Samir Sadek, Ma Bitar:
Every language has a certain weight, and the Arabic language has its weight, which is predominantly sacred, For example, the call to prayer must be recited in Arabic, It is also said that Arabic was the language of Adam, or that it is the language of the Creator, and thus it became sacred, The language with its weight is like the camel with what it carries. What is the effect of sanctification on Arabic?There is no doubt that sanctification raised its moral status, but it reduced its value and practical capabilities, Sanctification restricted it, hindered its development, and put it in a crisis with the possibility of its use. Language is not exclusively for the purpose of formulating Al-Mutanabbi’s poems, which do not require change and development, but rather for the purpose of expressing evolving and changing aspects of life, Here, sanctification stands as an obstacle to the language and reduces the possibilities of its use, The accumulation of this characteristic, i.e., the decrease in possibilities of use, leads to a gradual and increasing decrease in its functional tasks, until the language becomes out of service, i.e., like a museum piece. Charging the language with the sacred is harmful to it, for the fixed, frozen sacred is the poison on which and by which the language dies.
The whole thing is as it is, and this is the state of the language in general and in short, Among the burdens of Arabic were the concepts of holy jihad and its appendages such as conquests and other offshoots,Jihad is an obligation and a condition for the completion of the belief, Under the banner of jihad, much violence is hidden,Theoretically, jihad can be considered a sixth pillar of the religion, Jihad is more important than prayer, To disguise, jihad is linked with the concept of “in the way of God,” while jihad in reality is not in the way of God, but rather in the way of the Sultan, and for the sake of spoils.
The Arabic language carries the concepts of holy jihad, which attempts to establish an authority alongside the authority of the state, and thus a state within a state, which reduces the importance of the state to the point of its non-existence, This is done through practices that contradict the provisions of the constitution and the law of the state, Holy jihad includes holy conquest and includes the establishment of punishments such as the punishment of stoning or the punishment of killing the polytheist, apostate or infidel, then spreading the message and other things, while spreading the message, violating the rights of other peoples and establishing punishments are not among the tasks of the state stipulated in the constitution and in positive laws, which know only the obligation of non-aggression, The laws of no state know the features of jihad such as conquest and spreading religious messages, whether by the sword or without the sword, Therefore, the linguistic content of jihad and its practical applications can be considered a war against the state.
Among the burdens of the Arabic language are those pertaining to the concepts of justice and equality. For many reasons, Arabic prioritizes justice over equality, meaning that the language’s approach in this regard is flawed, This language doesn’t distinguish between justice, which is a legal concept, and equity, which is a human concept, Prioritizing justice over equality is inherently contradictory, There is no justice without equality, and the absence of equality is equivalent to the absence of justice, but it is not as contradictory to justice, A mother who steals to feed her children is condemned by the law because she stole, but she is not condemned by the justice system, which welcomes stealing to feed children, Generally, this language carries many rejected and reprehensible concepts, such as the concept of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a nose for a nose, and a head for a head.,And this isn’t the only reprehensible aspect; it includes additional reprehensible concepts such as the prohibition against killing a believer for killing an unbeliever, and the distinction between believers and unbelievers regarding the punishment for murder, A believer who kills is not the same as an unbeliever who kills, and the blood money for killing a believer is very different from the blood money for killing an unbeliever,Therefore, it can be considered The moral weight of this language and what this language expresses regarding justice, fairness and equality is shameful in many respects.
Veteran journalist Hassanein Heikal told a story about Kemal Ataturk on the program “Egypt, Where To?” with Lamis El-Hadidi,Mustafa Kemal was asked about the reasons that prompted him to abolish the use of Arabic letters in Turkish texts, i.e., abolish the Arabic language. He answered, in essence, that the Arab region is plagued with destructive ideas and perceptions, and all of that is documented and preserved in the Arabic language, and that severing ties with this language is one of the means of distancing oneself from that sick heritage. Indeed, Turkey’s launch into modernity was greater than expected after the defeat in World War I, The question of the relationship between the Turkish renaissance and Ataturk’s measures regarding letters, then the call to prayer, and the role of religious figures, etc., remains, although it is likely.
If we take the Algerian experience, which is the opposite of the Ataturk Turkish experience, in Algeria Arabization began in the seventies of the last century at the hands of Houari Boumediene, and thus the Arab heritage was transferred to education and administration in Algeria. In addition, many Arab teachers were brought to Algeria, and these transferred Arab culture to the country, and education thus moved from studying Hegel, Descartes, Hume, Kant and others to studying Ibn Taymiyyah, Al-Ghazali, Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, Al-Ash’ari, Al-Sha’rawi and the like, which led to the collapse of the level of culture and to the transfer of jihad, the Brotherhood and violence to the country, even the enmity between the Ahl al-Bayt group and the Companions group was transferred to the country despite the absence of the Ali group, i.e. Shiites, there, All of this culminated in the outbreak of the flames of a civil war that lasted for about ten years and claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Algerians, This tragedy was repeated in several countries such as Yemen, Iraq, Sudan, Libya and others.
Arabization is not limited to creating cultural isolation from the world and neglecting to benefit from global civilization and the science and knowledge created by other peoples,It has also enabled the infiltration of a culture of violence, conflict, corruption, fundamentalism, the Muslim Brotherhood, Ibn Taymiyyah, Wahhabism, tribalism, and clannishness, There is no need to mention the vast sums of money and media hype spent on these obscurantist ideas, the culture of terrorism and cannibalism, and the culture of fatalism, dependency, conspiracy theories, the concept of the caliphate, leadership, individual heroism, and the symbols of crime—all the afflictions suffered by the peoples of the region, It is noteworthy that these problems are absent in Southeast Asian societies, for example, Here, it is worth asking what factors led to this disparity, to the rise of some nations and the decline of others,Southeast Asian countries that do not speak Arabic, such as Malaysia, have not suffered the same fate as the Arabized Arab states.