An open letter from Eymen Nur to MBZ: when will the UAE return to a policy worthy of the Zayeds?

The existence of a reality called the Islamic world is rightly a constant subject of debate today because of the ineffectiveness displayed in the face of Zionist aggression against the people of Gaza. In the face of such grave, humiliating and annihilating aggression suffered by an Islamic world with a population nearing 2 billion, and given that actors with considerable power and effectiveness, who might be expected to act on behalf of the Islamic world, are doing nothing, it may be thought that a different policy needs to be followed. No one believes that these actors of the Islamic world can do nothing against an Israel with unlimited American and European support behind it. The thesis that these countries too have been taken hostage by the US in one way or another is not very valid from the standpoint of the logic of states. International relations do not rest on the logic of an order based on absolute obedience among countries. In practice, even the weakest country has areas in which it can act independently by virtue of being a state. The problem comes down not to these countries' hands being tied but to the fact that they are unwilling to act voluntarily. That is, according to this thesis, the interests of these countries' leaders lie not in the Islamic world acting jointly but in acting together with their Western allies without caring about the problems and concerns of the Islamic world.

Because this is so, Palestine is in fact not the only problem of the Islamic world, and especially of the Arab world. At present, in many of its problematic regions, such as Sudan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Tunisia in particular, the problems stem, before Western interventions, from the attitudes of the countries in question themselves. The free individuals, intellectuals and opinion leaders of the Islamic world need to express this reality to the leaders of the Islamic world. They need to hear in this way the truths they cannot hear because they have suppressed every kind of dissenting voice in their own countries. These voices will not be their enemies but voices that will revive them, if they know, if they understand. What they do by shoving their own intellectuals, thinkers, opinion leaders and scholars into prisons will be, first and foremost, their own catastrophe. The silencing in prison of the voices of Rached Ghannouchi, Salman al-Awda, Mohamed Badie or Mohamed Beltagy brings no benefit to those who rule their countries; it only serves to dull their foresight in a way that will drag them into deeper catastrophes.

Egyptian Liberal Tomorrow's Revolution Party Chairman Dr. Ayman Nour published, in recent days, precisely out of this sense of responsibility, an open letter to UAE head of state Mohammed bin Zayed in as friendly a tone as possible. The letter's title bears a title reminiscent of the foreign policy concept Turkey has applied under AK Party rule since the early years: "When will you adopt the zero-problems policy?!" He began his letter by specifically noting that he sent his message "as an Egyptian and Arab citizen who loves his homeland, his people, and the Emirates of the peaceful UAE leader Sheikh Zayed," and continued and, in summary, said the following:

"Every prosperous country has the right, within the limits of attaining (common) and legitimate interests, in harmony with its own capabilities and geopolitical conditions and, before all of this, without being bound by any condition, to have aspirations and ambitions outside its own territory. Provided that it does not conflict with international principles and respects the independence and stability of countries.

But here, a series of questions presses on me and on millions like me, in different directions, which, though they may seem tangled, actually unite in a single central question. For example: What does the UAE want in its irrationally expansionist, harsh and at times hostile 'interventionist' and at other times moderate and soft policy?

Mr. President:

First, let us take Sudan as an example: What does the UAE want in its policy in brotherly Sudan? What is the direct and even indirect interest in supporting the Janjaweed militias, who have left no legal, international, religious, political or moral crime uncommitted?!! What is the ultimate goal of supporting this insane war?

Is this goal, which I doubt has been achieved, worth the blood and lives lost and the honor trampled underfoot?!

However great the potential gains in gold and influence, can these gains compensate for the UAE's loss of the love of most, even a large part, of the Sudanese people?

It is no secret that the Sudanese people were and still are friendly to the Emirates and that, between two peoples whom we count among the kindest-hearted Arab peoples, they maintain great -mutual- love for it.

Second: In light of Egyptian-Emirati relations, which are more sincere than the intra-Emirati/Emirati relations themselves, in light of the complexity of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam crisis, the UAE's generous support for the Ethiopian side remains a confusing and confusing mystery, inflicting extremely serious harm on the lives of Egyptians and Ethiopian Sudanese.

And without the UAE having a (real, honest or concrete) role commensurate with the scale of the support it has given to the Addis Ababa government and, on the contrary, the warmth of its relations with Cairo and its interventions in Sudan!!

Of course, regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict, as the most important problem that burns the heart of the entire Islamic world and even all humanity these days because of the inhuman situation in Gaza,

We see that the UAE's stance toward the Palestinian cause has witnessed a significant change in recent years, and that this is a shocking difference among the feelings of Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular.

Normalization of relations with Israel has not been in any Arab country -even among those that signed peace agreements- as sincere and emotional as the UAE-Israel normalization appears!!

Perhaps the UAE media, even in the Gaza war, in addition to the saddeningly provocative media statements of those connected to the UAE regime's political views, doubled the gloom of the picture and the complexity of the scene by lending -unbalanced- support to the American-Israeli narrative."

In his open letter Ayman Nour goes on to explain that the UAE's policy in Egypt, its anti-people, pro-India policy in Bangladesh, where the people's demands for freedom have opened a new era, and its policies that appear hardly loyal to its past alliance with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt also cast a shadow over the UAE's standing. Continuing, Ayman Nour, reminding that the UAE we knew in the time of Sheikh Zayed was close to all Arab and Islamic peoples, asks MBZ the vital question:

"What caused this situation, which has made the UAE an isolated country in the Arab world and aroused fear and suspicion internationally, to change in such a terrible and dangerous way?

The policy pursued out of eagerness to dominate Somalia and the Horn of Africa, the policy followed in Libya that has brought the Libyan people nothing but more instability rather than peace, the manner of interference in Jordanian and Moroccan relations, and the aggressive policies in many other areas of political crisis in African countries and Latin America"

Warning MBZ on all these matters, Nour ultimately calls on him, with all good intentions, to close the pages of differences and begin a new stage in removing problems so that the UAE can return to its former state, to the Emirates of love, tolerance and productive cooperation, and says that the "Zero problems" policy is not merely a slogan but a requirement for achieving stability, peace and development in the region.