We are often so obsessed with the problems and conflicts that define the relationship between the Middle East and the West today that we tend to lose sight of the constructive currents that flow beneath the surface. An unusual week of consecutive conferences and seminars in Amman and Beirut brought that point home to me last week. Honest exchanges with scholars, officials and activists of integrity and insight – especially ones we disagree with – enrich our understanding of this region, its ties to the world, and the core issues that plague and challenge us. In my rich week of exchanges with colleagues from throughout the Middle East, Europe and North America, we discussed many timely issues: Iraq and its consequences, Arab political reform prospects, the weaknesses and potential of Arab secular political parties, and indigenous agents of change and innovation within the Arab world (such as youth, businesses, women, young Islamists, and the culture and arts sector). Such gatherings reflect an important aspect of the Arab world, Turkey and Iran – a constant, often intense, analytical probing into the nature and causes of our many shortcomings, along with serious attempts to chart a way out of our predicaments. We no longer spend a lot of time merely bemoaning the chronic cycle of violence, warfare, occupation, neocolonialism and extremism that shatters many of our countries, or romantically pleading for more justice or democratic governance. Today, we seem be in a new mindset of working together across borders, to probe deeper into fixing what is wrong, instead of only cursing the darkness. Civil society, scholars, journalists and business people from all over the world are doing what most of their governments seem unable or unwilling to: meeting regularly with an open mind – without banning or boycotting any party, free of threats and sanctions – to agree on both the problems and the solutions of our societies. The meetings I attended last week were sponsored by a range of institutions that reflect this global dynamic, including Germany’s Heinrich Boll Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the American University of Beirut, the Arab Reform Initiative that comprises Arab, European and American research centers, the University of Jordan, and Canada’s IDRC, among others. No clash of cultures here, only an overdose of croissants and coffee. Iranians, Turks, many different Arabs, Americans, Canadians and assorted Europeans at these and other such gatherings painstakingly dissect our distortions and deviant behavior; but they also identify the positive forces for stability, self-confidence, creativity and real development that prevent Middle Eastern societies from total collapse. There is plenty to identify on both side of this assets-liabilities divide. For one important trend that has emerged in recent years, and seems to dominate these days, is the tendency to recognize nuance and shun absolutism, to see the world as a range of shades rather than starkly black and white, good or evil, cowboy or Indian. This may sound slightly simplistic, but it is important to recognize in the face of aggressive attitudes – and occasional organized lobbying campaigns – by some parties in the United States, Israel, and parts of Europe and the Arab and Islamic world that would paint us in single colors, and reduce us to silhouette cartoon figures that deny rather than affirm our humanity and rights. This tendency to judge others in absolute terms emerges from the discussion of any aspect of the contemporary Middle East – Iraq, Palestine, Hezbollah and Lebanon, democratic change, women’s status, take your pick. The truth is, these and other facets of our region mirror two sides of the same human beings: a tendency to political and intellectual militancy and violence, alongside a heroic, often epic, commitment to reason and humanism in the face of the barbarism and pain inflicted upon them. The increased number of conferences, study groups and quiet, private meetings that bring together Middle Easterners with colleagues from the rest of the world is a positive sign of the capacity of our societies to engage humbly and rationally and politically seek solutions to our shared tensions, instead of emotionally and militarily. In gathering after gathering that I attend in the Middle East and abroad, I sense this growing commitment, and capacity, to dialogue across cultures and ideologies – but to go beyond only dialogue, and to find realistic solutions that might one day influence our dysfunctional decision-makers. We all meet, talk, learn and seek a rational consensus on which to build an edifice of tolerance, respect and coexistence – in those interim periods when we are not killing and defaming each other. Take your pick, for there is indeed a choice to be made, for those who care to acknowledge the real world of nuanced human beings, rather than their fantasy world of silhouette cowboys and Indians. Rami G. Khouriis published twice-weekly in THE DAILY STAR.
Constructive currents flow below Middle Eastern civil society
