Culture of Hate

One of the main problems that the US is encountering in its attempts to transform the Arab world is the indoctrination that has occurred in that society. All over the Arab world children are taught from the earliest schooling (and sometimes even before that) to hate infidels and Jews. They are taught to glorify martyrdom and to desire to achieve it in brutal acts of murder. In large part, this indoctrination is funded and supported by the various Arab regimes, many of whom receive financial and military support from the very people they attack. Yet, the problem is far deeper than simply the governments. Amir Taheri points out the wide ranging support for the killing of infidels among the general Arab population.

The tragedy that struck Johnson is the product of a culture of hatred, arrogance and cruelty built over decades by the Saudi society.

To be sure, this does not mean that all Saudis think or would, if given the opportunity, behave as the killers did. But there is no escaping the fact that they do bear part of the responsibility, if only by providing the socio-cultural topos in which terrorism thrives.

Until recently, Saudi textbooks taught schoolchildren to regard non-Muslims as sub-humans who did not deserve the same respect due to "true believers," that is to say the followers of the officially approved Hanbali brand of Islam.

One of the most culpable in this dissemination of jihad has been Al-Jazeera and its like minded Al-Arabiya satellite "news" services. As they did in Jenin a few years ago, the Arab press has created a completely new narrative for the events in Fallujah over the past few months.

The Arab media, especially the satellite TV channels, presented the Fallujah insurgency as "one of the greatest battles the Arabs have ever waged against the Crusaders," as an editorial in the daily Al-Arab claimed.

The fact that the Arabs had hardly played a role in the historic Crusades (which were largely fought by Turks, Kurds and the Mamelukes) did not prevent the propagandists from exaggerating the "Epic of Fallujah" far beyond an understandable degree of hype.

Dominated by pan-Arabists and Islamists, the Arab media claimed that the United States had deployed "all its military might" to conquer Fallujah and had failed. The "heroes of Fallujah" fought like lions and, supported by non-combatants, including women and children (who died in thousands), succeeded in winning "a spectacular victory," thus "saving Arab honor."

More than a dozen Arab poets have already committed odes and sonnets to commemorate Fallujah as "the Arab Stalingrad." One Syrian composer is working on an opera about "the heroes of Fallujah," while a couple of Egyptian hacks are breaking their typewriters to produce scripts for a film and a TV series on this latest of imaginary Arab victories.

This type of disinformation has been a staple of Arab reporting, especially of military encounters. One of the key ingredients of a free society is the ability to critically view events. Until the Arab world learns to do that, instead of simply swallowing the propaganda spewed by its "news" outlets, it will not be able to reform itself and become free.