From: phd21@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A. Jaber)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
Subject: Analysis of What Fouad Ajami says
Date: 24 Jul 92 16:14:53 GMT
Reply-To: phd21@seq1.kl.ac.uk (A. Jaber)
Organization: University of Keele, England

>From: analyst@netcom.com (David Sternlight)
>
>Jaber refers to the New Republic of "May June July 1991" as support for
>his assertion that Fuad Ajami is both Persian and pro-Khomeini.
>
>There is no such thing. The New Republic comes out bi-weekly, not
>every three months.
>
>I assume Jaber simply is referring to either his vague memory or
>something someone else told him. Neither is reliable in a discussion
>of such a high temperature.

	Davis Sternlight: I have refered to one of the issues of the New
	Republic published in this period of (May June or July 1991). I 
	did not remember the exact issue but for your satisfaction I
	went down to the Library and I was really very close to this
	date. The last thing I have to memorize by heart is the number
	of issues of the New Republic since I do not consider this forum
	of any importance. Yes I found the exact Issue I am refering to
	It is:

	New Republic Augaust 1991 (The Article is called the End of Arab
	Nationalism, A personal and Political odyssey by Fouad Ajami
	starts on page 23 and ends on page 27.

	On page 24  Ajami says" I was born in the Hinterland of
	Lebanon in in 1945. My people broke out of my remote birth place
	into the city of Beirut in the late 1940s. My great-grandfather
	had come from Tbriz in Iran to a remote Hamlet in south Lebanon
	some time in the mid 1850s."

	The above are the words of Ajami himself


	About the Khomeinist connection in his article those are his
	words:" To my work on modern Arab politics I must have brought
	the truth bequethed me by the small Shiat world I had been born
	into. The Shiats were the step Children of the Arab world. In
	its principal cities they were strangers, a people of the
	country side. To its Sunni Orthodox they were Sectarians."

	The above is Ajami's words. This is exactly what reminds me
	of Radio Tehran early during the Khomeinist propaganda in the 
	Middle east in which he asked the Shias to revolt against Arab
	Rulers. I would like to challenge any body who supports Ajami or
	Ajami himself to answer these questions. The analysis of Ajami
	to the sociological situation reveals his ignorance and the
	shallowness of his scholarship. Arab Nationalism did not
	consider Shias as step children and the Manifestos of Arab
	Nationalist movement came to unite all Arabs of all religions 
	and advance their cause. Of course this is not ideal and there 
	was odd cases of abuse. To prove the Iranian sectarian
	connection of Ajami he forgot to mention that the Syrian
	President who is an Alawi ( a radical Shia Sect that conisder
	Imam Ali  as God) and his Alawi sect control Syria and its
	Pan-Arabist policy. This is the indication of Ajami's Khomeinist
	Connection, I have never heard Radio Tehran condemn the Arabism
	of Syria even when Assad Killed 50,000 Muslims in Hama,
	ironically Ajami refers to the Carnegie of Hama as the trouble 
	in Hama on page 25 of his article. If this indicates any thing
	it will indicate the mentality of Fouad Ajami that is dictated 
	by Khomeinism.

	In the quote above from Ajami he says that Shias in the Mideast 
	are refered to as country people (Fallaheen). THis shows the
	ignorance of Ajami about the social situation of the people of 
	the Middle East. Most of the people in the Middle East are
	Fallaheen and being Sunni or Shia did not make a difference.
	There was and still exist bad relations between city dwellers 
	and country dwellers, for Ajami to restrict this to the Shias
	only reflects his Sectarian mentality to stir emtions between
	Sunni and Shia. I am my self Fellah( Country dweller) and may be
	will not be looked at as equal with city people even though I
	am a sunni Muslim. The division between city dwellers and
	country dwellers crosses the divide of Sunni Shia divide in the
	Middle East to the same sect. I challenge Ajami to prove if the
	Great Shia Families of Basra in Iraq are willing to let their 
	daughters to marry a poor Shia man from say the Marshes of Iraq,
	and they are both Shia, this has shown the shallowness of the 
	scholarship of Fouad Ajami. 

	If Fouad Ajami has been made a shcolar by appearing on TV to say
	what the US public want to hear, this does not make him a sholar
	but rather a funny figure.

	The other thing that Ajami deliberately ignored is blaming the
	abuse of the Maronite of Lebanon of the Shias, he wanted to use 
	his Khomeinist vocabulary and accuse the Orthodox Sunni Muslims
	who were used as well by the Maronites after years of French
	control in Lebanon.


	This is the fact about Fouad Ajami and Mohammad Anwar who is
	Fond of Ajami and his ideas.

	May be the American Public likes Ajami because he says what the
	Public want to hear about the Enemy Number one (Saddam Hussein)
	but Ajami is only making fun of himself.

A Jaber






 
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