
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 13, 1991                   TAG: 9103130427
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ENOUGH ABOUT WESTERN `ABUSE' OF POOR ARABS

YOUR COMMENTARY Page went to the distant Los Angeles Times on Feb. 19 to favor us with another "Arabs are people, too" article. It featured an Iraqi-American's recollection of his Arab roots, his worries about relatives in Iraq, his dislike of Saddam, and his recent brush-off of a Jewish friend when asked about his feelings concerning the war.

He had "mixed feelings" about the war because "After all, the West has abused the Arab people for well over a century." This fundamental sense of having been abused floats through this entire piece and through many Arab discussions of the Middle East.

Arabs were abused by the Ottoman Empire for 500 years, then abused by the West who freed them from the Ottomans. The West abused them by establishing their nation states; by finding, pumping, and providing markets for oil (which, unknown to the Arabs, lay under their deserts), and finally supporting further abuse by the Israelis, who abused the Arabs by surviving repeated Arab attacks.

The story of Arab abuse is lengthy: made rich against their will, given Western science and health practices, coerced by the West to consider human rights, democratic government and religious tolerance as alternatives to Arab-style revenge, slavery and law by mutilation. These much-abused people draw my deepest sympathy, especially when the author points out that the Iraqi and, by analogy, the Arab people in general have been far more abused by their own dictators than by the Western countries allied against them now.

The Arab "poor me" chorus has been performing regularly in Western newspapers. Arab nationalism in my generation appears to be less a fight for national dignity than an excuse to avoid the tasks of national adulthood. More than anything, the Arab people need to cease whining about how abused they are and begin the job of growing up as human societies. ALAN TEMPKIN ROANOKE

by CNB