SPEAKING FREELY Qatar and Saudis divide and conquer
By Sean Fenley
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click hereif you are interested in contributing.
Reading Al-Jazeera is something that I am loath to do, and try to do as little as possible. Having said that, I do find myself reading one of their articles here and there, at least some of the time. As I've written in the past, one of the world's finest journalists, Pepe Escobar, is someone who has described Qatar - the owners and operators of Al-Jazeera and an absolute Wahhabist monarchy - as "A kind of a slave society, ruled by a very tiny elite, with Western business interests involved. And they [Qatar] think that their
model can be applied to the rest of the Arab world."
So why on God's green Earth is a propaganda outlet owned fundamentally by a totalitarian dictatorship (which I think that a Wahhabist absolute monarchy essentially extrapolates out to), promoting the rights of women, immigrants, and those without states?
I have to assume that those promoting these causes on Al-Jazeera's site either have no morals/ethics, or must, in fact, be wholly ignorant about the actual nature of this government, and the conditions that many live under in this absolute monarchical itsy-bitsy micro-nationlet.
One can simply read Freedom House's overview on Qatar to get some of the basic primers/essentials on this veritably iron-fisted state - which only last year jailed a poet for life for writing a pro-Arab Spring poem that was viewed as insulting to the Qatari dictator/emir. Freedom House is a tool of US foreign policy, and so in my opinion more accurate on US-allied countries than it is on nations such Venezuela or Iran (where it lacks any kind of credibility, objectivity or incontrovertible veracity).
If Al-Arabiya, the Saudi Arabian equivalent to Al-Jazeera, attempted to promote any of this stuff it would be heartily and vociferously laughed out of the room. It simply would not be taken seriously. And neither should anyone take the Qatari Al-Jazeera's promotion of these ideals seriously. It is clearly, nothing but a ham-fisted effort to put some kind of a divergent, enlightened patina - or a duplicitous masking - upon itself.
Al-Jazeera is the propaganda arm of a totalitarian dictatorship, and no one should ever forget this. Al Jazeera has been a leading force in trying to end Arab nationalism in the Middle East. Whatever qualms one may have with really existing Arab nationalist governments, historically, the major Arab nationalist party (the Ba'ath Party), was started by a Christian, a Sunni Muslim, and an Alawite.
Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia play the role for the West of promoting and fostering a Middle Eastern divide and conquer by funding groups and movements - sometimes armed groups that have been described as everything from rebels, to death squads, and even wholly terrorist - throughout the Middle East which promote Islamism. The Saudi and Qatari approved branches of it as well, of course.
Mimi al-Laham who is a Syrian living abroad, and a Sunni Muslim, has described Wahhabism as a cult. Most of the Syrian military that is fighting these foreign Salafi fighters that have willed their way into Syria (actually bankrolled by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, plus given hearth and shelter by Turkey en voyage to the Arab Republic of Syria), is made up of Sunni Muslims and not Alawites, Druze, Christians, or any other Syrian minority group. Those Syrian minorities are often times singled out, though - particularly the Alawites - as pro-regime, and thusly doomed to meet a spine-tingling/horrendous death.
Yes, these Western championed (and exceedingly rooted for) "freedom fighter" elements will kill any of those, who they do not think are enough of their own fervent/overzealous stripe.
Freedom, if it goes by a myopic theocratic straightjacket, is in fact the freedom of the FSA (Free Syrian Army). Extreme religion in my opinion, however, is always bad. Live and let others live is only common sense - as well as not to kill those who do not comport with one's own religious practices - or customs, and overall values held sacrosanct. The promotion of Salafism and Wahhabism are clearly not causing much heartburn/agita for the NATO/US/British meddlers in the Middle East. And there's no doubt that in Brussels, NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen is smiling.
It's not only Syria where Qatar is showing its grisly/disreputable hand. This week it gave a "measly" US$3 billion to the Muslim Brotherhood-run Egypt, where just recently we witnessed the Copts (Coptic Christians), battling Muslims in Cairo's streets. Four Copts were killed on April 6, and at least one other Christian was killed who attended their funeral. Before we know it, it's entirely possible that we could be looking at an Islamic Emirate of the African Northeast. The chants of, "Pharaoh!" of those immensely disappointed with President Mohamed Morsi in the Egyptian streets may yet have some prescience.
These chants will have anticipated the emergence of a differing, although still a spanking new title for Morsi - albeit just as autocratic of one (emir). And in Morsi's Islamic Egyptian Emirate maybe, even more presciently - whilst the Coptics have all been extirpated, exiled, and otherwise banned, banished, bedraggled and beaten down - the hand of Qatar, and its dark oil spigot maleficent oft-cofactor Saudi Arabia (Qatar is more of a natural gas power) will show itself clear.
In London, Washington, and in Brussels, no one should look at themselves with anything but shame in anticipation of such a scenario, having allegedly deeply cherished Western values so rottenly, sordidly, and moreover disreputably deferred.
The Middle Eastern people post-Arab Spring will remain held down. However, with the petroleum resources running freely and smoothly, I don't see how there will be a dour reaction in London, Washington, and Brussels at all. There will not be any shame for reaping deeply sour fruits, via being allied/intertwined with such backward, ill-begotten, and in general markedly authoritarian absolutist monarchical states. And if, in fact, any of these movers and shakers are indeed sensate at all, shame will undeniably immediately transform itself into a palpable form of jubilation for them!
Sadly, I don't think that this is something that should take one aback. Rather, it is the just the standard modus operandi for this sickly, venal, and moreover Faustian brand of uber-elitist "humankind". What values these alleged creme de la creme hold sacrosanct, except for perhaps Luciferianism, is a mystery for any of us (the "little people") to get a hold on.
In summation, the Arab nations of Saudi Arabia and Qatar are in effect doing to their own people what the Americans, British, and other tag-a-longs would have been doing all by themselves. They'd be doing it, unequivocally, if it weren't being done to and by Arabs upon their own people, via these authoritarian, caustic, and indeed fifth columnist benighted Wahhabi states.
Sean Fenley is an independent progressive, who would like to see some sanity brought to the creation and implementation of current and future, US military, economic, foreign and domestic policies. He has been published by a number of websites, and publications throughout the alternative media.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say.Please click hereif you are interested in contributing. Articles submitted for this section allow our readers to express their opinions and do not necessarily meet the same editorial standards of Asia Times Online's regular contributors.
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