Brazil: Still a tremendously second-rate people Senegal: Possibly the only people to have made no use of the wheel The above is part of my article tomorrow, where the reader will discover that WikiLeaks was not alone in publishing what is not quite fit for publication, or what the people behind certain information do not wish to be published. I was gathering material for a humorous article on countries or peoples that were sharply criticized only because they were not to the liking of their visitors, when I stumbled upon published official reports that are similar in spirit to what I began my article with. These reports mentioned Arab countries as well, with the views expressed by their authors on these countries being on par with the views on Brazil or Senegal. I started my research after I had read an article on the discovery of a letter written by the famous British novelist H.G. Wells, who snubbed a bid by the respectable suburb of Bromley, south of London, to honor him, although it was his family's birthplace. In the past, I read a science fiction novel by Wells, which was ‘The War of the Worlds', and I also believe his short novel ‘The Man Who Could Work Miracles' to be one of the most beautiful stories I have ever read. When I read his opinion on Bromley, I decided to look for similar snubs to add to my clippings. Perhaps one of the worst things I have heard was that – according to some people – if doctors decided to examine the world, and found out that it is sick and in need of an ‘enema', they would put the tube in Birmingham, England's second largest city, which means that those people consider Birmingham to be the world's backside. I will not use the name of any Arab city today, since its inhabitants will not find insults against their city to be amusing and will turn against me. Hence, I will content myself with Birmingham even if unjustly so, as I attribute to it what has been said about other cities, such as: What do you do in Birmingham? You try your best to leave. Or: There is nothing to do there after nine…in the morning. In the 1980s, I lived in Washington D.C. while still keeping my home in London. I once heard Ronald Reagan say: “Double, no triple, our troubles and we'd still be better off than any other people on earth.” Is this true? I don't think so. I lived in the United States and was impressed by its scenery and the diligence of its people and their good hearted nature, while coming to terms with the ignorance of the majority of the affairs in the outside world. However, I do not think that the Americans are better off than other people, and in my article tomorrow, there will be views on Americans that tackle their vanity and their pride. Americans are proud of what they call the ‘American way of life' or politically, ‘American exceptionalism'. In the 1980s, I found that what distinguishes American life was debt, i.e. for a person to be indebted, and this trend must no doubt have increased in the aftermath of the recent financial crisis. One example here is enough. My friend Dr. Clovis Maksoud directed me to a furniture shop in Washington, to rent furniture for my new home there, provided I return it nine months later, or I pay an extra installment and the furniture would be mine. I told the clerk at the store that I would pay the fees for nine months in one shot, but he refused, even though I was paying my dues in advance. We argued a bit but I insisted on paying. In the end, he contacted his company's management in another state and discussed the ‘problem', and he was told to accept the amount. Arabs who complain about their countries can find consolation by thanking God for not being in Somalia, or Haiti, which is supposed to be a beautiful country, but the earthquake there was followed by an outbreak of cholera, and the people of Haiti died in great numbers. I read that living in the countryside increases life expectancy by ten years. I would not mind living ten or even twenty years more; however, the problem is that I do not want to spend the extra years in the countryside with cows and foxes, and prefer to spend them in the city, with its lights and its temptations. Nevertheless, I do not want to live in Dubai because I feel old there, since I am older than 99 percent of its buildings. For this reason, I prefer to just visit it as I do each year. Perhaps the reader will notice that so far, I did not say anything negative about any Arab city, people or country, because I am a cautious person (read coward). While I am aware that freedom of speech is not yet dead in our countries, I am also aware that those who used it have indeed died. This notwithstanding, I can say whatever I want about Lebanon and its people, since I am writing from London, but I won't, although the leaks that will be the subject of my article tomorrow include some on Lebanon. All I say to the Lebanese today, is that they should show some modesty. Those “couple of cedars which have taken the world by storm' are not really on anybody's mind outside of Lebanon. There are many, many times more cedars in Morocco than in Lebanon, and no one is ‘taken by storm' by them. We hear that Lebanon is the Switzerland of the East, but we do not hear that Switzerland is the Lebanon of Europe. Some modesty, people. [email protected]
