After the dust settled following the murder of Marwa Elsherbini by a German fanatic, what are the lessons to be learnt from this dramatic incident? Does it actually reveal deep cracks in the dialogue of cultures which we all for decades have been trying to hold between the West and Islam? Is it just a storm caused by fanaticism and fuelled by ethnic and religious zeal, then passed into oblivion, as is the case with all Arabs, and Muslims series of misfortunes without learning the lessons drawn from them or modifying our behaviour and thinking, particularly as we are living hard times which require thinking and careful consideration more than ever before?

Following that vicious crime, Arabs, anger flared up everywhere. There s nothing wrong in this; we may be angry about any abuses carried out against us. Similarly, we may be angry about any insult to any person anywhere in the world as we are all human beings. However, it is unfortunate that such anger was somewhat emotional and was limited to shouting and demanding the German embassy to apologize, without considering every aspect of the issue.

This case is in fact another episode in a series of contradictions of the dialogue of cultures. Whenever there is a Muslim or Arab victim, there are protests everywhere about infringed Arabs rights, and the West s anti-Arab and Muslim intentions. Media organizations use the incident to provoke argument, neglecting their role and responsibility for shaping public opinion and giving facts to the people without influencing their feelings.

Such cases should in fact motivate us strongly to carefully consider our cultural and social conditions as well as our behaviour towards ourselves and others. We neglect Muslim and Arab human rights violations if committed in our own countries, but condemn them if committed elsewhere.

Unsound sympathy

In point of fact, in these circumstances we ignore the terrorist acts committed by some anti-West Muslim extremists in some Arab countries since the 1980s, without any public or media sympathy with the hundreds of innocent victims of those acts who were just foreign tourists who came to visit some of our cities and familiarize themselves with our culture and societies. The relatives of those victims though many- didn t demand an apology from Arab governments because they know the reality of this phenomenon and that such extremism does not express an official or popular attitude towards the subjects of foreign countries.

The big difference between reactions on both sides reflects the serious crisis facing our Arab culture, which has become one of defeat rather than power. In such a situation people have a sort of a passive irrational approach to issues influenced by zeal and hostile reactions resulting from loss of self-confidence. Arabs reactions to similar incidents involving abuses against us over the last few years are no more than extremely hostile attitudes without understanding of the aspects of the problem, whereas we can achieve more if we think objectively about practical, effective means.

Culture of defeat concerns

There was a serious escalation in this issue when Uighur Muslims in the Chinese region of Xinjiang staged an uprising, with many calls for separation from China. There were calls from Muslims and Arabs for interference to save Muslims in China. Unaware that what happens in China is an internal affair, these calls disregard international conventions, treaties and protocols which regulate China s relations with the outside world and prevent interference in its internal affairs. The same applies to any Arab country in case any group demands separation from the homeland. The culture of defeat makes us believe that what takes place there is directed towards us as Arabs and Muslims, while most of it is an internal matter in a country with which we have conventions, protocols, commercial and economic agreements, etc.

Serious conflicts occur in Iraq on a daily basis, particularly between religious and sectarian groups, and Iraq s Christians are the main group who suffer all kinds of pressure, discrimination and murder, and there are even calls for expelling them from Iraq, although they are the oldest sect to live in Iraq, ages before the entry of Islam.

Similarly, many Arab media organizations regarded the release of the man accused in the Lockerbie case as a victory for Islam, but the whole matter is in fact related to the blowing up of an international airliner, and has nothing to do with religion, ethnicity or Muslims. Surprisingly, in their attitude to these three cases, some Arab intellectuals, like the general public who don t know the hard facts, followed an irrational way of thinking influenced by defeatism. This way of thinking and emotional, hostile reactions only lead to further misunderstanding of Islam and Arab societies by non-Arab parties, which deepens hostility against us at a time we are in a pressing need for the world s understanding of us so as to enable us to resolve the Iraqi and Palestinian crises and other pending issues.

In the meantime, a racist country par excellence like Israel, which acts hostilely towards us all, presents itself to the world as a democratic, advanced country to reinforce a negative image of Muslim Arabs as peoples who hate the world and fight others in the name of Islam. This is one of the main differences between the Arabs and Israel. Unlike it, we act out of defeatism, without awareness or careful investigation. That is why there are differences in stories and reactions.

False conceptions

There are several reasons behind the culture of defeat, one of which is that in restoring its independence over the past century, contemporary Arab culture adopted an utterly hostile attitude towards the West as a colonial enemy, without differentiating between modernization as a conception not related to the West and its being a natural development of any society striving to achieve progress freely. Furthermore, the Arab individual s identity crisis reflected in his attempt to link it to heritage, but instead of freeing the heritage of formal rituals related to the historical circumstances in which it emerged, he adhered to form rather than content. In this context and misunderstanding we can understand such retrogression which manifests itself in a number of signs around us, including heated arguments over headscarves or veils, or details about rites and clothing, whereas the essence of the argument is missing or ignored. That, among other reasons, led to sectarian strife as almost each party consider themselves the only omniscient. This is a natural thing in the climate of fanaticism which causes sticking to superficialities and formalities far from the tenets and true values of religion, rather than questions about issues concerning the realities of life, society and the future.

Evidence of this is represented in the huge number of people who took to the street in protest at abuses against Islam, but there were no public protests against violations of their basic rights or stripping them of their dignity through infringement of their political and economic rights by government and non-government forces alike. Instead of this, they embrace such issues that seem to them agreed upon and secure and make them safe from arrest. This is the usual position of conservative groups acting, as previously mentioned, out of defeatism.

We will therefore see that all political religious forces in any Arab area do not offer economic, social or political reform programmes of any value and only take up controversial matters and focus on formalities without any real political reform ideas. They derive their popularity from a defeatist public who find relief from their crises in formal practices of religion instead of real religion, which seeks progress, welfare and rationalism, which, in essence, are among the most important values of Islam and other revealed religions.

Myths of the ages of backwardness

The culture of defeat which triggers angry Arab reactions shows regression in our contemporary human march at a time when countries around us reduce centuries in a single day, as well as a decline in the progress and development which Islamic civilization achieved as a creative power in terms of thought, science, art and philosophy in its heyday as minds combined to identify the source of the power of Islam as a producer of tolerance, fraternity, and piety in every sense of the word and not just sticking to formalities of religion for other reasons. The result is a series of failures and decline in the areas of thought, philosophy, translation and even Islamic jurisprudence itself which was a tool of keeping up with daily developments in Muslim society in its heyday until the industrial and technological production which threatens our very existence, for, in the absence of reason and recurrent failures and pent-up frustration, we will have nothing but grudge and hatred against the West which we, out of our weakness, think is an aggressor against our religion, and we later stir up animosity and hatred against other Arab groups whose juristic views of religion differ from ours.

Unfortunately, this defeatism is nothing but an attempt to follow myths of the ages of backwardness instead of the Islamic heritage of modernization on which the pioneers of Islamic Arab thought based the principles of tolerance and rational dialogue, guided by the Holy Quran and the Tradition of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

One of the reasons why the Arab individual s dilemma continues under the culture of defeat is given by writer Hashim Salih: Orthodoxy (usuliya) has become a serious problem which hinders the progress of Arab and Muslim peoples because its views disagree with modern science, but, nevertheless, it imposes itseif as sacred and infallible views. Consequently, Muslims find themselves seriously divided if they adopt theories of modernization and reject orthodox views they feel a sense of guilt; if otherwise, they will feel isolated from the spirit of the times, scientific, philosophical and rational progress, and be seriously confused and in a real dilemma which can only be resolved if Arab thinkers present a rational understanding of Islam to stand in the face of today s prevalent rigid, reactionary interpretation.

And before this public, some thinkers who showed contradictions because of falling prey to the culture of defeat should believe that the only way to restore the prosperity of Arab civilization is to insist on their positions and begin a new, different cultural production which monitors events away from slogans and excessive self-assertion as a reaction to defeatism and inferiority, but through rationalism and belief that any productive civilization will be able to raise such an awareness that turns society s energy, fosters the values of rationalism and puts intellectual and social courses back on track. This will create critical mental abilities in the face of all aspects of corruption, domination and superficialities. Such a mentality is striving to represent the majority of the Arabs as it is likely to be a sign of developing awareness instead of repeated attempts to alienate it.