The News Circle/Arab-American magazine, August 1998,  # 197

Faith in Humanity 

By NAJEEB N. KHOURY 

Despite being a compelling superficial argument, this quote is wrong. For the West and East both contain humanity. It is this fundamental fact that makes them similar. In the realm of politics, however, people from very many different vantage points have used the idea expressed in this quote to irrevocably separate the Middle East from Europe 

(and the United States). 

    

 Orientalists use this argument to say that we must treat the Middle East in a fundamentally different, more forceful, less humanistic way when it comes to foreign policy. And traditional Middle Eastern politicians, usually in an effort to preserve their regimes, say that no lessons from the success of the West can be used in the inherently different Middle East. 

   

 However, after spending six months in the Middle East, I think the two cultures are much closer to one another than most people like to think. And while there are some very basic and beautiful differences, the two cultures have been interconnected and intertwined since time immemorial. For instance, in addition to being the cradle of Western Civilization, the Arabs, during the height of their empire and the dark days of Europe, preserved the Greek 

scholarship and sciences and added and expanded to the fields of knowledge that the Europeans would use during the Renaissance. 

  

  Since the Renaissance, however, European society has been more prosperous, innovative and vigorous than Arab society. I think there is a very simple explanation: Western European governments have been more responsive and have unleashed the potential of the individual. One of the great ideas of the Enlightenment was that if you treat human beings as sacred ends in themselves, then you will get a vibrant society. The reason being that by allowing humans to determine their own fate, the potential of human beings would be unleashed. In fact, Ibn Khaldun, the great Arab philosopher, made this observation indirectly. He said that empires initially are vigorous because they are efficiently run and allow for innovation. After a few generations, Ibn Khaldun perceptively observed, corruption sets in and those people with connections, rather than intelligence and ingenuity, rule society, and then the society becomes weak and fragile. 

   

 This new belief in the individual is what gave Europeans such an edge over the rest of the  world. Ironically, instead of treating non-Europeans as sacred individuals, this new-found power led Europeans to believe that they were genetically and culturally superior to the rest of the world. Western belief in Locke and Kant, the philosophers who put trust and sanctity in the individual, was not extended to the rest of the world; rather, in Europe’s treatment of the rest of the world, the Europeans still subscribed to the traditional Hobbesian view of an anarchical, brutish world. The potential of the individual, therefore, was not unlocked in the rest of the world. 

   

 As a result of colonialism and liberation movements, many Third World leaders started to rightly challenge many of the encroachments of the West on their societies. They bravely fought the West’s attempt to deny them self determination and to force Western culture on the rest of the world. At the same time, however, many of these same leaders insincerely claimed that democracy and individualism were inherently Western characteristics and used this argument to justify tyrannical, authoritarian regimes. These arguments were disingenuous because individualism is a distinct aspect of humanity. And the individual defines himself in terms of his group; therefore, individuals deciding their own fate would do so within their own cultural framework, and they would develop their own, not a Western 

implant, vigorous and vibrant society. 

  

  It is these Third World authoritarian regimes that have prevented development and have perpetuated the stagnation and weakness of the underdeveloped world. America and Europe, however, have supported these regimes for two principle reasons: 1) after colonialism, the West had very little moral ground to stand on, as its actions were clearly 

not consistent with its words; 2) and in a desire for stable markets and satellite states in the Cold War, the West supported and continues to support these regimes. As a result, we have what many term neo-colonialism--the controlling of less developed states through strongman, puppet dictatorships. And while not supporting these dictators might lead to short-term chaos, in the long run, if we believe in the principles that America was founded on, greater prosperity and freedom will come about. 

 

   I have personally seen what happens when humans are not treated as sacred individuals but as mere pawns in a larger game. In my six months in Palestine, I saw and befriended many young people who are intelligent, wonderful human beings but who have no future because they are pieces in the larger geo-political game. We owe it to them and to all our Arab and human brothers and sisters to insist upon a humane American policy that will respect all people, regardless of race, color or creed, and that will lead to a more prosperous, peaceful future. In addition to this, we should oppose all Arab tyranny when we see. For being oppressed by our own people is no better than being oppressed by others, and not only is it immoral, but it also perpetuates our weakness and deflates our dreams--our dreams as Arabs, Americans and humans. 

** Najeeb N. Khoury is a student at Harvard  Law School. 

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