Conspiracy theories haunt Arabs

Perhaps the single most famous characteristic with which Arabs have been labeled has been their love of conspiracy theory.

As events unfold in Iraq, Arabs have failed to draw adequate conclusions about the reasons behind an ever deteriorating security situation. As usual, whenever Arabs are in doubt, they blame someone for their failure. In Iraq's case, they blame America.

These few lines are not written to defend an ever expand American empire. They rather aim at correcting the Arab perception about the on going events.

Examine the following Arab scenario about Iraq. The US installed Saddam Hussein, it later deposed him and invaded Iraq, then it started resistance operations to justify its stay in the country. These operations included the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad and the killing of a moderate Shiite leading cleric, Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim in Najaf.

Such a scenario might be true. Yet it certainly discredits the Arab role in history and downgrade their status into mere spectators of whatever happens on the world scene. In other words, while America acts and counter-reacts in the region, Arabs only watch these events on al-Jazeera and other satellite channels.

The above-scenario is rubbish and must be trashed for it over-inflates the American role in world history and under-estimates the contribution of other peoples including that of Arabs.

On the internal level, conspiracy hallucinations still occupy the Arab mind inside their political parties, organizations and institutions.

In Syria in the mid of the past centuries, never ending coup d'état sent the country into turbulence. Every two officers conspired against everybody else. Of course all conspiracies were carried in the name of defending the interest of the nation.

On the level of political activism, every two Arabs form a party. Party membership is low and often groups are infested with rivalry, bickering and petit politics. The criteria for animosity vary from personal reasons to the inability of entertaining the opinion of the other.

In Arab political parties, members are expected to carry identical dogmatic rigid ideologies. There are no wings inside a single party.

Whenever a little disagreement occurs, accusations fly causing endless schisms.

Whenever an activist tries to offer some progressive plans, he/she would be accused of trying to dominate the group, to create a dictatorship and to impose his/her tyranny on others.

The end result of this fear of internal conspiracies, is further divisions and the inability to pursue any serious effort for change.