Mamdouh Bitar Ruba Mansou
Although violence is still alive in the world, it has noticeably decreased, On the other hand, it has increased in intensity and spread in the Arab region, This phenomenon requires analysis, explanation and justification, The decline in violence globally is due to the victory of what Abraham Lincoln called the strength or triumph of the angelic side in man, Its increase in pace and spread in this part of the world is due to the opposite of Abraham Lincoln’s hypothesis, that is, to the victory of the evil side in man, or as it is called in religious language, the “demonic” side in man, And why has the evil side remained in the Arab man? Rather, it is stronger and more widespread!!
If we take the Arab Spring and its aftermath, and deliberately ignore the ancient violent heritage, which began very clearly 1440 years ago, we would find a clear correlation between the level of violence and the status of human 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 in the Arab Spring not because of a mistake on its part, as the Arab Spring began peacefully in general, but in many countries it fell into the trap of violence, and relapsed, imitating the policies of repression practiced by authoritarian dictatorial regimes, With the violence of the 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, which led to the distortion of many Arab Spring movements and to the development of the situation into a dark form 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 factor, which was a heritage, meaning that 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 its modern form during the Ottoman era, as the Ottomans were worse than ISIS under Abu Bakr, They impaled, 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, he said regarding “burning” “I lit my fire and called Qanbara” and Qanbara was responsible for burning people while they were alive, Violence Here was a matter imposed by the texts, legitimized and clothed in the silk robe of jihad.
There are those who believe that violence was an expression of the clash of civilizations, There is a clash of civilizations without a doubt, but the Bedouin history and even the conquests were not civilized acts, and there was no civilization among the Quraysh and their neighbors, The activities of the tribes, including the Quraysh, were limited to looting, plundering and invasion, All civilizations left traces, such as the Pharaonic, Roman, Mayan, Mesopotamian, and others, So what traces did the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula and the Arabized peoples who came after them leave behind in the regions they occupied, conquered, and lived in? Are there traces indicating a civilization in Saudi Arabia, except for the Black Stone? Even in the Levant, which is very rich in civilizational relics, there are no relics from the past 1440 years, What is present was from an 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, Conquests, tribute, the Covenant of Umar, captivity, spoils of war, and others are not among the recognized landmarks of civilization, Therefore, there was no clash of civilizations, because there was nothing in the Arabian Peninsula that could be called a civilization.
There are those who claim that the current violence has reasons 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 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 of the Arabian Peninsula were not civilized, while the situation in France was very different, 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 law of parties was born in the French era, Water came through the tap in the French era, as did electricity, and the construction of the magnificent government building in my town was in the French era, as was the construction of the Syrian parliament 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 school and did not… The Quraysh built a school to teach physics, chemistry, etc. 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 isolation that put the peoples of the region in a state of stagnation, the likes of which history has never known.
The peoples of the region did not learn modern methods of governance during the Ottoman and Hijazi-Quraishi centuries, because the Ottoman and Qurayshi colonizers did not know these methods, which the French and British knew, The goal of all the people of the Levant in the last century was to get rid of colonialism or Western mandate, but during the last century it became clear that these peoples were not able to practice self-rule, The peoples engaged in fighting, division and disunity and turned into an incubator for producing hateful dictatorships, The peoples were qualified for colonization, according to the Algerian thinker Malek Bennabi, that is, they needed civilized colonization, which might help somewhat in training the peoples to practice self-rule,Sultan Selim I, Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, or even Ibn Abdullah and those who followed them were not able to teach people the methods of wise, democratic governance that respected human freedom, The long period of Bedouin Qurayshi-Ottoman colonization led to the consolidation and consecration of the values of war, violence, tribalism and then religion, which are not consistent with the values of the “state.” Unfortunately, Pre-state values still dominate to this day!