The culture of violence and terrorism

    The culture of violence, terrorism, and rejection of the other is based on many pillars,Violence, terrorism, and rejection of the other are born from the womb of totalitarianism and from the womb of the inability to deal creatively with pluralism, and then the neurotic tendency to impose homogeneity, All of this produced a culture of aggression, which has afflicted the peoples of this region, who are already predisposed to this disease, Most of the predisposition to aggression is due to the characteristics of pastoral Bedouinism, which are still socially dominant, characteristics such as revenge, retaliation, the inability to engage in dialogue and exchange ideas, the failure to acknowledge mistakes and the possession of absolute truth, violence, contempt for women, and other negative characteristics that distinguish Bedouinism from urban life.

  Bedouin culture was transferred to the consciousness of these peoples through the gateway of conquests and the gateway of religion, which was also affected by it, and consequently became a practitioner and promoter of it, especially after the occupations and conquests. The influence of religion on Bedouinism fell in the Saqifa, for in the Saqifa the concept of “the nation” fell, which was supposed to be the alternative to the concept of the tribe or clan, The tribes and clans did not turn into something resembling a single nation except in one field or one branch, which is the field of war, captivity and plunder.

 The Bedouin characteristics were not innate, but acquired through the influence of the harsh desert environment on the desert inhabitants, an environment that does not allow for the practice of the duality of production-subsistence due to the lack of production, which led to the birth of the duality of plunder-subsistence, since there is no production in the barren desert, which could not be transformed into agricultural land, and thus enabling the Bedouin to remain in the place, a necessary stability in order to establish cities, i.e., urban life.

  Given the scarcity of the arid desert and the harshness of the environment, the Bedouin found in the new religion an organizer of the dilemma of obtaining the necessary sustenance to cover the costs of life, Sustenance came under the shadow of spears, Instead of each tribe or clan practicing raiding on its own, they united under the umbrella of religious conquests, They raided, then stole, looted, and enslaved, Within the framework of the fifth, the spoils of the raid were divided with one-fifth going to the leadership and four-fifths to the mujahideen., Can the spoils and the division of the stolen goods be considered jihad in the path of God? Is the verse’s consideration of spoils as purely permissible a matter of morality? Is it correct to consider the saying, “Whoever dies without thinking of raiding, dies with a branch of hypocrisy”? Is it not shameful to consider all of this as a completion of noble morals?!

The raids began before the religion actually spread, even among the raiders, The period between the birth of the call and the beginning of the raids was so short that it is doubtful that the fighting mujahideen were really not followers of the religion with certainty, but rather followers of the looters of spoils, which the religion organized and encouraged, Their individual practices turned into collective practices, and what was practiced individually by each tribe was practiced by most of the tribes together.

   The goal of the invasion was the fertile, rich regions such as Mesopotamia, then the Nile Valley, the Levant, and others, They chose the fertile regions not to work in agriculture, for the invaders did not work at all! Rather, they encroached upon others and practiced fierce and cruel taxation, which impoverished the peoples of the conquered colonies, The culture of work and production was nonexistent among them. Unfortunately, they were only men of the sword and men of theft and plunder.

 They established a military regime in the colonies, which contributed to the Arabization of the peoples subjected to Bedouin control, The rule was Bedouin, and the ruler was an absolute, oppressive, Qurayshi Bedouin, They implemented this through various means, including forcing people to change their religion, language, and values,They occupied minds as well as strongholds, They were avid prolific breeders, which enabled them to secure a sufficient number of fighters, Initially, they relied on others for administration, but they maintained control of the key positions in the power structure,The decision-making power was theirs alone, They did not integrate with the inhabitants of the colonies, and the colonists had no role other than providing services, paying tribute, and securing captives and slaves. They learned nothing of value from the inhabitants of the conquered territories. What could the conquered peoples learn from them other than violence, warfare, domination, the collection of tribute and taxes, and Bedouin customs and traditions, which were imposed alongside the new religion? The new language was imposed by force.

    Bedouin characteristics were imposed, and thus Bedouin culture prevailed, Previous civilizations such as the Sumerian, Greek, Roman, Persian, Pharaonic, and others disappeared, The peoples who invented the alphabet and the plow stopped creating, as the atmosphere imposed by the invaders was not compatible with creativity. It was an atmosphere of obstacles, prohibitions, and restrictions. Thus, by looking at the region, one can confirm that the wheel of progress and development stopped,The Levant turned into a functional desert, and the inhabitants of the Levant turned into Bedouins without a desert. That is, development forward did not only stop, but there was a regression backward, The society of agriculture, crafts, writing, construction, and Levantine arts turned into a society of tribes and clans like the tribes and clans of the desert, No letters, no agriculture, no construction, only ruin, barrenness, stagnation, and petrification.

   The Bedouin had a savage, steely grip, This is how they were able to eliminate almost all the scholars by barbaric means, Only a very few of them were spared from slaughter, burning, crucifixion, roasting, and starvation, and most of them were of Persian origin, Through barbarism in dealing with those who were intellectually different, the Bedouin were able to impose their culture on the peoples of the conquered countries, and they were able to obliterate the civil cultures of those peoples, the cultures of science, innovation, and thought, with which they enlightened the world, Imagine another path of history, a path without the Bedouin, Imagine if these peoples had been left free to work, free to think, and free to create, Is it not expected that these peoples would lead the world to a higher and more beautiful horizon, a horizon of progress, peace, and success, and not a horizon of military, sword, killing, and barbarism?

   Just as they destroyed the lives of their scholars, they destroyed the lives of other peoples, drowning them in seas of blood, pain, backwardness, and hatred, for fourteen centuries, For centuries, these peoples have lived in increasing humiliation, increasing poverty, increasing immorality, and increasing failure, And what is worse than all of that is the deep-rooted mentality of failure, inadequacy, hatred, and violence in people’s souls, a deep-rooted mentality that is difficult to uproot in a reasonable period of time. It must be uprooted if these peoples want life, dignity, and freedom!