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5/27/2002 (3:59) |
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British MP predicts revolution in Middle East
George Galloway says a US-led invasion of Iraq would push the Arab street into revolt
Rime Allaf
Daily Star correspondent
LONDON: George Galloway does not chew his words and leaves few people indifferent: They either love him or hate him so much, in fact, that American actor John Malkovich wishes he could kill him.
In an interview with The Daily Star following his return from Iraq and Palestine at the head of a delegation of British and Canadian MPs and journalists, the Labor MP discussed the recent events in the Occupied Territories and his prospects for the future of the region.
Known for his outspoken condemnations of British foreign policy, especially in the Arab world, Galloway is undeterred by accusations of sympathy to some Arab regimes, which he is the first to criticize.
Galloway has always campaigned against the 12-year old “sanctions of the Anglo-American axis on Iraq, but does he think that the new deal is better?
“It's old wine in new bottles and will fool no one, he said, arguing it's a vindication of what he's been saying, an admission that the existing sanctions were stupid, although he finds the new ones no smarter. “It's a pity that a million people had to die needlessly to prove it,he said.
Conferring criticism on both partners in this “axis,he reserves the lion's share for America. “We have an extremely dangerous world in which America roams around like a giant with the mind of a small child. A giant with the mind of a small child is a danger not only to everyone else, but also to himself, and you don't get a mind much smaller than (US President) George W. Bush's.
Bush represents “small-town Christian fundamentalist right-wing Republican values, ignorant, and boastful about their ignorance, brutal, prejudiced, bigoted. And Galloway's depiction of Bush's election to the presidency illustrates the MP's intolerance of the regimes some have accused him of supporting.
“It's a very Arab event when your brother, the governor of a state, steals the presidency of the country for you by fraudulent means, when you win in a court packed by your father's judicial appointments, he said.
Tony Blair's association with Bush does not fare well with Galloway. “For a prime minister of a great country to be described as the ambassador of a foreign country is a deeply insulting and demeaning characterization,watching “Mr. Blair being passed grinning from one right-wing Republican figure to another, rolling around the jungle of the American right from Bush to Bush.
As for Blair's alleged disclosure to some Labor MPs that he would seek UN approval before committing Britain to an invasion of Iraq, Galloway replied: “I have yet to find a Labor MP to whom he told it.
For Galloway, the war on Afghanistan is no different from one on Iraq. “It's not an a la carte menu, you can't pick and mix which imperialist wars you're going to support, and which you're not … Once it's established that in the name of anti-terrorism America can get away with killing thousands of Afghans who had nothing whatsoever to do with Sept. 11, then you've already conceded the principle that America can use its vast military might against civilian populations wherever it likes. You can't say I supported you last time but I'm opposing you this time.
Galloway argued at length about the sheer folly of invading Iraq, but would the Arabs allow this anyway? He thinks they don't have much choice: “Once you allow the elephant through the door, you are no longer in a position to tell the elephant where to sit.Still, an invasion of this scale is easier said than done when considering local, regional and international dimensions, and Galloway feels it is not inevitable.
“What will it do if the entire region boils over with rage, having already pocketed its rage over the intifada and the systemic failure of the Arab regimes? Is there only a regime change in Baghdad, or are there other regimes which now have to change because of popular anger in Arab countries? And if they change, will they be replaced by Nassers, free officers, or will they be replaced by Khomeinis and bin Ladens?
Arab people have finally had enough and there is eventually going to be a revolution, says Galloway, quoting Lenin to explain that “there are decades when nothing happens, but there are weeks when decades happen, and I think that in these weeks decades have happened,he said.
The last straw would be an attack on Iraq: “From the Atlantic to the Gulf, Arab public opinion can now see that despite 50 years of independence in most cases, despite a bounty of uncountable billions of dollars, despite having built up armed forces which aggregated are amongst the world’s most significant, their system is incapable or unwilling or both of fulfilling even the minimum national duties.”
Israel’s latest assault on the Palestinians had only given the latter more resolve. While Galloway had seen bigger crimes in Lebanon, he felt Jenin was distinctive, describing the bravery of the defenders “who fought until they could fight no more, not because they ran out of courage or ran out of men, but because they ran out of ammunition. And they ran out of ammunition because the Arab regimes sealed and double-sealed their borders to stop a single bullet, or a single weapon, or a single volunteer from the millions that were on the streets of the Arab cities demanding of their governments that if you can’t do anything to save the Palestinians, open your borders and let us go.”
Galloway feels that the Palestinian people, far from defeated, are even more committed than before. “I liken it to a woman who enters upon a process of labor. Once labor has begun, it must go forward, it can’t be reversed. It either goes forward to death or to new life. And that’s the process on which the Palestinian millions are embarked. It may lead to death, they may never have their state, because nothing in history is guaranteed, but I am absolutely convinced that they will go forward trying until death if necessary.”
But how did he find the Palestinian people felt about the circumstances which ended the siege of Bethlehem and (Palestinian President) Yasser Arafat’s own in Ramallah? Despite his friendship with him, Galloway could not possibly support “his recent decisions of handing over the heroes of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who in the gloriest operation of the intifada, no suicide bomb, no pizza parlor, no collateral damage, cleanly executed a criminal fascist on occupied land, who was part of a Cabinet who had just murdered in cold blood their leader, Abu Ali Mustafa.”
While handing these men over to British and American jailers had created bitterness, the decision on the Church of the Nativity was even more resented. “This is the first time Palestinians themselves have negotiated the deportation from their own land of people whose only ‘crime,’ and I use the word crime in quotes, was to defend their little town of Bethlehem and the birthplace of Jesus from an illegal, overwhelming violent occupation by foreign soldiers.”
For Galloway, this now legitimized Israel’s deportation of captured Palestinian fighters.
Such views seem to have irked John Malkovich, who decided he wanted to kill Galloway (and The Independent’s Mideast correspondent, Robert Fisk). Galloway’s reaction was to pass the matter over to the Speaker of the House of Parliamnent and wonder whether Malkovich had been questioned by the police.
“It is remarkable that in the middle of a war on terrorism, an American citizen can get a visa to come to Britain, go to one of our ancient institutions, the Cambridge Union, and threaten to murder a member of British Parliament.” Such a threat will not make him any less outspoken, for “it is a sine qua non of this democracy that members of Parliament must be free to speak their minds without fear of being killed,” a freedom that Galloway will surely continue using as long as he has causes to defend.
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