M. Bitar Syriano
November 4, 2026
The wait for the “Spring” was long, and the conditions necessitating it had fully matured, It arrived late—yet better late than never. Upon its arrival, however, it met its demise, thwarted by religious intransigence, the military, and violence—an impasse sustained by a machinery of scriptural verses, *hadiths* (prophetic traditions), and oil, which together hijacked the Spring, The ” muslim Brotherhood-style” Islamists assassinated religion, stripping it of its spirituality—and, consequently, of its very essence as a religion. This brand of Arabism, coupled with a suicidal ideology, has exhausted and worn everyone down. The “Muslim Brotherhood-style” version of Arabism offers nothing but regression—or, more accurately, a retreat into the past. It brings only violence, killing, destruction, injustice, and a sense of victimhood—all framed in religious and worldly terms, armed with Quranic verses and Hadith, infused with Wahhabism and Khomeinism, and characterized by a perverse “genius” for beheading—a practice deemed unacceptable even in the time of Hulagu. Today, peoples are forced to live in a present teeming with an immense degree of barbarism—a present in which animalistic impulses are concentrated. It is a disgrace to the past that such a present should emerge from it, and a disgrace to the present that it should be rooted in such a past. It is a tragedy for peoples to be born in the past only to be buried in the present; it is a tragedy for the present to be transformed into a graveyard as vast as the homelands themselves, Anyone who observes this wretched present can grasp the consequences of resurrecting a dull, stagnant past and seeking salvation within it. Minds paralyzed by the “sacred” have proven incapable of innovating anything modern; thus, a retreat into the archaic, traditional past became inevitable. The storms of recent years have failed to chart a new course or direction; instead, they have lost their way, swallowed up by superstitions, absurdities, and wars that have consumed both bodies and minds. The only “new” elements are new problems. The “Spring”—which was supposed to resolve long-standing issues—has either resigned or been dismissed, rendered completely impotent and unable to exert any influence. There is no longer any capacity to rid society of old flaws, nor any ability to displace the new ones. And who, in these times, even thinks of freedom and democracy? Once hunger erupted like an abscess in the stomach, problems multiplied and the downward spiral accelerated. Violence, extremism, sectarianism, and a destructive, vengeful impulse intensified—followed by fragmentation and disintegration on every level: geographical, psychological, social, human, and economic, Destruction became the dominant reality, alongside another master: the loss of hope and the death of any future horizon. There is neither hope nor a visible horizon in an environment shrouded in the dust of battle—an environment that forces people to swallow the poisons of religious and political mysticism, which have effectively erased the human existence of these populations, Typically, acknowledging the loss of hope and the absence of a future horizon would serve as a catalyst for exploring new ways of thinking and acting. Yet, in this region—where not only has hope been lost, but even the hope for hope itself has vanished—there remains a persistent drive to continue the collapse, all the way to the final, terminal point: total extinction and death. The last century was a century of confusion regarding the Arabs—their unity, religion, caliphate, and symbols—as well as the attempt to resurrect their flawed past. “Arab-Islamism” and “Islamic-Arabism” succeeded in realizing the substance of this revival. Today, we have a present that mirrors the past with chilling precision—a present that breathes the dust of wars and inhales the stench of corpses, no different from the eras of *Dāḥis* and *Ghabrā’*, the battles of *Ṣiffīn* or the *Camel*, or the tragedy of *Karbala*, They succeeded in this resurrection and transposition; yet, despite this “dazzling” success, the resulting disillusionment has been profound, They had imagined that the past they revived would be a source of “salvation,” only to discover that it was, in fact, a regression—a descent into the past. While that past may have had certain justifications or historical circumstances that led to its formation—giving rise to an empire built on humiliation, exploitation, human trafficking, and slavery—it was, at the very least, an “empire” (albeit one of the worst).
Today, however, the situation is different—and regressive: there is no empire to extract tribute, nor is there any positive engagement with modernity, Those who have failed for 1,440 years will not succeed in 40.
These “Arabizers” have reached the end of history—a history they had long neglected, only to find themselves, in the end, cast out of it entirely. We question the value of contemplating the fate of these peoples; what is past is gone and done with. Old problems are no longer of any real consequence, as they constantly renew and accumulate—growing into a mountain that expands in both height and breadth. These entities remained in a pre-state phase, failing to ever truly evolve into states. In reality, any “empire” existed only in the imagination; “states” existed only on paper; and “peoples”—or rather, societies—existed only in speeches and anthems. Ultimately, it is no surprise: the whole thing was, in truth, a lie—and now it has come to an end!