Culture, by definition, is a cognitive awareness linked to a set of behaviors that translate this self-awareness, that is, reflect it and do not contradict it, The task of cultural cognitive awareness is to serve society in the era of the state, because the concept of the state has become a translation of the concept of society, and society may consist of several nations or several religious, ancestral, ethnic, or other affiliations, Serving society is achieved by the interaction of differences with each other, that is, their cross-fertilization to produce the best idea or behavior.

Culture and knowledge are human products that cannot be attributed to a single content system, i.e., a unity of direction and goal, The insistence of any social, religious or other system on homogeneity causes this system to lose its cultural distinctiveness and turns the group into a printing machine, printing similar images with similar content and similar goal, This means the death of culture, because culture is a social product and society does not know homogeneity but creative difference, and does not know stillness but constant movement and therefore constant development, Stillness and homogeneity imposed primarily by sanctification and faith are killers of development and creativity, and peoples that do not develop do not create and therefore are considered dead or will die and will inevitably become extinct.

There is an antagonism between culture and its evolutionary nature, as well as its contents and orientations, with dictatorial ruling authorities, because the dictator’s goal is not to change, while the goal of culture is to change and develop, Also, difference is in the nature of culture, while the dictator’s difference with himself, i.e. his self-dissociation, means his death, and the dictator does not want to die, and if he dies, he wants to rule from his grave.

Given the antagonism between the nature of culture and the nature of dictatorship, and between the nature of culture, which is about persuasion and proof, and the nature of dictatorship, which is about imposition and dictation, and given the intellectual’s dialectical power and ability to influence people’s minds, the dictator feels that he needs the intellectual not to learn from him, for the dictator is usually arrogant and feels that he has complete knowledge, even cultural knowledge, as was the case with the brother, the Colonel, the fighter, Muammar Gaddafi, who officially gave up the presidency of the country and devoted himself and his precious time to leading the revolution and began writing books such as the Green Book, which was not the only book, but it was the only book that schools were obligated to teach, Gaddafi practiced a kind of self-sufficient cultural self-sufficiency with his book on the Third Universal Theory, for madmen consider madness an achievement and self-sufficiency, and why should he hire intellectuals to promote him when he himself becomes the greatest intellectual promoting himself in the country.

Unlike Gaddafi, the heads of Arab dictatorships did not author books, with the exception of former Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, who was not a dictator but a democratic republican, In any case, the rest of the Arab dictatorships sought to co-opt intellectuals, forcing them to pledge allegiance to the dictatorial authority and submit to it, or to work with it as the dictatorship dictated, This amounted to guardianship over the intellectual, recruiting him into the herd of defenders and promoters of the dictator, thus transforming him into a follower and one of the theorists of the regime—a court preacher, Here, the intellectual becomes alienated from society and culture, turning into a parasite on the regime and its tables, or he refuses this role, thus clashing with the dictatorial authority and fleeing abroad, This is what happened to many intellectuals who lived abroad, most of whom died in exile, such as Sadiq Jalal al-Azm, Nizar Qabbani, George Tarabishi, and others, These individuals maintained their sense of belonging, refused to pledge allegiance to the ruler, and cultivated awareness, Nationally, he was rejected by the dictatorial tyrant.

The dictatorial tyrant fears some intellectuals who refuse loyalty, because the intellectual’s weapon is more powerful than the tyrant’s cannons, The intellectual has the ability to change, as Taha Hussein did, who was able to change people’s perceptions without artillery or a rifle, So they tried to execute him and failed, but they did not stop besieging the intellectual, monitoring his output, and harassing him, as happened with Sayed Qemni, or ultimately killing him, as happened with Farag Foda and others!

With the rise in poverty and the disruption of living conditions, the percentage of rebellious intellectuals who defend justice, fairness, freedoms, democracy, equality, and women’s rights decreased, and the corruption and failure of these authorities became widespread, However, some of these intellectuals fell into a state of negative interaction and cultural stagnation, and turned into cocooning and emotionalism instead of openness, confrontation, and action, These people were unable to expose backwardness and thus turned into spectators of events,Here, one can only understand their isolation into negativity, as it is not required of every person to sacrifice his life for a homeland that has not sacrificed anything for the citizen.

Some monotheists criticize certain intellectuals for their differing perspectives on homelands and their problems, unaware that creativity stems from diversity, Those who criticize others for being different fail to grasp the essence of culture and how it functions, This situation is not called cultural fragmentation, for eliminating difference transforms the intellectual into a dictator or leads to the dominance of cultural stagnation, They criticize, for example, the intellectual’s failure to save Arabism, questioning how it is possible to revive the dead, given that Arabism was born dead in the early 20th century, Attempting to revive the dead is nihilistic and doomed to failure, Engaging in an attempt to revive fixed principles is also a certain death, because there are no fixed principles in life!