Defining the Arab Order

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Politicians and media figures circulate the term “the Arab order,” as though it expressed a shared understanding among them, while my own assessment is that if any one of them were asked to define the term, he would be unable to answer. We hear the term constantly, and academic circles barely stir at its being used without any scholarly grounding or clearly defined intellectual vision.

No Arab official, whether from the Arab regimes or from the Arab League, has ever stood up to define this term for us, or to tell us its substance or the meanings it carries, nor have media figures taken up the matter, nor have we read media reports attempting to trace the term’s origin, its purposes, or the ideas it might contain. It seems the definition of the term is left to mood and political whim, so that each party or individual feels free to use it however he likes, even if the usage is misleading.

Among the axioms of political science is that the word “order” (or “system”) carries a specific meaning that guides the speaker or writer, and the listener or reader, toward it — one that presupposes the existence of written rules, laws, charters, controls, instructions, and regulations organizing the system’s operation, clarifying the foundations and principles on which it rests, laying out the goals it seeks to achieve, and the means and methods it follows to reach that goal.

Ambiguous Terms

If we review the literature issued by the Arab League or by the Arab regimes, we find no definition of “the Arab order.” All we find are passing references to this phantom order, with no clarification or definition whatsoever. We have encountered other such expressions before that likewise remained ambiguous, such as “Arab unity,” “Arab solidarity,” and “joint Arab action.”

Terms are put before the people, and the media begins circulating them, but without developing any popular vision supporting or grasping the term — largely because whoever coins the term does not know what he is talking about, and whoever passes it along does not know where he is taking his readers, listeners, and viewers.

Terms of an Islamic character are no less ambiguous than those related to Arabism and the Arabs. For instance, we do not know exactly what the slogan “Islam is the solution” means, nor do we know exactly what the term “caliphate” means, to the point that we do not even know exactly certain terms related to what is permissible and forbidden, such as the term “mixing” (of the sexes) or “male and female awrah” (that which must be covered). For this reason, terms often appear to be little more than fixations for whoever utters or clings to them, or concepts expressing whatever is on the speaker’s mind, or what he wishes to see realized on the ground, whether Islamically or Arab-wise.

This ambiguity of terms forms part of the Arab “fahlawi” personality — the personality that claims the ability to accomplish things while, in reality, being incapable, covering its incapacity with fine words, rousing slogans, and hollow showmanship.

The Arab regimes suffer a scholarly weakness that reaches the level of outright ignorance, a failure of will, and dependency on the will of others, and they try to cover their flaws with terms that impress the ranks of the ignorant while simultaneously leaving them bewildered. That is, the Arab regimes deliberately cultivate ambiguity as a kind of deception of the people, so that they believe there lies behind these incomprehensible terms some great forthcoming achievement that will reveal itself at the appropriate time and place. All the Arab has to do is keep waiting until he grows weary of waiting, and history carries him over into the afterlife, so that he rests from patience, and patience rests from him.

An Order Has Facts on the Ground

When we speak of an “order,” we are expressing a specific reality governed by instructions, legislation, laws, and systems of accounting, administration, oversight, and responsibility, and so on. We also assume the existence of a society made up of individuals, institutions, parties, or companies bound by this order, subject to its legislation, laws, and rulings.

We can go even further and say that, over time, an order builds for itself traditions, customs, and a way of life that the members of the society bound by it hold to — meaning the order develops from a legal, political, and economic framework into a social and cultural one that deepens the interconnection among its various parts, perhaps turning them into a composite not unlike the organs of a living being. An order gradually moves, over time, from the individual dimension to the collective one, developing within it a moral value-system deeply consistent with its legal system and with the distributive system governing economic and financial resources.

So when we speak of “the Arab order,” the first question that comes to mind concerns the members or components of this order. What are the components of this order, and is there truly a body encompassing a number of Arab countries, forming among themselves an integrated grouping that the order encompasses, protects, and preserves?

We also ask about the matters these countries have agreed upon — have they signed a charter, a constitution, or a basic law that binds them together? Have these countries documented their coming together to establish a single order all of them adhere to, and have these states established the political institutions necessary to manage the order, preserve its essence, and push its goals forward? Have the masses taken part in drafting the charters and agreements among these states? Have the ruling regimes asked the opposition to take part in shaping the future and bearing responsibility? And what is this order’s position on political, social, and economic freedoms — has it crafted for itself an economic system consistent with its political framework and cultural makeup? Where does the human being stand in the order’s equation?

It would also be expected that the foundations and rules for holding responsibilities within the order, and for filling sensitive political and legal positions within it, be publicly announced — that is, one would expect elections to be held for the head of the order’s executive branch, and for the election of the order’s legislative council, and so on. We have seen none of these presumed facts on the Arab scene, and we have not seen a group of states document their relations to a degree that rises to the formation of an order. So where, then, is the Arab order?

The Spontaneous Order and the Programmed Order

It is clear that there is an Arab order of sorts, but it is not documented, signed, or declared — it is an order that has emerged spontaneously, without legal or moral points of reference. There are traits of governance, economy, and culture shared by most Arab regimes, uniting them not in a programmed way but in a spontaneous one.

People often come together not through deliberation, discussion, and a serious search for the foundations of their coming together and cooperation, but because they share similar social, religious, and economic traits. The more alike people are, the more they gravitate toward one another. Such is the case with the Arab regimes that cling to the claim of an existing Arab order. The traits of the Arab regimes can be summarized in general, though not absolute, terms as follows:

1. Pursuing, despising, marginalizing, and terrorizing the Arab individual so that he does not dare criticize the ruling order, challenge it, or incite against it. Killing the personality of the Arab individual is a general trait distinguishing the Arab regimes, which constantly work to deploy their security services, the intelligence apparatus especially, to monitor him, track his news, his words, and his positions, and to humiliate him, strip him of his humanity, and insist upon his backwardness.

2. Plundering wealth and squandering it on appetites and indulgences, lavishing it on a hypocritical, lying entourage concerned with nothing but its own private interests. The Arab regimes, generally speaking, steal the peoples’ money and spend it, for the most part, in ways that please neither God nor His servants; these regimes enjoy obscene wealth, own palaces and lavish mansions and every kind of car, perhaps planes and pleasure boats too, and stand ready to spend thousands or millions on a cat’s wedding or a dog’s medical treatment — squandering money wastefully at the very time the Arab peoples suffer poverty, ignorance, and disease.

3. Relaxing under the American security and military umbrella and relying on Western money to secure their daily bread. Most Arab regimes cannot defend themselves, and remain under American domination if they want their rule to continue. A number of other Arab regimes cannot pay end-of-month salaries without receiving Western money that constrains their will — meaning the Arab regimes are dependent on the Western states, in security and finance alike, their political will absent, incapable of making independent decisions.

4. And since the Arab regimes lack a free will in favor of the Western states, they cannot help but be, at the very least, conciliatory toward Israel, or allied with it, as we now witness across the Arab arena — meaning the stance toward Zionism and its tool, Israel, is precisely what unites most Arab regimes.

5. Corruption, expressed through the tribal political system, through favoritism and nepotism, mismanagement, the absence of law, and turning a blind eye to great thieves, traitors, and lawbreakers. Wherever we go in the Arab homeland, we find a corrupt judiciary, and laws applied to the poor and destitute while the brokers of homelands and the saboteurs escape them.

The Order of Arab Rot

The Arab regimes never gathered to deliberate on how to plunder wealth and erase and pursue the Arab citizen — yet all of them came together, by instinct and practical habit, around a single table. Some Arab conferences were held — after the deepening of Arab defeat and the killing of the human being — to discuss certain security, health, and cultural matters on the Arab scene, and this happened only after rot, backwardness, and ignorance had already become deeply entrenched, and the dominant traits of the Arab regimes had turned into principles and foundations for the general conduct of Arab rulers.

The general traits noted above turned into an Arab culture that invaded individuals, on the principle that “people follow the religion of their kings” — meaning the Arab regimes came together because of traditional Arab practices that form part of the deep educational and psychological makeup of these regimes.

The truth is that there is no genuine Arab order seeking to achieve the progress of the Arab individual and lift him out of the state of backwardness, defeat, and humiliation he suffers from. What exists is a rotten Arab order that entrenches the psychological, educational, and cultural afflictions the Arab has suffered across long stretches of time.

A clear definition of the Arab order can be formulated as follows: that order which is unorganized not by intent but spontaneously, arising from appetite-driven policies focused on prolonging the rule of the dominant, existing regime in service of gangs stripped of human, national, and religious values, wreaking corruption and humiliation across the land of the Arabs.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “تعريف النظام العربي” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.