MyAdhan Blog

Link: Kuwait: Zain, Melody, and Hezbollah

About two or three decades ago states were the only main players in this region, Syria, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Yemen, Qatar, etc, provided almost all the common goods to the Arab population, states built schools, hospitals, power plants, phone lines, telecommunication networks, and operated TV stations. A complex and interfering role that no state should continue to play in this era of globalization and open transnational interactions, in this era states are not expected to provide us with mobile service or musical video clips. And thus we have been witnessing a proliferation of non-state regional actors to fill the vacuum of serving people’s needs, tastes, and feelings. Now you have Zain a multi-national telecommunication corporation providing mobile service in twenty-two countries in the Middle East and Africa, and you have Melody, which is, sadly, defining the musical taste of Arab teenagers. This is just fine and even healthy developments in our region, the problem though that states are also losing their exclusive rights of providing security for their people against external threats and giving them a sense of confidence and pride in the face of their enemies and supposed enemies, just like Zain and Melody have come to fill the telecommunication and musical vacuum, Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah are attempting to fill the security-against-external threats vacuum and give people of the region that sense of confidence and pride in the face of their enemies, and supposed enemies. The legitimacy of the state among Arabs is far from divine, if states do not provide them with what they want, Arabs are ready to listen to anyone, a religious leader, a tribal Sheikh, an army officer, or a leader of a militant group. Now, Nasrallah promises Muslims all over the world pride through humiliating Israel, something he did before and something that no Arab state or collection of Arab states can do, on the other hand you have Al-Hariri with gel on his hair and nice suit talking about the legitimacy of the state and its institutions…

Just go to the long lines in Cairo where people are fighting over bread and try to speak ill of Nasrallah or good of Al-Hariri and tell me what happens, actually you won’t be able to tell me anything because chances are that they will beat the hell out of you till you pass out!! Those people fighting over bread know, on some level, that Israel can kick their butt anytime it pleases, they are angry, humiliated and exhausted, and the loud, threatening, and angry voice of Nasrallah comforts them. Especially after they learned that their state has just commenced a gas pipe-line between Egypt and Israel. You might ask what do Egyptians have to do with Nasrallah and his standoff with Al-Hariri, well just like Zain and Melody are regional, Hezbollah is regional too, the confidence and pride it promises is to the whole of the Muslim world, and in return it draws support from many Muslim countries. Now how do we escape this trend of the proliferation of gangs and militant groups fighting in our name? First, Arab states should show just a hint of resistance, nobody is asking them to rage a war on Israel tomorrow, but for today, maybe there is no need for that pipeline or Free Trade Agreement with Israel, second, Arabs and Muslims, need to understand that gangs cannot give and sustain a feeling of confidence and pride to a whole nation, no number of criminals can give you such feelings, resistance is about honor, and gangs who turn on their people and their capital have no honor. Arabs and Muslims also need to understand that we do not have to love everything and everyone Israel hates, Israelis do not eat pigs, do we have to eat pigs?!!