An attack on us all

The preparations for a war on Iraq are moving inexorably forward,
despite  UN intervention, formal and popular opposition, and Iraqi
ingenuity and  compliance. The real motives for this projected attack,
despite a plethora  of public pronouncements, remain confusing and
mysterious. Many Arabs see  in it a variety of sinister plots involving
control over their oil,  neo-colonialism in their region and the
machinations of a hegemonic  Israel. Much of this has been ascribed to
the Arab obsession with  conspiracy theories, and yet there is an anti-
Arab theme running through  the debate over Iraq.

  A deep and unconscious racism imbues every aspect of  Western conduct
towards Iraq - and by extension the Arabs in general.Ever  since the
first Gulf war, America and its Western allies have portrayed  the
conflict as a fight with one man, Saddam Hussein, apparently
existing  in a void in which the 22 million Iraqi inhabitants do not
feature. Even  the name of the 1991 military campaign against Iraq!  -
Desert Storm - helped reinforce this concept of an empty land. The
Iraqi  leader is always referred to by his first name, not in
endearment of  course but, in the Arab view, to denigrate his status;
no other president  of a sovereign state is addressed in this way.

  Arabs call him Saddam as well, but the reasons are quite different.
As an  Arabic personal name, it is al most unique and hence could be a
surname.  This implies no disrespect, as in the West. The epithets
applied to the  Iraqi leader are so virulent as to demonise him beyond
reason. All sense  of who he really is, a petty local chieftain, albeit
a brutal and ruthless  one, and third world dictator in the mould of
many others before him, has  long vanished from the debate.

  No wonder that in this scenario, the Iraqi people - the real victims
of  the West's sanctions against President Saddam - have been ignored.
Their  feelings go unremarked, except when it has been politically
expedient to  adopt one or other group among them - the Marsh Arabs,
the Shia community  in southern Iraq, the Kurds. Under the latest UN
security council  resolution (1441), Iraqi scientists and their
"immediate families" can be  moved out of Iraq for interrogation, like
so many inanimate objects.

  This  ignores both the rights and wishes of the people concerned but
also the  crucial fact that Arab families are traditionally extended.
The immediate  members make up a fraction of a much larger whole, and
all are  important.  No Iraqi would submit to any procedure that might
endanger this extended  family.

  To Arabs, resolution 1441 evokes nothing less than the image of a
sadistic  UN schoolmaster flogging an errant Iraqi pupil. At the same
time,  strenuous Western efforts have been made to groom Iraqi
opposition groups  for government - though they are notorious for being
unstable - without  the slightest concern for their legitimacy in Iraq
or their acceptability  to the Iraqi people. Undeterred, the US backed
a major Iraqi opposition  conference in London to elaborate a future
post-war strategy for Iraq.

Reports spoke of petty squabbling and rivalry among the 50 or so
groups  there, while the US envoy was making "the real decisions" in
private  meetings.  Likewise, the planning of the war on Iraq and its
aftermath is callously  unconcerned with the human consequences. Arab
states considered necessary  for launching the war have been coerced
into acquiescence with the  American plan, irrespective of the effects
on their populations and  governments.

  Iraq's history under British rule in the 1920s, when popular
opposition  was crushed by military force, including the use of mustard
gas, is a  vivid reminder of such attitudes. In 1921 Winston Churchill,
then colonial  secretary, wrote in an official communication: "I am
strongly in favour of  using poison gas on  uncivilised tribes." Later,
he added that the gas  used against the Iraqi rebels had "excellent
moral effects".  America's intention to wage an unprovoked war on Iraq
is redolent of this  earlier colonialist tradition. The racism
underlying this emanates from an  anti-Arab culture in the US that
gained strength after September 11,  though it was well established
before.

  Hollywood made several overtly  anti-Arab films long before September
11, notably True Lies in 1994, which  depicted Arab terrorists bombing
American cities. The mass media and  countless cartoons now depict
Arabs in overtly racist ways and go  unpunished; Arabs are being
harassed and intimidated, and 2,000 are  currently being held without
trial in US jails.  I recall that a similar culture prevailed in the UK
during the 1956 Suez  crisis and the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when Nasser
was the arch-villain and  all Arabs were crudely targeted. Today, in
Britain, such overt  anti-Arabness is unacceptable, so it takes subtler
forms. Saddam-bashing,  a sport officially sanctioned since 1991, has
made him the perfect  surrogate for anti-Arab abuse. It is tragic that
the Arabs themselves -  those who are providing facilities for this war
- should have colluded  with an enterprise so irrational, destructive
and demeaning. 

Ghada Karmi is former president of the Palestinian Community
Association in Britain

The Guardian Weekly