Dr. Khalid Al-Shafi
The time gap between the East and the West widened and narrowed through the ages. Clashes, interventions, differences and wars were prominent on both sides. Certainly time has changed, but some on the defeated side often live in the past, thinking about the glory of one golden era or another. They refuse to grasp the present and its complications to overcome the past’s complexities and move towards tomorrow. The West deserves credit for moving out of the past with its all complexities and problems by focusing on the future as a dimension of the present.
The old questions don’t leave us. Their answers have not been found and the “Arab Spring” revolutions did nothing on this front but added more confusion, vagueness, wounds, defeats, political, historical, philosophical, social, religious, doctrinal and ethnic problems. These revolutions also brought up problems and complicated the concepts of enlightenment, modernity, originality, contemporariness, reason, progress, backwardness, democracy, tyranny, independence, dependency, ego and so on.
Do we really need collective, coordinated and conscious efforts to bail us out of this situation? Is the ideology of collectivity or group still representing our crisis from the beginning? Can we implement what the Moroccan thinker Dr Mohamed Abid Al Jabiry came up with when he adopted the concept of (historic bloc) introduced by Italian philosopher and struggler Antonio Gramsci?
Gramsci believed in social, political and economic change that suited the requirements of society in his time. What hindered reform then was the great disparity between the north of Italy, which was modern and ahead in manufacturing, and the south, which was backward and under the authority of the church.
For maintaining the unity of the nation and achieving a comprehensive renaissance, Gramsci suggested the idea of “historic bloc”. It includes, besides forces of change and reform in the north —liberals, leftists and Marxists, forces dominating the south — the clergy and the church.
But are these concepts applicable to our situation amid wars, divisions and fighting over issues of identity, religion, doctrine and thinking in the Arab world?
Can we convince the authorities, opposition, military leaders and representatives of societies, including liberals, leftists, Brotherhood members, Sunnis and Shias to come together in order to form a bloc that contributes to making a new history in the region following the Arab Spring, and learns from the past, which stung everyone without making any exception?
The lesson one can learn is that the dream of overcoming the recent past, not the distant one with all its problems, is still far but not impossible to achieve.
The time gap between the East and the West widened and narrowed through the ages. Clashes, interventions, differences and wars were prominent on both sides. Certainly time has changed, but some on the defeated side often live in the past, thinking about the glory of one golden era or another. They refuse to grasp the present and its complications to overcome the past’s complexities and move towards tomorrow. The West deserves credit for moving out of the past with its all complexities and problems by focusing on the future as a dimension of the present.
The old questions don’t leave us. Their answers have not been found and the “Arab Spring” revolutions did nothing on this front but added more confusion, vagueness, wounds, defeats, political, historical, philosophical, social, religious, doctrinal and ethnic problems. These revolutions also brought up problems and complicated the concepts of enlightenment, modernity, originality, contemporariness, reason, progress, backwardness, democracy, tyranny, independence, dependency, ego and so on.
Do we really need collective, coordinated and conscious efforts to bail us out of this situation? Is the ideology of collectivity or group still representing our crisis from the beginning? Can we implement what the Moroccan thinker Dr Mohamed Abid Al Jabiry came up with when he adopted the concept of (historic bloc) introduced by Italian philosopher and struggler Antonio Gramsci?
Gramsci believed in social, political and economic change that suited the requirements of society in his time. What hindered reform then was the great disparity between the north of Italy, which was modern and ahead in manufacturing, and the south, which was backward and under the authority of the church.
For maintaining the unity of the nation and achieving a comprehensive renaissance, Gramsci suggested the idea of “historic bloc”. It includes, besides forces of change and reform in the north —liberals, leftists and Marxists, forces dominating the south — the clergy and the church.
But are these concepts applicable to our situation amid wars, divisions and fighting over issues of identity, religion, doctrine and thinking in the Arab world?
Can we convince the authorities, opposition, military leaders and representatives of societies, including liberals, leftists, Brotherhood members, Sunnis and Shias to come together in order to form a bloc that contributes to making a new history in the region following the Arab Spring, and learns from the past, which stung everyone without making any exception?
The lesson one can learn is that the dream of overcoming the recent past, not the distant one with all its problems, is still far but not impossible to achieve.
