Dr. Khalid Al-Shafi
Deviation of the revolution; the counter-revolution coup; the return of dictatorship; the military tyranny; repressive regimes; the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria; Hezbollah; Al Nusra Front: Al Qaeda; the Mahdi Army, and the eruption of religious, sectarian and doctrinal wars. So where is the Arab world going?
What was the real issue behind revolutions in the Arab world? Why did they erupt in this region?
A similar question was raised by Alexis De Tocqueville, a French political thinker and historian, after the French revolution in 1789. Khalil Clift, a leftist Egyptian thinker and translator, tried to answer this question in one of his longest studies.
Tocqueville said that the French revolution’s aim was neither the destruction of the monarchy’s autocratic power nor weakening of repressive religious power. He said it was a political revolution that took radical shape because of its globalised intellectual nature. This could be one of the reasons that made the revolution preach principles that were in harmony with the spirit of the age.
The French revolution complemented work that had been done earlier. Without this revolution the same work would have been accomplished over a long period of time and in a gradual and accumulative manner, according to Tocqueville. Moreover, it brought to a violent and sudden end things practiced over tens of generations.
Tocqueville added that if the revolution had not broken out, it would not have prevented the collapse of the ageing social system. The system would have collapsed stone by stone instead of falling apart all at once.
In brief, the revolution achieved all of a sudden, in a painful and sudden event, without transition, reservation and reserve, what would have been achieved automatically, bit by bit, in the long run.
The question is: were the current events in the Arab world expected after the eruption of the revolutions or before the revolutions? Perhaps the future is bleaker than the present.
Tocqueville said that a revolution is a long, accumulative process through which the transition from one social system to another is achieved. During its development it needs a political revolution, which is violent by nature, confronting internal resistance (civil wars) and external ones (defensive and offensive wars).
According to the French political thinker and historian, talk about the violence of revolutions does not obscure the fact that gradual revolutionary developments also involve violence. They may be the bloodiest of all revolutions as they witness different forms of internal and external wars which are the result of internal, external, military, economic, legal, structural and circumstantial developments.
One only needs to study some internal and external factors that make revolutions violent. War is sometimes unavoidable in the transition from one stage to another, such as from slavery to feudalism. Is the worst not over yet? Perhaps the future contains a lot of surprises for the Arab world.
Deviation of the revolution; the counter-revolution coup; the return of dictatorship; the military tyranny; repressive regimes; the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria; Hezbollah; Al Nusra Front: Al Qaeda; the Mahdi Army, and the eruption of religious, sectarian and doctrinal wars. So where is the Arab world going?
What was the real issue behind revolutions in the Arab world? Why did they erupt in this region?
A similar question was raised by Alexis De Tocqueville, a French political thinker and historian, after the French revolution in 1789. Khalil Clift, a leftist Egyptian thinker and translator, tried to answer this question in one of his longest studies.
Tocqueville said that the French revolution’s aim was neither the destruction of the monarchy’s autocratic power nor weakening of repressive religious power. He said it was a political revolution that took radical shape because of its globalised intellectual nature. This could be one of the reasons that made the revolution preach principles that were in harmony with the spirit of the age.
The French revolution complemented work that had been done earlier. Without this revolution the same work would have been accomplished over a long period of time and in a gradual and accumulative manner, according to Tocqueville. Moreover, it brought to a violent and sudden end things practiced over tens of generations.
Tocqueville added that if the revolution had not broken out, it would not have prevented the collapse of the ageing social system. The system would have collapsed stone by stone instead of falling apart all at once.
In brief, the revolution achieved all of a sudden, in a painful and sudden event, without transition, reservation and reserve, what would have been achieved automatically, bit by bit, in the long run.
The question is: were the current events in the Arab world expected after the eruption of the revolutions or before the revolutions? Perhaps the future is bleaker than the present.
Tocqueville said that a revolution is a long, accumulative process through which the transition from one social system to another is achieved. During its development it needs a political revolution, which is violent by nature, confronting internal resistance (civil wars) and external ones (defensive and offensive wars).
According to the French political thinker and historian, talk about the violence of revolutions does not obscure the fact that gradual revolutionary developments also involve violence. They may be the bloodiest of all revolutions as they witness different forms of internal and external wars which are the result of internal, external, military, economic, legal, structural and circumstantial developments.
One only needs to study some internal and external factors that make revolutions violent. War is sometimes unavoidable in the transition from one stage to another, such as from slavery to feudalism. Is the worst not over yet? Perhaps the future contains a lot of surprises for the Arab world.
