The crisis of civilized projects in the Arab region... Is there a solution on the horizon?

The last century witnessed major transformations at the world level, not only in the international balance of power, but in the cultural and intellectual projects with their various components. The most prominent of these transformations was the absence of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of Qatari states, which led to the emergence of a group of intellectual, political and social projects in the Islamic world that were living In light of two major projects in conflict worldwide; The Western Capitalist Project and the Socialist Soviet Project. The Arab and Islamic worlds witnessed a state of attraction and conflict that lasted for decades between different projects and ideas. The Arab and Islamic political scene prevailed, with levels and mechanisms varying from one stage to another and from one state to another based on several factors, political, economic and security…etc.

A great vacuum has arisen in the Islamic world, especially in the Arab part of it, as there is no civil or political project being proposed now for people to rally around and be adopted by peoples, and none of the parties or groups can return to presenting the same ideas and projects with the same methodologies and mechanisms to peoples who have suffered greatly under these ideas. And projects, I lost confidence in them in one way or another.

This conflict reached its climax at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century in what was known as the Arab Spring. The conflict became mainly between governments and regimes that were mostly totalitarian and based their rule, even if they were sometimes formed, on nationalist, socialist and liberal ideas, and between the forces calling for change. At its center are the Islamic movements, which represented what was known as the Islamic project or political Islam. The Islamic movements and their Islamic project emerged over the long decades of the 20th century as a possible alternative to the totalitarian regimes in the region; This is supported by the results of the Arab Spring in the countries in which it took place, where Islamic movements came to power alone or with other movements for change.

Ideology and socialist regimes declined with the fall of the Soviet Union and the loss of confidence in the philosophy and the idea on which it was based. National states and parties failed and failed to build modern civil democratic states and systems. Rather, they sank in building weak totalitarian regimes at all levels “economic, scientific, industrial and social…etc.” At the same time, the Arab Spring and the subsequent counter-revolutions and coups revealed a great weakness in the project of Islamic movements, or what was known as “political Islam”, and the inability to exploit the moment of change in the interest of building democratic and pluralistic civil systems, and these movements were unable to defend ambitions and dreams Peoples eager for change and living in the shadows of democratic and pluralistic states that respect the citizen and are based on the popular will. This project has suffered a major blow, which has made it lose the ability to initiate and may have lost its eligibility for adoption or reliance on it by the peoples.

and accordingly; A great void has arisen in the Islamic world, particularly in the Arab part of it, as there is no civil or political project being proposed now for people to rally around and be adopted by peoples, and none of the parties or groups can return to presenting the same ideas and projects with the same methodologies and mechanisms to peoples who have suffered greatly under these circumstances. Ideas and projects, have lost confidence in them in one way or another, and the Arab region in particular has become a vacuum. There is no clear project qualified to be embraced by peoples and political movements, nor strong parties capable of leadership.

Some regional powers have realized this reality and have glimpsed this existing vacuum and have begun to move to fill it. Among the most prominent forces and projects that compete in the region are: the Zionist project, which does not belong in any way to the region and possesses nothing of the power factors other than Western support, and the Iranian project, which is based on a vision A narrow sectarian sect that always makes it a minority project, and the Turkish project, which is the closest to the region and its nature, but it still suffers from an identity crisis that effectively affects its performance and development. Each of these three projects has its goals, programs and advantages that can be discussed in detail in other articles, but what is remarkable is the absence of a project emanating from the Arab world, even though the entire conflict is taking place on and in the Arab land.

This reality prompts a series of questions, who will fill this void? What is the eligible project? And what is its nature? Is there any chance of it? Who is responsible for crystallizing it and bringing it into existence? These and other questions cannot be claimed to be answered in an article or by a particular person. Rather, they are questions that require deep research, responsible stances, honest parties and bodies that believe in themselves, their people, and their future. But the goal here is to shed light on this strategic vacuum and the danger of its continuation and the need to address it because life does not know a vacuum, and if the people of the region and its intellectual and political components do not take the initiative to fill this void, then external forces may impose their projects and will on the peoples and countries of the region, some of which have already begun.

We can say that the project qualified to fill this void must belong to the history, geography, religion and culture of the Arab region, and emanate from its political, cultural, social and intellectual components. Forces, groups, and personalities who believe in the necessity, rather in the inevitability of change, should work on its crystallization and achievement. And what capabilities it has.The Islamic movements, which still constitute the largest, most vital and organized component among the partisan components, and with them the national and democratic forces, are required to reconsider a group of what they consider to be postulates or taboos in thought, ideology, perceptions and mechanisms, in order to be able to play a leading role in this sensitive stage and the historical turning point that The region is witnessing it, and it contributes in a positive and active way to get out of the existing state of wandering.