*FREE ARAB VOICE*
June 25, 1998

In this issue of the Free Arab Voice we present:

1) Shubeilatt, the Eye of the Tiger: Excerpts from a Speech by Laith
Shubeilatt IN SYRIA Calling for Freedom of Thought and Lifting the    
Siege on Iraq.

2) Action Alert: Let's Blow up One More Palestinian Home
   by Nabila Martino

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1) Shubeilatt, the Eye of the Tiger

a)Background:

Laith Shubeilatt the head of the Council of Professional Associations 
and a former member of the Jordanian parliament is a well-known 
Jordanian Arab opposition figure and no stranger to controversy..

After being arrested in February for partaking in a peaceful 
demonstration against a military strike on Iraq in the southern 
Jordanian city of Maan, he spent about three months in jail before being 
released on bail after numerous protests worldwide. Officially, his 
crime was the violation of the just-imposed government ban on public 
demonstrations.  Officially also, the penalty for violating the ban, 
equivalent to public disturbance, carries a jail sentence of about four 
months and/or a possible fine.  

While he was out on bail however, Laith was constantly harassed and 
surrounded by elements presumed to be connected to the Jordanian 
Intelligence Service, or the mukhabarat, according to a message that he 
sent to the Free Arab Voice on May 4th.  See 
(http://www.mindspring.com/~fav/messageFromLaith.htm)

The legal surprise came when Laith was sentenced to nine months in jail
instead of four, out of which he had already served three awaiting 
trial.  But a few weeks after Laith resumed serving his nine-month 
sentence, King Hussein of Jordan issued a Royal pardon exempting Laith 
from the rest of his sojourn in jail.  Laith Shubeilatt refused to get 
out of jail though demanding the release of all political prisoners, in 
accordance with previous royal promises, and a fair trial to ascertain 
his innocence.  His letter addressing the director of the prison he 
languished in was published in Jordanian newspapers.  In it, he posed 
the issue in terms of the need to abide by the rule of law.  Now there's 
a ban on publishing any news about Laith in all Jordanian press "to 
insure a fair trial", according to the government official who ordered 
the ban. 

The truth however is that Laith Shubeilatt remains in jail today because 
he resented the search for a personal salvation, and to highlight a 
principle, at a high personal cost.

Below are excerpts from the speech he gave in the opening session of the 
Fourth Convention of the Union of Palestinian Writers and Journalists on 
December 7, 1997, in Damascus, Syria.  In it Laith talks about freedom 
of thought and lifting the siege on Iraq.  For those of you who 
understand what it means to do that, all we can say is enjoy reading the 
speech below (Yes, he made it back to Jordan safely)!.

On the other hand, the importance of the speech transcends mere 
enjoyment.  For example, we in the Free Arab Voice, along with many 
other anti-colonialist Arabs, have been looking for a proper way to pose 
the issue of democracy in Arab states under siege (like Iraq, Libya, 
Sudan, and Syria to a lesser degree), without becoming another 
mouthpiece of the U.S. government and Zionism as many who call 
themselves opposition groups or human rights organizations have become.

The West typically propagandizes the issue of individual rights,
particularly in Arab states viewed as especially unfriendly to the U.S.,
U.K., or "Israeli" interests, as a means of political leverage or as a 
smoke screen to justify overt and covert intervention in those states. 
Undoubtedly the citizens of a state that bows sheepishly before the U.S. 
State Department, the International Monetary Fund, or Zionist/Jewish 
organizations worldwide cannot possibly be free!!  Furthermore, any Arab 
that opposes the colonial and Zionist onslaught is more useful overall 
for the Arab nation and people than one who doesn't.

However, claiming to oppose colonial and Zionist interests should not 
turn into a free license to oppress and suffocate all political 
opposition without restraint.  Granted we cannot expect Arab states 
under siege to open up leisurely as if they don't have to deal with 
colonial conspiracies, Zionist infiltration, or a heavy patriarchal Arab 
legacy. But the truth is that not all political prisoners in the jails 
of Arab states under siege are Mossad or CIA agents.  Many are 
anti-colonialist and anti-Zionist, and some are not even politically 
aware.  Moreover, not all those excluded from the political process are 
suspect.  And neither is the usurpation of civil society done solely 
because the nation is in a state of war. That is wrong! 

We believe Laith Shubeilatt's speech below attempts to resolve the 
dilemma by pursuing an anti-Zionist/anti-colonial line externally and a 
parallel pro-democracy line internally.  On a more tangible level, a few 
weeks after the speech in Syria below, Laith Shubeilatt went to Iraq and 
requested the release of Jordanian prisoners in Iraqi jails.  Again he 
returned safely with the Jordanian prisoners until he was detained at 
the Jordanian side of the border.  See 
(http://www.mindspring.com/~fav/onjordan.htm#Art2)

Without any further ado we leave you with Laith Shubeilatt, the eye of 
the tiger...or should we say the lion of Jordan, as his first name in 
Arabic indicates !?
                                      Editor/The Free Arab Voice

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1b)Excerpts from a Speech by Laith Shubeilatt in Damascus, Syria, on
December 7, 1997:

[Addressing the Fourth Convention of the Union of Palestinian Writers 
and Journalists] 

It's a great pleasure to be here with you today on this important 
occasion in this ancient Arab capital Damascus, a mainstay of our 
nation, and one which has struck in history the deepest roots.

On Culture:

Culture is different in that even if policy-makers went astray, as long 
as culture remained unscathed salvation would be closer at hand than if 
our culture itself was corrupted.  In that sense we find the masses more 
conscious and more profound than those quasi-intellectuals that sway 
with the tide and treat culture as a fad.  Generally we find the masses 
storing in their collective consciousness the memory of our nation and 
its long-standing values.  They don't heed those Arab intellectuals, 
governments, and institutions that have been Zionified and have taken it 
upon themselves to in turn Zionify their societies culturally and 
politically, thus starting a new phase of aggression of Arab authorities 
on their societies.

"Arab-Zionism": 

Here who else but thinkers, writers, journalists, and speakers can the 
nation rely upon to stem the tide of this new aggression being led by 
Arab-Zionism?!...And please don't be surprised at my use of the term 
"Arab-Zionism"...ISN'T THE DEFINITION OF A ZIONIST *ANYONE* WHO BELIEVES 
IN A NATIONAL HOME FOR THE JEWS ON THE LANDS OF THE ARABS AND MUSLIMS?! 
Therefore I say if our compatriots embrace that concept, then they have 
shed our skin to wear a Zionist one.  Nevertheless, politicians wouldn't 
dare perpetrate this aggression if it weren't for the writers and the 
religious scholars of authority, and some journalists turned informers 
providing justifications... In response what we need here is a movement 
in cultural circles to repel those intellectuals who collapsed, lost 
their humanity, or started chasing after commercialism, and to 
consolidate a better quality.

Freedom of Thought:

So when one of you asked me what my program was to confront 
Zionification, I responded instantly: "It's a one-point program- the 
program of intellectual freedom and freedom from enslavement by 
authority".  I tell you HE WHO HANDS HIS FREEDOM OF OPINION AND THOUGHT 
TO THE AUTHORITIES IN HIS OR HER ARAB STATE WILL NOT RISE UP TO DEFEND 
HIS COUNTRY AGAINST FOREIGN COLONIAL DOMINATION!!  A SLAVE IS A SLAVE IS 
A SLAVE EVEN IF HE ACTED ARROGANTLY.  WHEN HE LEARNS TO PUT UP WITH 
SLAVERY, IT WOULDN'T MATTER WHO HIS MASTER IS..BUT A FREE MAN, ON THE 
OTHER HAND, CAN'T BEAR HIS SHACKLES EVEN IF THEY WERE BROTHERLY AND MADE 
OF GOLD.

More than Freedom to Consume:

Could there be development without innovation?! And could there be 
innovation without criticism?! But how could there be criticism in the 
absence of total freedom for the mind to consider, discuss, and argue so 
what is true or optimal may be reached and so that the collective 
consciousness and the accumulated knowledge of society may grow.. Mind 
you though, many talk the talk when all they mean is to unleash the 
freedom of all sorts of lusts and the freedom to consume to the hilt, 
which in fact debase the mind and paralyze thought.

The Beef:

The only freedom many claimants to culture dare to practice is the 
freedom to put down values and principles.  They wouldn't practice 
freedom of opinion in what angers the rulers, no!!  As a result, Arab 
values became provincial (quttriyah) in that wanna-be intellectuals see 
events only as their respective rulers wish them to.  More than that, 
even conscientious intellectuals in Jordan and in Syria evade discussing 
the political sin of implementing the siege on Iraq, THIS SHAMEFUL CRIME 
THAT NO ARAB OFFICAL DARES TO WASTE ANY LOGIC OR THEORY IN JUSTIFYING 
EXCEPT TO CONFESS THAT HE HAS SUBMITTED TO THE WILL OF COLONIALISTS, 
SO-CALLED INTERNATIONAL LEGITIMACY, AND THAT HE HAS SURRENDERED THE 
SOVEREIGNTY OF HIS ARAB STATE.

The same goes for the Muslim Iranian intellectual.  He doesn't debate 
how the revolution that possessed our hearts turned into declarations 
calling on Iraq to abide by the American-dictated U.N. resolutions!! Yet 
how did the dictates of the Great Satan become more indisputable than 
the commands of the infallible Faqih (religious scholar)?

The Arab intellectual in Jordan doesn't address the joint 
Jordanian-British-American-Israeli military exercises on the borders of 
Syria and Iraq, because that would anger authority...He doesn't question 
the motive behind buying so much weaponry AFTER the detestable treaty of 
Wadi Araba!!  What is the alleged peace for then?! Or is this a new 
agency to act against other Arab states?!

The Arab intellectual in Palestine now deems dialogue with Zionists 
"progressive"!!  The Zionists demanded of us to tear off our Arabism 
because it's "chauvinistic", to eradicate Islam because it's 
"terroristic", and to abandon the [Palestinian National] Charter because 
it pertains to "all of Palestine"...and why should we do all this?  So 
they may agree to talk to us.  So of course we agreed...and we agreed 
without even demanding in return that they discard Zionism as racist and 
expansionary.  I even heard of some who classified Zionism as a 
liberation movement!!  Is there anything more Zionist than that?

The Arab intellectual in Syria doesn't address Hafer el-Battin and how 
an Arab soldier would stand in the same trenches with foreign invaders 
against another fellow Arab soldier.  Well I tell you right here that IF 
THE INTELLECTUAL DOESN'T ACT LIKE THE CONSCIENCE OF HIS PEOPLE THEN LET 
HIM GO TO HELL! IT IS POLITICAL AUTHORITY THAT CRAVES LEGITIMACY FROM 
INTELLECTUAL AND RELIGIOUS FIGURES NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND... When 
Mozart refused to play in the emperor's court, it was the court that was 
shaken not the musician.  Mozart's music still moves the millions today, 
but how many of you know the name of the politician that was Mozart's 
contemporary??  THAT IS CULTURE ladies and gentlemen: IT IS THE 
WORD..THE WORD OF WRITERS, JOURNALISTS, AND [ISLAMIC] SCHOLARS.  And if 
good judgment always comes before courage , then I tell you that beneath 
bravery comes disaster.  SO BE BRAVE OR BE PATHETIC!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Human effort and innovation is a major contributor and partner in 
building wealth and civilization. It is not the slave of capital.  
Therefore, freedom of movement for people should come before freedom of 
movement for capital.  Similarly the right of people to 
self-determination should come ahead of the right of the individual to 
wreck the social fabric.  Family is the unit whose value we need to 
protect not individualism.  Poverty is the primary pollutant of the 
environment, and any program to clean the environment should start from 
eradicating poverty, not eradicating the poor so nature may become a 
pleasure enjoyed only by the rich...

As we enter the Twenty-First Century, we have to realize that the 
struggle will shift from the arena of geopolitics to the arena of two 
opposing camps with no one in between: the camp of those who are for 
humanity, and the camp of those who are against it.

I thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to present you with 
some of the thoughts that preoccupy an Arab brother of yours from Jordan 
who happens to care for and value freedom of thought, who happens to 
believe that we should struggle to achieve it and then maintain it.

I wish your convention the best of luck in accomplishing its objectives.  
But also I want to ask you to join me in calling on Arab intellectuals 
to condemn the Camp David Accords, the Madrid talks, the Oslo 
Agreements, and the treaty of Wadi Araba.  Furthermore, I want to ask 
you to join me in calling on Arab intellectuals to condemn the ARAB 
SIEGE of Iraq, Sudan, and Libya and in demanding of neighboring 
countries like Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, and the countries of 
the Gulf to IMMEDIATELY STOP aiding and abetting in the crime of the 
siege.

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Disclaimer: this article has been summarized and translated from Arabic 
by the Free Arab Voice.  Therefore, any shortcomings in the text are our 
responsibility.  For example, among other things, many paragraphs 
dealing with Shubeilatt's religious and economic views were left out due 
to lack of space. Maybe we'll make these issues up in the future - FAV.  

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2) ACTION TO PROTEST HOUSE DEMOLITIONS IN THE HOMELAND

I propose that we find a building that is scheduled for demolition in a 
city in the U.S., preferably New York or Washington, D.C., but if that 
is not possible, then anywhere, as long as we can generate media 
attention.  The owner has to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, 
because here is the plan:

We raise the Palestinian flag at the top of the building and then let 
them go ahead with the demolition, using their bulldozers and dynamite.  
At the same time, give the media facts and figures about the 
acceleration of demolitions in the homeland.  I believe that this could 
be done as a sort of 'performance piece' to grab attention in order to 
publicise the facts.   It could make an impression: dramatic and yet to 
the point.  All we need is one person with a building  scheduled for 
demolition  who is sympathetic to the cause of
justice.

What do you think?

If any one is interested in pursuing the following idea, please contact 
me at nabilae@aol.com

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