An enormous flag dominates the skyline of Aqaba – the town at the tip of the right-hand prong of the Y at the head of the Red Sea.
The casual observer would assume it is a Jordanian flag – black, white and green horizontal stripes with a red triangle at the staff containing a seven-pointed star. But the star is missing and the stripes are in the wrong order – the white is at the bottom instead of the middle.
In fact it is a huge version of the flag hoisted in 1917 by T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) when his Arab forces captured the fort of Aqaba from the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
The British were delighted – anything to hinder the Turks who were on the side of the Germans in World War I. Ambiguous promises were made to the Arabs by the British that they would get independence in their lands – including Palestine — after the war. The British also gave ambiguous promises to the Jewish people that they could have a homeland in Palestine after the war.
After the war Britain and France divided the spoils. Britain took Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait and several strategic areas around the Red Sea and France took Lebanon and Syria. Saudi Arabia went its own way.
The Arabs of the former Ottoman empire have been divided ever since. Even the mid-world-wars influx of Jews into Palestine and the creation of Israel could not unite them, in nationhood, policy, economic development or even attitude to Israel.
For too long many have been ruled by anti-democratic despots and repressers of women. For too long many have relied on oil revenue to keep an elite rich and to provide just enough to keep the masses at bay without being much interested in economic development and connecting their people to the free flow of information, ideas and capital in the rest of the developed world. And certainly not interested in the rule of law, as distinct from the rule of a ruler.
The result has been a growing group of young male wall-sitters and street wanderers who have little hope for a better life and are receptive to fanatics who will exploit their grievances. It would be there without Israel, but it is made worse by Israeli expropriation of Arab lands in Palestine and America’s support for it.
But there is hope amid the violence. This week the Iraqi international donors met at the Dead Sea in Jordan – a short way north of Aqaba. The group is chaired by a Canadian, Michael Bell, and the $US1 billion in funds will be administered by the World Bank and United Nations. It is a sign of the internationalisation of the reconstruction effort.
Whatever one’s view on the US invasion without UN backing and without a real threat of weapons of mass destruction, the important thing now is that Iraq does not slump back to isolation and dictatorship with the result that millions live in fear, repression and deprivation.
It is a race between those who see a better society in international connection, free enterprise and free expression and those who see a better society in religious fanaticism.
Also this week Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered militants to return to a ceasefire with Israel, showing a determination to keep them in check in a way his predecessor Yasser Arafat refused to.
And in Lebanon, a Government was finally put together after free elections and an absence of Syrian interference for the first time in 30 years.
But curbing terrorist violence is not just a Middle East issue. Since the end of the Cold War, wars and the threat of wars between nations have virtually ended. Democracies with intensively interdependent economies do not go to war with each other; there is far more to lose than gain. The threat to peace comes from groups and individuals within nations and the way to stop that is to deny them recruitment opportunities through economic opportunities. People who can pursue a better life do not choose to kill themselves and others with a bomb.
I saw a great symbol of hope in Aqaba this week: a great machine of war – a Soviet-made tank that had seen service in the Jordanian Army at a time when the Middle East was a Cold War battleground, now put to much better use. It was on the floor of the Red Sea, 10 metres under quietly forming a new marine environment of coral and fish. And also attracting tourists and thereby greater international connections.
Also on the dive was Anton, a young Jordanian who makes his living running an internet-based hotel booking service. You could never see someone like him being remotely attracted to violent fanatics.
That is why – given the US has made such a botch of the peace in Iraq – that the world pours reconstruction aid in rather than abandoning Iraqi to economic destitution and allowing it to remain a recruiting ground for violence.