Sedition Sleeps — God Curse Its Keeper

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

We have grown accustomed to the Arab regimes rushing, every time they face serious criticism, to cling to the strange saying that “sedition sleeps — God curse whoever wakes it,” meaning that critics are seeking sedition, which is, in the end, according to these regimes, worse than killing.

I have personally faced this three times, and every time, a line of hypocrites, con men, and flatterers comes forward to applaud the regime, on the premise that it seeks no sedition, and that only the critics are the ones stirring people up. I faced this in 1999, when twenty Palestinians, myself among them, issued a statement criticizing the Palestinian Authority’s corruption, directing their criticism straight at the president of the Authority. The Authority mobilized its forces in Ramallah at the time to demonstrate against the statement, without ever acknowledging the corruption. The corruption continued, and the level of people’s suffering rose because of the corruption that spread intensively, invading every corner and crevice of the territory occupied in 1967.

I faced this attack again when I criticized a university president for his disrespect of a ruling by the Palestinian High Court of Justice — they accused me, that day, of stirring up strife and insulting the judiciary, and instead of arresting the university president, they arrested me. And a third time, when I demanded respect for the laws of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, they accused me of undermining the prestige of a non-existent state and of defaming “high officials” who emerge from beneath the boots of the occupation.

They say sedition sleeps, and curse whoever wakes it, but they never say why they want to keep it sleeping, and never offer a definition of the concept of sedition.

The Arab regimes insist on cursing whoever wakes it, because it certainly awakens people’s awareness of what is happening around them, which constitutes a danger to the ruling regime. The regime prefers to keep sedition asleep, so that people remain heedless of their own affairs, unaware and ignorant of the extent of the contempt these regimes practice toward their interests and the interests of their homelands.

Sedition has never once been asleep, and never sleeps at all, because it works against the people — if it has any slumber at all, it is a slumber in people’s minds, not in a bed, and the regime prefers it remain asleep so that its own sedition, corruption, and injustice can continue. For this reason, it does not hesitate to take various harsh measures against those who try to spread awareness in people’s hearts, given the grave danger this poses to the ruling system.

It is no surprise, then, that a curse falls upon whoever digs up people’s awareness and calls them to vigilance and caution about what is happening. God does not curse those with enlightened minds who care for people’s interests and fight despotism, enslavement, and injustice — the curse comes instead from those who know not God and fear Him not.

But what is sedition, and who is the one who stirs it? Many curse sedition and call for avoiding it, given the pain and grief it generates among the mass of people, but defining it is important and necessary so that we are all clear about what we are discussing. The absence of a definition leaves concepts vague, and leaves their definition to moods that multiply as the people concerned with the subject multiply.

For this reason, I venture my own opinion here and say: sedition is every practice that inflicts injustice on people, individuals and groups alike. Injustice is the head of sedition, its very banner, and beneath it fall many practices that stir people up, disturb their lives, and turn them into hell. Injustice is the foundation of sedition, because it inflicts harm on people, discriminates among them, favoring some and depriving others, and it consumes people’s rights, privileges, and whatever they might otherwise enjoy in this life.

The unjust discriminate among people: some inherit, and some do not; some are rewarded, and some are punished; some receive grants, gifts, and favors, and some receive pain and grief. Some are given the opportunity to plunder, pillage, and encroach on people’s money and wealth, while others are subjected to restriction and constraint, even regarding their own private property, and so on.

Because of this prevailing discrimination, favoritism, and nepotism, feelings of animosity, hatred, and rancor grow among people. When people are deprived of a sense of justice, unhealthy feelings develop among them — the favored develop feelings of superiority over others, and the deprived develop feelings of inferiority, and psychological crises develop within them that live on for many years, and perhaps disappear only when they themselves disappear from existence.

Under injustice, people lose trust among themselves, because a mutual sense of suspicion is what prevails — people, in general, cannot trust whoever wrongs them, or helps whoever wrongs them in his own wrongdoing. For this reason, social and public relations among people develop on the basis of mutual suspicion, not mutual trust.

Suspicion is deadly to societies, because it eliminates the opportunities for collective work and mutual cooperation, and if these two values are lost in any society, that society cannot rise, and every attempt to uplift it ends in failure — healthy societies are those in which relations of mutual trust prevail.

In an atmosphere of mutual trust, the level of moral practice in society rises, people’s morale rises, and every person begins to recognize the extent of his own capacities and energies, and what good and useful work he can do for society, while moral collapse is a hallmark of suspicious societies, and moral elevation a hallmark of societies built on trust. Injustice corrupts relations among people, fragments their social cohesion, and turns society into warring, factional, and “fanatical” groups, each curled up around itself and its own private interests.

When mutual trust is absent, a person curls up around himself, and his own private interests become the supreme value governing his conduct, and he acts irresponsibly, without hesitation, sabotaging the public interest if that serves his private interest. The sense of responsibility deteriorates greatly, feelings of belonging decline, and society descends into tribes, sects, denominations, and ethnic groupings dominated by feelings of mutual contempt and a desire for despotism and control over people’s fates.

Accordingly, nepotism and favoritism in employment constitute racist, unjust practices against those who have no share with the official or the influential; plundering people’s money is injustice, and so is despotism, monopolizing power, dominating others, extorting and pursuing them on security and political matters, and squandering their rights.

Corruption is injustice, discrimination among people in employment is injustice, imposing exorbitant financial fees on people is injustice, and neglecting the poor and destitute is injustice. The greatest injustice lies in erasing the legitimacy of governance, in the poor distribution of material and moral benefits, and in neglecting to build the identity and distinctive character that would contribute to building society. And if we look at the Arab homeland, we find that injustice spreads and expands, ultimately ending in fighting and bloodshed.

Who is the one who stirs sedition? The one who stirs sedition is that unjust, corrupt ruler who corrupts institutions and corrupts people, and generates, through his own deeds, feelings of rancor and hatred, ultimately driving people, forcefully, toward taking up arms and fighting to win back their self-respect and preserve their rights.

This is the one who stirs sedition, and this is why we say sedition is worse than killing. Sedition is worse than killing because it ultimately leads to massacres and slaughters, consuming everything green and dry in the state or society. Sedition begins with the ruler — a single man — but he spreads sedition throughout the joints of society, and those who stir sedition become a vast public. Had the seditious ruler been dealt with from the start, people would have been spared his evils and his harm, but their patience with him has instead created a breeding ground for those who stir sedition. Sedition is worse than killing because it leads to the killing of many people, and if people want to protect themselves from the evil of sedition, they must eliminate the one who stirs it in his very cradle.

Because of the intellectual sterility present on the Arab scene, the one who stirs sedition is not the unjust man himself, but the one who calls the unjust man unjust. The unjust man carries out his deeds as usual, achieving a stability in society built on injustice, but whoever exposes his injustice becomes, in this framework, the one stirring sedition, because he exposes the unjust man’s shame before the people. This means the Arab ruler’s definition of sedition concerns exposing him, and exposing his ugly, degenerate practices, before the people, and we find those applauding this ruler among those who benefit from his injustice. So who, then, is the corrupt one on the Arab scene?

The “corrupt” one is the one who exposes corruption and stirs people’s awareness of this corruption that feeds off their own interests, while the corrupt ruler is the foremost teacher, leader, symbol, and hero. And who is it that stirs sedition? Is it the one who oversteps the laws and fails to apply them, or the one who demands they be applied? In actual practice, the “criminal” is the one who demands the law be applied, who demands the establishment of social justice, and who refuses to deal with the enemy and provide it services.

Here I would note that one owner of a worn-out religious turban indirectly called for my killing, because I raised what he called the “sedition of applying the laws.” The call to apply the law, for this corrupt sheikh and his colleague, the reckless university professor, stirs sedition and sows discord among people.

These people have corrupted themselves and done harm to the Islamic religion, to the principles of freedom and democracy, and have trespassed against everything humane. They arrested me because I defend the judiciary, when it was the university president who should have been imprisoned; they arrested me for demanding the application of the law, when it was the president of the Authority, who refuses to comply with the law, who should have been arrested. With this kind of corruption, and this kind of sedition, Israel relaxes, content to watch us from the sidelines as we demolish our own homes with our own hands.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “الفتنة نائمة لعن الله حارسها” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.