Who are the 'insulters' of the Arab Spring?

Some Pan Arab and leftist circles, not to mention many Shiite political Islam streams generally are competing to insult the Arab Spring and giving it names that even the corruption and dictatorship regimes did not dare call it from “desertification” to “Americanisation” to “Israelisation”. As for the “conspiracy theory”, it has never thrived in the space of this region as it has thrived throughout the last twenty months. It is sad that some politicians, writers, commentators, honest revolutionaries and concerned citizens slipped into the abyss of condemnation and conviction of this overriding revolutionary wave, based on the accompanying painful and worrying features. It started with Libya, whom some of these “insulters” viewed as part of the “resistance camp”, even if it had no original, effective, or proactive role. To make matters worse, the NATO intervention in the revolution changed the “Great People’s Jamahiriya”. With all due respect and admitting the validity of all fears that accompanied and followed the NATO intervention, which we have discussed earlier, any of the sceptics of the Arab Spring will not be able to convince us after all we have known about Gaddafi and watched of the practices of his wild militias in the first months of the revolution, that Benghazi was going to escape a great disaster if the Gaddafi gangs and militias entered there and that change in Libya was possible without foreign intervention. But this sceptic view of the Arab Spring was only aggravated when the winds of change blew in Syrian. Here, the total revoke happened and the “Arab revolutions” were read in a new light, with new eyes. The revolution became a conspiracy, and democracy became a Trojan horse, and toppling regimes a packaged recipe for dividing the already divided and paving the ground for a new Sykes-Picot. Political Islam became Americanised, a new Turkey and all theories, evaluations and scales were turned upside down. Some of these agreed to make themselves foot soldiers under the commands of the Syrian regime, and their desperate defence of the regime reached the extent of describing any one opposing it of being “an agent”, and deny the qualification of any alternative to the regime existing or likely. The situation developed to insulting more than half of the uprising, opposing and displacing people and placing them all in a circle of being “agents” and mercenaries either knowingly or unaware. Words like “the people” and “the majority” no longer mean anything to these. Even if a balancing popular majority convened against Assad, they are wrong, and they must leave for the Israel, Sykes-Picot, Israelisation, Americanisation and Ottomanisation resisting president to stay. Their attack on the Egyptian Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood has come to imply a longing to Mubarak, pathos to Omar Suleiman and solidarity with Marshal Tantawi. Their displeasure with the Tunisian ennahda has reached the level of casting a blind eye to the unhappy biography of Ben Ali, his relatives, in-laws, and all the police system he created over the hearts of Tunisians and their conscience. They missed Gaddafi with his delirium as if he was the sought out leader and saviour. They criticise the Islamic streams for their inclination toward calm and evading engagement with Camp David. This raises our concern too and we tackled it more than once but the go so far in their projections and illusions to the extent that it almost makes one forget that the Mubarak regime, Israel’s ally and partner in the war on Gaza, Washington’s ally and tool in all its wars and battles in the region, is still existing and that Morsi is no more than Mubarak with abeard. The Syrian regime, its friends, allies, aides and agents were the first to celebrate and welcome Mubarak and Ben Ali’s fall. Assad was personally elated at the Tunisia and Egypt revolution, especially the latter as Khalid Mish`al relates. Yet as soon as the wind of change started roaring in the streets of Homs, Damascus and Deraa, these transformed to monitoring and nitpicking any slip or crisis here or there to show signs of regret, explicitly or implicitly, for the departure or expulsion of the defunct regimes. Hezbollah, who held rallied to welcome the Arab Spring and declare support for its powers and regimes, was the same to propagate through its pundits and media the theory of a “spring conspiracy”. Any follower of the Hezbollah friendly media, their programs, guests and editorial policies will not find it hard to read what their discourse has come down to although the party considers the “spring of Bahrain and the eastern region” as outside the calculations of the Arab Spring. Leftists and Pan-Arabs who do not save an effort to raise slogans of reform and change in their countries and societies have turned into a second line of defence for the regime in Damascus. Their statements and columns have become subjects for study, distribution, republication and broadcasting by the Syrian regime figures, its embassies and ambassadors. They have become a vanguard progressive force defending this regime in a way insurmountable by the regime’s own tools, pundits, and trumpets. In explaining these changes in standings and stances, we differentiate between three streams. The first is governed by the sectarian dimension and the most dangerous division in the Arab and Muslim world, the Sunni-Shiite divide. In this context, we can view the transformations of Hezbollah and a wide range of political and sectarian powers on the same road. The second is a leftist pan-Arabist stream that hasn’t learnt the lesson of June 1967 and continued to chant slogans that: “No sound is louder than the sound of battle” as if a people enslaved by their rulers can be free in resisting its enemies and occupiers. It is as though we did not lose the June war due to the loss of our free will before that date and through it to resort now to the already tested but with a change in the slogan to become “no sound louder than the sound of resistance”. These were not evaluated by ‘one experiment in freedom and democracy’ and there is not one reason to believe that they will do later. The third stream is mostly local, represented in voices that have narrow regional and factional interests and calculations. Those who fear the increasing power of the Brotherhood in Jordan, support Assad and his regime. Those haunted by fears of settlement and forced migration which only revolve in their sick imagination, stand aligned behind the Assad regime. Those fearful of the Hezbollah-allied Aoun stream’s victory, align behind the Future stream and salafi groups in all their shades, who are allies to the Saudis and the sworn enemy to the Syrian regime. It is a strange, weird mixture of powers, interests and calculations that provided the Syrian regime with a base of support outside its borders. But the tragedy of these streams altogether is that they are a “minority” whatever their weight in one country or the other. Their calamity is their hard headed battle with history which apparently decided to take its course and flow taking in its way all the regimes and schools of corruption and tyranny starting with its most worn out, bloody and enslaving.  --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.