Where are the young men and women
who nearly three years ago crammed the plazas and public squares calling for
the downfall of who they called the tyrant or the dictator or the despot?
Do they remember the victory
signs they raised when they heard news of his escape or his standing down or
his killing?
Do they recall the dreams they
dared reflect upon in those days and their talk of democracy, state
institutions, transparency, the transfer of power and the respect of human
rights?
Was their behavior actually
motivated by their fervor, their innocence or their naïveté?
Were they alien to their
communities and ignorant of the degree of injustice permeating their depths and
the wells of hatred waiting for an opportunity to explode?
Did it escape them that the problem
is basically cultural rather than political and that it is not enough to open
the ballot boxes to turn over the page of the past?
Did it escape them as well that centuries
of darkness contributed to the incarceration of the Arab intellect and its disablement,
rendering the Arab individual incapable of handling the keys to the future?
I have been obsessed for weeks by
an irritating question: “Who killed the ‘Arab Spring’?”
That’s why I seize the
opportunity of coming across anyone of the major players in the said “Spring”
to ask for his assessment – especially now that some of the said ‘Spring’s’
theaters shut out the advocates of democracy and of modern state-building.
I will not name my respondents
because our discussions were not to be published.
The man played an important role
in his country’s “Arab Spring” when he dealt a painful blow to the despot under
whose portrait he served for several years.
I asked him the question, “Who
killed the ‘Arab Spring’?”
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“What you call the ‘Spring’ may
have come early, before our societies became ready to embrace a transformation
of this magnitude.
“It turned out we still live in
the depths of history.
“With the tyrants’ fall, our
societies began spewing all the blood, pus, hatreds, coercions and reprisals
that accumulated in their guts.
“I think the transitional phase
will be daunting and extended. In any case the French Revolution took eight
decades before settling down.”
He added:
“We are in a terrible state of
underdevelopment. Watch the screens. A university professor talks as if he has
yet to enter the era of reading and writing.
“Look at nation-states, like for
example Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Bahrain that are now paying the price of what took place between Ali and Muawiyah.
“We discuss globalization and
technology and then go to sleep in the caves of history.
“Our capitals are closer to abattoirs
overflowing with suicide bombers and assassins.
“Our countries fail to provide
regular power supplies to their citizens.
“Our societies participated in
killing the ‘Arab Spring’ by letting the prisoners of history take the lead.”
Another player put forward a
different reading.
He said the most prominent
killers of the “Arab Spring” are those who rushed to mold it, casting an image
of their own interests.
He said the West acted as a
crook, especially Obama’s America. Washington wanted the phenomenon to serve
the policy she adopted years earlier – in essence the policy of promoting to
power what she calls moderate Islam, thinking that the latter could contain
terror.
He added: The Muslim Brothers,
who were the better organized and widespread movement in the community, took
this as an historic opportunity to devour it all.
He also said Turkey played a role
in killing the “Arab Spring” when she considered a “Brotherhood Spring” victory
gives her a trump card in her strategic wrestling with Iran.
He said Qatar used her financial
might and international relations to prop up the “Brotherhood Spring” alongside
Turkey.
Russia, he remarked was focusing
on stifling the “Muslim Spring” lest it turned into a card in the hands of the
West or spread to her vicinity.
He said Russia found in Syria’s
events a chance to kill the “Arab Spring.” Iran was of the same opinion but for
different purposes.
The two men’s words helped me
understand what is now going on in more than one Arab country.
I got convinced the “Arab Spring”
killers were more than one.
Most probably a stormy season is
just about to kick off – a long and painful transition season.
The first condition for moving
into the future is to exit the caves of history and bury the illusions of
ready-made solutions.
