Heretics' almanac

Bombing mosques and the Arab Street

Do a search on news.google.com on the term "Arab Street," and you'll find that this is a favorite term among those who think that US, and especially Israeli policies are misguided.

It appears that the Arab street is a moody bitch easily roused into unforgiving resentment and hatred, unable to consider the broader context of any action, not to be trifled with. For all this, she has finely tuned political instincts, invariably knowing where to put her political sympathies (the same place as leftist European intellectuals). We should therefore pay close attention to the Arab street, because her opinions have merit.

And the Arab street is a terrible threat - although she seems to be in a perpetual state of agitation, there's always the risk that things will "boil over," resulting in some cataclysmic event that would strike us Westerners with awe. Hasn't happened yet, but we're warned it might.

The few Arab streets I've visited (all, it must be admitted, were in Israel and the Territories) were by and large busy but peaceful places. And the Arabs I've met and talked are often (okay, usually (okay, universally)) in opposition to Israeli and U.S. foreign policy, but they weren't likely to be swept away by mass hysteria more easily than anyone else.

So when the US bombs a mosque that "insurgents" are using for cover, I tend to believe that the Arab street knows the basic facts: the mosque was only bombed because the insurgents hid in it, not because coalition forces like to see how domes collapse when hit by two 500-lb bombs. So even though newspapers predicted all kinds of riots on the Arab street - surprise! - the Arabs actually knew that while this was regretable, it wasn't worth making a big stink about. Sure, some formal protests, some criticism, but not bloody riots.

Since the people who threaten with the Arab street largely are unfazed by ironies, they don't usually take into account two uncomfortable truths about the Arab street:

- There was widespread celebration in several Arab cities - notably Palestinian ones - on September 11th, 2001, and also when terrorist succeeded in killing a large number of Jews in Israel. In other words, there's a bit of a mob mentality based on the notion of a demon enemy that is Jewish, or controlled by Jews.

- The Arab street constitutes a formidable threat to Arab regimes, none of which is democratic by any reasonable standard, and all of which have shown willingness and ability to shut down resistance with murderous force.

What is wrong with (some) people in Fallujah?

Military and administration officials go to great lengths to distinguish between attacks on US resources in Iraq. A great number of them, we're told, are imported terrorists who have finally found targets in their own backyard. Others are Iraqi insurgents who are Ba'ath holdouts, nutcases, or local extremists.

The big question is whether many of them are Iraqi resistance fighters - people who are glad to be rid of Saddam, are not looking to destroy Western civilization, aren't particularly religious, but simply want Iraq to be free of military occupation.

The Bushies will say that by definition, none of the attackers are like that. The radical left wing will say they're all like that.

The recent attack in Fallujah don't provide a good argument for either side of this issue. It's hard for the Bush administration to say that it was simply the work of foreign terrorists when there was so much jubilation among regular passers-by. But the left wing can't exactly say these are noble freedom fighters, either - attacking random civilian Americans and mutilating their corpses goes far beyond the stuff propaganda posters are made of.

You have to wonder, though: what drives people to incinerate a random car, beat to death the one surviving passenger, mutilate the corpses, and hang them up for public display?

This sort of thing has happened before. Oliver Cromwell was exhumed and posthumously drawn and quartered. One of the American soldiers killed in Mogadishu of "Black Hawk Down" fame was mutilated. Palestinians also mutilated the bodies of the two soldiers who got lost in one of their towns. Mussolini and his mistress were pulled through streets and hung up like carcasses after they'd been killed.

But in the history of riots, lynchings, gang wars, and other collective madness, you don't usually see people taking it out on the bodies of the victims. Once they're dead, they're usually left to rot until someone takes pity and disposes properly of their bodies. In the war in Afghanistan, for example, Northern Alliance soldiers would leave Al Qaeda bodies to rot but properly bury Taliban soldiers. Mob informers will get shot in the eye. Brits condemned to being drawn and quartered would have their body parts buried in different parts of the country, their heads put on a stake for public viewing. But these are not expressions of rage against already dead bodies - they're intended to warn others.

What all the corpse mutiliation incidents have in common is this: the victims a) are overwhelmingly more powerful than the perpetrators; b) get caught in a moment of vulnerability; and c) represent order in a time of chaos. Corpse mutiliation is petty and childish. It is utterly counter-productive, in that nobody will feel proud over having witnessed it the day after, and it provokes rage among the targets' survivors.

So, to be cynical, who scores political points on this? Honestly, I think the neocons. This expression of rage among certain residents of Fallujah is not a function of American occupation; it's a function of a society that has been subject to violence for all too long, without any means of fighting back. The perpetrators know that if they had done this to Ba'ath operatives in Saddam's time, Fallujah would have been levelled to the ground, after all the men and old people were murdered, women raped and murdered, and children taken away. The Americans may threaten "overwhelming" retaliation, but it'll be nothing compared to what Arab despots would do.