Amman: At a hot live debate that recently took place in Amman under The Munathara Initiative on the topic "Political Arab Unity is our destiny," Abdel Bari Atwan, chief editor of Al-Quds al Arabi newspaper and Ghaida'a Al Qudah from Jordan convinced 68.2% of the audience that Arab unity is our destiny. However, the winning camp, including Dr. Bashar Haidar, Professor of Philosophy at the AUB and Mohammad Yassin Bin Smaida from Tunisia, arguing against the motion, managed to shift the audience percentage by a greater margin from 20.6% to 28.6% against Arab Unity.
The debate took place at PSUT auditorium, and it was televised on Roya TV on Friday January 4th. Heated discussions reflecting current Arab positions related to economic unity, political unity, in addition to Arab identity took place at the debate.
The debate started with a 99 second slot for each debater to state his/her opinion, Ghaida'a Al Qudah and Mr. Abdel Bari Atwan stood in support of the Arab Political Unity, followed by opponents Yassin Bin Smaida along with Dr. Bashar Haidar, who were against the Arab Political Unity.
In regards to Arab Identity Abdel Bari Atwan and Ghaida emphasized the fact that Arabs have many common grounds upon which they can unify including language, culture and religion. "Language has unified Arabs in the past and it can do so again, however Arab youth need to learn from past mistakes and avoid them for a brighter future," Abdel Bari added.
On the other hand, Dr. Bashar Haydar stated that Arab countries need to fix their internal issues before thinking of uniting, as these issues most probably would hinder such a unity, he added "Current problems faced by Arab countries are not solved by unifying troubled countries together, each country needs to become strong on its own, therefore Unity should not be an option at the time being."
On the Arab Economic unity Yassein Bin Smida and Dr. Hayder agreed that for economic unity to be functional it should be based on equal footing and strength, and this is not the case with Arab countries where there are broad differences of economic capabilities.
Ghaida and Abdel Bari responded by pointing out that economic unity will reduce the economic gaps between different countries especially when they are united under one currency.
As for the inevitability of this Political unity Dr. Abdel Bari expressed his belief that the Arab spring is a milestone that will facilitate Political unity based on Arab nationalism as a first step to a unified Islamic world at a later stage. Dr. Haydar stressed that a unity based on Arab Nationalism will alienate the minorities in Arab Countries thus it will not be a complete unity. "We should learn from ancient great empires that took into considerations these minorities and even benefited from their special skills to get stronger", explained Dr. Haydar.
Attended by over 350 people, the debate was a huge success. The audience had the chance to actively take part in the debate by posting their comments and questions via twitter, Facebook and also directly to the debaters.
At the end of the debate all debaters had the chance to sum up their points of view in 99 seconds before an audience poll was conducted. Accordingly the winner of this debate was the team that managed to change the audiences' opinion by the largest percentage and that was team Dr. Bashar Haydar and Mohammad Yassin Bin Smeida who managed to increase the percentage of votes against Arab Political Unity from 20.6% to 28.6%.
The Munathara initiative organizes both online debates and live panel debates in various Arab cities. Anyone can take part in this forum by submitting a related opinion video of up to 99 seconds on current debate topics. To learn more about The Munathara Initiative and get a chance to meet other young Arab leaders who share your interests, you can visit www.facebook.com/Munathara, www.munathara.com, or follow them on twitter @Munathara.
© Press Release 2013
