Quite a few years ago, I took to using the expression “Arabs are violent retards” a lot online.
This raised the ire of a tiny handful of progressive bloggers, sort of the way Viagra raises a limp dick.
These bloggers have been awfully quiet for a while now, at least when it comes to their criticisms of me.
Anyhow, this article at Politico.com, by an actual Muslim from Lebanon, reminded me of my old saying:
The time of the assassins is upon us. And the true tragedy of the Arab and Muslim world today is that there is no organized, legitimate counterforce to oppose these murderers—neither one of governments nor of “moderate” Islam. Nor is there any refuge for those who want to escape the assassins. (…)
After the defeat in the 1967 war with Israel, Arab intellectuals, artists, political activists and exiles found themselves drifting towards Beirut, the only Arab equivalent of a shining city on a hill. As a teenager, I witnessed the incredible cultural and political ferment that dominated the debates about the real causes that led the Arabs to such a nadir. I attended debates, watched first-rate theatre, read real soul-searching articles and books. The best and the brightest of Arabs walked and graced the streets of Beirut. Poets, novelists and scholars I read from afar came to partake in the mission of a lifetime. Critical inquiry was the operating principle. That old defiant Beirut made it easier for my generation of Arabs to search and find some answers in those years that preceded the 1973 war, when the defeated Arab regimes were able to claim a partial victory of some sort and to restore the old order. It was a brief moment of hope and enthusiasm.
That is all gone now.
