SYDNEY — "The greatest obstacle to peace in the Middle East is US policy." That's how Dr Bouthaina Shaaban, Syria's minister for expatriates, framed her lecture to 150 people at the University of Western Sydney's Bankstown campus on September 7.
Shaaban is also a writer and professor of English literature at Damascus University. In 2005, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and presented with the "Most Distinguished Woman in a Governmental Position" award by the League of Arab States.
Addressing the topic "The real role of Arab women", Shaaban said people in the West need to distinguish between the media image of the Middle East and the complex reality of Arabs', especially Arab women's, daily struggle for justice and dignity.
She said that her government had been added to the "axis of evil" in May 2002 by then-US undersecretary of state John Bolton, now Washington's UN ambassador. "When the US says it's spreading democracy to the Middle East, it's really giving permission to Israel to escalate its genocide against Arab people", Shaaban said. "And who's bearing the brunt of the US and Israel's wars? Women."
She said that what Arab women need is justice and respect, not war and occupation, and pointed to Venezuela's socialist revolution as an example of what Syria could achieve. "Bush hates Chavez", Shaaban said, "because Chavez is distributing Venezuela's wealth to its people".
Chris Atkinson