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Winning Arab hearts and minds
Chavez of Arabia?
Winning Arab hearts and minds
by
Dima Khatib, Latin America Correspondent
Friday
18 August 2006 8:18 AM GMT
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Chavez of Arabia? [courtesy: the
presidential office]
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Billions of dollars spent, tens of
thousands of lives lost, hundreds of hours of televised speeches and press
conferences, extensive diplomatic efforts, political and military plans,
years in Iraq, and much more.
None of this helped the US to
achieve its president's announced goal of "winning the hearts and minds of
the Arab people". Instead, George Bush seems to have lost the hearts and
minds of many who had been supportive of US plans for the Middle East.
Someone else in the Americas seems
to have the secret formula for achieving that goal; much more quickly and
cheaply.
Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan
president, found himself at the centre of Middle Eastern politics when he
announced that he was withdrawing his most senior diplomat from Israel,
the Venezuelan charge d'affaires in Tel Aviv. Not for something Israel did
to his country, but for what it does to Palestinians and Lebanese
thousands of miles away.
The action was preceded by
Chavez's repeated condemnation of what he describes as Israel's
"aggression" against Lebanese land and its "genocide" against the Lebanese
people. He was the first head of state to say such harsh words towards
Israel after violence broke out on the Israeli Lebanese border last month,
even before that of any Arab or Muslim country.
| "I don't
want to be an Arab. From now on I shall be Venezuelan" |
Today on many Arabic internet
sites one can read comments such as: "I am Palestinian but my president is
Chavez, not Abu Mazen." Or: "I don't want to be an Arab. From now on I
shall be Venezuelan."
In Gaza and Ramallah in the
Palestinian Territories I am told that next to Arafat's and Che Guevara's
posters, a new poster of Chavez is being added.
On world television channels one
could even see Venezuelan flags in demonstrations in Beirut, next to
Lebanese and Palestinian flags, and in many prominent newspapers across
the Arab World, columnists wondered: why can't Arab leaders do what a
Latin American non-Arab non-Muslim leader dared do?
Naturally, some anti-Chavez
Venezuelans would rush to warn their president's Arab fans of what they
say is the real Chavez: an authoritarian who is ruining their country.
But that would still not change
much for his Middle Eastern supporters. When one internet user wrote
saying that Chavez was a "dictator like Fidel Castro", the replies flooded
the website one after the other defending Chavez and insulting the person
who had criticised him.
Chavez's opponents see his
position as a mere political manoeuvre to support his ally, Iran, and to
attack his traditional enemy: the US, or the "empire" as he calls it. They
also think that he wants to increase his popularity worldwide.
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An affinity
with Arabs [courtesy:
presidential office] |
That could be true. But what
is undoubtedly true is that Chavez's affinity with Arabs is nothing
new. He often mentions them in his speeches and tells stories of his
adventures with Arab leaders in their faraway lands. He admires the
desert. He says he is a Nasserite (referring to the late nationalist
president of Egypt, Gamal Abdul Nasser). He mentions Iraq more than Arab
leaders do and never misses an opportunity to "salute the Iraqi resistance
against imperialist forces".
This solidarity with Arab causes
is widely shared by most Venezuelans, and also by most Latin Americans,
especially the poor. Many marched in the streets of Caracas and other
cities in Venezuela - as well as in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia
and elsewhere - to show solidarity with the Lebanese and Palestinians in
their plight.
Israel reacted slowly and rather indifferently to Chavez's decision to
withdraw his diplomat, as though it was of little importance. Only after
several days did it call its ambassador to Caracas for consultation.
Then Chavez went further, to say
that he was probably going to break diplomatic relations altogether with
Israel, a state with which he is not interested in sharing any business,
offices or anything else.
The state of relations between
the two countries at the moment is unclear. Nobody knows how long the
Venezuelan charge d'affaires will stay away from Tel Aviv. Nor does anyone
really know whether or when the Israeli ambassador is due back in
Venezuela. The Israeli embassy still operates normally in Caracas.
But none of those details matters
any more. What has been said and done will not be forgotten by any of the
parties involved.
Accusations
Jewish people in Venezuela say
they have received threats and feel uneasy about the whole thing. Security
was tightened around all Jewish facilities in Caracas and nobody there was
willing to give a comment to Al Jazeera. Some prominent Jewish figures
spoke on local media and accused Chavez of being an anti-Semite.
At the same time, Chavez may well
be accused of harbouring Hezbollah units. Last week there was talk on
Western and Israeli media about such units abroad.
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Whatever the consequence of Chavez's
uncompromising position with Israel, it is evident that it embarrassed
Arab leaders |
Whatever the consequence of
Chavez's uncompromising position with Israel, it is evident that it
embarrassed Arab leaders, as none of them cut or even downgraded ties with
Israel despite all the massacres its army has committed in Lebanon and
Palestine.
Those leaders whom he always
praised and considered as his "brothers" might not like him as much as
they did when he summoned them in Caracas in 2000 to put the oil prices up
within Opec.
They surely do not like his
closeness to Iran, which is seen by many as trying to spread its influence
over the Middle East. And they probably feel that his continuous,
provocative anti-Bush statements are too compromising.
Chavez probably realises all of
that. For years he strove to forge alliances with Arab governments and
share projects to break the current world economic order in which, as he
sees it, third-world countries are all tied to the big powers and not to
each other.
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Chavez with
the emir of Qatar,
who is a close personal friend |
But he has seemingly given up
on his Arab counterparts, or most of them at least, now that he has come
to realise that they are not anti-imperialist - not even anti-Israeli -
and that some strongly dislike his ally, Iran.
He and the whole world saw how
close and obedient Arab leaders are to the US and how far and detached
from their people they have grown. If what happened in Iraq, Palestine and
Lebanon is not enough to make them speak out and stand up to defend Arab
dignity, then nothing will.
That is where Chavez's talent to
communicate with the man on the street comes in to fill the gap and make
him more popular than Arab leaders in their own countries.
One internet user writes: "I wish
there were elections to elect the leader of the Arab Umma [Islamic Nation]
and I am sure 100 per cent that Chavez will win the elections although he
is Venezuelan."
Legendary
It will be interesting to see what
course official Venezuelan-Arab relations will take.
The sure thing is that in the mind
of millions of Arabs, Chavez is now in the same league as Hassan Nasrallah,
the leader of Hezbollah, and other "heroic" Arab figures.
At a time when nationalism in the
Arab world is linked to Islamic movements such as Hamas in Palestine and
Hezbollah in Lebanon, both branded as terrorist movements by Washington,
Chavez represents a very different trend.
He does not belong to or lead a
religious movement; he is not - yet - classified by Washington as
terrorist; he is, unlike Arab leaders, a democratically elected president
and an anti-imperialist socialist who has no equal at the moment in the
Arab world.
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Chavez is a
hero to more than
his fellow Venezuelans |
No wonder some Arab internet
users call for cloning him to make sure they get a copy to replace their
own leader.
Would there be a "Chavez of
Arabia" just like the legendary "Lawrence of Arabia", the Englishman who
won the trust and sympathy of Arabs in the desert when they were under
English mandate?
History will decide. But for now,
to many Arabs online he is "an honourable man in a world of few men" that
many declare they are "ready to die for".
Aljazeera
By Dima Khatib, Latin America Correspondent
You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0393C044-9D53-43FB-9B2F-3F15DF88AF91.htm
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