Regimes of Betrayal and Regimes of Ignorance

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The Arab revolutions, or Arab movements, have exposed a duality in the positions of many people, particularly among Arab intellectuals and academics, and even among those who call themselves revolutionaries. This duality means supporting one popular uprising while withholding support from another, even though the fundamental causes of the two uprisings are nearly identical. It is clear that the injustice practiced by Arab regimes against the Arab citizen forms the strong foundation of the Arab popular movement, and this injustice has been reflected in many practices: the plunder of wealth, the suppression of freedoms — foremost among them freedom of expression — and the economic, media, and security oppression of the citizen, among other things. All Arab regimes are largely similar in their practices against the Arab citizen, and this similarity has been reflected in the slogans raised by Arab citizens across the various Arab countries witnessing popular movements of one degree or another.

Yet despite this similarity, we find a duality of positions, such that some people applaud one revolution while despising another without any clear reason for doing so. For example, some supported Egypt’s revolution because the Mubarak-led regime was an agent of America and Israel, while not supporting the popular movement in Syria because Syria refuses to recognize Israel and supports the resistance. Some supported the movement of the Libyan people, and backed the arming of Gaddafi’s opponents because he was a corrupt ruler who squandered Libyan wealth, while standing against the popular movement in Bahrain on the grounds that Shia were leading it. Some call for Western intervention in Syria because the regime is repressing harshly, while supporting international initiatives to resolve the crisis in Yemen. Some support the movement in Algeria, but do not support a movement in Morocco or Jordan. And so on.

This is a duality unbecoming of intellectuals, academics, revolutionaries, and people of honor; it befits only the ignorant, corrupt politicians, and those with personal or factional interests. The interest of the nation requires standing with what is right and true, and does not permit fickleness and inconsistency according to personal and factional views. I have written before about the similarity — indeed the near-identity — in the practices of Arab regimes, despite differences in their conduct on certain external matters. I showed that the internal practices of the various Arab regimes are one and the same, and it is no surprise that every Arab people hates its own ruler even as that same ruler enjoys great popularity in Arab countries he does not govern.

The Standard for Judging the Ruler

Perhaps in the 1950s and 1960s, people judged their ruler by his media positions on the fundamental Arab causes of that era: the liberation of Palestine, achieving independence from colonialism, the establishment of Arab unity, and control over Arab wealth. The Arab citizen was emotionally driven, eager to realize his hopes and aspirations for dignity and honor, and for competing on the international stage; he was swept up by the rousing speeches of leaders and rulers, and imagined that the leaders’ promises were serious and would be fulfilled. It was not unusual for demonstrations to erupt in support of this leader or that. Most Arab leaders deluded their peoples into believing that freedom was coming, and that prosperity, scientific progress, and social justice would be achieved. But these illusions began to collapse gradually when the Arabs suffered their crushing defeat in 1967.

Arab leaders succeeded, whether through their own ignorance or through their cooperation with colonialism, in extinguishing the Arab’s spark and toppling all the noble goals he had aspired to see take shape on the ground. Over the years, no one speaks any longer of Arab unity, and the younger generations no longer call for it; the slogan of liberating Palestine has fallen away, colonialism is no longer seen as an enemy, and Arab wealth is no longer kept out of the reach of foreign exploiters. The Arab has gradually retreated into a narrow, local dimension, coming to face local concerns and problems that have progressively distanced him from the broader dimensions concerning the nation as a whole. He has drowned in seas of pain that have drained his moral, national, religious, and communal energies, and he is no longer even able to preserve the national unity of his own country. People have clashed with bloody violence in Lebanon, Palestine, Algeria, Sudan, Egypt, Iraq, and Yemen, and the social and moral fabric has been torn apart to a great extent. Arab rulers have betrayed the Arab nation in every sphere of life, and have brought their peoples nothing but disappointment, frustration, and defeat on every moral, scientific, economic, cultural, intellectual, and security level, among others.

The days of slogans, rousing speeches, promises, and wishful talk of abundant good have come to an end. The Arab no longer trusts his ruler; rather, he has learned over time that the ruler is a liar, a charlatan, and a fraud — one hears fine words from him and sees foul deeds. The Arab is no longer the fool taken in by flowery phrases or ornamented statements; he has become fully aware that the ruler is the greatest calamity, and that there is no escape except to be rid of him in favor of a new mode of governance built on accountability, the rule of law, human freedom, and free media. The Arab has had his fill of humiliation, injustice, and frustration, and can no longer absorb any more; it is clear that he is now determined to defend his dignity, honor, and rights.

Regimes of Betrayal and Regimes of Ignorance

There is not a great deal of divergence among Arab regimes in foreign policy, but this divergence is absent in domestic policy. Shared Arab repression of the Arab human being has united the Arab ministers of interior, while the ministers of foreign affairs and defense have remained divided, even though no great accomplishments have been achieved in protecting the Arab homeland from violation and defeat. I see no accomplishment achieved other than Hezbollah’s steadfastness and its defeat of Israel in 2006, and Hamas’s steadfastness in thwarting the Israeli war of 2008/2009 — and that, by the grace of God and thanks to Syrian and Iranian support.

The divergence that exists among the various regimes is not wide, and does not truly warrant divergent attitudes toward them, especially since every Arab regime treats the Arab citizen with contempt and denies his existence. It is true that some Arab regimes hold patriotic positions, but their repression of the Arab citizen paralyzes their ability to face challenges, and turns all their political and national positions into mere theoretical stances difficult to translate into reality. A regime or state is only as strong as its people, and its people will not be strong unless they are free; so long as a regime represses freedoms, it contradicts all of its own national slogans. Slaves are not liberated, and they do not create; and no creativity can be sustained without freedom. So if we are to take sides with this regime or that, the first criterion for that alignment must be the freedom of the citizen.

All Arab regimes repress the Arab citizen, but they can be classified into two categories:

First: Regimes of betrayal — these are the regimes established by British and French colonialism before granting the colonies so-called independence, and which the new American colonialism inherited from the old colonialism. These are tribal regimes to which colonial powers assigned parts of the Arab homeland to administer the civil affairs of the people, to take orders and carry out the wishes and policies of the colonizer. In other words, these regimes are treacherous by their very origin, and cannot deviate from the instructions of the Western powers, particularly the United States, even if they wished to. They are entirely bound by a backward tribal mentality that prefers its tribal and personal interests over the interests of the people, and bound by the security and military arrangements established by the colonial powers. Their ruler cannot rebel, because his mentality is programmed tribally and colonially, and because the colonial powers can easily replace him. These are regimes with no real security control over their own countries, and their military protection is mortgaged to the United States.

Second: Regimes of ignorance — these are the regimes that emerged from military coups aimed at changing political and social conditions, or that claimed for themselves the mantle of change and development in order to achieve social justice and the honor, dignity, and progress of the Arab in every field, and that promised Arab unity and to lead the Arabs toward freedom. Perhaps the intentions of these regimes were sincere, but those in charge of them were so ignorant that their actions harmed everything revolutionary, noble, and progressive. They claimed to be revolutionary while oppressing their own peoples; they established terrifying security apparatuses to hunt down the Arab citizen; they were defeated before Israel; they stole the people’s money; and they proved incapable of achieving tangible, deliberately planned progress in any sphere of life.

Between Betrayal and Ignorance

Betrayal leads to the very same results that ignorance leads to. The traitor is the brother of the ignorant one, and both bring ruin and devastation. The traitor is the bearer of a destructive mission he has imposed on himself, whether willingly or under the pressure of a search for money and power, while the ignorant one is capable of nothing but destruction even when his intentions are good. It is therefore difficult to find any important differences between the devastation wrought upon the Arab nation by the Arab regimes of betrayal and that wrought by the Arab regimes of ignorance; and if there are differences, they are confined to technical matters rather than genuine questions of principle. For example, the regimes of betrayal relied for their continuity on the tribe and on colonial security and military backing, and sometimes on financial support if the regime presided over an impoverished fiefdom; whereas the regimes of ignorance relied for the most part on ignorant elements whom we call thugs or hooligans, who imagined themselves to be patriots seeking to suppress the forces of backwardness and collaboration with colonialism. The internal performance of the regimes of betrayal was sometimes better than that of the regimes of ignorance, because colonialism often guided them in order to ensure their own survival, whereas the regimes of ignorance lacked such guidance and refused to make use of the scholars and experts present within their own fiefdoms. The regimes of betrayal listen to the advice of the colonizers, while the regimes of ignorance do not listen to the advice of their own countrymen.

Some wish to distinguish between the regimes of betrayal and the regimes of ignorance on the basis of their stance toward the Zionist entity and American penetration of the Arab-Islamic region. I believe that attempt at distinction fails, because the end result is one and the same. The states of betrayal established relations with Israel over many long years, but the Palestine Liberation Organization, for example — which can be classified among the regimes of ignorance — ended up standing guard over Israel’s security. The regimes of betrayal recognized Security Council Resolution 242, and so did the regimes of ignorance. America fought Iraq, and both the regimes of ignorance and the regimes of betrayal assisted it in doing so. And so it goes, by the same measure.

For this reason, we must insist on the freedom of the Arab human being and his liberation from the weight of these regimes. Revolution against the Arab regimes, whatever names they go by, is a sacred duty — a religious, historical, national, patriotic, and humanitarian duty. Whoever seeks to absolve one regime while condemning another is simply applying double standards for partisan, ideological, tribal, or personal reasons. The interest of the nation and its progress require the elimination of the various Arab regimes now in existence, for as long as they remain, Israel and Western hegemony remain along with them.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “أنظمة الخيانة وأنظمة الجهالة” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.