In the first articles of the series, we dealt with the state of madness in the Arab power, and its dire consequences, due to the brutality of power and its entrenchment behind external legitimacy, totalitarian domination, the tyranny of the security fist, policies of exclusion, discrimination, and aggravation, and the disruption of the national structure of the people.
In the previous article, we saw how this paralyzed the Arab elite, with its various classes and groups, and hindered it from playing its role in helping to confront this madness, after the authority had won over 90% of the Arab elites to its side.
This insane brutality has created a state of impenetrable impenetrable blockage, and therefore there is no choice but to surrender to its spiral, and to acknowledge the impossibility of confronting or rationalizing it.
And since surrender in itself is a form of madness, the matter requires perseverance, not retreating into the shell of deadly despair, and continuing to search for the magic formula necessary to start the process of political reform.
The current Arab stage requires changing the compass of political reform away from the type of government and who stands at its head, and moving it towards the duties of the system towards the state and the people, away from the accumulations of political thought and its inherited ideologies, and away from Western perceptions, which only see reform from the angle of democratic transformation and pluralism. partisanship
political reform
The use of the word "madness" in these articles is a provocative idiomatic use, indicating the state of political deterioration that the Arab countries are going through at the national and regional levels, which has worsened over the past five decades in a miserable manner.
The reasons for this situation are mainly due to the great political imbalance experienced by the Arab countries, and they maintain it, without taking comprehensive reform steps to address it, in order to open a new page in the history of the Arab nation, in a mysterious transitional international phase, very tense and turbulent.
And if we ask the following question to any random group in the Arab street: Do Arab countries need political reform?
I think the answer will be 100% yes.
But what do we mean by political reform?
And in what aspects?
And how is that?
How much time does it take?
Who is responsible for doing this reform?
There are many books and research papers that have dealt with the issue of political reform in the Arab countries over the past five decades, based on unrealistic scientific hypotheses and criteria that have not yet contributed to bringing about any real reform.
This calls us to think of more realistic theses that can contribute to the reform process without falling into the cycle of civil or regional conflicts.
The countries of the region need political reform that contributes to bringing about regulatory, structural, legislative and oversight changes that help the regime to carry out its basic duties towards the state and the people as fully as possible, and provide the ruling authorities with what they need to carry out these duties, in order to achieve stability, security and well-being for the people, within the constitutional controls that It regulates the complementary relationship between the regime and the people, and ensures that the regime does not abuse its powers to serve its personal aspirations at the expense of the state and the people.
The current Arab stage requires changing the compass of political reform away from the type of government and who stands at its head, and moving it towards the duties of the system towards the state and the people, away from the accumulations of political thought and its inherited ideologies, and away from Western perceptions that only see reform from the standpoint of democratic transformation and partisan pluralism. .
Proceeding from that;
We can identify the most important aspects of the reform as follows:
Legislative reform:
which removes ambiguity related to the definition of power, its type, duties, and tasks based on achieving the interest of the homeland and the people, and its religious and social constants, and clarifying the limits of its powers, political, economic, military, and security, internal and external, in peace and war.
Political reform:
which elevates the value of the people and individuals, and guarantees their enjoyment of practicing all the activities guaranteed to them by legislative reform, with complete freedom, without derogation or threat, and guarantees the integrity of the performance of the various organs of the authority, the transparency of their work, and the provision of monitoring and accountability mechanisms, in a way that limits their extremism, brutality, transgressions and corruption .
Economic reform:
which guarantees the strengthening and development of the economy, freedom of trade and investment in all fields, and provides facilities and guarantees that work on the flow of capital without fear, hesitation or restrictions.
It also lays down ethical policies and controls that regulate competition and market recovery, in a way that is in the interest of the state and individuals, increasing income rates and addressing unemployment.
Religious reform:
which preserves the integrity of religious identity and its belief at the level of society and individuals, and provides them with all means that strengthen their religious personality, and protect it from extremism and extremism, distortion and deviation, and from drifting behind atheistic satanic currents and ideas.
Social reform:
which preserves the cohesion of the social fabric with all its spectrums and components, without discrimination, in line with political and religious reform.
Media reform:
which guarantees freedom of opinion and expression, in a manner that does not contradict the constitution, the law, and the constants of the state and society, and in a way that directs media production to serve the reform process in all its fields, and prevents its contribution to its failure or undermining it, intentionally or unintentionally.
Educational reformer
: public and private, national and foreign, in a way that contributes to reorienting the educational process at all stages, in line with political, religious and social reform, and in a way that develops the national personality, exploits the self-capabilities of individuals, and initiates the preparation of new national generations that are not distorted and free from psychological complexes. social and intellectual.
Security reform:
which harnesses the security services in favor of achieving internal stability, preserving the security and safety of society and individuals, and preventing the security services from overpowering them, and turning them into a machine of repression, abuse, brutality, and relentless pursuit, which makes the state a large prison for its citizens, in which their breath and looks are counted before their words.
And regardless of the type of regime, whether it is hereditary, electoral, overpowering, civil or military, and regardless of how the regime came to power, and who stands at its head, these reforms are only valid on the basis of the authority fulfilling its duties in achieving security, development and well-being for the people. On the one hand, and the right of the people to supervise the authority, and to change it if it is unable to carry out these duties, on the other hand, in accordance with clear constitutional mechanisms that are stipulated in the reform process.
The process of political reform needs a long time, of hard and deep work, based on policies that remove all the parties working in it from the classifications, accusations and hostilities that befall it, which make it absent minds and narrow hearts and chests.
The duration of the repair process
Some underestimate the process of political reform, and the time, mechanisms, requirements and policies it needs, which may take decades, sometimes even centuries, according to the nature, size and complexities of the political reality that needs to be reformed, given the difficulty of reconciling the constituent parties of this reality, the type of power they possess, and the internal and external relations. on which it is based, the stakeholders associated with it, the intellectual foundations upon which it is based, and the extent to which it is compatible or in conflict with the intellectual fabric of society and its various forces.
We mention, for example, that the process of political reform in Europe took more than 5 centuries, witnessed fierce wars, and religious and intellectual conflicts of which we do not know anything in our history, and caused a massive social revolution that the early reformers did not think of.
But why should we go far and leave our contemporary reality, when the Palestinian cause has passed more than 100 years since the ominous British Balfour Declaration, the Western Sahara crisis has passed about 50 years, and the civil war in Somalia has passed about 35 years, and it has passed since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime In Iraq, 30 years have passed, and the Iraqis have not yet been able to achieve the national consensus that rebuilds Iraq and fulfills the hopes and aspirations of the citizens, just as more than 10 years have passed since the civil wars in Yemen, Libya and Syria, and all of them are still open-ended, and only God Almighty knows when It will end, despite the tireless efforts of regional and international organizations and parties to find appropriate solutions.
Rather, we present a much simpler example of these crises, which is the sharp division between the Palestinian "Fatah" and "Hamas" movements for more than 30 years, although they face a common enemy and represent two main poles in the Palestinian national liberation project.
When we talk about Arab political reform, we are talking about a political, intellectual, social, legislative, national and regional process that is extremely complex, and is based on a long legacy of ideological conflicts and contradictions.
We often find it easy to blame all of this for failing;
The external factor must not discover our failure and manage the painful reality that exists within these crises, the disappointment of the leaders that lead them, their authoritarian priorities, their intellectual deviations, and their internal and external intersections at the expense of national interests and popular aspirations.
This means that the process of political reform needs a long time of hard and deep work, based on policies that lift all the parties working in it from the labels, accusations, and enmities that befall them, which make them lose their minds and narrow their hearts and chests.
But the
question remains: Who will start this process and how?
(Continued: Who Will Defeat the Impossible?)