Beware in resting assured of your conditions: Al-Nafisi
Unity of the Gulf conference tackles obstacles towards unification
KUWAIT: The Unity of the Gulf and Arab Peninsula Countries conference held on Tuesday included experts from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states and Yemen to conduct seminars and workshops on assessing the experience of the GCC and unity among the countries of the region.
On its second day, the conference discussed the legal and factual evidence of the unity. Dr. Hakim Al-Mutairi from Kuwait talked about the justification of legitimacy, he said, "We live in an area experiencing a legitimacy crisis since the British imperialism. We had unity between Gulf and Arab countries during the Ottoman Empire's days. However, the legitimate crisis existed back then. The ironic thing is we were not aware of this; the only people that were aware of this crisis were the Westerns. Hence the crisis has risen in 1922 when the Middle East was divided. According to history, back in the days of ignorance, the only thing that has united the Arab world was the Islamic religion based on the Quranic verses and Hadiths."
Dr. Adel Al-Hassan from Bahrain replied to Dr. Al-Mutairi with two key points. "My first point is in order to have a united GCC; we must have legitimacy. The second point is our nations need to become united against the infidel enemies."
The next speaker, Dr. Khalid Al Qasimi from the UAE, started off by saying, "Psycho-social challenges are the most important factors in unity. When we see Sudan, Lebanon and a couple of other Arab countries having their unity broken into bits and pieces by international factors, it makes it hard to achieve unity. Being extreme in tribalism and extreme in religion is not the solution for unity."
On his part, Dr. Mohammad Taher from Oman in an exclusive statement to Al Watan Daily said, "To be honest, this conference is one of the goals of the communities of this area that we seek. This conference is a tributary for the Gulf cooperation path. What happened in the Gulf Cooperation Council does not meet the needs and requirements of the Gulf society because there are bottlenecks and we have to invoke and activate Article No. 4 in order to reach unity and this is the popular GCC peoples demand." One of the most important items Dr. Taher stated was, "How come our GCC schools teach American and European history and leave out our Gulf's history."
Dr. Ali Al-Kawari from Qatar along with Dr. Rija Al-Marzouqi from Saudi Arabia both discussed the economic challenges related to the GCC. Al-Kawari said, "We need to forget about the oil's profit and start working on investing our money without having to spend the profit we make out of oil. It (oil revenues) should be kept safe and untouched for the future generations." He threw Norway as an example and discussed that since they discovered they had oil, they never used its revenues. Dr. Al-Marzouqi said the benefits of having a unified GCC currency are "Price stability, stability of the monetary authority, cancellation of costs when converting them to another currency, increase of investments, increase in trade exchange, the oil will be invested with the same currency hence there will be economic growth that all comes with a united currency."
Dr. Abdullah Al-Nafisi a former MP and a well known political activist showed the attendees and the GCC activists that spoke in the conference the political challenges of having a GCC unity. He started off presenting a diagram that he drew. "This diagram that has the US and Europe in the center, showing that it controls the periphery countries through four means which are, monopolizing arms, monopolizing resources such as oil and wheat, monopolizing international legitimacy such as the UN and the last point is globalism in terms of trade and culture." He criticized the UAE by saying, "How come the UAE sends their military to fight in Afghanistan based on a decision made by the NATO, while some of their land is occupied by Iran, why don't they use their military to bring their lands back? Hence international legitimacy is controlling us. In terms of globalization about two years ago Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney, visited us to tell the GCC countries that their 'education curriculums needs reconsideration, particularly Religious curriculums. The Quranic verses that you teach to your children about the Jews create hatred between the peoples and we according to law prevent that across the world, hence I address to you in the name of the United States to re-look at the religious education system that you teach to children in schools.' Sadly, the GCC states agreed with her and changed their religious curriculum."
Dr. Al-Nafisi further stated, "I would like to quote former CIA member Katzman who said, "I imagine the only countries that will be left in the gulf region would only be The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, The Sultanate of Oman and Yemen, the rest of the countries because of foreign threats will not be stable, unless they volunteer to join another country, or they would join the neighboring country by force." Hence beware in resting assured of your conditions."
He further said, "All of us thought that the GCC would solve our problems, and make us feel confident, safe and united, but this never happened. The origin of the creation of the GCC with the purpose of unity has failed."
Unity of the Gulf conference tackles obstacles towards unification
KUWAIT: The Unity of the Gulf and Arab Peninsula Countries conference held on Tuesday included experts from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states and Yemen to conduct seminars and workshops on assessing the experience of the GCC and unity among the countries of the region.
On its second day, the conference discussed the legal and factual evidence of the unity. Dr. Hakim Al-Mutairi from Kuwait talked about the justification of legitimacy, he said, "We live in an area experiencing a legitimacy crisis since the British imperialism. We had unity between Gulf and Arab countries during the Ottoman Empire's days. However, the legitimate crisis existed back then. The ironic thing is we were not aware of this; the only people that were aware of this crisis were the Westerns. Hence the crisis has risen in 1922 when the Middle East was divided. According to history, back in the days of ignorance, the only thing that has united the Arab world was the Islamic religion based on the Quranic verses and Hadiths."
Dr. Adel Al-Hassan from Bahrain replied to Dr. Al-Mutairi with two key points. "My first point is in order to have a united GCC; we must have legitimacy. The second point is our nations need to become united against the infidel enemies."
The next speaker, Dr. Khalid Al Qasimi from the UAE, started off by saying, "Psycho-social challenges are the most important factors in unity. When we see Sudan, Lebanon and a couple of other Arab countries having their unity broken into bits and pieces by international factors, it makes it hard to achieve unity. Being extreme in tribalism and extreme in religion is not the solution for unity."
On his part, Dr. Mohammad Taher from Oman in an exclusive statement to Al Watan Daily said, "To be honest, this conference is one of the goals of the communities of this area that we seek. This conference is a tributary for the Gulf cooperation path. What happened in the Gulf Cooperation Council does not meet the needs and requirements of the Gulf society because there are bottlenecks and we have to invoke and activate Article No. 4 in order to reach unity and this is the popular GCC peoples demand." One of the most important items Dr. Taher stated was, "How come our GCC schools teach American and European history and leave out our Gulf's history."
Dr. Ali Al-Kawari from Qatar along with Dr. Rija Al-Marzouqi from Saudi Arabia both discussed the economic challenges related to the GCC. Al-Kawari said, "We need to forget about the oil's profit and start working on investing our money without having to spend the profit we make out of oil. It (oil revenues) should be kept safe and untouched for the future generations." He threw Norway as an example and discussed that since they discovered they had oil, they never used its revenues. Dr. Al-Marzouqi said the benefits of having a unified GCC currency are "Price stability, stability of the monetary authority, cancellation of costs when converting them to another currency, increase of investments, increase in trade exchange, the oil will be invested with the same currency hence there will be economic growth that all comes with a united currency."
Dr. Abdullah Al-Nafisi a former MP and a well known political activist showed the attendees and the GCC activists that spoke in the conference the political challenges of having a GCC unity. He started off presenting a diagram that he drew. "This diagram that has the US and Europe in the center, showing that it controls the periphery countries through four means which are, monopolizing arms, monopolizing resources such as oil and wheat, monopolizing international legitimacy such as the UN and the last point is globalism in terms of trade and culture." He criticized the UAE by saying, "How come the UAE sends their military to fight in Afghanistan based on a decision made by the NATO, while some of their land is occupied by Iran, why don't they use their military to bring their lands back? Hence international legitimacy is controlling us. In terms of globalization about two years ago Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney, visited us to tell the GCC countries that their 'education curriculums needs reconsideration, particularly Religious curriculums. The Quranic verses that you teach to your children about the Jews create hatred between the peoples and we according to law prevent that across the world, hence I address to you in the name of the United States to re-look at the religious education system that you teach to children in schools.' Sadly, the GCC states agreed with her and changed their religious curriculum."
Dr. Al-Nafisi further stated, "I would like to quote former CIA member Katzman who said, "I imagine the only countries that will be left in the gulf region would only be The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, The Sultanate of Oman and Yemen, the rest of the countries because of foreign threats will not be stable, unless they volunteer to join another country, or they would join the neighboring country by force." Hence beware in resting assured of your conditions."
He further said, "All of us thought that the GCC would solve our problems, and make us feel confident, safe and united, but this never happened. The origin of the creation of the GCC with the purpose of unity has failed."
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.