Fighting for all the wrong causes

There is no doubt that the person who concocted the term ‘the Arab Street' as a synonym for "the Arab public opinion" was really right in his endeavour, as the above term has a well-deserved pejorative connotation in our Arab culture.

We usually dub those who are useless and lousy as ‘street guys'. Are we but ‘street folk' when it comes to standing up for our usurped, social, economic and political rights? Are we not so passive and hopeless? Why do we always fight for the wrong causes?

Haven't we got our options mixed up? Why do we send ourselves into a fit of mad rage for the silliest reasons? Why do we, for instance, take to the streets in our thousands to denounce a decision taken by a Western government to ban the hijab (headscarf) in schools, as we did recently against the French government? Why do we riot in the streets and destroy Western embassies as a revenge against a Danish cartoonist or a Dutch politician?

Why are we so concerned about history far more than we are about the present or the future for that matter? Why are we so ready to defend the past and neglect the present? Why are we very much prepared to fight for the dead and not for the living? Aren't we really off our hinges? Are we ever different from the so-called ‘street people' that we usually scorn for their hopelessness and deviation?

Why do we keep repeating the same stupidities once and again? Years ago hundreds of demonstrations were staged across the Arab world to denounce a novel by Salman Rushdie.

No sooner some clerics called for an uprising than millions of Arab and Muslim people went out to the streets to demonstrate violently against the author. They even burnt out scores of copies of his book publicly. The whole world saw that farcical scene.

And when a second rate Danish cartoonist published a dozen of anti-Arab and Muslim cartoons, millions of Arabs went mad. They even attacked the Danish and Norwegian embassies in some Arab capitals, and organised a widespread campaign to boycott Danish goods.

The same thing almost happened when a Dutch politician released a film which showed Muslims living in the West in a bad light.

Condemnation

And when France banned religious symbols in schools including the Islamic hijab, ‘the Arab street' went out in a tumultuous fit of rage to condemn the French move.

And only a couple of weeks ago ‘the Egyptian Street' and ‘the Algerian Street' brandished their swords against each other in the wake of a football match. The match almost led to war between the two peoples. In fact the ‘Arab Street' did not change since the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982.

While the Israeli army was then devastating Lebanon and cutting off electricity and water in the Gaza Strip, the ‘Arab Street' was busy following the World Cup matches.

Invasion

Some cynics argue that Israel knew how to time its invasion of Lebanon with the football world competition. It knew that Arabs would have been more interested in football than in the ordeal of the Lebanese and the Palestinian. And even if there was no World Cup at the time ‘the Arab Street' would have done so little to help the Lebanese and Palestinian peoples.

Funnily enough the only demonstrations that went out at the time were staged in Tel Aviv where ‘the Peace Now' movement arranged huge rallies against the invasion.

I have no problem at all with the people who rise up against those who desecrate their holy books or religion. They have the full right to do so. But what makes one wonder is that the Arab people hardly do anything to defend their usurped and downtrodden social, economic and political rights. As we know we live in very backward societies politically and economically. We can hardly catch up with Afghanistan and Iran as far as democracy is concerned. All our election results are usually rigged, and we can do nothing but bless the return of the incumbent to power once again.

We even go out in our millions to sing and dance to commemorate the occasion. We have no problem to die for a cause that is over a thousand years old, but we feel helpless when we are faced with immediate political and economic crises and merciless totalitarian regimes.

It is a well-known fact that university students have changed the faces of their countries through political and civil action in many parts of the world, whereas Arab students have no cause but to rise in arms in support of their football teams, as we have seen in Egypt and Algeria.

I wonder why Arab students are much more enthusiastic about football and pop songs than about the many crushing problems that besiege their societies from every nook and cranny.

I wish we show quarter of the enthusiasm for rectifying our dilapidated Arab world. Are we but ‘Street People'?

- Dr Faisal Al Qasim is a Syrian journalist based in Doha. He is also a television presenter and producer of the Opposite Direction programme on the Al Jazeera channel.