Mamdouh Bitar, George Banna
Although violence is still alive in some parts of the world, it has noticeably declined globally. However, it has increased in intensity and prevalence in the Arab region. This is a phenomenon that requires analysis, explanation, and justification.
The decline in violence globally is due to the triumph of what Abraham Lincoln called the power or triumph of the angelic side in man. Its increasing frequency and spread in this part of the world is the opposite of Abraham Lincoln’s hypothesis: the triumph of the evil side, or as it is called in religious language, the “devilish” side in man. Why has the evil side remained in the Arab world? Rather, it has become stronger and more widespread!
If we take the Arab Spring and its aftermath, and deliberately ignore the ancient legacy of violence, which began very clearly 1,440 years ago, we would find a clear correlation between the level of violence and the state of citizens’ basic rights, such as the right to freedom, education, or, in general, the lack of a decent life in this region of the world. The level of violence rose during the Arab Spring, not because of any fault of its own. The Arab Spring began peacefully in general, but in many countries it fell into the trap of violence, which returned to the policy of repression practiced by authoritarian dictatorial regimes. With the violence of these regimes, terrorist organizations such as ISIS and its offspring, such as Al-Nusra, and hundreds of other organizations similar to ISIS and Al-Nusra, harmonized and interacted. This led to the distortion of many Arab Spring movements and the development of a dark form that is contrary to reform and progress.
There are different views regarding the development of violence after the beginning of the Arab Spring. What is certain here was the cultural heritage factor, that is, cultural backwardness was one of the most important reasons for the explosion of the volcano of violence after it had subsided somewhat in intermittent periods, especially when there were those who represented the brutality of ISIS. There was no need for ISIS in the form we knew in the past years during the Ottoman era, as the Ottomans were worse than the ISIS of Abu Bakr. They impaled enough, hanged and burned enough people. The caliphs were no better than the Ottomans and ISIS. Rather, some of them were worse than ISIS and others were like ISIS. Therefore, the ISIS model is not a product of this era. The roots of ISIS extend back to the era of Ibn Abdullah, who slaughtered as ISIS slaughtered and burned as ISIS burned. The caliphs after him did something similar to what ISIS did, according to the admission of Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, about Ali, who said regarding the burning, “I lit my fire and called Qanbara,” and Qanbara was responsible for burning people while they were alive. Violence here was a matter that was established. The texts imposed it, then legitimized it, and dressed it in the silk robe of jihad.
There are those who believe that violence was an expression of a clash of civilizations. There is undoubtedly a clash of civilizations, but Bedouin history and even conquests were not civilized acts, and the Quraysh and their neighbors lacked civilization. The activities of the tribes, including the Quraysh, were limited to looting, plunder, and invasion. Moreover, all civilizations left traces, such as the Pharaonic, Roman, Mayan, Mesopotamian, and other civilizations. What traces did the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula and the Arabized peoples who came after them leave behind in the regions they conquered? Were there any traces of civilization in Saudi Arabia except for the Black Stone? Even in the Levant, which is very rich in civilizational traces, there are no traces from the past 1440 years. What is present was from the era before the previous fourteen centuries.
Therefore, the violence cannot be explained by the concept of a clash of civilizations, because there was no civilization in this region in the last fourteen centuries. The conquests, tribute, the Covenant of Omar, and others are not recognized civilizational landmarks. Therefore, there was no clash of civilizations because there was nothing in the Arabian Peninsula that could There are those who claim that the current violence has causes related to the closed geopolitical reality, which was led to by Western colonialism, which in turn led to the establishment of violent dictatorial regimes.
This hypothesis is very fragile, because the period of Western colonialism was very short compared to Ottoman colonialism and Qurayshi colonialism. France remained in Syria for a quarter of a century, while the Ottomans remained for four centuries, and the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula remained for ten centuries. The Ottomans were not civilized, and the Arabs were not , while the situation in France was very different, and many Syrians now yearn for the French quarter-century era, because the first elections in Syria in the last fourteen centuries were in the French era, and the first party law was born in the French era, and my school was built in the French era, just as water came from the tap in the French era, as well as electricity from the electric wire, and the construction of the wonderful government house in my town was in the French era, and also the construction of the Syrian parliament was In the French era, in Egypt, Napoleon brought the printing press and brought the scientists who discovered the Rosetta Stone and much more. The Ottomans did not build a single school, and the Quraysh did not build a school to teach physics, chemistry, or philosophy, which were excluded from the educational programs in some Arab countries.
They were only concerned with memorizing the Qur’an, jurisprudence, and religious matters exclusively. The period of Ottoman colonialism and the period of Quraysh colonialism were periods of ugly dictatorships, unparalleled violence, and the closed status of the peoples of the region. In a state of isolation and stagnation, the likes of which history has never known. The peoples of the region did not learn modern methods of governance in the Ottoman and Hijazi Quraishi centuries, because the Ottoman colonizers and the Quraishi colonizers did not know these methods and did not practice them, while the French and the British knew them.
The goal of all the people of the Levant in the last century was to get rid of colonialism or Western mandate, but it became clear during the last century that these peoples were not capable of the arts of self-government. The peoples became involved in fighting, division and separation. And it turned into an incubator for producing hateful dictatorships. The peoples were qualified for colonization according to Malek Bennabi, that is, they needed a civilized colonizer as a mandate, which might help somewhat in training the peoples to practice democracy and self-rule. It was not possible for Sultan Selim I, or Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, or even Ibn Abdullah, and those who followed them all, to teach the people the methods of wise, democratic governance that respected human freedom. The long period of Bedouin, Quraishi-Ottoman colonization led to… Entrenching and consecrating the values of war, violence, corruption and tribalism, Bedouin violence still dominates to this moment. considered a civilization.