Or, to be more precise, have we always been so blatantly racist? If the events in Qamishly and Darfur prove anything about the Arab peoples, regimes and intellectuals included, is that they are far from being immune to racist stands. More so, we seem to be mired in them, immersed to the neck, in fact, but we are too numb, too absorbed with our feeling of victimhood, to pay attention, to notice. Apartheid, genocide, and slavery, especially slavery (how could we so conveniently forget about our history with slavery?) are not foreign crimes, as we have always contended. We are as equally guilty in this regard as everyone else. Continue reading “Are we all racists now?”
Tag: Arabs
Out of the dark: Syria’s Kurdish question reborn
Special to The Daily Star / A Tharwa Project Editorial
Even as the Syrian authorities seem to have successfully managed to contain the Kurdish riots that rocked the country’s northernmost city of Qamishli over the last few weeks, there could be no denying that the country’s long neglected Kurdish question is finally out of the dark and is crying out for answers. But can the Syrian authorities muster enough will and internal support to sit down with the Kurdish parties and hammer out an answer that is acceptable to both sides? Continue reading “Out of the dark: Syria’s Kurdish question reborn”
Syria and the Kurds – cool heads must prevail
Tharwa Editorial
The recent tragic developments in Syria’s northernmost city of Qamishli, and the ensuing spillovers into other townships and cities, deserve more than simple condemnations of alleged wrongdoers, agents provocateurs, and/or the authorities, local or national. If these events are to be truly contained so that they are not repeated in the future and so as to avoid the slightest hint of the possibility of foreign intervention and any recourse to spiteful and vindictive rhetoric and measures, certain basic issues related to the living conditions and status of Syria’s Kurdish population need to be seriously addressed. Continue reading “Syria and the Kurds – cool heads must prevail”
Are we all racist now?
Tharwa Editorial
Although we cannot deny that the deeper causes for the conflict in Darfur seem to lie in the scarcity of resources in the region and the restricted access to them rather than ethnic tension, which seems to be a contributing factor only, current Arab reactions to developments in Darfur, official and popular, border on racism (to put it bluntly). The same can also be said with regard to reaction vis-à-vis Kurdish aspirations and concerns.
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 