Reforming voices in the Middle East

AMID calls for jihad emanating from websites and television channels in the Muslim world, a counterpoint has emerged: fierce Arab self-criticism and openness to the West.

Although small in number compared with fundamentalists in the media, Muslim liberals have been able to expose the Arab world to a totally different, often shocking, way of seeing itself.

"Why do the Arabs boast of their courage when in fact we are the most cowardly people on earth?" Iraqi researcher Mohammed al-Khodari said last month on al-Jazeera TV, the leading news channel in the Middle East. "Of all peoples, Arabs are most likely to resign themselves to injustice, oppression and persecution."

Referring to a photograph of a suicide bomber, he said: "This backward man, this low-life, who is the product of the Arab peoples, blew himself up in Iraq, at a [church] mass, among people who were worshipping God. His family and his people are proud of him.

"Our entire culture is based on two things and two things alone: lies and denial. We blame everything on Israel. If one day Israel is eliminated, what would we do?"

A damning analysis was voiced by a prominent writer in Bahrain, Dihyaa al-Musawi, in an interview posted on YouTube. "We have a gallows culture in which we try to hang a thinker, a poet, every day. We are against creativity and civilisation. We have not developed to the point of admitting defeat, cultural defeat. In the past we had a civilisation but we are regressing. We export violence. We terrorise whole countries. Our pulpits have become booby traps for the public by generating hatred towards 'the other'."

Sheik Abd al-Hamid al-Ansari, former dean of Islamic law at Qatar University, attributes the backwardness of the modern Arab world to the disappearance of critical thinking and the resultant absence of accountability.

"Despite the defeats we have suffered for half a century [an apparent reference to the wars with Israel] we have not learned a thing" he said on Abu-Dhabi TV.

"We say that Israel is the enemy and that we hate it, but let's ask ourselves why Israel is always victorious. It is because it has a tradition of accountability."

Although Israel was the victor in its war with Hezbollah in 2006, said al-Ansari, most Arabs chose to believe otherwise. "Would you believe that after the war Israel, despite all it had achieved, established a committee to examine the accountability of the government because it hadn't achieved a total victory; just 80 per cent instead of 100 per cent? We, on the other hand, are still proclaiming from the rooftops that we won."

Although Israel is a target of vilification in the Arab media, it is not infrequently portrayed, as by al-Ansari, in a positive context as an example of a modern society from which Arabs could learn.

"People talk about how Israel attacked Gaza [in Operation Cast Lead two years ago]," said interview host Faysal al-Qassem on al-Jazeera. "By God, if Gaza revolted against any Arab ruler, would there be anything left of it?"

The ideological ferment within the Muslim world has been monitored for more than a decade by the Middle East Media Research Institute, from which the quotes and video clips mentioned in this article are taken.

Menahem Milson, a co-founder of MEMRI and professor emeritus of Arab studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, says Arab reformist views were expressed with increasing vigour in the Arab media following the 9/11 attacks on the US. "Enlightened Muslims in Arab countries and elsewhere came to realise that because of the extremists, Islam and all Muslims are viewed as backward. They realised they must rectify the damage."

Mainstream Arab media such as al-Jazeera are still anti-West and anti-liberal in their orientation, Milson says, but they do from time to time provide a platform for reformist views. "They want to preserve their image as pluralistic and professional channels." As for the effect of reformist views on the Arab world, it is too soon to assess, Milson says.

Some jihadi internet forums have warned Muslims living in the West to stay away from Christmas celebrations, presumably including Santa Claus in the shopping mall. One forum member with a grievance against the Egyptian-based Coptic church gave a list of Coptic churches in Australia and other countries and provided an illustrated manual for homemade bombs. Another had practical suggestions for creating blackouts in Western cities "a Christmas gift not to be forgotten".

Several Muslim countries, including Egypt, have shut down jihadi stations and websites that threaten their regimes.

In the past year, however, MEMRI has determined that YouTube has become the portal of choice for jihadi clips, surpassing websites administered by jihadists. These clips have found an audience among disaffected Muslim youths in the West.

Following protests in the past few months from several US congressmen, YouTube has pledged to remove content inciting violence.

The battle between fundamentalists and reformers in the Arab world is nearer the beginning than the end. It is one that will engage the attention of the West as if its future depended on the outcome.