Solomon2
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OPINION
The retro Arab!
Hard Talk
Last updated: Sunday, January 26, 2014 11:58 PM
HUSSEIN SHOBOKSHI
While it’s perfectly “hip” and “cool” to be nostalgic and look back in fashion, music as well as other types of arts, this state of mind has become known simply as retro. I don’t see the wisdom of being stuck in an endless political and cultural retro state of mind which basically describes the status of the common Arab today. The sheer volume and the massive amount of rhetoric devoted and dedicated to the Arab past in dialogue among common Arabs is simply mind boggling.
This is very alarming, particularly when one compares it to the same amount of “talk” devoted to the now and to the future. The Arabs are simply obsessed with their past and the glory that came with it. This has become a huge psychological entrapment, not allowing them to see the hopes and opportunities of today and tomorrow, which might be an important and serious factor to explain a lot of the problems and disappointments which they face and live in.
While it is perfectly normal and very much acceptable to be proud and nostalgic with a nation’s past every now and then, surely there is a fine line between pride and obsession and once that line is crossed it becomes very dangerous.
The Chinese, for example, have a “great” past with many reasons for them to be proud of. They have gone through an uneasy period reflecting about it and decided to move on. Now they are simply consumed with planning their future and dedicating themselves to work hard today.
Quite the opposite can be said about the Greeks. They are a people with an illustrious past. Athens was the model city state, the birth of democracy, philosophy and arts. Today it’s a model of disappointment, the fatal dream. Even its being a part of the mighty European Union could not salvage its hopes and aspirations. And during the infamous Euro financial crises, Greece was the main reason that took the whole continent down the economic drain.
Italy, on the other hand, is caught somehow in a “limbo” state of mind with a foot trapped in its mighty past and the other shaky foot in the present which might very well explain its very inconsistent economic and political performance and accomplishments over the recent decades.
These are all very important and telling points as far as the Arabs are concerned, because these show the “damage” that can be caused by the “unrealistic” obsession with the past. The most important obvious damage can be described as “delusional” with reality. This is evident with the many “popular” explanations of events that it is seldom the results of their “own” failures but because it is payback time from an old invoice to be paid from the glorious past.
The Arab retro is not a fashionable statement but a psycho-socio state of mind causing a huge setback and disappointment to future generations who all had hopes and dreams at one time. Clinging to the past is simply a way to escape facing reality and that’s how fortunes are lost.
[h/t: Crossroads Arabia]
