Danielle Levy

There are those who ask if Arabs are ready for freedom. It’s a question that makes my blood boil, for I can think of no human being anywhere who is not ready for the end of oppression. Indeed Egypt, Tunisia and any other country where tyrannical, exploitive regimes have toppled—or will—are bound to fumble their way to whatever form of government they will end up having. Aren’t we in the U.S. still, even if we’ve had over two centuries of practice? Decades ago in my native Morocco I heard the French say Arabs were not ready for freedom when they did not want to let go of their hold of North Africa. I also heard a similar version of the argument during the Civil Rights movement, from those who did not believe in racial equality. I grant there is a margin between not wanting to live under oppression whether from colonialism or from anything else, and being ready to handle the responsibilities of freedom. Whether we like to admit it or not, there no doubt are those for whom individual freedom may be too demanding. Not only would such people form a minority, more to the point countries are also not like individual human beings. They are collectives and within the collective some are strong enough to carry those who are not able to rise to the occasion on their own for whatever reasons. In each movement toward freedom, there are leaders, people who can inspire others. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela are powerful examples, leaders who inspired not only those they were trying to free, but the whole of humanity. That’s why when I contemplate freedom in Arab States, I look forward to the leaders who are bound to come forth, the men—and women—who will lead their countrymen and in turn all of us.

There’s a sense of alarm I experience whenever I read about comments made by Rush Limbaugh. The latest is his criticism of First Lady Michelle Obama for her “Let’s Move” campaign, the White House Super Bowl menu, her eating ribs in Vail, Co, the fact that she wouldn’t make it as a Sports Illustrated cover, and her waistline which she hides by wearing belts above the waist. Mr. Limbaugh who was criticized for going too far and hitting below the belt, defends himself by suggesting people should look at pictures of Mrs. Obama. I confess it’s the same sense of alarm I felt when I read that 46 people were arrested in Zimbabwe for watching videos of the events in Egypt and Tunisia. It was a gathering arranged by a law professor for those who had no access to TV or cable but the government saw the meeting as an attempt to organize to overthrow Robert Mugabe. You might tell me that Zimbabwe is an instance of no first amendment rights; and if anything Mr. Limbaugh’s case is one of carrying them to new extremes. But my alarm is not based on the intricacies of the first amendment but on whether things that appear so far fetched when they happen somewhere else, couldn’t happen here. When I hear the depths to which Mr. Limbaugh can descend, it challenges my understanding of what could or couldn’t happen in our own country. Maybe Zimbabwe descended to political depths and Rush is taking us to cultural ones, but depths are depths no matter how we get there.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently declared that multiculturalism has failed. When asked during a television interview about the policy advocating that societies welcome and foster distinct cultural and religious groups, he answered that the existing policy had been a failure. He isn’t the first to say this, other leaders or ex-leaders have said the same thing. Sarkozy clarified his position, “If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcomed in France.” How groups integrate and assimilate—or not—within societies which are not their own, has been the subject of academic study even longer than it has been that of political debate. In the last few years, however, the politicization of the issues has obscured the issues by tending to make them into either/or propositions or by oversimplifying their inherent complexities. In France, the U.S. or in any other country, the issue may not be whether or not multiculturalism has failed or succeeded, but how it has been implemented, applied, realized, put into action, understood, defined, mitigated or touted.