Following the chemical attack in the Syrian town of Douma, Egyptian TV host Amr Adeeb gave an address in which he said that as Arabs, "we need to take a hard look at ourselves." "We have brought shame upon the world, shame upon humanity, by what we are doing by ourselves and to ourselves," said Adeeb, speaking on the Egyptian ON TV channel on April 8.
Amr Adeeb: "At the end of the day, this is a tragedy, a catastrophe. At the end of the day, this is a human massacre, by any standard. Such a thing does not happen anywhere in the world except in the Arab and Islamic world. There are billions of people on planet Earth, but such filthy tragedies, which are humiliating to humanity, do not occur elsewhere in the 21st century. As Arabs – Muslims and Christians – we need to take a hard look at ourselves. Such things do not happen anywhere except for the Arab Islamic countries. Honestly, we have become a source of shame for ourselves. People say: It's the regime, the opposition, the Al-Nusra Front, ISIS.
"Say whatever you want, but ultimately, we have become a source of shame! A source of shame! We have brought shame upon the world, shame upon humanity, by what we are doing by ourselves and to ourselves. Nowhere in the world do people do to themselves what we are doing to ourselves. This is beyond belief. It cannot be tolerated. We seem to have within us things that are not merely wrong but also horrifying. We must confront ourselves, and realize that beyond all the talk about international interests, about imperialistic conspiracies and so on and so forth, we have become a source of shame by what we do to ourselves. I'm serious.
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"The truth is that we have reached the lowest level of humanity. This is incomprehensible. What we are doing to ourselves is abnormal."