Arafat Shunned By Rulers, Revered By The People

by MB Naqvi

(IPS) -- The passing of Yasser Arafat is sure to create a malaise among the Palestinian people.

But in the wider non-Arab Muslim world, stretching from Turkey to Brunei, not to mention central Asia, Russia and China -- which have sizeable Muslim minorities -- his legacy will live on.

Pakistan, Turkey and India, however, could be exceptions.

In these countries, Arafat was loved, and support for the Palestinian cause is strong. Opposition to Israel and the U.S. may continue at a popular level.

In Pakistan, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader was admired across the divide between the supporters of religious parties and those who subscribe to different schools of thought.

The Pakistani religious lobby, of course, interprets the Palestinian struggle in religious terms -- namely that the Jewish state is hell-bent on oppressing the Muslim people of Palestine after grabbing most of the Palestinians' land.

This narrow view refuses to acknowledge that there is far more to the Palestinian struggle than the religious dimension -- that the struggle against Israel was, and is, a joint venture between Muslim and Christian Arabs and it basically remains secular.

Also, many PLO factions are led by Christians, as are many officials of the Palestinian Authority. Nonetheless, Arafat will go on being a symbol of heroic struggle, against overwhelming odds for all who are not satisfied with the status quo in Pakistan -- and India.

Insofar as the Arab states are concerned, Arafat was a popular idol for all common Arabs.

But nearly all their rulers hated Abu Ammar, as Arafat was affectionately known. To them, he was someone who inspired their masses to start demanding democratic rights -- in much the same way as Palestinian people are struggling to free themselves from Israeli control in their bid to establish their own state.

Arafat was seen by all Arab rulers -- both kings and dictators -- as a dangerous influence on their people. His struggles gave them ideas and the Arab powers-that-be just hated that and felt threatened.

For that reason few Arab countries willingly allowed the Palestinian refugees to reside in their cities.

Both Jordan and Lebanon were forced to accept them but Amman and later Syria took the opportunity to oppress the Palestinians and drove them out on the pretext that they were a threat to national security.

Saddam's Iraq never encouraged the Palestinian refugees to come and live in its country, though Iraq's support for the Palestinian cause was the loudest and the Iraqi leader was relatively free in doling out money for the creation of a Palestinian state.

One paradox, however, needs to be mentioned.

Historically all Arab kings were the creation of European colonial powers; their continued existence depended on the military might of those colonial powers before 1945 and on the American thereafter. None of them could act independently of their protector's wishes.

But their international stance had to be pro-Arab and pro-Palestine as a concession to modern Arab nationalism -- which was sweeping through the region at the time.

These Arab kingdoms were clamouring for the creation of a distant Arab land that had an important religious center in it -- the al Quds' Grand Mosque. They were forced to take up this cause without their heart being in it.

That meant, in practice, unlimited rhetoric of Arab solidarity for al Quds Mosque in a land understood to be Palestine.

And their actions were determined by the expediencies of the day - to stay within the bounds they imagined their masters had laid down. Words and some money were for the Palestinian cause; the rest was their own self-indulgence.

Conservative Arab regimes can be charged with leading the Palestinians up the garden path, making hard-to-keep promises that they would not rest until the state of Palestine was created.

But in the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel -- surrounded by Arab states but the most powerful militarily, thanks to U.S. aid -- showed what it could do in the Middle East. And that was the turning point in the Arab world and a blow to Pan-Arab nationalism.

After that the Saudis and Kuwaitis -- Arafat's main financiers -- persuaded the Palestinian leader to accept a mini-Palestine on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Ironically that enabled Israel to use a combination of adroit diplomacy and overwhelming force to grab more designated Palestinian land.

For that reason, Palestinians remain bitter about conservative Arab regimes -- especially in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

But the Middle East could soon see change with Arafat gone.

While he was alive, the Palestinian leader lent his conscience to the otherwise quiet Arab masses. In death, he will be an even bigger force among all Arab people, much to the chagrin of conservative Middle East regimes.

Arafat's death also opens the door to the United States and Israel to play a role in bringing stability to the region.

U.S. President George W. Bush, in his second term in office, should press the various Arab potentates to progressively introduce democratic freedoms and representative governments. Israel, in turn, should agree to a settlement with the successors of Arafat.

Only then can the Arab world come out of its darkness, make its way into the 21st century and embrace modernity.