Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=4-14-03

TYPE=SPECIAL REPORT

TITLE=ARAB SOUL SEARCHING

NUMBER=9-016

BYLINE=WILLIAM CHIEN

DATELINE=KUWAIT

/// EDITORS: Sound is in DALET/House Shared/Monday/"9-WCH-Kuwait-Arab Soul Searching". ///

INTERVIEW: PROFESSOR SHAMLAN AL EASA, DEPARTMENT OF POLITICS, KUWAIT UNIVERSITY

ACT: PRAYERS FROM MOSQUES & INTERVIEWS

INTRO: This Friday, April 18, will be the first major prayer holiday for Iraqi Muslims since the capture of Baghdad by coalition forces. Religious leaders in the Middle East are urging followers to reflect on the situation in Iraq and on their own religious convictions. Voice of America's William Chien, asks Professor Shamlan al Easa of the Political Science department at Kuwait University to describe the feelings of the Arab world.

TEXT: Professor Easa says some Arabic religious leaders, including a prominent religious figure in Algeria, are blaming the fall of Baghdad on a prevalent lack of faith in Islam. Many of them are also warning the United States not to establish a puppet regime in Iraq. Easa says a prominent Islamic scholar in Lebanon believes that the celebrations in Iraq demonstrate a welcome for a new political system, but they do not belie sympathy for an occupying military. Professor Easa is a firm believer in the separation of church and state or, in this case, mosque and state.

///ACT EASA///

We have to self-exercise . ourselves why they suffered defeat. Now, what is going on in the mosque is that everyone is going back to Islam or Arabism or pan-Arabism because the Arab mind is not able until now to see the picture very clearly. Going back to Islam.nothing new, everytime we get defeated by Israel or against development, always go back to Islam. Now we need more . I think it is a quick reaction to go back to . but after we wait a few months and things are very stable in Iraq and see quite a radical change towards more rational thinking, more scientific way of looking at things instead than tradition way of going back to Islam and Arabism.

///ACT END///

Holiday activities in major mosques of most countries include religious leaders retelling the Iraq story, reiterating that the situation of Muslims in the world today is connected to the level of their loyalty toward Allah. They advise their followers to carefully reflect on Iraq and not to be confused by the appearance of world events. These leaders exhort that sincerely pursing Islam is the only way that the Arabic world can recover from the current state.

Professor Easa thinks that Arabic people need to wait a few months for the situation to calm down and then do some deep reflection to come to a scientific conclusion.

///ACT EASA///

For sure this will affect other Arab countries. Already started. Arab regimes already start think that they have to do some reforms -- economic, social and political reforms. Very important. Will see very soon, all over the world, more freedom.not only ..even traditional. We have to change towards more freedom and democracy with their people.

///ACT END///

Professor Easa adds that before the events of September 11th, the U.S. supported many regimes in the Middle East, but that after September 11th, the U.S. woke up to a harsh reality. Not only does the U.S. want to change the political structure of the Arab world, he states, it also wants to change the shape of the Arab consciousness and the maladies of their societies.

///ACT EASA///

Everybody forgot what happened September 11. September 11 is the turning point in foreign policy and the way they look at all Arab world. It is quite a tremendous change after Sept. 11. People need to realize what happened September 11 . an insult to the United States as a great power. Now the US wants to change not only the people in charge of it but the thought and the ideology behind this thinking. Afghanistan first, Iraq second, and all those next.

///ACT END///

(Signed)