The Symbolic Use of Women

Does this picture actually help Muslim women? Or does it simply reproduce the same orientalist discourse of the eternally oppressed Muslim woman who is covered & treated like trash by her culture/religion/men? Yet again, women's bodies being used to make a point about the Other.

I have always found it difficult, intellectually, to draw the line between resistance & independence. For example, if one argues that the rise of Islamism and conservatism in the Middle East is a reaction to colonialism, neo-colonialism, and westernization, does this take away all agency from Middle Eastern people to shape their own future? Does this mean that what happens in the Middle East is purely a reaction to outside forces? I have always secretly believed that Islamism IS a reaction to (forced) westernization, but have felt uncomfortable saying it because it almost renders people in the Middle East powerless. It’s like saying, yes we got rid of our colonial powers but they’re pretty much still shaping everything we do. Which is true at many levels *cough* neoliberal capitalism *cough* but is it useful as a generalization?

To take Egypt as an example, it is clear that the past 40-50 years have seen increasing social conservatism, spurred mainly by the rising prominence of Islamism and Islamic organizing. A major reason for why I believe Islamists are reacting to westernization is because of the kinds of discourses they use and the issues they focus on – issues that have basically been used by the west consistently to show how backwards and primitive Muslim societies are. The number one issue here is, of course, WOMEN.

There is nothing new in using women as a cultural battleground.Women have regularly been used as symbols that signify and reproduce nations, cultures and religions; and the norms and values that constitute these. When the French colonized Algeria, for example, they used the status of women (as if it is a homogenous fact) to “prove” how backwards and uncivilized Algerian (read: Muslim) culture was, and therefore justify their civilizing mission. The fact that (some) women were covered, for example, supposedly showed the need for the French to liberate them – a discourse that actually still exists in France today when you see their laws re. the burqa.

The Algerian freedom fighters manipulated this French assumption by using women to carry weapons. Since the French assumed that women were passive, they did not check them thoroughly at checkpoints. This allowed many women to smuggle weapons to the freedom fighters because of a stereotype the French had about them and Algerian cultural in general. So again, we see Algerian men using stereotypes about Algerian women for their own benefit (although one could argue that Algerian independence was a struggle both Algerian men and women supported & fought for).

We see a similar battle over women and women’s bodies in today’s western mainstream media, particularly in efforts to demonize Muslims/Arabs. Women are consistently used to show how progressive & modern Europe/America are, either by images of them wearing a bikini/underwear/miniskirts/as little as possible, or with statistics that show how emancipated women are because they work/earn money (or have been sucked into another oppressive structure known as capitalism). Not only does this create the discourse of women in the west being “free”, which is far from the truth; it also simultaneously creates the discourse of women who do not look like western women or act like western women as backwards. Once this discourse is created, it is then taken to represent other cultures in general: women in the Middle East cover their hair because they are oppressed by culture/religion/etc.

Campaign poster for a far-right political party in Switzerland, using women's bodies to delineate civilized Europe from the backwards Muslim world.

Today we see many Islamists using women as well. Symbols related to gender have started to signify resistance to western imperialism. This is clear in the various discourses they use. Women must be conservative, remain pure and untouched, because they represent the nation in particular and Islam in general. Any laws or movements that are seen as trying to  ”liberate” women are usually branded as western and imperialistic, and therefore must be crushed. While it is true that many women’s movements in the ME *are* western and imperial, it is useless to categorize them all this way.

Islamists showing the difference between a veiled woman and an unveiled woman, thus using women & their bodies to make a point about what they see as "Islamic morality."

In both cases, it is not women’s best interests that are at heart. When an American magazine prints a picture of a woman wearing a bikini and reproduces the discourse that the less a woman wears, the more liberated she is, it is not doing this out of a genuine concern for women or women’s issues. Similarly, when an Islamists wants to “protect” women from immoral behaviour and maintain their purity, they are not doing this out of a concern for women, but rather because of bigger religious and national interests/beliefs. Either way, women lose.

We lose because it is always decided for us what liberation or oppression means. It is never a choice. Women who cover their hair in the Netherlands are seen as oppressed by their own culture/religion/men; and women who wear miniskirts in Cairo are seen as oppressed by consumerism and a culture obsessed with women’s bodies & sex. And within these binary discourses, how free are we, as women, to choose what we want to wear, be, think, feel, or do?

This is complicated even more if you are a non-white woman, because then it is not only patriarchal men trying to decide for you and using you to make their point; it is also patriarchal/colonial women (sometimes they even call themselves feminists) who are trying to manipulate and use you. Did Laura Bush *really* want to help Afghan women when she argued that that was one of the primary motivations for invading Afghanistan? Or was she just stupid enough to somehow think that (1) wearing a burqa automatically means you are oppressed and (2) bombing the hell out of you will somehow get read of sais oppression? Or is it more likely that she was simply yet another tool used by Empire to achieve their goals; and in the process of her becoming a tool, she in turn used other women – in this case women in Afghanistan (who are of course one homogenous group).

As a woman, you have to always be alert when you hear someone say they want to “liberate” you. Do they really have your best interests at heart? Are they really trying to understand your situation and context? Or is it just another case of someone using women to make a point/justify a war/fulfill some religious commandment?

The issue of “culture”

I think one of the most dominant pillars of the current Euro-American neocolonial project is the way it has used the notion of “culture” to oppress those in the East while at the same time freeing itself. There is little doubt that when a violent or negative event happens at the hands of someone who is not a white male, more often than not, that event falls on the shoulders of everyone in the race/gender/class/religion that the single person who committed the event is from. So when a Muslim man steals, this reflects on all Muslims. When a black woman abandons her child, this reflects on all black people. At the ideological level, this has become very predominant lately. When one Muslim is homophobic, not only are all Muslims homophobic – Islam itself is homophobic. When a woman spends hours in front of the mirror doing her hair, not only are all women obsessively into appearances – the female gender has some intrinsic quality that makes them obsess about appearance.

I was just watching an interesting lecture with Lila abu-Lughod, who criticizes this idea that “cultures of violence” only exist in lands far away from America. She points out that everyday in the US, women are raped, beaten, abused, and stigmatized - but American culture is never blamed. But when the focus is on Egyptian “culture” or Nigerian “culture” or Colombian “culture”, suddenly the violence becomes cultural. The problem with this is not only that it essentializes culture into one homogenous thing, but it is the fact that these discourses apply to “Others” and not to those who are in power. When a white male steals money from millions of Americans, this does not reflect on all white males, nor on American culture, nor on Judeo-Christianity. It reflects only on him. In other words, it is individualized. If he were anything but white, it would have been collectivized - i.e. all people sharing those characteristics would have been made to carry the burden/stigma.

A while ago I wrote a post on the global LGBTQ movement, and Steffo left this amazing comment in reply to another reader who asked what Muslims should do to fight homophobia, even if it was a result of colonial policies:

Homophobia/ queerphobia/ transphobia are always horrible, yes. But we have to look at the fact that if a colonized person is homophobic, that is made to represent their culture as a whole— this does not happen for the colonizers. So when homophobic or transphobic hatecrimes are carried out by white people, this is not seen as representing all white people. We do not find people saying that “white people are homophobic.” But when brown people do bad things, they are seen to represent all brown people. This is racist.

This is exactly what we need to fight against. Why are 2 billion Muslims suffering now because one man crashed into a building in New York? Why are all African-Americans seen as lazy and sexually promiscuous? Why are Eastern Europeans seen as opportunistic and violent? These discourses are extremely prevalent in not only the mainstream media but in academic and intellectual circles as well. This shows how effective the Empire has been at locating certain issues in “culture.”

Cultural arguments are distributed unevenly around the world as explanations for what we are seeing, and if I had to think of one culture to blame for the violence affecting women in the Arab world, it would be that of armed conflict and militarism exemplified by invasions and occupations, like the US of Afghanistan and Iraq; and of Israel to Palestine. We don’t normally relate militarism to American culture or to Judaism or Protestantism, though in these cases, one could say that. But we don’t. We call it politics. And we see that it is connected to economics and so on (Lila abu-Lughod).

Lila gives an example from Palestine, where she shows how Palestinian feminists have traced forms of family violence to the larger political situation of harassment, humiliated men living in poverty, of besieged families living in fear in inhumane conditions. Palestinian women point at the larger structural issues affecting their lives, without brushing under the carpet local family issues. You cannot isolate gender relations from the context of occupation and simply blame it on “Palestinian/Islamic culture.” Not only is this simplistic, but I also don’t believe it is a coincidence or mistake. It happens, repeatedly, in order to produce people of colour/women/LGBTQs as essentially backwards/violent/problematic. 

This reminds me of an article I read last year about how the experiences of going through Apartheid in South Africa can be directly linked to the widespread violence among black men today in the country. The author gave a detailed historical overview of thee effects of Apartheid on black men; economically, politically, socially, psychologically, personally; and then went on to show how these are still manifesting themselves in modern-day South African society. But instead of analyses such as this one, we constantly hear how (black) South African men are naturally violent/can’t control themselves/dangerous and therefore that they need to be disciplined. Again, the reasons are “cultural” and in this case specifically “racial.”

As long as we focus on gendered violence of the personal sphere as though it were detached from the larger, global political sphere, and as long as we selectively blame other cultures or religions for women’s suffering instead of focusing on bigger structures that dictate how women live their lives, structures we in the west are hugely responsible for creating, we won’t be able to solve anything (Lila abu-Lughod).

Some more thoughts on Syria…

I am struggling to understand people’s reactions to the crisis in Syria, especially with regards to foreign powers and foreign intervention. We all know (especially those who have lived in the Middle East) that the West consistently acts in ways that ensure its continuing hegemony, power, and exploitation in the region (and everywhere else in the globe). Those who have any kind of critical faculty know that America did not invade Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya to “help” the people there; they invaded for their own interests and benefit.

So now my question is, if people understand that about America, why can’t they understand it about Russia?! Why do I keep seeing ridiculous comments like “Russia wants all Syrians dead” or “Russia admires Syrian massacres”??? All Russia is doing is acting in its own self-interest, just like every powerful modern nation state has done and continues to do. Is it wrong? Yes. Is it hypocritical? Yes. Is it exactly what the US and Europe does? YES.

We can’t only criticize one side. The Syrian issue is complicated, and it is clear that America, Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and others are using the Syrian people to fight a proxy war against Russia, China, Hezbollah and Iran. What annoys me is how only one side is getting criticized—Russia, China, and Iran. Both sides are guilty.

Related to the issue of the Syrian uprising is the issue of Libya. Western intervention happened and there is nothing we can do to change that. But it is important to look back and understand what exactly happened. As Vijay Prashad writes,

“There is a serious need to evaluate what has happened in Libya as a result not only of the Gaddafi atrocities, of the rise of a rebellion, but also significantly of the nature of the NATO intervention.

And that evaluation has not happened…I’m afraid that is calling into question the use of human rights as a lubricant for intervention. If we can’t go back and evaluate what has happened, I think a lot of people around the world are afraid of going forward into another intervention, where the lessons of Libya have not been learned.”

I also want to stress that with regards to Syria, it is possible to be BOTH anti-Assad and anti-imperialism. It is not a choice.

“I don’t see any contradiction in opposing intervention and simultaneously being against the Assad regime—which, we need to remember, has embraced neoliberalism and consistently used a rhetoric of “anti-imperialism” to obduscate a practice of accommodation with both the US and Israel.”  Adam Hanieh

I find it disturbing that we are constantly being put in a place where we must “choose” between imperialism or dictatorship. It is not Assad or western intervention; it was not Gaddafi or western intervention, and it was definitely not Saddam or western intervention. If we are given the space & freedom to rise up against dictators without foreign involvement, then there would no need for intervention in the first place. The problem is that the intervention is usually on the side of tyranny, not freedom, and to that we must always say no.

Understanding women’s movements historically

When studying the history of women’s movements in the Middle East and Africa, it is extremely important to start from the assumption that the linear, modernist conception of women’s rights that emerged from post-Enlightenment Europe cannot be applied universally (or even within Europe, really). Scholarship on women’s issues from the ME has challenged this idea, by showing that women’s rights and movements ebb and flow; they did not start at one point where there was severe oppression and continue either improving or deteriorating. Rather, we see that during different time periods and contexts, women’s issues changed and the fight for equal rights and representation either strengthened or weakened.

To give a quick example, in the late 1800s, Egyptian feminists (including men) began organizing and calling for gender reforms. Although modest in comparison to today, their demands were very progressive for the time. These demands were complicated, though, by the strengthening of the British colonial state, the fight for independence, and then the military coup of 1952. Since then, a variety of societal factors have led to increasing social conservatism, political repression, and a declining standard of living largely due to the introduction of neoliberal economic policies by Sadat in the 1980s. This has meant that the “women’s issue” has constantly been relegated to the backburner, as “more important” issues are dealt with at the national level. Therefore it is clear that the women’s movement made stronger gains in the early 1900s than in the early 2000s, due to specific barriers that are present today that were absent a century ago. This shows how crucial it is to take into consideration the context and the period, and not assume a linear progression of history.

This logic can be applied at the international level as well. The critique of many western feminists towards “Arab/Muslim” women is that they are lagging behind the “emancipation” happening in the west. How come western women have “developed” so much faster than Muslim women? Why do western women have “more rights” than women in the Muslim world? While it may be the case, according to certain indicators, that women in certain segments of western society are living a better life than women in certain segments of Muslim society, it is important to see this as a reality at a particular point in time, not as a generalizable fact. 800 years ago while women were being treated like slaves in Europe, they enjoyed significant rights and power in parts of the Islamic empire. This shows that we shouldn’t essentialize things like “Muslim women,” “Islamic masculinity” or “European culture” as historically consistent, as the status of women different greatly from period to period and from context to context. It is quite possible that in 100 years, it will be Muslim women, again, that will have a status higher than women in Europe.

Writing this, I realize yet again how difficult it is to speak of women’s issues at an international level. Who defines what freedom is, what equality is, what a woman’s status is? Are women in Europe better off than women in the Middle East (excluding economically)? Who decides that, how is it is measured? More importantly, why is it so important for Europeans and Americans to consistently construct themselves as advanced on gender issues, especially as compared to the backwards Muslim world? Why is the first complaint from Europeans/Americans usually about “the way Muslim women are treated”? Whose power interests do these Orientalist stereotypes serve?

At the same time, we cannot let this stop us from working on feminist activism within Muslim and Arab societies. Yes, our women have consistently been used by the west to show how “backwards” or societies are, and in extreme cases even been used to justify war (Afghanistan), but sometimes it is necessary to look past this and focus internally on how we can work from local, organic perspectives to better the situation of women in our countries. This does not mean importing western ideas of emancipation, gender equality, or feminism. It means working with what we have, which is a lot, and trying to solve problems from a local perspective. We have a long, rich history, of which gender struggles have been present at different points in time. We need to use this history, these discourses, these thinkers, and begin to seriously challenge both the strong patriarchal trends we have at home, as well as the strong Islamophobic, neo-colonial rhetoric we have coming from the west. This is what I see as the big struggle for me as a Middle Eastern feminist: fighting both western Orientalism, and the patriarchy in our societies.

Lack of solidarity – why not struggle together?

First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak out because I was Protestant.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

This very famous quote from Martin Niemöller spoke about the Holocaust, and how it would not have happened if people had stood up for each other, not just for people who were “like them.”

This logic seems to have continued till today. Instead of seeing our struggles as intersecting and complimentary, we tend to stick to our own narrow social constructions and categories. So feminists tend to focus only on feminism and women’s issue, rather than race, class, religion, and other marginalized groups or issues; activists focusing on queer/gay/lesbian/transgender issues tend to focus only on those, rather than also working towards ending sexism, racism, Islamophobia, capitalist oppression, etc.

My problem with this approach stems from two issues. One, every human is a complex construction of norms, values, identities, and experiences. Therefore I am not just a woman; I am a woman that is 23 years old that has a Dutch mother and an Egyptian father, that grew up in Zambia and Egypt and that self-identifies as queer, and that likes cupcakes. So for me, the fight is not just against patriarchy. It is against neocolonialism, capitalism, sexism, homophobia, and a range of other oppressions. This means that feminists who focus only on gender will never address the complexity of my being nor the complexity of my issues.

The second issue is that many marginalized groups suffer from the same intersecting systems of oppression. Capitalism, for example, affects women and racial minorities, albeit in different ways. So rather than women focusing on women and racial minorities on racial minorities, why not unite and fight the battle together?

Unfortunately, my experiences have showed me that very often, people internalize society’s stereotypes of Others, even if they themselves are an Other. I always expected gay men to not be racist, or black women to not be Islamophobic. When you’ve lived your life as an Other that was marginalized, wouldn’t you recognize and sympathize with people who have also been through that? But no, instead many of them tend to unquestioningly internalize the same stereotypes and misconceptions about “Others.”

I’m still not sure whether this state of affairs has always existed or whether it was put in place at some point by those  in power in order to separate us from one another. We know that “divide and rule” was used repeatedly by European colonizers, but has it been used more widely in societies in general? This would be an interesting topic to research. But whether this is the case or not, it seems to me that we need to find a way to overcome this. We need to find a way to make sure that what happened in the quote above does not keep happening; that we are not silent when it is someone else. Because then they will be silent when it is us.

Foreign Intervention in Syria (part 2)

Following on my previous post, I wanted to elaborate by summarizing two articles I read recently on the issue of intervention in Syria. 

The first is by Joseph Massad “Imperialism, Despotism, and Democracy in Syria.” Massad argues that the crisis in Syria is being presented as having one of two solutions: either imperialism (through western intervention) or fascism (through not intervening & allowing Bashar al-Assad to continue killing). He points out that this same “choice” was presented to us during the Iraq war, when we had to choose between the US invading Iraq or siding with Saddam. The choice was presented to us YET again in the Libya case last year, where we had to choose between western intervention and Gaddafi. 

At the time, many Arabs, Europeans, and Americans (myself included), who have been unwavering critics of Saddam Hussein’s despotic and terroristic rule and US imperialism’s genocidal wars against Third World enemies, opposed the first US invasion of the Gulf in 1991 and the ensuing 12-year siege, which cost more than a million Iraqi lives, as well as the subsequent US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and its 8-year occupation of the country, which killed another million Iraqis.

Massad reminds us of why we (those against foreign intervention) choose to reject the possibility of western intervention, namely the costly impact of such imperial invasions. 

The Iraqi exile opposition insisted along with its US imperial sponsors and the chorus of pro-war American intellectuals that people should make one of two choices: for or against Saddam. While the US and its Iraqi partners had their way, the subsequent destruction of Iraq, the dismantling of its state structures, and the destruction of its societal cohesion is the clearest illustration of what such a choice entailed for the Iraqi people and their country.

Massad writes that by calling for us to choose for or against Assad, Syrian exiles are invoking the same choices that were presented by Iraqi and Libyan exiles, as though no third choice exists.

These are false choices not only ideologically but also, and more importantly, historically. The monumental loss of Iraqi lives and the destruction of their country as well as the ongoing destruction and killings in Libya belie the Syrian exile opposition’s call for imperial invasion of Syria as the way to peace, democracy and to stop the ongoing carnage in the country.

 

One wonders why the Bahraini and Yemeni oppositions have never called for an imperial invasion of their countries to liberate them from their equally despotic rulers. Nor have West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, languishing under the despotic boots of the Israeli occupation army for almost half a century, ever demanded an imperial invasion to liberate them from Israel. In fact, when the Palestinians deigned to request UN peace forces to protect them from the deadly power of the Israeli occupation army, the US balked in utter horror and disgust.

So, then, what is the third choice?

Anyone acquainted with the history of American imperialism in the Arab world and with the record of local despotism knows that these choices are designed to block a third and central choice. 

We need never choose between imperialism and fascism; we must unequivocally opt for the third choice, which has proven its efficacy historically and is much less costly no matter the sacrifices it requires: fighting against domestic despotism and US imperialism simultaneously (and the two have been in most cases one and the same force), and supporting home-grown struggles for democratic transformation and social justice that are not financed and controlled by the oil tyrannies of the Gulf and their US imperial master.

This article really made me think about the issue. Massad makes an excellent point that there is always a third choice: rejecting both local fascism (Assad) and western imperialism (NATO, EU, and US intervention). But this third choice will doubtless cost more lives in the short-term, whereas foreign intervention will cost more lives in the long-term (or not-so-long-term as we see in Libya and Iraq). 

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The second article I found fascinating was by Seumas Milne, entitled Intervention in Syria will escalate, not stop, the killing. 

Milne questions the assumption (and it is, after all, an assumption) that externally imposed regime change would work, have legitimacy, or stop the killings in Syria. He also points out that Russia and China have used Syria to challenge the west’s attempt to corral the Arab uprisings for its own interests. Moreover, Intervention is in fact already taking place. The Saudis and Qataris are reported to be funding and arming the opposition and the Free Syrian Army has a safe haven in Turkey.

But none of that will stop the killing. It will escalate it. That is the clear lesson of last year’s Nato intervention in Libya. When it began, the death toll was 1,000 to 2,000. By the time Muammar Gaddafi was captured and lynched seven months later, it was estimated at more than 10 times that figure. The legacy of foreign intervention in Libya has also been massethnic cleansing, torture and detention without trial, continuing armed conflict, and a western-orchestrated administration so unaccountable it resisted revealing its members’ names.

Milne addresses the hypocrisy of the West being “upset” and “disgusted” at Russi’s veto:

For the US, Britain and their allies to indulge in moral posturing over Syria or pose as friends of its people is preposterous. It’s not just their responsibility for hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan or, say, their support for the Bahrain dictatorship – even as it violently suppresses its own uprising while sponsoring the UN resolution for democratic transition in Syria. For 45 years, they have underwritten Israel’s occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, yet now promise to guarantee Syria’s “territorial integrity”.

Milne’s final point, and one that is not highlighted often enough, is the link between Syria and Iran. Syria is Iran’s major (and basically only) ally in the Middle East. The overthrow of the Syrian regime would be a serious blow to Iran’s influence in the Middle East. And as the conflict in Syria has escalated, so has the western-Israeli confrontation with Iran. 

Milne concludes that foreign intervention would be a disaster: The alternative of western and Gulf-dictator intervention could only lead to far greater bloodshed – and deny Syrians control of their own country.

At this point, I think I agree. 

Foreign intervention & Syria

The issue of Syria has been all over the news lately, and it is heartbreaking to see how many people are dying there everyday. The revolution has been happening for over 8 months, and rather than progress we see Assad’s forces become more & more ruthless each day.

For months now, various groups have been calling for foreign intervention in Syria. Last year we were faced with the same tough question in Libya: should the west and NATO intervene in order to prevent a massacre in Benghazi? Well, the west & NATO did intervene, did somehow prevent a massacre, but now we see Libya degenerating into numerous conflicts. We also (of course) see NATO’s plans for opening bases there. I’m sure the EU and US have similar plans, as well as plans involving oil. Most importantly, I am sure within the next few years we will see Libya’s markets being opened and liberalized, so that neoliberal capitalism can FINALLY conquer the last remaining quasi-socialist country in the Middle East and Africa.

So will the fate of Libya then be what has happened to all other former colonies who were forced to adopt neoliberal capitalism by the IMF and World Bank? In other words, a growth rate that benefits only the rich, increasing consumerism, increasing capitalism, more poor, more extreme poverty, and just general degeneration of society and the economy/political system? Yay.

With all of this in mind – is foreign intervention in Syria a good idea? I have been thinking about this for weeks now, and I just can’t decide. On the one hand so many people are dying that any stop to that sounds like a must. On the other hand, this means long-term colonization of Syria.

Of course, if Arab and African countries had any balls (and weren’t basically still colonized by the west), they could have gotten their act together and done something. So far Tunisia is the only country who has suggested taking any action. The Arab League’s mission to Syria was completely useless and in fact did more damage than anything else. The Egyptian army, for example, could have intervened in both Libya and Syria, and therefore prevented the possibility of western intervention. Oh wait, I forgot that the Egyptian military is funded by the US. Never mind.

The issue of Russa is also interesting. Hamid Dabashi wrote this:

I agree with the Syrian opposition activists who have branded the Russian and Chinese veto as a “license to kill”–I also sympathize with the American UN envoy Susan Rice, who wrote on Twitter that she was “disgusted” with this veto and said Russia and China would have blood on their hands–and then I wonder how many votes against Israel has the US vetoed–can we please apply the same vocabulary to the almighty US–that the US has given Israel “license to kill” and the world too is “disgusted” with the systematic pattern of US vetoing anything that puts Israel on the spot for doing to Palestinians what Bashar Assad is doing to Syrians–just wondering–it is an amazing moment in history when the opportunism of one superpower exposes the hypocrisy of the other.

I completely agree – the US has no right to talk about what Russia is doing at the UN, since it has systematically done the SAME THING. Does it not matter when it’s Palestinians being killed?

It seems that foreign intervention in Syria will provide some temporary relief, as it did in Libya. But in the long-term, it will be disastrous, just as it was for Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. It won’t even take that long to see the negative effects: NATO & western intervention in Libya resulted in 40,000 deaths. Moreover, the country is still in a mess (although we never hear about it in the mainstream media).

So what is the solution? I really don’t know. It is too big a question and there is simply no black-and-white answer. But those calling for western intervention should think carefully about what that really means and whether it is worth it. The west doesn’t come, save brown people, and leave. There will be a heavy price. At the end of the day, can we even talk if we are not Syrians who are being killed? What do Syrians want? CNN and Israeli media constantly show Syrians who want western intervention, while al-Jazeera shows the opposite. All I know is that during the Egyptian uprising, the majority did not want the west to get involved – but it was never as desperate as it is in Syria today.

It is such a tough call, and I hate the fact that Arabs are repeatedly being put in a situation where they have to choose between these two evils.

My next post will talk about two fascinating articles that were recently written about Syria, one arguing that intervening in Syria will only increase the killing, and another arguing that the choice is NOT between killing and intervention.