Princely Words From A Proper Muslim.

Note: These words are fully endorsed by this site. I recommend them to all readers.




The events of the past three weeks have brought us to the edge of the abyss. They are the result not of timeless and inevitable conflict, but of intransigence, fear and a shocking lack of creativity by leaders in our region and beyond. The indiscriminate loss of life on all sides has polarised our populations and shown diplomacy for the devalued and scorned art it has become. The focus on polemics and the ensuing escalation of violence has sidelined the very real and dangerous concerns that underlie our region’s spiralling decline.

Aggressive ideology is nurtured by an increasing lack of economic equality, poor social mobility, a denial to many of human security and the exclusion of the silenced majority. It is evident to us all that military might cannot cure the evils of our region. Violence begets violence and the mass bombings of civilians can only result in increased use of terror tactics further down the line.

It has become exceedingly clear that the current crisis requires the application of a two-fold solution if we are ever to hope for a secure and stable peace for all our citizens. The conflicts that rule our daily lives must be addressed at the political level but we cannot afford to ignore the effects of military overkill on basic humanitarian issues. Human rights are the first casualties of war and the degradation of human dignity in our region has undone generations of agreement and convention on the rights of civilians to protection and well-being. The anger and trauma created by hundreds of dead and injured and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians so far can only have violent repercussions for a hitherto democratic, pluralistic and multicultural Lebanon reality. The shockwaves are felt by our entire region.

The continued reliance on violence to tackle problems created by a ruthless ignorance of the right to economic and existential security of civilian populations can only succeed in handing over to extremists on all sides the power to represent our grievances. A Conference for Security and Cooperation in the region must be a priority for our leaders if human security is ever to become a reality. Diplomatic avenues must be opened and explored and this arduous process should include Syria and Iran. War and its tragic repercussions are inclusive of all — surely a model for peace should strive for such inclusiveness.

In memory of my late brother, HM King Hussein, and of PM Yitzhak Rabin, we must strive not to wage wars, but to win peace. Real peace must be built, it is not just the absence of war. We need to immediately call a Conference for Security and Cooperation to talk about the endgame, to develop regional understanding, to address the energy issue that is at the heart of so much instability and to devise a multilateral approach to such thorny issues as the proliferation of WMD, together with a regional concept for human rights, prosperity and security. Ideally, it could lead to a regional Code of Conduct and a Cohesion Fund that establishes principles of common interest, responsibility, transparency and a collective defence identity, reflecting the fact that interdependency is the reality today. Anthro-centric policies, policies where people matter, is the way to close the human dignity divide. Through good governance, we must empower the poor and dispossessed who find expression for their frustrations in extremist ideology.

The international community must firmly commit to supplanting unilateralist policies with regional strategies with the final aim of drawing up a comprehensive Regional Stabilisation Pact. The sooner a cessation of hostilities is achieved and international peacekeeping forces are deployed on both sides of the border, the sooner a collective strive towards institutionalised regional stability can begin. I cannot emphasise enough the need for diplomacy to transpose violence and this call echoes President Eisenhower’s appeal that the “table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.”

###

* Prince El Hassan bin Talal, brother of the late King Hussein of Jordan, is chairman of several organizations in fields which include diplomacy, interfaith studies, human resources, and science and technology.




Comment: Australia should endorse this call by Prince Hassan of Jordan. Australia has been actively involved with the Middle East since the time of the First World War; Australian troops under Colonel Chauvel conquered Damascus from the Turks in 1917. Lawrence of Arabia arrived in Damascus the following day, after the Australians had secured it.

We have a long involvement and we should continue it.