard questions. The reporter is still on TV in Iraq and Al Jalabi is still taking our tax money.
I was even more distressed because the Iraqi War might never have happened had U.S. reporters, especially those on TV, had the audacity—no, the decency—to ask decision-makers tough questions. The founding fathers of this country intended the press to be the watchdogs who sniff out the truth for us as citizens of a democracy.

Instead, American reporters turned into Bush administration lap dogs that refused to ask the tough questions of those in power. As one 57-year veteran White House correspondent stated, “We gave Bush a free pass and we were wrong.” This is what brought us to the current quagmire in Iraq. Getting out will never be easy and will be ever more costly.

We, as citizens, are also to blame. We who objected to the war obviously have failed in preventing it. Those who waved the flag never asked the tough questions that should have been asked. But it is those who are still in power who need to be held accountable for the mess they have put us all in. They will never be held accountable without tough watchdogs in the media and a more educated public.

March 2004
The Trial Of Saddam
by Samar Jarrah

Has capturing Saddam made us safer? In what court will he be tried? What secrets will he reveal? My experiences may shed some light on these questions. In 1985, during the peak of the Iraq-Iran war, I was working as a news editor at an Arab TV station. The stories I wrote had to be slanted towards Iraq. I resented that — not because I was pro-Iran or anti-Iraq, but because I knew this war was launched by Iraq with the blessings of the West, to counter the spread of the Iranian revolution. Foreign spy agencies supplied both sides with intelligence information to create a delicate balance between Iraq and Iran. The war was futile, yet it caused the deaths of millions of people on both sides.

Media news coverage favored Iraq. If Iraq scored a slight victory on the battlefield, my editor wrote the story and showed Iraq winning the war. Iran’s victories were downplayed. Every day at 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm we received satellite video from news agencies around the world –- some in languages I did not even know existed. In the Iraq-Iran reports, we received videos of automatic weapons piled together or being taken out of boxes. If a country publicly spoke against the war, its weapons were shown as captured by the victor of that day.

In reality, arms sales to both Iran and Iraq continued feverishly by the same Western and Eastern Soviet satellite countries that proclaimed boycotts, or neutrality, banned sales. Opposing sides captured Israeli and Syrian weapons. None of these stories were shown to the public anywhere.
One day when there was little news, the 4:00 pm video came in. The images looked like the Jewish Holocaust or the Sabra and Shatila massacre (Palestinian refuges massacred in the 1980s in Lebanon), but hauntingly different. This was the aftermath of poison gas. Bloated old men and women hugged small kids, and the bodies of people appeared frozen as they climbed out of windows. Everyone seemed to have died in front of their doors and not inside the homes, with no blood, no missing limbs, no wounds.

With no voice reports, we anxiously awaited the 5:00 pm video, hoping that ITN would have something in English. The video showed a Western journalist, covering his mouth and nose, following a man in Kurdish clothing through deserted village streets. Western and Arab journalists covering the war had ignored this Kurdish tragedy and the effects of the poison gas for three days.
I jumped off my seat and wrote a major story, but it was never broadcast by my station, and the shocking images were never aired. Surely, I thought, the next day’s video from ABC, NBC, ITN, and the BBC would show the massacre, but there was nothing. I waited more than five years to finally see the images on Western media. In 1990, those horrific images of poison gas victims finally made it to the free media when Saddam stupidly invaded Kuwait, a country he had supposedly fought Iran for nine years to “protect!”

Today, many human rights organizations are calling for a fair trial for Saddam, but they never explain what they mean by fairness. Do they mean that every single man, woman, government, company, and agency that helped him will also be put on trial?

Capturing Saddam is a dilemma to the Western companies that sold him poison gas to use on the Kurds in Halabja. Mr. Rumsfeld himself went to Iraq to work out U.S. diplomatic relations with Saddam after the gas attack. He personally assured Saddam that none of our media would report this massacre. Decades ago, the CIA had put Saddam in power in Iraq over one weekend at a cost of $1 million! The 1990 exposure happened because Saddam disobeyed his CIA handlers.
Putting Saddam through a public trial will expose the complicity in this atrocity by the U.S. government during the Reagan era, as well as that of many Arab leaders, some still in power. Saddam might reveal his financial transactions, his bribery of many heads of state, and his assassinations of dissidents on foreign soil, killings that went unpunished by local governments. I am not concerned about him telling us that he never had WMD. I knew it all along.

I am concerned that a deal might be struck with him to keep all the dirty files secret. I am concerned that he might suddenly die or be assassinated before we get a chance to hear him expose all who helped him out. Has capturing Saddam made us safer? What does Iraq have to do with the war on terror? What causes terrorism? All these questions and much more will be discussed in a class I am offering at the Port Charlotte Cultural Center every Friday from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm starting January 9th.


January 22, 2003
Iraqis to the American People--Don’t Drop Bombs on Us to Oppose Saddam
by Samar Jarrah

I went to Venice, Florida on a cold Saturday morning, January 18th, to address a crowd of people assembled to vote for peace. A dear friend called and asked to come with me. As we drove to Venice from Port Charlotte, my friend asked: “What are you going to say?” “I’m not sure,” I told her.  “But I have something in my back pocket that I might use in my short speech.  It all depends on the mood of the crowd.”
 
We frantically looked for a parking space thinking that the farmer's market nearby was the reason for the crowds. As we approached the gazebo, it dawned on me that these people were here for the anti-war rally at Venice’s downtown park. It suddenly hit me—this is too big for me.  What do I have to contribute to so many people looking to the speakers for guidance? 

Freezing from the cold and worrying about not having a prepared speech, I sat in the gazebo waiting for the event to start.  Music started to play and people arrived from all sides in a hurry as if afraid to miss the opening of a famous play.  Sitting next to two male speakers and a minister of the cloth, thoughts rushed through my mind faster than I could make sense of them. Amidst my personal chaos, I noticed a big, reassuring smile on a familiar face—a Palestinian acquaintance I had met only twice in my life.

Suddenly I was overcome with emotion. Tears rolled down my face and I had nothing to dry them with. Below me, 700 people looked up at us—at me—waiting for leadership. I did not know hundreds of other citizen speakers faced the same challenge across the nation. In Tampa, 1,000 people from 40 organizations and church groups had gathered at MacDill Air Force Base to protest war in Iraq, and a whopping 30,000 demonstrated against war in Washington, D.C.
 
I could not understand what was happening to me. Was it stage fright? Was it the freezing cold? Why was I so overcome with emotion? How could I compose myself?  Could people see my trembling cheeks and lips? An American friend later told me this was how it felt to speak against the war in Vietnam 30 years ago—scary and exhilarating. I think this is because we are ordinary citizens, amateur speakers—not politicians. We are the people, struggling to speak out, conquering our fears to do what our elected representatives should be doing—but are not.
 
I had only a few minutes before they called my name. “God, give me the strength to hold back my tears,” I prayed. I walked slowly to the tiny podium area.  I knew that I had to speak loud so people in the back would hear me and this alone was strenuous for me to do. I prayed again for comfort and strength.
 
The crowd quieted and I heard the sounds of silence. I offered my voice in the silence, telling them: “I am here as an American, an Arab, a Palestinian, and a Muslim. But much more, I am here to speak for the nameless faceless Iraqis—the mothers and children and men who will soon die when our bombs are dropped on their heads.  I am here to convey a message to you.  A few weeks ago I addressed a crowd of Americans who gathered January 1, 2003.  I asked Iraqi friends of mine, some who live under the dictatorship of Saddam and others who ran away from him and live all over the world, if there was some message they wanted me to tell the American people.  Their answer shocked me.”

“They asked me to tell you this:  ‘You, the American people, are our only hope.  You, the people who live in a democracy, can make things happen. You can gather and protest the war. You can disagree with your government and demonstrate and still go back to your homes and you and your families will be safe and no one will knock on your door in the middle of the night and take you away.  You, the American people, are our only hope for survival.  It is we—the moms and the dads, the uncles and the aunts, the daughters and sons, the nephews and nieces who will die when the bombs fall on our heads.  You are our only hope, so please save us.’ ”
 
As I listened to the noise of silence, I knew why I was so overcome with emotion.  And I shared it with the crowd: “Twenty years ago, if someone had told me that I would leave my home and become an American citizen, I would have laughed for hours.  If someone told me 20 years ago that I, a stateless Palestinian Arab Muslim, would one day address a huge crowd of Americans asking them not to go to war, I would have said: ‘You’re dreaming!’  I too lived under undemocratic systems.  I came here 13 years ago and have enjoyed every right that comes with being an American—the good life of America.

“And 8 years ago I became an American citizen and received more rights.  But it is only today that I wave this (I held my American passport high in my right hand) and proudly say I am an American. Because it is only today I truly feel an American where I can speak my mind and disagree with the government and still know that my family is safe at home and that no one will knock on my door and take me away.  This can only happen in America and for this I am forever grateful.”
Only in America is it my right—and joyful duty—to speak out for what I believe is right and true and add my voice to the referendum of the people against what is wrong and terrible like war.#

Dec. 28, 2002
First Muslim Miss World
by Samar Jarrah

To Celebrate Beauty or To Make War?
Now we have the first Muslim Miss World. She is from Turkey, raised in the Netherlands, and her name is Azra Akin. Amazingly, no beltway pundit is writing about this. All seemed to jump on the bandwagon of Islam-phobia and write against the riots in Nigeria that accompanied the Miss World event—but nothing has been written about the fact that a Muslim, whose first name literally means “Virgin”, won the Miss World title.
 
A Challenge to Stereotypes
Floridian Kathleen Parker, a syndicated columnist for the Orlando Sentinel advised readers to pack a machete when deciding to vacation in Nigeria (site of the Miss World pageant this year). Parker promised that she would watch the Miss World finals on Dec. 7th. In her inimitable style, she petulantly declared: “I’ve got to see what all the commotion is about, and I intend to file a full, possibly insulting, and truthful report. Just because I can.” Well, I am still waiting, Kathleen Parker. It seems Ms. Parker expected anything but a Muslim girl winning the title. This was a blow to all stereotypes of Muslim women, who are only seen as covered, ugly, uneducated, abused, or waiting to be stoned. Azra was too much for Ms. Parker to handle and her “possibly insulting and truthful report” was abruptly silenced.

Beauty or Pride—Are We Celebrating the Wrong Things? 
I am not sure if, as a Muslim or as a woman in general, Ms. Akin’s title should make me feel better. The first Muslim woman in space would give me more pride or having any woman as an American president. What is it about Miss World that makes it special? Why don’t we have a Mr. World? I would love to see hunky attractive men from all the countries of the world being paraded on stage. I would love to know what measurement criteria the contestants would have to go through to know that they have perfect bodies?

Is it their chests? Or perhaps their butts? Or is it something else? I would love to see the Mr. World men in their tiny swimwear answering stupid questions like Miss World does. I would really not mind paying money to see them react when the names of the winning men are called and they are crowned. I wonder if the hunky men will cry and say, “I wish to change the world!”

Forcing “Liberation” Down Their Throats 
Do not get me wrong, dear husband and dear men friends out there. But I can no longer consider parading women as an expression of freedom. It is simply an expression of exploitation. Everyone seems to be concerned about Arab and Muslim women these days. Our own State Department has allocated $52 million “to bring information to Arab and Muslim women concerning democracy and freedom from an American perspective.”

A $52 Million Boondoggle: Appearances—Not Substance
Women from 14 countries were carefully selected to take part. The women are from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Palestine, Oman, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Tunisia. The veep’s daughter Elizabeth Cheney is in charge of this endeavor. I am not sure where the $52 million is going to. Will this include scholarships, computers, and health care services? Or is it an endeavor to unveil women and westernize them.
Will this huge sum include aid for the thousands of Palestinian girls who face tremendous hardship to reach schools and colleges because of military checkpoints! Will the $52 million secure cheap medicine for the more than 10 million women with AIDS in Africa? (Elizabeth’s dad just blocked this effort). Will the money help the millions of American women here in our backyard who have no health insurance for themselves and their children?
 
The Dilemma of “Liberation”
Will bringing modernity to Arab Muslim women also mean women have no right to cover their hair if they choose to because it is un-modern and un-western? Will people point fingers at me because I am modest and praise me because I am topless?
One Arab woman commented on the $52 million with this: “I wish the American women would frankly tell our Arab women that their freedom has failed to give them security and stability and that American democracy has up to now failed to get equal pay for women doing the same job as men, even if the women have the same qualifications.”

August 30, 2002
What They Are Saying About the Strike on Iraq?
by Samar Jarrah

It is very rare to witness a unanimous and coherent international stand viz a viz a regional conflict. Yet it seems that the “question of Iraq” is creating such an attitude—and aimed against us.
Europeans, Arabs, Indians, Chinese—even long-time ally Turkey, where we have bases that would figure into an attack on Iraq—and many other nations all have different views on why there should not be a strike on Iraq. Here are some of these views.

Most European nations other than Britain (will get to this one later) do not support an attack on Iraq. However, their stated reasons of international law and human rights are for consumption by the gullible. The reality is different. If the U.S. wins the proposed war in Iraq, it will be the official coronation of the Empire of the United States of America over world politics. It will be very difficult for the European Union, whose member nations (with Britain) built world-dominating empires for centuries, not to heed the desires and the wishes of the new American Empire. Europe will no longer be a player in the world arena.

Britain’s leadership, but not its people, stand alone in its weak support for the attack on Iraq. If the attack fails, they will claim they were against it and, if it succeeds, they will share the spoils. A win-win situation for them. But there is a more sinister role that Britain has adopted since the sun set on its empire in the mid-20th century.

Britain has always managed to make the U.S. play out its unholy scheme of divide and rule—unleashed in India, which was one country and left it three: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—one people who became three and thereafter in conflict. Britain no longer needs to send its armies to colonies—now it sends our American soldiers; they are the ones who die. We pay and they gain.

A successful war in Iraq will mean the rewriting of the map of the Arab World and the other non-Arab countries. Turkey will no longer vacillate—but will only obey. Israel is the only country in the region that stands to gain from such a conflict, as it typically does. Iran will be next and forget about the Kurds. They were a causality of the British scheme of divide and rule long ago.
The Arab world is always divided into two camps. The undemocratic systems in power and whom we support and protect--and the millions of people whom we allow to be oppressed. These rulers are afraid of losing their seats. We are afraid of losing them. So the Arab rulers are trying to avert the war, although they would not mind removing Saddam from power. Yet, they want such removal to be secretive. They also fear that if they disobey the U.S. they will be the next U.S. target. This could easily happen and with no reasons given, now that the experts in Washington tell the people that the White House no longer needs Congress to sanction a war.

The Arab peoples, however, have a different view. They say Saddam was put in power by the U.S. Saddam’s military arsenal was financed and supplied by the U.S. Saddam’s gases were provided by the Germans through money funneled illegally to Saddam through farming contracts provided by the U.S. Saddam was invited to invade Kuwait by the U.S. Saddam launched a war against the rebellious Kurds after President Bush, Senior asked them to revolt. Saddam remained in power because the U.S. refused to oust him.

So why does the U.S. government want to get rid of him today? Why isn’t’ the USA pursuing Osama Bin Laden first? Why not finish the mess in Afghanistan first? This could not have anything to do with all the financial mess in the U.S.—could it? This has nothing to do with the fact that Israeli leader Sharon plans to push the West Bank Palestinians into Jordan as soon as the attack on Iraq starts.

The million dollar question that Arab peoples ask is: Why only Saddam? What about the rest of the undemocratic systems in the Arab world?

Africans say they are dying by the millions, but they do not see wars being launched against poverty and disease. Environmentalists say the “Iraqi problem” is all about grabbing oil. Leftists say it is all about globalization and business.

Whatever the reason might be, people all over the world do not like it when an empire gets too strong. So people tend to believe in the old proverb: when spiders unite, they can suffocate a lion.
But there is always optimism in politics and it does not come from international organizations or from international law. It comes from the will of the people that no power can forever defeat. We all hope that the American people remember what it is that makes them American at the end of the day. It is not capitalism and the frantic call of our leaders to shop until we are broke. It is not our religion or the lack of one. It is not the color of our skin or our ethnic heritage. It is the Constitution. It gives us the right to object and dissent. It gives us the right to question authority--even the all mighty government. This is why I am hopeful.

May 8, 2002
Imminent Strike on Iraq
by Samar Jarrah

(NOTE: I am breaking away from my columns on understanding to talk about an urgent issue...war.)
Much has been said about an imminent U.S. military strike against Iraq to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein. Many vocal people in the U.S. seem to support such a foolhardy expedition. Such people get plenty of media attention. Those who question the attack on Iraq pose many serious issues.

The success of any military expedition is usually measured by what is called an “exit strategy.” This means: “What happens if the military expedition does not achieve its goals? What if we start a war in Iraq and are not able to overthrow Saddam? What happens to our troops? How do we retrieve our boys? How do we avoid getting bogged down in a long, drawn-out war, another quagmire? How do we guarantee their safe return?”

Now the question on your mind is how could we, the only superpower in the world not be successful in our military expedition in Iraq? Remember Anaconda??? Remember, Vietnam?
Military expeditions are not as simple as the war games we play on our video consoles. They are not as simple as what some senators and TV pundits, including local ones, would like you to think so you will support such strikes. We would be going to Iraq with a lack of sufficient intelligence that usually precedes such far away military expeditions.

We face a culture that usually bands around its leader once attacked by a foreigner. But, what we need to ask ourselves as citizens of a republic and a democracy is: “WHY attack Iraq?” And why now? Why did we not attack in August 2001? Or July 2000? Why not Iran or North Korea? Why attack Iraq now while we are engaged in a war in Afghanistan that is not over yet? What is so different about Iraq after September 11, 2001? Who will really benefit from such a strike? We Americans? I doubt it.

Let’s assume that we manage to overthrow Saddam with minimal civilian loss (collateral damage) of the Iraqi people (by no means guaranteed) and few losses on our part.

Who will we put in power if we are successful in overthrowing Saddam? The leading contender is Ahmed Al Jalabi who fled Jordan in the late 1980s and is still wanted for the embezzlement of millions of dollars while acting as CEO of Al Petra bank. Mr. Al Jalabi has zero legitimacy among Iraqis. Installing and maintaining such a man in power will require a tremendous police force and less democratic action on our behalf. What will installing him in power say about our values and our democracy?

Or shall we place in power a young military officer (one who defected and is in Washington now) who one day will turn into another Saddam? Or we will allow Iraqis to decide democratically for themselves? And risk having a democratically-elected president who might disagree with some of our foreign policy in the region?

What about the Kurds in the North? They too would like to have a nation state and be independent. They are a major political and social force in the ethnic make-up of Iraq. Those are the same people who Bush senior asked to revolt against Saddam in the Gulf War in 1991. They are the same people who were butchered by Saddam’s elite Republican Guards when General Schwarzkopf was forced to stop the war upon the urging of Turkey, Bush senior, and Britain.
Turkey? What does Turkey have to do with this mess? Well Turkey has about 4 million Kurds who live in the south of Turkey (north of Iraq) who are waiting to have a homeland of their own. The British, the dominant power of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, decided by the end of WWI not to grant the Kurds—old Kurdistan—a home land and dispersed them in four countries (Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria).

Kurds are not Arabs and have a distinctive language and culture and are predominantly Sunni Muslim. Turkey, a U.S. ally, systematically raids, kills, and rapes Kurds into silence and would love to see no action whatsoever in Iraq to overthrow Saddam if it means giving the Kurds a homeland.
What do we do with the Shiite Muslims in the South of Iraq? We, after all, created the “No Fly Zones” so we can protect the Shiites, despite the fact that this is illegal under international Law. Iran, a member of the “axis of evil,” according to the current President Bush, is a major supporter of the Shiites of the South. What happens if they also decide they want an independent Shiite state in the South and seek Iran’s help?

Can the Middle East risk having a civil war in Iraq where three small ethnic states barely co-exist with each other? Will the “Arab Street” that was pronounced dead by DC beltway political “experts” during the early days of the Afghanistan war, which is now steaming with anger and frustration thanks to Sharon, take another strike?

If Iraq comes out intact, who will finance the rebuilding of Iraq? Who will control the oil? Why must every president attack Iraq when faced with tough domestic issues? What if the people there use our same logic and decide that our foreign policy is undesirable? Should they also seek to overthrow us?

May 16, 2002
“Orientalism and Tents”
by Samar Jarrah

We were returning from Greece to Cairo on TWA one summer in the late 1970s. A teenager then, I was sitting next to two older American ladies. I was filling out my arrival papers and the women noticed my English handwriting. “How did you learn to write English?” one lady asked. “They teach us English starting in fourth grade at school, “ I said. The other lady said, “But you’re an Arab!” I did not know what the two ladies meant and said so. One replied: “But I thought Arab females do not go to school.” Laughing, I said, “We also learn French.”

One of the ladies asked: “So, you do not live in a tent?” I was flabbergasted (although I did not know this word then). I could not believe my ears. Here I was, 16-years-old, communicating in English with two American tourists who a few minutes ago had struck up a conversation with me because of my beautiful English handwriting and now they ask me if I live in a tent! The other lady added: “Is it true you park your Cadillacs in front of the tent?”

All I could say was: “Actually, our car is a Mercedes.”
How could these tourists ask such questions? It boggled my mind. Couldn’t they see that I was as normal as they were to me? I thought about this incident for many years to come. I knew that part of this image was true. Many Arabs did live in tents in the past and a very few Bedouins still do. I wrote a feature article on one family in Jordan that lived in a modest house all week long and left the capital city of Amman every weekend to stay with the rest of their Bedouin tribe.
I followed their transition from modern western clothes and life into a more traditional one. I envied the simplicity of life in the tent. No phone or TV. No fans or fridges. A tremendous amount of hard work was involved in making food or serving coffee. Just a simple existence, but I doubt I could have lived like that for more than a weekend.

Part of the image of the tent was transmitted through the behavior of a relatively few men from the Gulf region who wandered Europe in the 1970s looking for ways to squander their suddenly acquired wealth. I disliked their behavior and the stereotypes they created.
Part of the image of the tent has to do with “Orientalism,” an image that Western Europe transmitted through literature of how it viewed the world East of Europe—what was known then as the Near East and covering all that is Arab, Muslim, Indian, and even African. To justify their conquests, many European leaders spoke of “the races with whom we deal” describing them as “devoid of energy and initiative” and “lethargic and suspicious.” Some went so far as to say “Accuracy is abhorrent to the Oriental mind” and “Orientals cannot walk on either a road or a pavement,” and Cromer’s famous remark: “I content myself with noting the fact that somehow or other the Oriental generally acts, speaks, and thinks in a manner exactly opposite to the European.”

In this way, Europeans turned every aspect of the “Orient,” culturally and morally, into an object of study that needs to be taught, settled, ruled but will always remain different from the “Occidental” (the West). (You can read the book Orientalism by Edward Said to learn more about this subject.)
In modern terminology, especially words used by beltway pundits, the Orient is now the Third World—“ them,” and the Occident is the West—“us.” The political pundits inherited the legacy of a colonial era that no longer is applicable in the description of peoples and cultures in the 21st century. They continue to using outdated language that confuses and darkens our perception of other peoples.

These commentators have blinded and confused us. They have taken away boundaries and changed our language. Theirs is a deceitful language where “retaliation” replaces “attack”, where an illegal occupation becomes a “disputed land.” Where the value of a dead civilian is determined by his or her identity card. We no longer know who is liberal and who is moderate—or why one should be labeled with anything other than “American.”

Those pundits have parted with the basic element of what the USA is about--a democracy where freedom of speech is not a privilege. It is a right—a constitutional right so we the citizens are forever protected from government’s lust for power. The founding fathers intended for a free press to be simply that: free. They tried to guarantee an independent media where the interests of the citizen and the republic are the core of the nation’s being and existence. They tried to ensure a media that acts like a watchdog—not a lapdog.

That ideal media would have told you that those people who are so far away from you are human beings just like you and that they love you. An ideal media would have opened your hearts to others and shown that other peoples have an open heart for you. Alas, in today’s American media, is there no space to tell us why they love you?

May 5, 2002
Why We Do Not Like Them
by Samar Jarrah

Soon after September 11, 2000, many pundits raced to cook up editorials entitled “Why They Hate Us.” This was done in an attempt to explain that the “9-11” tragedy was the result of the sick mind, culture, and religion of millions of people who are mainly Arab.

I remember calling Jim Gouvellis and asking him after reading a borrowed editorial from the
Chicago Tribune: how could I hate myself? I am an American and I am an Arab, so how can I hate both or love one and not the other? I have to confess that he listened to my angry harangue and was kind enough to print a long article about my reaction to 9-11.

At that point, I had wanted to write a counter-editorial: “Why They Do Not Hate Us.” But the word hate is harsh and cruel. How is it scientifically possible to measure hatred? Hatred is a feeling. How do we know what is buried in the hearts of millions of people so far away? The Arab World I know is not similar to what political commentators want you to believe.

These are D.C. Beltway pundits like William Safire of the New York Times; George Will, Charles Krauthammer and Michael Kelly at the Washington Post; Lally Weymouth of Newsweek; Martin Peretz of the New Republic; Daniel Pipes and Andrea Peyser at the New York Post; Peggy Noonan and Robert Bartley at the Wall Street Journal; William Kristol of the Weekly Standard; Mortimer Zuckerman at U.S. News and World Report; Morton Kondracke, Fred Barnes, Brit Hume and Tony Snow at Fox News; and William Bennett, a paid CNN contributor, just to name a few.
I have lived and studied in four Arab countries and none of them taught me hatred. None of them told me to hate Jews or Christians. Many of my teachers were actually Christian.

We learned science and physics. We learned history and geography. We learned geology and arts. We performed musicals and played instruments. We played sports and rode bikes. We learned about the origin of man from a religious point of view as well as Darwin’s point of view. We learned the history of the world including the discovery of the Americas. We learned about wars and the Crusades. We read that some European princes sent troops that killed not only Muslims but also Christians and Jews.

We learned to love and respect Moses and Jesus and who ever came before or in between. We learned that Palestine was the home of Palestinians and a political Zionist movement with the help of the British took it over, occupied it, and renamed it Israel. Those are historical facts. We were never taught to hate Jews for what had been done to Palestine. The problem was never explained to us from a religious perspective, but rather from political and colonial viewpoints.

Nowhere in the textbooks in Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt were we ever taught to hate a people, a culture, or a religion. We learned bits and pieces about Buddhism and Hinduism. We were never told not to respect them because they were not part of the three Monotheistic religions.

When I was a girl in Kuwait, our housekeeper was a Buddhist from India. We loved it when she prepared herself to go out on Friday. She had a ritual that included wearing a beautiful sari and artfully decorating her forehead with a red dot. She often put it on our foreheads. My dad used to pick her up every Friday from her “church” at night where thousands of Buddhists and Hindus congregated.

We grew up watching High Chaparral and Bonanza. We ate pancakes and hamburgers. We even cooked barbecue without using or knowing that there was a “barbeque sauce.” We grilled Kabobs and called it barbeque. We grilled chicken marinated with garlic and mint and still called it barbeque. We watched Tom and Jerry cartoons and the Sound of Music. David Cassidy and Danny Osmond adorned our bedroom walls. Mom even painted David’s teeth to make them even and straight.

Friedman, Will, Safire and others would tell you “but this is only Samar!” as one caller said to me on the radio a few weeks after 9-11. “She is Western and modern,” he protested. But I was neither Western nor modern 30 years ago living in those countries. I was a child—an Arab, Palestinian child who happened to be Muslim. Every Easter and Christmas we wanted to convert to enjoy our neighbor’s gifts and celebrations. Every Eid they wanted to convert to enjoy our gifts and celebrations. We never accused each other because they were Christian and we were Muslim and we certainly never hated each other.

What happened to that lovely childhood? What happened in those 30 years? Is it true that “they” hate “us” like the ilk of Safire, Will, Friedman, and most recently our Williams would like you to believe? Just like on TV, tune in next week and I will tell you.