During all this time, talking about from the emergence of Islam to the middle of the 13thcentury, Islam was developed, was democratic therefore the Arabs were a living nation in the world when Europe was in the dark ages. Now for some reason people they look, they say, “look at these Arabs, they’re undeveloped. They are backward.” But Europe was backward and not developed when the Arabs were at the highest of their civilization that lasted for five hundred years. It’s forgotten. How did this happen? Simply, the Mongols took over Baghdad 1258, the Abbasid or the great Arab empire started to decline, the Ottoman empire early in the 16th century ruled the Arab world until the end of the first World War. Four hundred years of Ottoman domination indeed put the Arabs four thousand years behind. The Arabs did not benefit from the Turks, from the Ottoman Empire at all. The Ottoman Empire in the name of Islam, they ruled that entire region, they were collecting taxes, building some museums, some palaces – but really the Arab did not advance. What happened during the, errr… really the Ottomans in the 16th century were declining they began to be strong but they started the first phase of decline Europe was picking up, then Renaissance, and by the end of the 18thcentury, or the beginning of the 19th century, the great European industrial revolution when Europe took over all over the world, the Ottoman Empire declined, the end of the First World War, the British mostly and the French divided the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire disappeared. The Arab world fell under the British and the French domination. After the Second World War, then Arab independent states started to emerge and to be formed immediately run by dictators from the Arab world until now.
This is the history. That’s nothing to do with Islam really. That’s not to deal with the religion. Something historical, some historical process happened to the region. It’s now developed, then declined, the Arab state declined, and now let me just outline here for the state of the Arab world and the Islamic world. It’s in decline. It’s in chaos, fragmentation, and its defeat [sic]. This is the worst time for the Arabs and the Muslims in the world and the region’s exploding and if you think the Arabs are not developed so far, let them not develop, we don’t want to see what wars will come. So many things are happening. The lack of development has nothing to do with the religion.
It has to do with the political system of the country. Developments can really be built on two pillars – democracy, which include freedom. Second you must have industry. If you don’t have industry in your country, you cannot be developed. If the Arab world cannot produce and manufacturer a flashlight, it will import a flash light, cars, TV, air conditioning, tanks and airplanes from the West, parts, you cannot be developed. You cannot be developed. You must have heavy industry. Otherwise, there is no development.
You can have president, you can have whatever democratic, democratic system, whole system, you can freedom, but you cannot have development, you cannot have society if you do not have heavy industry. They think, people, think they think, they are not developed because woman is not driving in Saudi Arabia. For God’s sake, that is not the reason that the Arabs are not developed. Because a woman is not driving in Saudi Arabia, the whole country is not developed? It is not true. So many things are not true. You don’t have industry, you don’t have democracy, you don’t freedom, you don’t development. This is it. How do you change it? That’s other question. You can change it. You have to get rid of the Arab dictators first. The irony, which you don’t really want to know, or you will find surprising, the Arab world has been dominated now by Muslim countries, and the Arab government is paying Western country to dominate them. Dominate us, and get our money, please. Just keep us in power. I’ll give you example. In Saudi Arabia, the national general income of the country dosen’t go to the state, it goes to the king in the palace. Numbers – secretive. Revenues of oil: the king and the royal family decide on what they want to take. This is for me, this is for my cousin, they have few thousands members of royal families, and everyday they have a gushing oil in his bedroom. This from day one, he is born, and all this money goes to Swiss account, New York, California, and invested. What’s left, what his majesty and his royal family – they want to give the country a charity of the general nationally. $3 billion for a charity, for 25 million Saudis, versus countless numbers of billions of dollars in the hands of the royal family. How do you want development to happen? This is not Islam. Same thing with the Gulf States. So them ranking themselves Marcus asked me some question about them linking themselves with globalization… this globalization at this point in history does not help the Arab world. All of the money goes to the big banks, to the big countries, and the Arabs are deprived from their own oil. So we give you – I’m talking about the West – oil money to invest, just keep us in power. That is like a state of failure. A complete failure. Do not think the Arab leaders do not know it. They know it, they are happy with it. They want it to be this way, they want to stay in power, they don’t want to leave. Oppress the people. Oppress the people and get the American support, it’s fine. Hosni Mubarak has 17 million poor Egyptians, taking 2 point something from America every year, all of the economy of Egypt goes to him and his gangs, his mafia, mafia!, making houses, building restaurants, they sharing… it’s a mafia, it’s gangster, the people are poor. The same thing in Saudi Arabia. All of the money of the royal family, the people are poor. In other places, this is the corruption.
Now the point I wanted to tell you that, this process which is something that you don’t want to hear but I am going to tell you because it is my duty to tell you and to share with you my experience.
The only leader, in the Arab world who was on the right track for development was Saddam Hussein. But they don’t want him. Because he is dictator, he is brutal. I know. I’m not defending the guy, but the guy did something for his country. They had development. He wasn’t a thief. And he tried to build. They have great infrastructure there. Millions of money, so many hospitals, solving so many problems, it was on the right track to be a key power in the region. He doesn’t have weapons of mass destruction. He wasn’t working with Osama bin Laden. Saddam Hussein was serving the American interests in the Middle East. America shot itself in the foot when it attacked Iraq. The region became more in chaos. Now, after four years, the Americans in instead of trying to get hearts and the minds of the people, they are using the hearts and the minds of the Arab people. I used to go to the region before the war in Iraq, people loved American people. The Arab people, they love American people. They disagree with them on a couple of things. They disagree with them on things. They disagree on the American policy but they do genuinely love American people, they love American culture. Anywhere in the Arab world you go you find a hamburger and a MacDonald’s, fried chicken, and stuff like that. They like it… Arab people they like to wear the jeans, and to speak English with the people. They like to listen to American music. Now the people don’t like Americans anymore because Americans are not doing the right thing in the region. But the news and media is very one-sided here. You have to go to the Arab streets to hear what the people are saying. If you sit here in Bridge Port, with beautiful view, and make a philosophy about the region, and say, we don’t like this, bomb him, this guy is a crazy, Saddam is a crazy, Azzazi is crazy, Ahmadinejad is a crazy, Korea guy is a crazy – but the definition of craziness who decides that? You don’t like me, so you say, Frangieh is a crazy? We have to have a fair and balanced policy with vision. And the vision has to be built on truth. You don’t see the truth. You can’t be right, and nobody’s right. Nobody holds the full truth. We can be wrong on one thing. We can be right on one thing. We have to have room. But not just be straight policy, either with us, or against us. This doesn’t work. Black and white doesn’t work. There has to be more fairness. People have to see the region. It’s getting more dangerous. If you think this is it, when you are in Iraq, some people are saying you do not support the troops, we support the troops, we want them to come home, we don’t want them to be killed for no cause. And, what we see: see three thousand Iraq soldiers killed, but you don’t see the other hundred of thousand of Iraqi are dead, injured, people without electricity, without medications, people on the streets, so many people, thousands dying every day.
