Unveiled?
The question why people do what they do never goes out of fashion. Possibly, it will never be completely answered. No matter from what perspective this question can always be asked anew and will continue in gaining in importance.
In school already we had to battle against content analysis or tried to explain what is behind the works of famous painters. Whether it is mere “reading tea leaves” or either we are really capable of explaing what an artist feels or thinks when he is creativ, we do not know.
The same ambiguity might apply to the actions of politicians and heads of state. We constru, interpret, analyse and in the end we are as helpless as before. What I am driving at can be explained by using the example of the political situation in Lybia after the revolution. The country is currently courted from all sides like a prospective bride. Next to the visits of the French and British head of state it is the visit of the Türkish Prime Minister Erdogan, that does not only surprise the Western Press but also induces to wild speculations on his motives, titled inter alia: “Erdogan travels through the Arab Spring.” Currently Lybia seems, next to Egypt and Tunisia, in a comfortable position. Everybody wants to codetermine the future track of the countries on the Mediterranean and appears at one’s best: “EU-Parliament supports Arab Spring.” From a historically point of view the observer might be reminded on the times of the Cold War when the U.S. and the Soviet Union competed in a neck and neck race for every state in order to orient it either capitalistic or communistic.
With a feeling of insecurity and fear Europe monitors the goings-on of Erdogan as well as of the emir of Qatar with his verifiable successful TV station “Al-Dschasira“. The accusation of the powerful (mis-) use of the own broadcasting station does not miss a certain humour in the light of the head of state job of a certain guy called Berlusconis in Italy. Honi soit qui mal y pense? At the same time the renowned “Le Monde” admits that the liberation of the Arabic states has not to be credited to the Western military intervention. Lybia currently plans on the establishment of a “moderate islamistic” state designed after the Turkish role model the revolutionary transitional council aired last week. In may this year the ACP-countries had already decided on the right steps towards democratization of the country and proclaimed the “Deauville partnership”.
This might suggest the reading of the article “The Perception of the Other” which does not only describe how Western Media depicts “the Arabs” but also how “the Arabs” percept the posturing of the West. A change of perspectives, unfamiliar but necessary. At the same time listening to the podcast of the book “Dining with al-Qaeda” is worth it. In the podcast the journalist Hugh Pope describes quite blundly how the picture depicted by Western Media differs from what he witnessed in the Arabic World.
Therefore, truth does not only seem to be not absolut but also multi-perspective.
