Media Review: Washington Post, Arabs are beginning to wonder about their place in the world
Writer Abdul Rahman Elgendy said, in a report in the American newspaper The Washington Post, that the recent events in Gaza made Arabs talk about how “this world was never built to accommodate them.”
Elgendy added that even in the most progressive circles, Arabs represent a disturbed state that cannot be tolerated.
He continued that between the situation of the Arabs between the countries that crushed them and the countries of exile, it seems that there will be no life before death, and if this is what the average person feels, then what is the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza?
Elgendy said that he knew that the facade of Western moral superiority had collapsed, and called on the Arabs to get rid of the feeling of “internal inferiority” and work to “make our way back to language and history: our language and history, and gather around our collective grief and groaning.”
The writer stated that the Arabs are now asking fundamental questions about their place in the world, as they have begun to realize that their “controllability” does not represent a failure of the global system, but rather is one of its basic functions.
The writer considered that when he left Egypt in 2020 after his release from prison, he sought a new birth and to be recognized as a suffering body, highlighting that he did not have any romantic ideas about the American dream.
He continued that he often faced a condescending idea that his immigration represented a pursuit of higher values, and not an escape from the chaos caused by the wars imposed by the United States, or the kings and military dictatorships that Washington installed and continues to support, or the environmental devastation caused by Washington.
Elgendy spoke about his recent attendance at a pro-Palestinian rally in Pittsburgh, USA, where demonstrators carried their signs in solidarity, chanting “End the occupation” and “Stop shooting now.”
Then the demonstrators quickly chanted, "We Arabs are respectful, civilized, and peaceful. We are not anti-Semitic and we are not savages as they claim."
Suddenly, the writer heard his wife screaming, as a large, bald, white American man threw her and several other demonstrators to the ground, and began cursing the protesters and calling them disgusting descriptions, before a group of demonstrators surrounded him and pushed him towards the police present at the site.
He continued, "The look in his eyes was unforgettable, a look not filled with hatred or violence, but with confidence that he would never be described as a terrorist or a barbarian," because they are descriptions that seem to be specific to Arabs only.
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