Myth No.3: We believe in Arabism

2005/03/19 Myth No.3: We believe in Arabism Recently, scores of analysts all around the world are coming up with this big revelation: Arabism is Dying in Syria. How clever is that!! When the heck Arabism was alive in the first place for it to die? In the fifties or sixties, maybe, but we were lucky not to live in that miserable era of Big-looser Nasser and Associates. We, the Happy Generations of Syria who were borne after the Happy Revolution of 1963, never knew Arabism except in books, and we knew these are as bullshit as extraterrestrial creatures books. Political analysts and journalists need a story though, and if there is no one, they will invent one. The identity of Nothingness, (apology to Nietzsche and ZEN), which is exactly what most of us Syrians have, won't make a good story and won't sell books and articles. The Fall of Arabism on the other hand would. That is why you have scores of writings and blogs about the: taaadaa: Dying of Arabism.

Karfan is convinced that all those geniuses preaching about the Dying of Arabism in Syria, obviously never lived in Syria. Or as he puts it, never took a stinky microbus from a stinky half-built-house in Eishh Elwarar (an area that is the perfectly precise opposite to Beverly Hills) to a stinky governemental Istehlakya (An ingeniously screwed-up Syrian version of supermarkets) and wait for an hour to get a stinky 2kg of rice from a stinky employer yelling in your face. Now, only then tell me if they can find a trace of Arabism in people. They assumed that there was Arabism and they are making a living out of writing bullshit on how it is dying. In light of the absence of the above-mentioned inspirational experience, they base their wicked revelation on two wicked sources: 1. The writings of some Syrian geniuses intellectuals from the "Failure Generation", that is our fathers'. Those people want to give meaning to their failed lives in which they could not achieve what others achieved in even Burkina Faso, not mentioning Asia and elsewhere, so they write bullshit saying that they ""succeeded"" in: Leaving us the Legacy of Arabism. Yes in deed, they have left us that in books; we have tons of those for lucky falafel makers to wrap their sandwiches. 2. The interviewing of people in the streets by journalists and academics, which goes like this: Happy western journalist: What identity do you believe in? Miserable broken Syrian: I believe in Arabic identity. Oh, and by the way, we ALL love our president. What on earth do you expect us to say we believe in?

"Kurds in Syria are joining the Baath party": what does Happy western academic 1 make of that? That Arabism is sooo convincing it would make people change their skin and blood. "Kurds in Syria are revolting": what does Happy western academic 2 make of that? That Arabism is dying.

Karfan never met a single so called "Arab" that has a sense of unity or brotherhood with any other inhabitant of the other so called "Arab Countries". People who really want to fight Israelis are driven by religious animosity toward Jews not by Arabic enthusiasm. People who really want to unite with Gulf countries are driven by the wealth they think they can share not by Arabic enthusiasm. Didn't Iraqi soldiers killed and raped Kuwaiti men and women while still ""saying"" that they were serving the glorious dream of Arabic Unification?. Still, Happy western journalists and academics ignored the deeds, looked at the words, and interpreted that Kuwaiti Fiesta as a product of Arabism. But wait, good news is coming: Arabism is now dying. Who said that only Hollywood makes stories out of nothing?

It is true that we have been drummed up day and night continuously with Arabism bullshit, but the only successful result of this policy is that we became conditioned to speak about it. We are Arabs, we love Arabs, Arab World, Urubaa, Blablabla, Just wards! In reality, a person from Tunisia might as well be from Honolulu and it wouldn't make a damn difference for us. Syrians will tell you that they are Arab because: 1. It is the only thing we were taught to say we are. What else is to say? We never been taught or allowed to learn anything else, we never knew any other vocabularies to say. 2. It is the only thing we were allowed to say. We all know that we are just Sunnis, Alawis, Murshdees, Druuz, etc to the end of the glorious list, but we are not allowed to utter that. It is the existing truth that no one is permitted to voice. We were not even taught or allowed to say that we are Syrians, as this would be considered a deviation from the Holy Message of our Holy Arab Homeland-to-come. Only recently under the rule of "King Lion the 2nd", God Bless His Dynasty, people were allowed to say that they are Syrians without being accused and punished as Iqlimees (regionalists: One of the many ingenious swear words invented by the Failure Generation)!!

This Arabism might have had its glorious days back at the time of the big idiot Shareef Hussein and his clueless sons, or back in the days of Naser Don Kichote, maybe. But for us, the Happy Generations of Syria who were borne after the Happy Revolution of 1963, it existed in words in books and is now dying in blogs. Poor Arabism!