Former Saudi ambassador to Britain, Dr. Ghazi Bin Abdul-Rahman Al-Qusaibi has been recently named the kingdom's new Water Minister. The official Saudi Press Agency issued a brief statement late last month saying he assumed his duties as the new Minister. The decree issued by King Fahd regarding the appointment added that al Qusaibi, a prominent poet and novelist, would oversee the departments of water in the ministries of agriculture and water.
But, what the official news agency apparently failed to mention was the long and bumpy road, which preceded al Qusaibi’s “rise” to his new position. Al Qusaibi came under intensive fire from British media and various groups, mainly Jewish ones, a few months before, for praising Palestinian suicide bombers in a poem published in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper.
Al Qusaibi’s accession as new Water Minister, as aforesaid, was absolutely controversial. It all started back in April, when the British Foreign Office confirmed it would be rebuking the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United Kingdom over a poem he wrote, which paid tribute to Palestinian suicide bombers and criticized the policy of the United States. Al-Qusaibi's poem hailed Palestinian bombers as dying “to honor God's word” and singled out teenager Ayat Akhras, who sacrificed her life in Jerusalem. Al-Qusaibi referred to female suicide bomber, who detonated explosives strapped to her body at a Jerusalem supermarket at the end of March, killing two Israelis and injuring 25.
“Tell Ayat, the bride of loftiness ... She embraced death with a smile while the leaders are running away from death. Doors of heaven are opened for her,” Al-Qusaibi wrote.
“May God be the witness that you are martyrs ... You died to honor God's word. (You) committed suicide? We committed suicide by living like the dead,” he wrote in “The Martyrs,” a short, but opinionated, poem published on the front-page of the pan-Arab daily.
Moreover, criticizing US policy in the Middle East and in an apparent reference to Arab leaders looking to Washington for help in ending the Israeli-Palestinian violence, Al-Qusaibi, who had served as ambassador in London for over ten years, wrote, “We complained to the idols of a White House whose heart is filled with darkness.”
The British Foreign Office, for its part, conveyed, thereafter, that the British government would be reprimanding Al-Qusaibi essentially over his comments about Palestinian bombers, which the United Kingdom considers to be “a form of terrorism.”
On the debatable issue of Palestinian suicide bombers, it is evident that throughout the Arab world, various Islamic religious leaders and scholars have been strongly divided on the matter. Just to briefly highlight this wide-ranging debate, we can see that last year, for instance, Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, declared that “any act of self killing or suicide is strictly forbidden in Islam” and consequently “the one who blows himself up in the midst of the enemies is also performing an act contrary to Islamic teachings.”
In Egypt, on the other hand, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque, mainstream Islam’s top seat of learning, declared in April that, “One who blows himself up among those (Israeli) aggressors is a martyr, martyr, martyr, and whoever says otherwise is a ... liar.”
Back to al Qusaibi, sometime after writing the poem, he was interviewed by a correspondent of Al Sharq Al Awsat daily. Answering a question about his poem he had written in praise of Ayat Al-Akhras, al Qusaibi stated, “I wrote this poem for two reasons that affected me psychologically. First, I saw her talking in the video broadcast on television. It was obvious that she was a woman who wanted only to die as a martyr and defend her homeland. She was young, 17, and I imagined her to be my daughter. I felt that she was a girl whom despair, frustration, and rage had brought to a point where she was willing to kill herself for her homeland.”
“Second, some time after her martyrdom, …President George Bush said that all Arabs should call the perpetrators of suicide operations - and I, by the way, object to this term because these are martyrdom operations - criminals and murderers. I said to myself: the humiliation in which we live is bad enough, but maybe the day has come when they impose on us not only what to do but also what to say. Will the man influenced by Israel [referring to President Bush] determine who is a Muslim martyr and who is a Muslim criminal? I had no choice but to take a stand on this issue. I could have written an article, but emotion has found _expression in my poem. I knew that the poem would spark debate, but sometimes a man must take a stand.”
Al Qusaibi further went on, and when asked whether he encourages young people to carry out “martyrdom operations,” he replied, “Whether I encourage it or not is irrelevant... Yet, the position of my government or of other governments is another matter. I think that it is the right of every man to defend his homeland by any means. A man who defends his homeland and dies doing so is a martyr, and in no case must we consider him a suicide [bomber].”
He explained that “In the Koran... it is written that anyone who dies for the sake of Allah is a martyr. When the Prophet Muhammad was asked about the meaning of ‘for the sake of Allah,’ he said, ‘Anyone who fights so that the words of Allah will be supreme.’ Namely, he who kills because he wants to be a hero, or to be brave, will not be a martyr, no matter what he does...”
Al-Qusaibi was also asked whether Riyadh provided aid to the families of Palestinian bombers, and he replied, “All the Palestinians, all the martyrs, and all their families are needy... How will they be able to live without the help of their Arab brethren… I approve of the aid going to the families of the martyrs, the families of the wounded, and every needy Palestinian. This is what Saudi Arabia is doing.”
As it turns out, Al-Qusaibi had written about suicide bombers in the past as well, as he conveyed, “I have not changed my position regarding the Palestinian problem since I was 16... I wrote about the first suicide bomber, [a] Lebanese woman [named] Sanaa Al-Muhaeidly... My position is not new. What is new is the state of horror and tension that caused the Fidaai [martyrdom] attacks in Israel”.
He continued on to say, “I do not fear death - on the contrary, I long to die as a martyr, although I am at an age that does not allow me to carry out a martyrdom operation. My weight does not permit this. But I still hope to die as a martyr...”
Additionally, Al-Qusaibi clearly expressed his views on the cultural gap between Islam and the West, while referring to the experience he had accumulated during his many years in London, “There is a cultural gap. We make fools out of ourselves when we say there are no differences between Islam and the West. The fundamental difference is that in Islam many of the rulings - those included in the right texts - don't change, and people cannot change them. Yet, the rulings in Western culture are the complete opposite. For Muslims, a ruling that has changed is not fit for human beings. Thus, this is not a question of public relations.”
“On the other hand... democracy in Britain can do what it wants...In contrast, according to the Islamic view, no one - the nation cannot, 1,200,000,000 Muslims cannot - make the forbidden permissible and cannot make the permissible forbidden. [In Islam] punishments have been set, and no matter what we say, the West will see them as barbaric and primitive. According to the Western view, flogging is illogical. Execution is unacceptable, and the same goes for amputating hands and stoning. These are things that in Muslim eyes are at the core of the Islamic faith.”
“For this reason, there is a genuine cultural gap that cannot be bridged by hiring the services of a PR company - but only by West and East respecting each others' culture. If we say that Western culture is preposterous, and that it is a wicked and inferior culture, and if they say, your culture is primitive - we will get no results. I maintain that the mature position is to accept the Westerners with their culture, and for them to accept us with ours...”
Undoubtedly, the controversial pathway, which led to al Qusaibi’s appointment as Minister in the Saudi Kingdom still exists in the background and interestingly enough, the official Saudi Press Agency or other official Saudi media channels had never explicitly mentioned the chain of events which preceded his nomination. What SPA had to offer, among other things, was a brief statement on Al-Qusaibi’s assumption of power and the location of the new minister’s office “at the headquarters of the Saline Water Conversion Corporation”…
Furthermore, it appears that nowadays in order to remove a Saudi ambassador from his post in any Western capital – all that has to be done is wave at the Saudis with the “terrorism” banner. In the aftermath of 9/11, this is a sensitive matter which Riyadh is not ready to make any more mistakes with.
On his part, Al-Qusaibi has denied suggestions by the press that his new appointment was a punishment for criticizing Zionists. "Saudi Arabia will not take any decision under foreign pressure," he said. Speaking to Al-Hayat, al Qusaibi said an unholy alliance of Zionists and Christian extremists was behind the smear campaign launched against him and his country. He said he would continue to express his opinions through media channels.
Al Qusaibi said his new appointment did not come as a surprise, as there was a proposal to establish a separate ministry for water some five years ago. The Council of Ministers decided to set up the new ministry around a year and a half ago, he made clear. "I was aware that the government was looking for a suitable person to take up the job of water minister. So, the appointment was not a surprise for me. It may be a big surprise for those who do not know the background," he told the Arabic daily. "Those who do not know should ask those who know instead of making assumptions and predictions," he conveyed.
"It’s mere stupidity for someone to believe that Saudi Arabia takes decisions under pressure from Zionists. If the Kingdom had acted in tune with Zionist pressure it would not have faced the present smear campaign as everybody knows the source and reasons for this campaign," he said.
The minister further said that there was no pressure exerted either from the United States or Britain to remove him from the ambassadorial post. "If there was pressure the Kingdom would not have accepted it," he added. "What is circulated in this respect is mere rumor and falsification," he added. Al Qusaibi said he has established "very good relations" with officials at the British Foreign Office and other departments.
Asked whether his poem was in tune with his previous job as a diplomat, he said he has the right to express his personal opinion through poems or novels or any other literary form.
"No sane person will consider a poem or a novel or a play as an official stand. Those who have raised this issue know this fact, but they want to silence every person who raises his voice against (Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon’s atrocities and defends the Palestinian rights.
"But they will not be able to silence the world’s 1,000 million Arabs and Muslims. We are not capable of fighting with weapons but we can fight wielding our pens," he strongly expressed.
Referring to an Israeli newspaper report that US President George Bush had told Crown Prince Abdullah that the Saudi Kingdom "has a good ambassador in Washington and a bad one in London," al Qusaibi said, "This report is part of Israeli lies. It’s totally false."
Moreover, he said Arab countries must improve their situation from within before trying to improve their image abroad. "The present Arab situation is gloomy. There are divisions and differences... If we remain in this situation, it will be difficult to give a good impression about us in the West or East. When our situation improves, naturally Arab causes will receive greater support in the West."
Al Qusaibi said the ministerial post would not prevent him from continuing his literary works. "I have worked as a Cabinet member before and in those days I published a number of books and collections of poems. So, there will be no change," he added.
For al-Qusaibi himself, serving as Water Minister in a country heavily reliable on desalination of sea water, in which consumption is far greater than the amounts available from renewable sources, it seems that as of now, he has a lot on his mind and it may take a while for him to fit in his busy schedule some time to write another poem…(Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
