quinta-feira, março 27, 2003
A decadência arabe
Um artigo escrito por Fawaz Turki (desconheço a sua nacionalidade) no Arab News acerta na mouche quanto às razões da decadência árabe.
Why, after well over half-a-century of independence, do we remain so weak, so helpless at meeting the challenges of history, of modernity, of progress? So vulnerable to the whims of invaders who know they can ravage our land, at will, without fear of retribution?
Why has our political culture proven so barren, our public debate so dreary, our reflections on national selfhood so desperately monotonous?
Begin here: We in the Arab world have quietly acquiesced in the forfeiture of our powers of self-determination as individuals and, collectively, as a polity.
We have lived in societies where a handful of men dictate our destiny, where we are socialized on the ethic of fear — fear of innovation and originality — and are coerced into embracing orthodoxy and uniformity. So much so that we have become a mirror image of our authoritarian elite, and like them, living in deep denial, incapable of grasping reality.
The strength of a culture derives from the freedom of citizens to speak freely and openly, to engage in the kind of discourse where all are entitled, even encouraged, to express diverse views that would challenge the conventional wisdom of ruling elites.
When members of a whole community are told that they must express no criticism of a leader, that they must stand by him through thick and thin, right or wrong, they in effect are not only forfeiting their human rights, but contributing to the perpetuation of a broken-down society, shorn of its social capital.
A society that dumps a citizen in jail for 20 years for dissenting with a leader or tortures an intellectual because the authorities disagree with his views is not only broken down, but is broken in back and spirit.
A society, in other words, where adversarial thinkers have their heads hit when they are lifted and their voices silenced when they are raised or that hounds its most talented figures into exile is vacuous at its civilizational core
Apesar de tão brilhante análise Fawaz Turki falha rotudamente na conclusão final. Para ele a presente guerra representa apenas um normal acto de um predador perante uma presa debilitada.
Esquece-de de nomear outros factores.
Os regimes despóticos que ele caracterizou não se limitaram a cometer actos de censura e repressão contra pequenos grupos. Massacraram povos que não se submetiam ao seus criterios sociais, religiosos e politicos. Exportaram essas revoluções para outros países. E por ultimo reconhecendo a sua incapacidade perante um mundo mais desenvolvido pretenderam culpa-lo pelos seus erros declarando uma guerra suja sem quartel.
Fawaz Turki acaba o seu texto imbuindo-se da seguinte tarefa:
As we go about pondering this latest catastrophe in our homeland, we should begin by asking if there is a lesson in all of this for us.
Talvez a solução seja o fim dos regimes terrorista e despóticos no mundo árabe...
posted by Miguel Noronha 11:12 da tarde
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