We, in the Middle East, have a dream

.: March 3, 2007

Nathalie Szerman in The Turkish Daily News explains why the MEP has chosen Istanbul as the venue for its Parliamentary meetings.

Masri Feki, the founder of the Middle East Pact, aims at creating a Middle Eastern Parliament that would convene twice a year in Istanbul.

In spite of the world-wide covered riots that shook France in November 2005 and other racist and anti-Semitic crimes that did not generally spread or gain momentum, France has never ceased to be a place of enlightenment for the peoples of the world. France offers freedom of speech, but sets limits to it. French intellectual ethics favor balanced approaches over simplistic, dualistic ones. France and Europe have been plagued for centuries by devastating wars and have eventually achieved political, economic and cultural union.Today, the Middle East is possibly the most troubled region in the world. Very little hope is left for peace-dreamers when Sunnis and Shiites fight to the death, and when many feel there are no solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and hardly any space for two states anyway. The Middle East is a region with problems that seem to bear no solutions; all the more as many of its countries restrict freedom of speech and its leaders have run out of imagination. Initiatives, however timid, have all failed.The one good thing we can say about the Bush initiative for a Great Middle East, whether we liked it or not, is that it breathed new life into a sclerotic situation. As such it triggered vivid protests: Middle East columnists kept writing that they did want democracy, but that it should be the result of an internal process.

France as freedom house

Ironically, the cradle of this "internal" process seems to be France, a country where many active ex-pats have settled. France harbors Arab and Iranian associations promoting freedom and democracy in the Maghreb region and the Middle East: Le Manifeste des Libertés, Ni Putes Ni Soumises, to mention only two very active ones. They organize conferences, demonstrations and even artistic events to promote gender equality and reform in the region. Ex-pat "Middle-Easterners" publish widely read books, such as Iranian-born writer Chahdortt Djavann’s “Bas les Voiles” (Veils Off) and “Que pense Allah de l’Europe” (What Allah Thinks of Europe). Chahdortt’s highly articulate thinking and lapidary phrasing weighed heavily on the French policy banning the veil in schools.Special mention should be made of the French-based Middle-East Pact. For one thing, it has a vision. A vision is what the Middle East has been badly lacking. A vision is what Israeli leaders never manage to bring about. A vision brightens the horizon and provides people with the motivation to implement changes. A vision brings people together when they can adhere to it. A common vision for the countries of the Middle East is the best thing you can offer them.

Middle East Pact

Masri Feki, the founder of the Middle East Pact (MEP), is Egyptian. He has elaborated a vision of the Middle East together with other Middle Easterners, including Iranians, Kurds and also Israelis. According to Feki, Israel has problems that are not so different from those of the other countries of the region and "Judaism is an Eastern religion."But the backbone of the MEP is Turkey: "Turkey is the only country in the region that enjoys diplomatic relations with all the other countries of the Middle East. And it has a glorious past. Turkey is the leading country of the Middle East."The goal of the MEP is to promote democracy in the region in a "gradual and natural way", taking advantage of the natural evolution of mentalities towards a better understanding of the other. "Every country in the Middle East is composed of many minorities. Hence the great number of conflicts. We aim at creating a Middle Eastern Parliament that would convene twice a year in Istanbul. Fair representation would be its guiding line. This will give birth to a democratic network of Middle Eastern parties and organizations parallel to the official leaderships of the Middle East states. Such a network would not oppose the leaders but be a partner in affairs pertaining to minorities and democracy."True: the peoples of the Middle East have no common history, but they undoubtedly have a common future. Paraphrasing Martin Luther King, the founders of the Middle East Pact say that "even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, we have a dream that one day the Turks, Egyptians, Saudis, Iranians, Iraqis, Jordanians, Lebanese and Israelis, Sunnis, Shiites, Jews of all backgrounds and Christians of all denominations will first and foremost define themselves as belonging to the rich confederation of the Middle East."

Nathalie SZERMAN © Turkish Daily News