The Arabic Language has been connected to poetry, as poets in the Pre-Islamic Period could avenge a tribe and raise its standing, or disparage its qualities and ridicule its members. Indeed, language was their weapon in battles that took place in an age long past. Yet it remains to this day one of the most dangerous weapons used in the struggles of our age. With it invasions are carried out and identities are threatened, and lowering its status brings the collapse of states and nations. Factors that have nothing to do with verbal interpretation in language would have it for the Arabic language to rise up from where it had fallen and become synonymous with peaceful protest, when protesters on Wall Street chanted their slogans in Arabic, the language that had surprised the world with its political eloquence in rejecting injustice and tyranny, with the slogan “the people want to overthrow the regime”. No longer does an event pass without revealing the interaction taking place between the Arabic language and the building blocks of the modern age. And had the young protesters on Wall Street been able to pay homage to the poets of the Muallaqat (the “Suspended Poems” of the Pre-Islamic Period), they would have, believing that the Arabic language has become the language of revolutions and transformations, not that of the verbal arts of which it had reached the heights of mastery. When the United Nations recognized Arabic as an official language within its group of living languages, headed by English, this was considered to do great justice to the standing of Arabic, being considered a language of dialogue, science, law and all forms of human knowledge. Yet consecrating the language was not on a par with similar presence for Arab countries, which wasted more time and effort defending their fateful causes, without this being achieved. It was the Arabic language's fortune to reside in legal and political interpretations of UN Resolutions, as part of the conflict that did not conceal the disparity of stances and interests. The problem did not lie in the language, which millions of Arabs speak over continents and worlds, but rather in the successive failures that did not succeed to raise the Arab World to the standing it is worthy of, as a source of thought, revolution and civilization, despite the succession of defeats and crises. And it does not seem that the debate that has prevailed at the academic, scientific and field levels about the strengths and weaknesses of the Arabic language has ended in admitting to its flaws. Indeed, there are institutes and prominent figures still fighting for the Arabic language to reach preeminence. Leading them in this is the fact that language is a major feature of identity. And there is no identity without heritage, and no heritage without civilization. It is paradoxical that the Arabic language, which paved the way for the spread of literature, science and all the forms of knowledge that have shaped Arab culture, during the ages of prosperity and openness, the beacon of which shone throughout the four corners of the world in Europe, Africa and Asia, is the same language which today has leaped over all obstacles and classifications, and is no longer subjected to the rules of the societies it originated from. It is a striking scene, one that took place in a blink of the time that sought to keep Arabic locked away in seclusion. The American protesters on Wall Street chanted their slogans opposed to the hegemony of money in Arabic, reaping the impact of a social movement that arose in Arab countries under the slogan “the people want”. Most important in this is the inspiration brought about by this new Arab phenomenon, after everyone had nearly given up to the fact that Arab societies like their language were still and motionless. The language has broken free from the bonds of the regimes, and has surpassed English on its home soil, as in fact the Americans seemed more proud of Arabic than of their native tongue. This was the result of a revolutionary charge, in a kind of positive contagion that infects not only those around it, but spreads on a much wider scope, like the ideas and creative humanitarian initiatives that have no nationality or color. They merely meet at the goals of liberation and of lighting shining lanterns in the darkness of night. The angry American protesters could have chanted the slogan that points to all kinds of frustrations and aspects of grievance in their native language, English, but they preferred to adopt its spirit, meanings and terms, as well as its enunciation, which has shaken many citadels no one had dared come near. Indicative of such adoption is the fact that it returns the Arab World to the forefront, affecting events, and in fact creating them par excellence, after it had been a polite receiver, yielding to whatever rules, relations and classifications were imposed on it. It is certain that the Arabic language, which has faced many pressures and attempts to marginalize it, by way of giving preference to Western languages, the presence of which was linked to the periods of French, Italian or British colonialism, has turned into a flexible instrument issued from the throats of angry protesters, giving revolutions an Arab identity par excellence. And just as revolutions do not grow and reach completion outside the scope of the proper soil that falls under objective and subjective conditions, expressing them and embodying their features and characteristics can only take place in the language of identity. And here is Arabic imposing its supremacy on the civilized world, after some had been characterizing it as something that it was not. It is indeed a language of poetry, creativity and science. And more importantly, it is the language of revolution which everyone listens to, from Tahrir Square in Cairo to the citadel of Wall Street in New York.
