Towards a reshaping of political discourse in the Arab world

While preparing for this article, I liked to follow what was written in Arabic about redefining politics;

I searched Uncle Google.

A few articles came out for me, but the most notable irony is one site's use of the concept of "redefining politics" in the technical field that revolves primarily around safety center policy.

Security policies used a number of terms and concepts associated with the term policy, such as: manage, create, apply, modify, compare, delete, copy, export, import, transfer.

All this applies to applications and programs in the field of information technology, but it is indicative of the essence of politics in the contemporary time, in which it has become of a practical and technical nature, in which technocrats and technicians are ahead of politicians, and in which unelected institutions - such as central banks - play a key role in shaping their features. and defining its orientations, but it is related to facilitating the use of what it called “the pension discourse” - which provides answers and solutions to people's immediate problems and their minor questions - in contrast to the discourses of identity and ideology that address the issues of human existence and its major questions.

Hierarchical structures relate to the powers granted by the system to each user at various levels.

In this world, procedures that are the essence of the system prevail, rules are built to ensure safety in it, and all processes are transformed into measurable indicators.

The criterion for the success of the system is the construction and access to these measured indicators;

Here, politics turns from its institutional nature - that is, those managed and sponsored by institutions of a political nature - to many processes governed by interest, the essence of which has become the profit that is achieved by applying the system, and whose success is shared by a group of stakeholders, not citizens, classes or social movements that have not It is as it was distributed to the public.

Religious discourses, so the expressions of the right saying and the right saying were removed from them, so that the appropriate saying that includes change, change and difference according to people’s conditions, but the most important thing is that what governs them is benefit and practicality according to the logic of consumption.

Thus, in the Arab world - as in the world around us - we are witnessing a redefinition of politics from new approaches, which have redefined its characteristics, actors, discourse, and the quality of priorities in it. Three factors shape its features.

The policy spaces intersect between three factors:

• The nature of the state in its contemporary roles and functions.

• Market economy or capitalism in its neoliberal stage.

• The religious/cultural dimension.

The interaction between these three determinants charts new and constantly changing geostrategic situations.

Some deal with these factors as separate areas, and few realize that development in all of them has one essence, which is the difference between unity and fragmentation or disintegration.

In Unity we talk about the absolute sovereignty of states, the single market made by the nation-state, and the correct religious discourse that includes a single understanding and interpretation of religious texts.

According to the logic of fragmentation and disintegration, we are with soft sovereignty or the total erosion of sovereignty by virtue of globalization and supply chains, and a greater role for international financial institutions, and multiple markets, not a single market, some of which are completely integrated into capitalism and international markets, and some of them still traditionally provide their services to a narrow local audience.

As for religious discourses, the expressions of the right saying and the right saying were removed from them, so that the appropriate saying that includes change, change and difference according to people’s conditions is presented, but the most important thing is that what governs them is benefit and practicality according to the logic of consumption.

In religiosity - as in the state and the economy - the logic of consumption prevails, and when you talk about consumption, you are not talking about a citizen in his relationship with the state, but about a consumer or customer in his relationship with the consumer, and according to him, religious symbols are commodified, when they are consumed like other material goods.

Combined with this - in a way that deepens the fragmentation - the world, since the fall of the Soviet Union in the last decade of the twentieth century, no longer deals with the logic of comprehensive ideologies, but its forces and resources are now distributed on clear and specific files or issues: human rights, environment and climate change, gender Anti-corruption, racism, etc., which are issues, although they have turned into an integrated perspective, but each of them has its own logic that differs from other issues, and most importantly, it has created what has come to be called in the civil society literature “stakeholders”, that is, the parties interested and affected by the issue directly or indirectly.

Stakeholders are characterized by change and lack of stability according to each issue, and this does not negate the intersection between them sometimes. It differs and intersects with those concerned with freedom of elections, although they all serve human rights, and their experiences and skills may certainly differ.

In these files the boundaries between inside and outside dissolve;

The distinction is no longer between a national and a non-national framework, but between those interested in the same issue and those affected by it in the whole world, and their effectiveness in serving the cause stems from their ability to build transnational and ideological networks, and what brings them together from the values, traditions and rules that govern this field.

The Egyptian Human Rights Movement, for example, includes activists from multiple ideological backgrounds, but the common denominator between them is the references governing it in this issue.

What we like to emphasize is that politics is no longer made in the traditional political institutions only, such as parties, parliaments, or governments, and the president, the emir, the king and his narrow clique are no longer alone in deciding;

Rather, many forces and parties at home and abroad participate in it.

It is noted that stakeholders play many of the roles assigned to traditional political institutions, from drafting laws and legislation, proposing policies and lobbying to prevent actions.

Stakeholder-based policy leads to two important outcomes, which are characteristic of future policy:

The first:

more groups involved in making it;

And like the brothers of Joseph, they enter it from separate doors, not from one door.

Second:

We notice the emergence of new polarizations, in contrast to the secular Islamic polarization that has prevailed over the past four decades.

It is true that there are those who want to blow on the latter for the survival and continuity of his position and position and to cover up other polarizations, but we find that polarizations arise according to the logic of each issue and not according to ideological considerations as it was prevalent before, a phenomenon that we can call the fragmentation and fluidity of polarizations.

Here is a point worthy of discussion, which is what some people point out that the forces that participated in the Arab uprisings were unable to present an integrated alternative to the existing forms of government.

According to this fragmented logic, the initiatives in politics are: decentralized, local, and its demands are direct (minimum wages), and it revolves around the discourse of the pension and the minor questions, not the big ones... etc. Therefore, the ideology disappears from it to show the guiding and ruling values.

one last point

;

It is the emergence of the role of other non-state actors at the local, international and regional levels. The function of security - for example - is no longer provided by governments alone even in light of countries whose authority has not collapsed, but rather in partnership with other parties at the local level or in certain regions or Independent of it, such as private security companies and militias.

The summary of this point: It is wrong to think about politics and look for it in parties or forces or in areas whose role has diminished, and most importantly, to question it according to a way of thinking that is least described as outdated.

The erosion of national and religious identities

further integration of the economy into international capitalism;

With the absence of manufacturing, innovation and the predominance of services, the talk of national or religious identities is relegating in favor of market culture.

Despite what opinion polls confirm about the increase in religiosity among Arab youth;

This return has specific features that appear in politics as in the economy/consumption, it is: individual, and it acquires a spiritual meaning that is mostly not changeable to confront a pressing reality, and it has no center/reference from the religious institutions that no longer enjoy the confidence of these young men and women, and there is no great mujtahids or pivotal preachers who follow them;

One of the key words in it is: voracious consumption of religious symbols and discourses;

The same applies to the preachers in what resembles “fashions” that are hardly common until they fade and vanish.

Another observation: we are witnessing the different regimes in the region reviving national identities that place the state above everyone else as a solid entity that is not reflected in the defense of the interests of different social and economic groups, and at the same time we are witnessing an increase in non-state actors based on identity politics;

When groups took control of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, they attached varying degrees of importance to Sunni and Shiite Islam, while Kurdish nationalists still dominate the Kurdish regions of Syria, Iraq and Turkey.

However, we witness - in the face of all that - three integrated phenomena that cast a shadow on this national and identity discourse, emptying it of its content and turning it into gibberish whose purpose is to control and control society, and is also used to redefine the enemy, which in this case becomes "terrorism", which has become a vague concept that can The authority intervenes in it whoever it wants, and with the processes of redefining the enemy we can get the Zionist entity out of it and witness the normalization of what he called the Abrahamic agreements:

1- More integration into economic and cultural globalization - that is, more openness to the world - which leads to communication with the world, not isolation from it, especially with its capitalist center, the West.

2- What governs the different countries now is growth not development, profit not service, rent not manufacturing, consumption not production.

A careful analysis of the 2030 or 2050 strategy adopted by many countries in the region notes that it is governed by the logic of growth, and it talks about vague concepts such as sustainable development and other related concepts such as combating poverty and gender equality, but in the end it turns into standards and indicators that have no link Between them, and sometimes they are manipulated to show the extent of progress that has been achieved in them, even if the reality of people continues to deteriorate.

3- Political institutions, including the state itself, no longer revolve around representation that includes the agency of a person or institution on behalf of a group or a number of citizens, because we are no longer faced with persons divided into clear social classes and structures;

Rather, it is about individual consumers within a broad market.

Conclusion: We still use concepts that no longer exist in reality, and if they exist, their meanings and functions have changed, such as: the state, society, parties, citizen, patriotism, identity...etc.

These concepts are witnessing transformations that are almost ravaging them, which negates the basic components or the overall logic that defines their features and used to rule them.

The scene is further complicated by the transformations witnessed by the transitional phase that the region is going through, and the ongoing scramble between the old and the new, in addition to the noise that fills the public discourse around us and increases confusion;

There is a talk about patriotism with openness to international capitalism, and a struggle over who represents moderate Islam at a time when discourses are multiplied and juxtaposed, and a talk about the national interest given that its components are clear despite the logic of profit that governs it...etc.

The Egyptians sang with Adawiya for the crowd, which they described as merciless, and I fear what I fear is that at this stage our speeches are filled with an unforgiving crowd of our thinking.