The Arab Revolution Rises Above the Strife of Division

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Over the years, the Arab regimes have relied on a policy of “divide and rule” in order to prolong their hold on power and tighten their control over the people and their various resources. Since taking power, these regimes have not succeeded in fulfilling their promises to the masses — promises that amounted to establishing social justice, providing security and safety for the people, and achieving prosperity and progress. Instead, they have succeeded, spectacularly, in producing defeats, frustrations, and backwardness across every sphere of life. They found themselves compelled to pursue a range of policies designed to disguise their failure, deflect the people from revolution, and frighten them away from rebellion and disobedience — hence the domineering security apparatuses, the economic war on the opposition, and the policy of social fragmentation and the shredding of the moral fabric.

It was not the regimes alone who worked to sustain the “divide and rule” policy; they were assisted in this by sectarian, confessional, ethnic, and partisan leaderships, out of concern for their own interests and their own continued dominance. Sectarian, ethnic, and confessional fragmentation served these leaders well — leaders who would have had no significance at all had the people been unified, cohesive, and in solidarity with one another. The Arab peoples have paid a heavy price, in lives and in property, for these policies of fragmentation, and have suffered greatly from internal hatreds, grudges, and vendettas.

The fragmentation of the nation-state

With these Arab regimes and these sectarian and confessional leaderships in place, the Arabs failed not only to achieve national [pan-Arab] unity, but also failed to achieve unity within the individual nation-state itself. The Arab regimes were never concerned with Arab unity, because it would have led to their own demise, and the social leaderships were never concerned with the unity of the homeland, because their own authority would have been threatened. The Arabs raised the slogans of unity “from the ocean to the gulf,” chanted for it and demonstrated for it, and were optimistic about achieving it, but the cruelty of the regimes proved more powerful than these hopes and ambitions, and people were driven back to merely seeking a national unity that eroded further with each passing day. As the days went by, they found national unity disintegrating in Iraq, Sudan, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, Somalia, and Yemen, and the concern shifted from the unity of the Arabs to the unity of petty fiefdoms.

With every political or social crisis it passed through, every Arab regime stirred up old vendettas among tribes, sects, and confessions, and the security apparatuses — chief among them the intelligence services — worked to spread strife, disputes, and infighting, so that the political regime would remain the sole point of reference and authority, the tender father watching over the citizen’s comfort. And so there appeared, in the face of the Arabs, the divide between Sunni and Shia, Sunni and Alawite, Sunni and Zaydi, Muslim and Christian, Maronite and Orthodox, Arab and Kurd, Arab and Amazigh, Arab Muslim and non-Arab Muslim, Palestinian and Jordanian, northerner and easterner and westerner and southerner, the upper quarter and the lower quarter, Bedouin and urbanite, and so on. While the peoples of the earth were ridding themselves of internal racist tendencies, the Arabs went to great lengths fragmenting themselves.

The princes of social and political factionalism

The leaders of sects, tribes, confessions, and parties did not differ much from the rulers. Every leader of these political, social, and religious constituencies surrounded himself with his own group, and deluded them into believing he was defending their interests and their survival, and preserving their rights. And in order to strengthen his hold over them, he did not hesitate to manufacture illusions of hostility toward other groups in society, and never stopped inciting and sowing rancor, hatred, and enmity, until internal hostility between the different groups became fiercer and harsher than hostility toward the external enemy. The Lebanese were harsh with one another in their civil war, the Palestinians showed no restraint in their internal fighting, the Sudanese drained their own blood, wealth, and national unity, and the Algerians, Yemenis, Egyptians, and Iraqis did likewise. This is the mentality of the princes of sect, confession, and tribe — a mentality that has no place in an atmosphere of freedom, collective work, mutual cooperation, and mutual respect among all people.

The leaderships of the Arab parties did not differ, in their conduct, from these wretched social leaderships. The Arab parties emerged in pursuit of great goals: achieving social justice, or leading their countries toward economic growth, or achieving Arab unity, or establishing tolerant religion and divine justice, or liberating Palestine, and so on. They raised attractive slogans and inflamed the masses with their resounding rhetoric, but they ended up embalmed, content with an office here or there, and with a few active elements skilled at nothing but issuing pale statements the masses no longer trust. Even most leaderships of political parties drew close to the great ruler in order to win his favor, or to receive some of his financial and political largesse. Over time, the parties turned into mere empty shells, devoid of content, contributing directly to the fragmentation of the social and political fabric. The best proof of this is their own backwardness in relation to the Arab revolutions, which broke out without their knowledge.

Strife is worse than killing

There are those who imagine that “strife” (fitna) is about exposing what is hidden, and that the one who stirs strife is the one who seeks out the sins of the regime, the ruler, or the sultan, and exposes them publicly, calling on people to stand against them and hold those responsible accountable. This is not strife — it is one of the duties of a Muslim when he sees oppression, enslavement, and the plundering of people’s wealth. It is the duty of a Muslim to correct the oppressor, by force if gentleness does not work, and in this lies what actually prevents strife, which is, in truth, worse than killing.

One person may kill another, and this is a great injustice, but the greater and harsher injustice is the “strife” [inflicted] upon all people together — through the plundering of their wealth, denying them participation in determining their own fate, ruling over them despotically, and standing in the way of establishing justice among them, and so on. This is strife — placing people in a catastrophic condition that turns their lives into an unbearable hell, and into a humiliation the soul cannot endure. The ruler who sows strife is the one who kills all the people through humiliation, subjugation, and exploitation, turning them into beasts of burden that go wherever his whims take them.

I was among those who confronted the slogan “strife is worse than killing” when the Statement of the Twenty was issued in Palestine, criticizing the corruption the Palestinian Authority had spread. The Authority brought out its supporters in the city of Ramallah in 1998 to denounce the scandal the statement had spoken of, and to call on people not to walk the path of strife. They used religion to lie to people and to drown them in more strife, chaos, confusion, and loss, and people did not move to defend their own interests, because the misguided cleric had explained to them that confronting the oppressive, corrupt official amounted to strife.

The ethics of the Arab revolutionaries

[Astonished observers] worldwide, whether men of thought, of politics, or of media, and gave them pause to reflect on the reasons behind this refined conduct, this wisdom of behavior, and this good management, despite the absence of leadership for the revolutions, and despite the lack of any prior planning. The revolutions erupted calmly, deliberately, with dignity, gravity, and resolve, and they had a powerful effect on the hearts of Arabs, in groups and individually, and on the hearts of observers around the world, who had no choice but to bow before this profound Arab consciousness.

If we were to look back in history to compare the French Revolution with the Tunisian or Egyptian revolution, we would find an enormous difference in conduct, management, and orientation. The French Revolution changed the face of Europe, but a great deal of blood was shed in France and other Western countries, and wars broke out that consumed everything, green and dry alike. And if we look at Spain and its manner of change, we find that bloodshed was the hallmark of those who differed and clashed. The Arab youth, by contrast, acted with a responsibility and a care that history rarely records the like of. And if Arab blood has been shed, particularly in Libya, this is not because of the revolutionary youth, but because of the barbarism and savagery of the Arab regimes.

Here it is important to note the moral refinement of the Arabs through the following observations:

Rising above sectarianism and fragmentation

From the very first day of the Tunisian demonstrations, Arab youth have insisted on internal unity and rejected tribal, sectarian fragmentation and the like. The youth went out demonstrating with a single voice, calling for rights for everyone, without exception or discrimination. Egypt’s youth affirmed this when they declared that they were all Egyptians, undivided by sect or religion. Christians and Muslims demonstrated together, and the prayer of any one group in Tahrir Square did not provoke any reservation or resentment — rather, the prayers became a symbol of unity.

In Jordan, the demonstrators rose above that rotten pattern that distinguishes between Palestinian and Jordanian, and this fault line only developed at the hands of Jordanian intelligence, which wanted to weaken the will of the demonstrators through a “divide and rule” policy. Despite this, Jordanians stood up to denounce this fragmenting trend, which harms Palestinians and Jordanians alike. But the loftiest example was found in Iraq, where Iraqis discovered that chasing after the princes of sect, confession, tribe, and party had brought them nothing but calamity, poverty, humiliation, and disgrace, and discovered that their wealth had evaporated, their unity had disintegrated, and their leaders were still inciting corruption and strife. Iraqis, from the north of the country to its south, came out calling for their rights, which vested interests among the leaders and chiefs had squandered. It is entirely plausible that Iraq will recover its unity and the harmony of its people, thanks to the youth’s insistence on expelling the occupation and removing the corrupt, who thrive on nothing but bloodshed and the sowing of the seeds of division and infighting.

Yemen was no different, even though the Yemeni people are armed with light and medium weapons — the weapons stayed inside the homes, and the only weapon that appeared in the street was the tyrant’s.

Superiority over the leaders

It is clear that the Arab people is superior to its leaderships in every sphere of life, especially the moral sphere. The Arab ruler is degenerate, corrupt, and given to grave sins, while the Arab citizen is courteous, dignified, protective of the public interest, and acts responsibly. The Arab ruler opens fire on peaceful demonstrators for the sake of his seat of power, while the Arab citizen faces the bullets bare-chested in defense of the nation. Here is an Arab leader selling his nation and his people in a slave market, and there is an Arab youth insisting on the dignity, honor, and progress of his nation.

Arab leaders worked hard to corrupt their peoples, turning them into mere consuming animals, each pursuing only its own private interests. The Arab ruler pursued every kind of policy to turn the Arab into an opportunist, selfish, greedy, and hedonistic being, unconcerned with honor, dignity, or the public interest — but it seems that hearts had, deep inside, held the very opposite of what the rulers intended, for no sooner had the demonstrations broken out in the Arab streets than we saw the true Arab, the one that years of repression and tyranny had counterfeited and concealed.

Insisting on principle and position

For long years the Arab arena had not witnessed insistence on any principle or position, and the Arab did not take spoken principles seriously, because he understood fully that what was spoken and what was actually done were two entirely different things. Arabs had had their fill of resounding slogans, false promises, ugliness dressed up as beauty, and disgrace given the honors of dignity. But the revolutions have proven that when the peoples speak, they act, and when they promise, they deliver. Arab youth in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere persevered in their activity, held firm to their positions, and pledged to the nation to continue until all their demands were achieved. History has not witnessed such mass patience, perseverance, and determination as is found in the Arab countries today. Long months pass, through the cold of winter, and the youth do not leave their places, nor do they abandon their demands. In the end, the interim governments are forced to meet the demands, repeating their assurances of commitment to gradually fulfilling them.

It should also be noted here that Arab youth have not sold themselves to any regime. We had grown accustomed, on the Arab scene, to party, tribal, and sectarian leaders selling themselves to the regime in exchange for money, prestige, or position, and to rulers selling themselves to other states such as America and Israel, but the Arab revolutions have not seen youth selling their causes and principles to the Arab regimes. They have scorned every temptation and inducement, and have remained steadfast, unafraid of revenge and retribution.

Courage precedes fear

There is no one on earth who does not know fear, but the Arabs had been accused by other peoples of cowardice, because of the military defeats the nation suffered on the battlefields, and because of the domination and despotism of the rulers. Some peoples, along with a not-insignificant proportion of Arabs themselves, believed that the Arabs were dead, devoid of any good, and would remain enslaved and defeated forever. The Arab revolutions overturned all these impressions and perceptions, and the Arab affirmed his courage and his wisdom before bullets and tanks. The world watched with its own eyes as the Arab embraced confrontation, certain that life demands sacrifices, and that freedom is not begged for but seized. Courage prevailed over fear, and it was proven that this great virtue had never left Arab hearts.

Making history

The defeated have long said that the enemies are strong, that those who covet the nation are formidable, that there is no hope for the Arabs to be saved or to rise, and that they will certainly remain beasts of burden for the people of the West and for Israel. Those who said this assumed the extinction of the Arabs, because they had decided to remain in a past that the future tramples underfoot. But Arab youth came to realize that history is made by strong arms, and that whoever resolves to make events happen cannot be held back by any power on earth, however great. Arab youth decided to live their present and to build their own future, and so they made for the nation a history that we now see gradually emerging before the eyes of all who bear witness.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “ثورة العرب تعلو فوق فتن التمزيق” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.