A heavy conversation!

Hussein Shobokshi RECENTLY, I happened to have a long conversation with a passenger whom I unfortunately stumbled into on a plane while on a long flight. The passenger sitting next to me was an Arab immigrant, who spent more than three decades of his life in a Western country. He asked my opinion about the US elections and its effect on the Middle East region. I asked him with a wry smile, “Why are you concerned about this issue since you live outside the troubled region anyway.” He said, “America is still a strongest country globally and it is able to influence and bring about a change in the global arena.” I lingered before answering him and said, “There are “vulnerable” effects on the region, in all cases... He interrupted me and said, “I did not understand what you mean vulnerable, can you kindly clarify?” I told him, “I did not complete my sentence yet and added that if Americans elected Hillary Clinton, the Arab Spring will spring up again but in a new form. This is because she was part of the political setup when Arab Spring was launched years ago and therefore the region will be watchful and cautious as the Arab Spring might come up again in the form of “completing it”. Don’t forget a very important point that Hillary Clinton, despite belonging to a Democratic Party, was among those who voted in support of Republican President George W. Bush’s son to invade Iraq. In case the US Republican’s controversial candidate Donald Trump is elected, the difference will be that while Hillary Clinton’s influence will be “outside”, the Donald Trump effect will be “inside”; in areas like legislation, policies of discrimination and harassment to the Arab and Muslim community; deliberately under the umbrella of maintaining security and under the pretext of “proactive and precautionary measures”. This will have a very negative impact on relations with the Muslim world in general.” The man put both his hands on his face and appeared dismayed. I continued, “There will be new circumstances in the world in international relations and re-structuring of such events is no stranger to anyone who has experienced history. Regions will be reconstituted in both geographical aspects and political divisions based on data of ethnic, racial, and sectarian and in other respects as well, depending on unloading of the population of one’s native country to the countries of the “other”. Reflect on what happened to the citizens of Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Sudan. Some voluntarily left from their country, while others were forced to leave. Their numbers and proportion in the countries where they fled were significant and entry of some of these immigrants brought substantial weight to countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey (but not limited to), for example. All this is part of soft-restructuring in the region. The region is left burning because within the extremist groups themselves they are enemies of each other, extremist who say killing of other Muslim is their priority. This justifies why third parties are involved in the region in fighting extremists. So we cannot blame them for their involvement as long as we have a lot of foolish extremists around us.” I gave a long look at the passenger by my side. There was a slight gloomy look on his face. He suddenly gestured to the flight attendant and said to her, “Please take away my food.” She replied, “But you did not eat anything Sir.” With a disturbed look on his face, he answered, “My throat is choked and I have lost my appetite!!”