Ruba Mansour, George Banna:
The peoples of this region have been living in a state of deterioration for centuries, and it is constantly increasing. This has prompted some to express this state with the phrase, “Life has no meaning, and death might be better.” This is a populist phrase, and the one who uttered it is not a philosopher or social researcher; it is a very ordinary person. The simplicity of the expression does not negate the depth of its connotations. Indeed, these peoples live a life of meaninglessness in all its forms. Meaninglessness dominates everything; even holidays have lost their spiritual and social dimension and have been transformed into a material activity that does not elevate the soul spiritually.
Considering other aspects of life, such as culture, leads to the same conclusion: the rampant meaninglessness in various aspects of this urban cultural life. This rampantness is based on triviality and stagnation, or what is called modern ignorance, which has bared its fangs and robbed humans of the meaning of life. It is as if a person born yesterday had reached the age of 1,450 years today. He was born dead and did not realize his death. He is alive in the form of a moving corpse.
Islamic ignorance is a religious concept, the essence of which is pluralism, i.e., the multiplicity of gods before the advent of monotheism. However, the concept of ignorance encompasses a broader spectrum of aspects, such as tribalism, which represents a chronic disease that nationalist thought could have curbed or even cured. Nationalist thought is generally more advanced than tribal thought, but unfortunately, this thought was quickly infected by ignorance and tribalism, and Arab nationalism was transformed into tribal practices. After the call, it wore the galabiya and turban, possessed the absolute truth, and embraced fate and inevitability. Denying it is misguidance, and immorality is the characteristic of those who disagree with it. There is no criticism of Arabism; anyone who criticizes is considered mentally ill or a traitor. Arab nationalism was transformed into a self-evident sacred religion. The divine religion and the national religion are one in their rejection of scrutiny, analysis, and criticism.
Islamic ignorance cannot be limited to the historical era before the call, because what the pre-Islamic era witnessed was a The call to Islam is based on tribal practices we are witnessing now in the land of the Arabs: killing, looting, rape, captivity, the sale of women, and the contempt for women, followed by patriarchal systems and dictatorships representing the status of the tribal leader. In other words, peoples continue to live in a state of ignorance to this very moment.
What is the reason for resorting to a version of ignorance identical to the one before the call to Islam, which has continued in and through the new religion? This manifests a culture of backwardness, ignorance, and fanaticism. Why are these peoples unable to address the causes of this deterioration? It is recurring in forms that are arguably relatively uglier than the past! It cannot be said that this deficiency has anything to do with chromosomes, as Arabs are not genetically different from others and can theoretically develop like Europeans in an environment similar to that of Europeans. Do Israelis have a different nature than Egyptians or Jordanians? Is poverty the reason? Poverty cannot be the reason, because the oil-rich Arab countries are no better culturally than other oil-poor countries like Tunisia and Lebanon.
The Bedouins were in constant discord and conflict over the spoils of war, and they fought continuously for the most trivial reasons, such as the Basus War, then Dahis and Ghabra, then the massacres. This did not stop throughout the early Islamic era, then the Umayyad and Abbasid eras, then the Ottoman eras, until today, which has witnessed horrific massacres, as has happened in the past few months and days.
The continuation of the savage Bedouin pre-Islamic ignorance is due to many declared methods that are openly boasted about. What is the goal of the Baath, and what are the goals of the political muslim Brotherhood? What is the goal of the efforts being made in education and in parallel schools, i.e., schools of oral indoctrination, practiced by sheikhs from pulpits or via satellite channels, preaching false education and the values of ignorance, backwardness, racial and sexual discrimination, and many other projects that can and should be classified under the heading of the malignant modern pre-Islamic ignorance? They employ religious texts and hadiths to promote backwardness, pastism, and the ongoing violence from the pre-islamic era through the islam era to the post-islam era of ignorance. Haven’t you heard what the sacrifice announces openly about the intention to cut off the young heads as described by Al-Hajjaj bin Yusuf Al-Thaqafi in Kufa? Rather, we consider Al-Hajjaj’s sermon in Kufa, from the linguistic and metaphorical point of view, to be of a higher order than the threats of the thugs of this era, who have turned into a mummy speaking in the colloquial language Practically speaking, Hajjaj is no different from most educated people of this era. Monsters multiplied, but humans did not. Just to be aware, Hajjaj did not kidnap girls, shave mustaches and beards of sheich, or burn his enemies after tying them to chairs. Despite being a predatory monster, he is closer to humanity than the monsters of this era.
The origin of life is that it has an essence and meaning, that is, it should be creative and developmental for the better. Development is a path forward and is different from the regression that It is a march backwards. Ignorance is an inevitable march backwards. We have confirmed this with sound and image, with slaughtering knives and shaving scissors.
Peoples live in a crisis based on ignorance, illiteracy, violence, destruction, devastation, disease, hunger, fanaticism and sectarianism, which we find in all the countries of the region. This is due to the continuation of the ancient Bedouin ignorance in the modern era in a more profound decline than the depth of the decline of the past, such that it can be said that there are no essential differences in terms of practice and content between the two ignorances, as the source is one: Bedouin ignorance. …which now dominates all aspects of life, and which has even dominated religion, and colored many aspects of it with its dye, modern ignorance cannot be treated except by the availability of the will to develop, science and secularism capable of embracing humanized modernity. Here, it is necessary to point out some who see modernity according to the secular Western model as modern ignorance, and thus they see the medicine as if it were a disease! What is to be done?