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government was heavily indebted and demanded funds from the Gulf states in order to rebuild.
Kuwait shares a border as well as oil fields with Iraq. The Iraqi leader of the time, Saddam Hussein,
decided that the Kuwaitis had been stealing Iraqi oil from these joint fields. With a great deal of fist
waving and threats, he demanded compensation.
Then Saddam Hussein did what no one ever expected. He invaded Kuwait.
Violence again, and between Muslim countries, again. The invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the
general euphoria about this in the non-Gulf Arab states clarified for Gulf Arabs the hatred of those
less fortunate than us. Parties were held in some expatriate homes in the remaining Gulf states
celebrating the comeuppance of the Kuwaitis. The PLO backed the invasion. Public demonstrations
took place in Jordan, Yemen, and southern Lebanon in favor of Saddam Hussein as the savior and
liberator of the Arab people—presumably from Israel and the petro-states. This physical violence
expressed political positioning and political positions. Violence made clear who was friend and who
was foe. It made clear that one of our defining elements is how others define us. Defined as wealthy,
oil-rich, ignorant desert Arabs, we were condemned by the Arabs of the less fortunate parts of the
Arab world with much higher populations and much less wealth. The invasion of Kuwait and its
subsequent liberation was a milestone for Gulf Arabs of my generation. It was when we came faceto-face
with the idea that other Arabs and other Muslims did not like us. This is when we realized that
we were no longer in our villages and our traditional towns. Now, the Gulf Arab world had entered
the center stage of world affairs. Though oil was a great resource and provided us with funds to build
our countries and educate our people, it was also a geopolitical obsession for poorer countries and
more populous countries both near and far. Whether we wanted to be or not, we were relevant.
A few years after the invasion of Kuwait when I was fresh out of university, I picked out a short
history of the Arab world written by a well-known author. It began by defining the real beginning of
the Arab world at the point when the Prophet Mohammed received his message. The author went on
to consider how the Arabs were from then on the best of all peoples, races, and nations—thanks to
Islam. He then surprised me by briefly looking at the Arabs before the onset of Islam and declared
them also to have been the best of peoples, races, and nations—in comparison with the Persians and
the Romans, who allegedly practiced incest and were generally morally despicable and corrupt. As
the years passed, I repeatedly came across the sensation that we Muslims were not being awfully
truthful or objective about our past. Surely we could not have been perfect from the beginning of time
until today? You will recognize this theme in many of your discussions with your colleagues. The
theme is that we are the best, that we must be united, and that this way we will be victorious over our
enemies. I think you are fully justified in listening to this narrative. You will find that the narrative of
we Muslims being the best is a powerful one and that you are not allowed to think that perhaps we are
not the best at the moment. This has a lot to do with statements in the Quran to that effect as well as
sayings of the Prophet. It always makes me feel uncomfortable when I am told this by someone who is
clearly not the best, nor making any effort to raise himself from the low place where he has settled.
Sloth, arrogance, and ignorance are not virtues of the best. So this is a place where we can state