Political Thought and Criticism in the Arab World
As many of you know in the past the Arab peoples were not given a chance to express their opinion and thoughts freely. Today some say that the
situation is changing towards a better one and others consider the situation still not good enough to say that there is a freedom of speech in the Arab world. It is important to say that the situation is not the same in the whole Arab countries and that there is a kind of knowledge which the Arab peoples are obtaining because of the globalization and education which many are given a chance to get today.
The real problem started since the beginning of the end of the colonization in the Arab world and the formation of the Arab governmental system. Most of the Arab states were formed by the leaders of the Arab movement which demanded for the freedom of the land and the formation of “democratic” Arab states which were supposed to fulfill the needs and interests of the Arab people. While the Arab world was trying to build itself and form a kind of independence, the Arab people realized that colonization was far away from ending since the great powers continued to create a kind of pressure on the Arabs in order to protect their interests in the Middle East. The Arab dream was to form a united Arab power on the bases of nationalism and patriotism.
Although leaders such as Jamal Abed Ilnasser succeeded in making an achievement in this field and won a real support from the Arab people in general to continue in his project, there were other powers and ideologies coming into the scene. The Muslim Brothers movement which is considered the base of many of Islamic movements which are working today started to become a real challenge for the whole idea of an Arab unity on the bases of nationalism and patriotism. The Islamic movements wanted a different kind of unity based on the creation of one Islamic Emirate ruled by Khaleefa and a regime on the bases of Islam.
The challenge was really strong between two main streams: the Islamic movement from one side and the other ideologies such as Communism and nationalism from the other side. Imperialism was also trying to affect the whole situation since none of the streams were going along with the Imperial agenda which was all about continuing to rule the sources and important zones of the Middle East. I am not writing to judge which stream was better because the image in the Arab world shows us today that the Arab citizens differ in their opinion and belief and do not agree on one ideology as a solution.
The real problem which both streams faced in their way to establish an Arab or Islamic unity was their refusal to accept their other half. In other words the Islamic movement refused to accept a nationalist Arab movement which was affected by the idea of socialism and patriotism. At the same time the nationalist stream refused the idea of an Islamic state since their agenda was to protect the sovereignty of each Arab state on its own lands and to create at the same time a united nationality which is based on the importance of uniting the Arabs under one strategy. The difference in the ideas and agendas is not the problem but the fight and war which started between the two sides is the real problem which is still affecting the Arab thought until today.
Islam gave a chance for those who wanted to create an Islamic state to find solutions for each problem they faced on the bases of “the needs allow what is not allowed”. The emotional actor and the relation with religion affected on those who believed in the idea of forming an Islamic state which may bring them back their dignity and victory after many years of persecution and injustice. The Arab nationalism movement promised the Arab people with the same achievement which the idea of an Islamic state promised.
However, the religious effect, the instability in the Arab nationalism leadership, and the lack of development and dialogue inside the nationalist movement affected negatively it. Both sides wanted to protect their followers and make them commit to their ideologies by preventing any kind of criticism regarding the bases of both ideologies. The result was and continues to be a lack of dialogue about what is really good in order to achieve any kind of unity between the Arabs. The lack of dialogue did not end at not arguing the bases of the ideologies but continued to exist in all the other fields which are important for the daily life of the Arab citizen. The ideological war continues until today and the victim is the Arab citizen who became unconsciously a slave of this ideology or that leader or the dream itself.
I wanted you to know a little about this background in order to understand how the Arab citizen thinks and how he or she is affected by the Arab community and culture. Most of the followers of any of the current Arab political parties or ideologies have no idea what they are protecting or following. Although it may be clear for them that they need to make a change and to discuss the bases which they chose for themselves more than fifty years ago, they prefer to follow a failing leader and fight for him only to feel secured and not left alone.
The problem is that the leader becomes a character which no one can criticize and then the idea is left with no discussion or criticism. Although I am not expert in the duties which a leader is committed to starting from his first day in mission, I am sure of one thing which is that the leader of a people becomes the property of them. If a leader is elected in order to fulfill what he or she promised then why the people cannot criticize his/her work.
The reason seems to be that the leader forgets that he or she is representing an ideology and that the criticism is only about their way of applying it. In other words..Criticism is taken too much personally. Although the situation seems to be difficult, I do believe that the new Arab generation started to realize that fighting in order to reach a real dialogue and democracy is the only way to reach a real Arab unity. Some scholars say that we are still considered developing countries from the third world with many obstacles on the way. However, I really find it encouraging when I see young people in countries ruled by royal regimes and non-renewed governments searching for any way to express their opinion even if not fully.
The issue of being committed to a certain ideology or movement completely differs from judging and criticizing those who leads it because only by doing this it will be possible to accomplish what is needed and assure that the agenda will be applied in the way all the followers want it to be. Differences, argument, and criticism represent a natural and needed situation in order to assure that we are living in a healthy system. I do believe that the Arabs have main goals which they agree on it and that the way is what they do not agree on. Therefore a real revision of the way, a true search for what is good, and most importantly a dialogue and respect between the different sides will bring them to what they want to achieve.
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