The Silence of the Sultans

There is an opinion article on Middle East Monitor. Junaid S. Ahmad uses the word 'betrayal'. I think he is wrong. Every word has to be put beside its opposite when we look at life. Betrayal implies there was loyalty and faithfulness. That is misleading and no wonder there are still many people you see on the social media arguing for Arab unity and that Arab leaders should do something like building a united force, etc. Illusion is fundamental for the powerless. Arab regime have either used the Palestinian plight or ignored it altogether. Their interests and the interests of the Arab capitalists are so entangled with Western and Israeli interests.

Then Ahmad frequently uses the phrase 'Muslim world'. There is no nuch a thing, as there is no such a thing as 'the free world'. There are different and very divided countries from Indonesia to Mauritania with not only different historical development, especially since the formal independence, but also even antagonistic nationalism such the Arab vs, the Persian vs. the Turks. In addition, class divisions are very sharp. The MENA region, for instance, is one of the most if not the most unequal regions in the world – depending on how inequality is measured.

The writer also missed to mention a very important pillar of oppression, a complicit and a Zionist ally – Egypt. The country that could easily shift the balance of power, but there is no radical movement and mass movement to carry out such a shift. And one of the brakes that hold people back is the general human indifference to the suffering of the other fellow human beings. This a human historical conundrum.

Postponing the struggle to overthrow the rotten, criminal regimes to what future generations would think of what is happening, as the writer suggests, is no solution. It is resignation. Instead, it is more urgent and more required than ever to reignite the 2011 and 2019 fires for a radical transformation in the whole region – from Morocco to Iran and Pakistan.

Instead of 'the silence of sultans', it should be Arabia without sultans*

———

* A title of a book by Fred Halliday, written during the phase when Halliday was a radical scholar.

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