So, we have hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria (and some from Iraq as well) pouring into Europe as the European countries struggle to accommodate the deluge, while the weather inches closer to winter and politics becomes more fertile for xenophobia. All this time, many of the refugees -- most of the Muslims -- are living a precarious existence at the mercy of their unsure and, often, unwilling hosts.
The wailing and teeth gnashing of humanitarians and progressives all around the Western world are commendable as they band together to demand more compassion for the refugees. And where in all this is the Arab world with its vaunted slogans of Arab unity, Middle Eastern hospitality, and Ummah solidarity?
How many of these forlorn co-religionist, neighbouring, and fellow Arab refugees have rich Saudi Arabia taken in? Or glittering Dubai? Or the opulent Qatar of Al-Jazeera television fame? Or that hub of global finance, Bahrain?
I won’t insult your intelligence by citing the figures that provide the answer. Chances are, you already know. The proper question should be: Where is the outrage in the Arab world while the liberals in the West channel fury at Europe’s apparent lack of compassion?
The truth is, well-meaning human rights types who never waste a moment to condemn Europe, North America, or Australia for different versions of xenophobia can rarely be bothered to put the Arab world under the same scrutiny. The silence becomes even more deafening when newspaper columns and fiery opinion pieces from Kuwait to Karachi to Kuala Lampur are examined.
Those of us who have lived in the Middle East and followed its evolution as academics and observers know that this utter indifference to the plight of their own fellow Arab refugees is hardly surprising. Xenophobic tendencies in many Arab societies are so entrenched that it would make pre-1990s South Africa and pre-1970 southern United States look positively liberal.
Videos of cruelty towards foreign household help in Arab countries are pretty common on social media; what is more troubling is the absolute legal impunity the perpetrators have. Those videos, I am afraid, form only the tip of the iceberg. Even in historical terms, let us not forget that chattel slavery was legally practiced in parts of the Arab world almost a full 100 years after its abolition in the United States.
For all the talk of standing with Palestinians, no Arab country except Jordan allows for Palestinian refugees (or any other immigrants) to become citizens regardless of how many generations they have lived and worked there. Many actually ban Palestinians from working in a dozen or so career fields; yes, a Palestinian can practice as an architect or a physician in Israel, but not in Lebanon!
In Dubai, there are neighbourhoods, beaches, and business establishments that officially are open only to Arabs or North Americans and Europeans. In Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, white collar professionals from South Asia are paid significantly less than their similarly qualified peers from North America, and there is no legal bar to it.
Some of my pre-teen years were spent in the Middle East, a narrative that is all too common for many of the children of the first wave of temporary economic migrants who left the newly formed Bangladesh to make a living abroad. Over the years, I have watched with scholarly curiosity and an observer’s dispassion the incredibly divergent standards that are applied to human rights failings of the West and those of our Middle Eastern regimes in columns, speeches, seminars, and even polite living rooms.
As Germany is being raked over the coals for its slow embrace of a flood of refugees from a very different culture, I am yet to see a single human rights organisation pen a column in either the Washington Post or the Jakarta Post asking why the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation or the Arab League has not lifted a finger to welcome any of these refugees who share cultural, religious, and ethnic bonds with them.
The same multi-billion dollar sovereign family that owns Al-Jazeera that blares the plight of refugees on a 24/7 basis has given homes to how many of these co-religionists exactly?
The sad truth is that, while some European governments can do better in their efforts at managing the onslaught of refugees from the Syrian crisis, the Arab and Muslim neighbours of Syria have literally not done anything at all. And that is a shame that no amount of rhetoric about the so-called Ummah can erase.