Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Over the coming 10 days, Rainy Day will be concentrating on the world after 9/11. Those who feel that there's nothing more to be said about this topic may wish to tune in again on 14 September.

We're beginning with the latest YouTube contribution from al Qaeda featuring the organization's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Adam Gadahn, an American member of the jihadist group. In a rare display of generosity, Gadahn says that even those allied with President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are welcome to embrace Islam, but they should hurry. "We invite all Americans and believers to Islam, whatever their role and status in Bush and Blair's world order," Gadahn says. "Decide today, because today could be your last day." Seeing that Rainy Day has opted to support the Bush-Blair world order as opposed to the Osama bin Laden world order, we're declining the offer and taking our chances with the Washington-London coalition.

This invitation to "all Americans and believers" to convert to Islam is typical of the delusional mindset that hallmarks almost everything to do with radical Islam and much of what passes for commentary in the Middle East. Obviously, the world of Islam has lost touch with reality; otherwise the Middle East would not be the world centre for conspiracy theories. An infamous example: Immediately after 9/11, Al-Manar, the television station of Hezbollah, claimed on its English-language website:

"With the announcement of the attacks at the World Trade Center in New York, the international media, particularly the Israeli one, hurried to take advantage of the incident and started mourning 4,000 Israelis who work at the two towers. Then suddenly, no one ever mentioned anything about those Israelis and later it became clear that they remarkably did not show up in their jobs the day the incident took place. No one talked about any Israeli being killed or wounded in the attacks."

Al-Manar further claimed that "Arab diplomatic sources revealed to the Jordanian al-Watan' newspaper that those Israelis remained absent that day based on hints from the Israeli General Security apparatus, the Shabak". In light of this kind of psychosis, one thing that should be done on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of 9/11, and something that would be worthy of the many sacrifices made since that terrible day, is the creation of a counter-conspiracy centre. Delusion can be fought with facts, openness, honesty and reality.

Talking of reality, one of the best antidotes to delusion is the reality of work. In many parts of the Middle East, women are forbidden to be part of the workforce and men have no opportunity to do anything useful. In the European Muslim community, in some urban areas, more than half the men over the age of 40 are living on public assistance of one kind or another. Because work connects people with reality, a renewed effort is needed in the Middle East to emphasize the virtues of work and the development of economies that create work. But all this is not new, four years ago, a blunt report by Arab intellectuals commissioned by the United Nations warned that the Middle East was being crippled by a lack of political freedom, the repression of women and an isolation from the world of ideas that stifles creativity.