miércoles, 25 de febrero de 2015

Mecca, one of the pillars of the Arab world

There are who may think that the city of Mecca is located in Africa since it is one of the pillars of the Arab world, but actually this city is in Asia, in the region known as Saudi Arabia, Middle East.

Mecca attracts millions of tourists every year, mucho9s of which organize their trips for religious reasons, and others simply enjoy the scenery and the curiosity generated by the corner most famous of this city, the mosque toward which to pray every day millions of Muslims around the world, and more specifically to the Kaabaa piece of meteorite covered with a gold embroidered black cloth, which says that the Patriarch built abrhám and his son Ismael. Muslims who organized their trip must give seven turns around and try to touch the stone with their hands.


Very near to this place you can visit the city of Yeda, where is the most important port of the country and in which is says that the tomb of Eve, the first of the women of the world that God created is. Until the 1970s it was possible to visit this archaeological site, but Muslim authorities ordered sealed with cement the entrance to prevent the pilgrims to pray at the Tomb, thus breaking the tradition that commands every Muslim to pray towards Mecca.


Near Mecca is also the well of Zamzam, where it is believed that God revealed to Hagar a water source that prevent the death of his son Ishmael, father of all the Muslim people. The faithful believe that the water of this well is blessed by God and has special properties.

meca arab world

The Arab world, aimlessly

When something changes in our around the first thing that we try is anticipating events, trying to takenew positions to avoid the gap. When something changes in our around must be prepared to dealwith what approaches, by strengthening the body and the sanitation of the spirit. And in these timesof crisis, something is changing us around.

However, the Arab world does not seem to react with these natural reflexes and gives the impressionthat opts to let the streak, rather than lift the head in search of his lost position. The risk is to finishcomplying with any gap that is free. Wounded by decades of effective and bleeding yet to be thedomain of economic and cultural colonialism, the Arab world is not fully resolve its own contradictionsand gives the impression of sailing aimlessly at the mercy of the wind force.

His birth dates from the time of the confrontation between the West and the Muslim Ottoman Empire.Since then, the set of domestic institutions who agreed, one after the other, form the Arab League, insearch of support in their liberation struggles, remains committed to maintain an identity whichserved at the time to get rid of the Turkish domination but who disagrees or with the history nor withthe current feelings of the citizens.

The confusion between the propagation of Arabic language and the so-called "Arabization" of ethnicor racial communities, constitutes, in my opinion, the Gordian knot that hampers the assumption byeach village of its own historical personality and clouded the visibility of the pathways that facilitatetheir authentic fulfillment.


The Arabic language, as the language of the Quran, enjoys a certain sacredness in the whole of theMuslim world and Islam is practiced through it. But not by using the language a certain ethnic or racialroot is assumed as not all francophone is French or whatever is Hispanic is Spanish. Instead, Westclaiming your religious reference judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman civilization and thereforeincreases the legacy, even if the language is not through.

The Arab League is no longer consistent with the principles that gave rise to its birth. It is not what itwas in its origins, nor listening to be seen. The times of the old motivations they have been completedand are only contradictions and slanderous, sterile or outdated tirades. The legitimate but sadlyfamous question of Palestine seems to be able to revitalize it. There will be the time to recognize it asan exclusively linguistic and cultural entity?

The countries of the southern Mediterranean and Middle East, face new challenges of developmentthat preserved their human and natural resources. On the other hand, they are called to contribute,together, to building a world of solidarity and peace where the only language should be thedemocracy and the respect for the will of the people. It must move away from its referent Islamicreligious or of its arabo-Muslim cultural heritage; before on the contrary, its contribution to the newera is precisely that legacy, in his teachings, his greatness and wisdom.

Other structures are possible to counting, why not, with the own Turkey which pays for access to thefull status of Member of the European Union and whose inclusion in an eventual new organizationwould displace significantly the current point of gravity geo-strategic Mediterranean. Suchrepositioning, would pave the way towards a more balanced North-South relationship and wouldrecover the Mediterranean as a real meeting place.

Through global crisis, we are today at a crossroads. It belongs to the peoples of the southernMediterranean choose yours without waiting for more favorable winds to their determination of hisenthusiasm and perseverance.

"God does not change the condition of people as they do not change themselves" Qur'an XIII 11.