It is a cultural revolution – a revolution that started a quarter century ago North of Pakistan and India, and has moved today to the Middle East and North Africa. This is what British diplomat Alastair Crooke wrote. Yet what he did not mention is that it was an armed “cultural revolution" that justifies its violence with fatwas pronounced by prisoners of a past of which they know nothing but what suits their own tribal backwardness. It is a “revolution", but its theorists and intellectuals do not recognize the achievements of successive cultures and liberation movements, or past revolutions, in terms of consecrating citizenship democratically, away from sect, confession, race and ethnicity. The Afghan example provided by Crooke offers the best evidence of the substance of this armed “revolution" that has moved to the Middle East. Under the rule of the tribes and of Al-Qaeda (and later the Taliban), who triumphed against the Soviet Union in the 1980s and defeated the godless Communists, was established, in cooperation with the United States, Pakistan and other countries, a model of government that was worse than those that prevailed during Europe's Middle Ages. Schools for girls were banned. Music was banned, television became illegal, contact with the outside world was forbidden, and the height of democracy there became the tribal council known as the Loya Jirga. And while the world's superpowers fought over energy resources, oil supply routes and strategic areas, local forces in Afghanistan were busy with the “cultural revolution" Crooke spoke of, a “revolution" whose intellectuals read only commandments and prohibitions, applying them on a people deprived of education, following only such commandment or the head of their tribe. Strangest about this is the fact that Liberal intellectuals, who outbid John Locke in theorizing about Liberalism, defend these people's right to wage wars and come to power. That is for the “cultural revolution" North of Pakistan that was started in the 1940s on the basis of religion. In the Middle East, on the other hand, where ancient history, sects and religions – in addition to the ideology of nationalist movements – mix, things are much more complicated. In Iraq, for example, no sect, tribe or clan could have overthrown the rule of the dictatorship, had it not been for the American invasion and the dismantling of the state and of its security and civilian apparatus, and for their restructuring on sectarian and confessional bases. And confessions still struggle for power there. In other words, it is a “revolution" against nationalist dictatorial rule in favor of a dictatorship on the basis of confessional consensus, which satisfies neither the interior nor Iraq's neighbors, all of whom now wield influence in Baghdad, and seek to participate in its decision-making, in favor of their own interests of course. Confessions and clans represent cover for such interference. Vice President Tariq Al-Hashimi has sought refuge in Turkey. And Muqtada Al-Sadr seeks refuge in Iran every time he finds himself defeated. As for the Christians, they are left with no choice but to migrate to the West, where they are viewed as part of its folklore. There remain the clans. By definition, such “entities" only become important when the state has been dismantled, and rulers turn to them asking for help every time they feel endangered. This is what Saddam Hussein did a few years before he was removed. The situation in Syria is not much different from that of Iraq. The prevailing ideology of “revolution" is a religious confessional one. There is no place there for diversity, save in terms of those who differ from the prevailing norm submitting to the authority sought after, under conditions unaffiliated with the laws of a modern state or the principle of citizenship in such a state. The Syrian National Council (SNC), which includes diverse groups from across the spectrum and which calls for democracy after doing away with dictatorship, has so far not been able to form a vision for the future regime. It has been preceded by the “cultural revolution", coming out of the Afghan experience to occupy the street and to lay the foundations for returning to the past, under the illusion that it represents a bright future. Revolutionary movements in our countries used to get their inspiration from European experiences and their philosophers. And we used to see our future in what Europe had achieved in terms of culture, scientific progress, political organization and public freedoms. Today, on the other hand, our model comes from Tora Bora.
