When we look at the degradation and backwardness the Arab countries have been experiencing, we notice an extreme and exaggerated sense of devotion in Arab communities, especially among the younger generation whose support for leaders brought the Middle Eastern conflict to its peak. This is the Arab Allegiance Syndrome, it has spread to other countries like Iran and Turkey and to the Southern hemisphere that includes the African nations.
Let me break it down for you…
During the 18th century, the West was enlightened by its historic revolutions, whisking Western communities from the dark medieval ages to the light of freedoms and equality, finally ushering the modern Western world that we know of today. During that same period the Arabs were under the Ottoman rule learning the Good Old values of servitude, on how to be good Muslims and devoted followers for the almighty Sultan through a caste, feudal system. Concepts like “first class citizens and second class citizens” were revived during the Ottomans’ rule and the Muslim Caliphate they built. People were classified based on their faith and their origins.
Not much has changed today; still in countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and others discriminate between original and non-original citizens. As for foreigners they still cannot own a property or a business on their own. It is a system that keeps feeding an ever-growing economic and social gap between “locals” and “non-locals”.
So the Arabs, historically recognized for their great legacy of scientific and philosophical achievements, were stuck in the middle ages for longer than they should have. By the end of the First World War, the Ottoman Empire disintegrated and fell into French and British mandates. The French tried to import some of their values into the region with little success, because obviously contrary to what many might think, Democracy cannot be imported. The French learned it the hard way and what has remained of their “imported values” back then was little developed later on. Countries like Lebanon are still considered as one of the most influenced Arab countries by Western societies but the complete transformation of the country was halted, and progress stopped midway.
Furthermore, values like human dignity, the right to a decent living, the right to education, the right to property, the right to equality etc… weren’t really developed in the Middle East, and when introduced very few were respected or taken seriously. Today an entire Arab Community doesn’t fully understand the true meaning of these rights and values and their fundamental importance to asserting human dignity and justice in society.
This lacuna has been thus exploited by many if not all Arab leaders in advancing their political campaigns and personal aims. They preyed on the weakness of their people, on the ignorance of the majority and on the lack of political institutions and the existence of outdated constitutions in the country. Their most powerful tool was and still is until today, the absolute, unaccountable, untouchable rule of law that is “Religion”. Religion; the perfect opium for a near dead nation, Religion per se isn’t a bad thing, it appeals to the hopeful side of us, it appeals to the unknown aspect of life and the mystical possibilities it brings with it. Briefly, it provides us with hope over the things we simply cannot control in real life.
An Arab political leader cleverly seized the moment when most of his country’s population lacked the basic elements of a decent life and assumed the role of the savior. Instead of planting the seeds of knowledge and progress, he aided in the segregation of a nation, where values of servitude inherited from the Ottomans and the Caliphates before them were furthermore asserted, thus abandoning all intuitive approaches to human dignity and human rights or possibility to achieve them. Political leaders in the Arab world are always followed, adored, bled for and elected for decades. Although the country electing them would be lacking basic services like electricity, clean water, affordable education, health care, transportation systems, clean roads, pensions and equal opportunities in the market, the leaders still manage to preserve their seats. Many in the west call it a “dictatorship” but in most cases, the diagnosis isn’t as simple. The disease runs deeper. It runs deep in the Arab culture. This is not a case of Hitlerism…not at all.
For example, countries like Lebanon lack all basic services and the respect of basic human rights I just mentioned above. Consequently, the country lacks all forms of sustainable development, including basic political rights like suffrage, where the parliament of Lebanon decided not to hold elections and to just extend its own mandate for four more years. To Hell with the Constitution we say!!!! Nevertheless, people keep cheering for the same political leaders who brought the country and its people to their knees in so many occasions.
Why? Why would a person love someone who abuses him/her day and night, who takes away all his/her food and medicine, who doesn’t listen to him/her or even let him/her speak his/her mind? Why would someone want to be in such an abusive relationship and the worst part keep cheering for his/her jailer and defending him/her? It is definitely a syndrome then; A culturally embedded syndrome infecting the Middle East. The people of the Middle East stopped believing that they deserve to be treated rightly and justly.
In the Middle East, a political leader fixes the road to your school and tells you that he did you a favor. He gets your father a job, your brother a scholarship, your mother a free bed in the hospital, and he tells you that all of it is an act of personal generosity and kindness, which guarantees your loyalty, obedience and servitude. This culture will eventually be carried by your sons and daughters and to the next generations.
In the Middle East it doesn’t matter if the political leader is corrupt and has embezzled billions from public funds, because he has managed to create a solution for a non-existent problem; and this problem is your Christian, Muslim, Druze, and Jewish neighbor.
Political leaders in the Middle East offer you protection from your “dangerous” neighbors in exchange for your servitude and devotion. The results are dramatic; an unending cycle of violence and hatred based on irrational fears, growing poverty and bad life conditions further nurturing radicalism and intolerance and pushing aside the magic word: Education. Because education means enlightenment, it means broadening the mind, it means ambition, it means possibilities, tolerance and acceptance of others, it means forward thinking and the understanding of human dignity.
In the Middle East people have forgotten that the politicians work for them and not the other way around. They have forgotten that when a politician is corrupt he should resign and never be entrusted with the state’s affairs again.
The concept that a government should provide its citizens with basic services and rights for a decent living is non-existent in the Middle East. Fear is, however, growing and with it a culture of servitude is dominating. A veil of numbness has been cast on the Middle East. It is not only that of zealous religious ideologies but more dangerously it is that of a culture of inferiority that recognizes no basic human rights, a culture of degradation on all humanitarian levels impeding the people from evolving and becoming a better version of themselves. Instead they look up to corrupt political leaders for solutions when the answer is right under their noses.
At your service…
By Rola Mckey
