They are killing poets, digging up their graves to make examples of them and tearing out their statues wherever they may find them. Yesterday it was Abul Ala Al-Maarri, today it is Abu Tammam. They are against any sliver of light in this Arab tradition of ours. Their tribes live by blood and on blood. They know nothing of history, but the nonsense passed down from one ignorant fool to another across the generations. The enemies of art and poetry are the leaders of Arab revolutions from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Gulf. They form armies fully equipped with the most advanced weapons, forge alliances across national borders, compete over the spoils of war, and multiply like mushrooms. Besides, they destroy cities and archeological sites, as well as monuments, ancient and modern. They live in the past as they imagine it to have been. They build their dreams on the ruins... "This is because, on account of their savage nature, [they] are people who plunder and cause damage. They plunder whatever they are able to lay their hands on (...) Savagery has become their character and nature. They enjoy it, because it means freedom from authority and no subservience to leadership. Such a natural disposition is the negation and antithesis of civilization" (Ibn Khaldun). Is this still the case, since the time of Ibn Khaldun and until today? All of the events we have been experiencing confirm that it is. The Age of Decadence has been ongoing for hundreds of years. It is a wonder that to this day, they have not torn out the statue of the modern historiography founder in Tunis. History for them consists of a series of enmities, wars and invasions. They live it in their deeds and in their dreams. They bring it back to superimpose it on the present, imagining the past to be their path to immortality. They immortalize its minutest details. Did they not tear out the statue of Harun Al-Rashid in Baghdad? Did the Kurds not suggest changing the name of Saladin Province, because the Arabs consider Saladin to be a hero, although he was Kurdish? Did they not think of tearing out the Sphinx in Egypt? They consider anything different from them to be an enemy, and any thinking that contradicts their own to be "an innovation, and every innovation is misguidance". Yet, have any of them read the poetry of Abu Tammam? Are any of them familiar with his biography? Have they thought about the fact that he is one of the main founders of modern poetry? Have they read the Arabic poetry he compiled in the Hamasah anthology? If any of them has, it was only to declare him an apostate for being creative. There is no place for creativity in their lexicon. One might understand removing the statue of Hafez Al-Assad or Bashar Al-Assad, considered symbols of the ruling regime in Syria. But what do Al-Maarri and Abu Tammam have to do with this? Did they establish the rule of the Baath Party? Or did they strengthen the rule of family and sect? It is their "savage nature", the antithesis of civilization, as says Ibn Khaldun; and one fears that the future may be darker still.
