Arafat – Moon of Alabama

November 11, 2004

Arafat

There are mixed feelings about this man – freedom fighter, terrorist, Nobel prize winner, President and selfish ruler.

Helena Cobban writes in Arafat: a Palestinian tragedy

I’ve been following Arafat’s political progress fairly closely for 30 years now– I last saw him in person in the Muqataa, last February–and I can honestly say that I don’t think he’s a bad person… Just extremely, extremely limited in his political capabilities and personal vision.

At one level he’s quite a phenomenon. The post-colonial world has in the past couple of decades–tragically– seen all too many of what the Africans call "big men". You know: men who in their youth led daring and visionary independence movements, who were then handed the reins of power and spent some years in the heady and sometimes productive phase of nation-building… but whose rule later hardens into the autocracy/kleptocracy of the "big man", who has come to identify his own fate almost totally with that of his "nation"…

Arafat skipped through that middle phase–the one of nation-building–almost completely.

The big question now is how the Palestinians will proceed. As’ad AbuKhalil sees a more radical Palestine (thx CP), with fractions fighting for domination.

Sharon sees a ‘historic turning point for the Middle East’. We can be sure he will do everything he can, to split the Palestinians and deny any fraction or person to gain a strong position. We can also be sure that he will not receive any pressure from the ever paying United States to moderate his position.

It´s not a good day for Palestine.

Posted by b on November 11, 2004 at 10:07 UTC | Permalink

Comments

He stared down the barrels of Sharon’s tanks for weeks at a time. Could I do the same at the age of seventy-plus? I don’t think so….

Posted by: alabama | Nov 11 2004 14:34 utc | 1

i have sd all i want tosay on the other thread about arafat where is suggested a number of books which present the gift & problem of arafa’s leadership
to say, i have never followed, ever the american state departments galleries of villians. in fact, mostly, is is diametrically opposed to my own
he was not a demon, niether was he a saint – he was however the greatest freedom fighter for his people as was the also much demonised dr habash
assymetric wars are by their nature – ugly & i don’t see any fundamental difference between arafat & mandela – except that mandela was not soiled by the necessary messy practices of his movement as arafat was being responsible for the breath & acts of every palestinian
it is a sad day because israelis will in the hyperbrutality regard the death of arafat as a weakness in the cosmic sense of things & they will as always take advantage
it will be interesting to see what happens with marwad bhargouti who has demanded from his prison cell the continuation of the infitada
at the end of the day – i think a larger history will be sympathetic to the courageous struggle of yassir arafat
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 11 2004 15:17 utc | 2

giap writes:
it is a sad day because israelis will in the hyperbrutality regard the death of arafat as a weakness in the cosmic sense of things & they will as always take advantage
And here we converge. What is essential more than ever, is a support of the Palestinian infrastructure, democratic institutions and social agencies. That is, in my opinion, as important for Israelis as it is for the stability of the region and the world. Not to recognize this is the greatest, most destructive weakness of all. It is a pity that Sharon only seems to have learned brutality as a lesson from the Holocaust. That is the greatest, most anti-Semitic failure of all, if you ask me.

Posted by: x | Nov 11 2004 16:42 utc | 3

there are allegations that he was poisoned. this was denied officially several times by people from the PA. whatever the facts and whatever else one could say abaout arafat himself, he is dead and big changes are on the way.
when i look at the criminal gangs in power on both sides of that fence i get the distinct feeling that many many people will want arafat back, and curse every day they didnt give the old fox what he was asking for.
btw, has anybody noticed that for once arafat and the palestinians have not been mentioned as terrorists in the media, as usual ?

Posted by: name | Nov 11 2004 18:10 utc | 4

just another short note :-
it is not as if the 20th & 21st century are resplendant in leadership – ultimately only che guevara & nelson mandela come to mind
there have been many who have tried to lead their people to a better path but history is not a clean process & their effots have been flawed either by process, by comprimise, by the heavy intervention of imperial powers – here lenine, mao tse tung, patrice lumumba, joseph kenyetta, salvador allende, alekos panagoulis, sukarno, gough whitlam, david lange, nehru, ortega
but in the end who am i to judge this – we live in a slaughterhouse where gangster lead & lie & have about as much moral sense as pontius pilate
fdr perhaps was such a man but he was deeply, deeply flawed & existed within a structure that would never allow the real changes that he & his wife desired – the others have been without question murderers & a great deal more effective murderers than they consider arafat to be
on the other hand the list of leaders in the world who have been corrupt from birth is enormous – & the list is so long we could be here for days reciting a kaddish for the death of yassir arafat
there have been leaders who have sold their countries to the us treasury, to monopoly capitalist who have the best representation in washington that money can buy
it is hard to tell but gorbachov might have been an important leader, clearly he was an honest man – but whatever his project might have been we will never know – the gangsters arrived too quickly with the nod & assistance of the white house
so people who judge arafat should be very careful with their insults & show what a real leadership might be
in any case i mourn for him
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 11 2004 18:17 utc | 5

rememberinggiap,
Pope John XXIII comes to mind, but I know of him mostly through reading Thomas Merton. He did excommunicate Castro, but all I read shows him opening the Catholic Church to the possibility that deepest truth can be found outside itself. That work and achievment astounds me.
Perhaps because of him a Catholic can more easily imagine the sheer possibility of agreeing on fundamental matters with an Arafat.

Posted by: Citizen | Nov 11 2004 19:45 utc | 6

Back to Main