Arafat was a model...and they killed him! The model of resistance in the face of the discourse of crisis and normalization

1. What distinguishes the official Arab discourse is that it tends to adapt and coexist with various defeats, occupations and massacres. It is a discourse of breadth, flexibility and deceit that can turn facts upside down and distort events, which leads to saying that the adaptive discourse is usually a lying, deceptive and suspicious discourse that does not read reality on the one hand, nor interpret or analyze it on the other hand. Therefore, the adaptive discourse is usually fabricated and conciliatory in a way that provokes pity, laughter, tears or all of these things combined. Fabrication appears in this discourse through the presentation of models with multiple references and contradictory ideologies, to the point that this discourse tolerates everything at the same time. It is strange that such models are presented to the masses without a sense of guilt, error or remorse, and it is also strange that they are presented by the man of thought, religion, media and politics, to form a political and cultural regulatory space that gains legitimacy due to the power of official levers and pumps, and those who volunteer with them, seducing and enticing them and desiring to integrate and gain. If fabrication is a characteristic of discourse, it applies to everything else. Education ranges between indoctrination and imitation and claims of creativity and research. City planning fluctuates between randomness and planning, and even the relationship with the masses, where the final vision for dealing with the public is absent. Democracy is a dazzling claim used according to standards and criteria that perpetuate oppression, or is reproduced in a very deceptive and fraudulent way, such that democracy - as a Western concept with a long history and traditions - turns into a deceptive political behavior through which the same centers of power are established. Thus, the concept of democracy turns into a sword that slaughters its bearer. Democracy itself is the effective recipe for fragmentation and dismantling instead of being a concept and a tool for political and social stability, because fabricating the concept leads to fabricating the application and thus fabricating the results.

Documentation appears in our official discourse when it equates mistakes, and practices a real process of deception so that the differences between actions, men, and ideas are eliminated, and when settlements are made on a vague general basis, and when accountability and disclosure are absent, and when problems are solved in a tribal manner in which right and wrong are equal to the point that blood is equal to a cup of coffee, which is something that is repeated in politics, where homelands are transformed into real estate and not a symbol of dignity and pride.

The conciliatory discourse is a ridiculous and miserable discourse at the same time, because it does not seek persuasion as much as it desires safety and compromises that are not valid. This discourse does not seek legitimacy as much as it seeks artificial consensus, no matter the cost.

The discourse that coexists and adapts to defeat and massacres, relying on composition and fabrication, is a discourse of crisis par excellence. It is a crisis of dealing with reality, a crisis of questioning and challenge, a crisis of identity, a crisis of legitimacy, and a crisis of development. It is a discourse of crisis because it is a discourse of coexistence with defeat. It is a discourse of coexistence with defeat because it is a discourse of crisis. All of this cannot be overcome except by overcoming the crisis by rejecting defeat. Creating victory, preparing for it, getting ready for its causes, and maturing its conditions and terms is a long, arduous, and exhausting process. Because it is so, it is capable of separating the bad from the good, the real from the fake. The process of victory itself is a process that cleanses, purifies, and restores. The process of victory is neither a process of fabrication nor compromise. Victory is a real bias toward the place of original power and sources of energy that are usually absent or distorted in the discourse of crisis. The discourse of victory is clear and simple. Even its slogans are simple, clear, and modest. They do not jump over reality, but dream of changing it. They do not distort reality, but demand a coup against it. Even the language of victory is precise because it knows the weight of the price paid for victory, and it is humble because it knows the meaning of unity and the difficulty of the work that has been accomplished. Unlike the language of fabrication and reconciliation, which contains all the pretense in it, the language of victory is brief, goes straight to its goals, and calls things by their names.

We say all this in order to say that our official discourse, which coexists and adapts to defeat, completely excludes the option of liberating Jerusalem. Isn’t that strange?! Isn’t not talking about liberation coexistence with defeat, adaptation to it, and acceptance of it?! When we speak in a language we don’t believe in or trust, this language turns into flexible but thick and long threads, enough to compose plots that lack honesty, frankness, and boldness. When we don’t talk about liberating Jerusalem, which is the essence of our faith, we are betraying something or something that tastes like betrayal. When we beautify defeat or coexist with it, we are even betraying our language. We must admit that we are defeated, and this admission does not call for self-flagellation as much as it calls for self-revival, nor does it call for frustration as much as it calls for opening our eyes wide to read reality as it is, not as we want or as we dream.

Admitting defeat is the first step towards acknowledging reality. Our situation is not good, our societies are not good, our governments are not good, and our wealth is not good. The problem here is that this talk is almost repeated and hackneyed, and is known to everyone. We all know that Palestine is occupied and being destroyed, without the world blinking an eye! And many other Arab lands are suffering from a hideous and destructive occupation, and some of these occupations are almost turning into a reality that cannot even be discussed, and this is what hurts on a personal level to the utmost degree. The Gaza Strip is being wiped out, and Jerusalem is being Judaized at a rapid pace to the point that the situation may turn into the situation experienced by Ceuta or Iskenderun. We do not want another lost paradise, and we do not want a new Andalusia. We do not want to be the nation that gets used to slaps, because habit and habit are normalization of another kind. We do not want to be the nation that nations laugh at its ignorance. I say this out of religious and national pride, and I say this because we have a message that we carried and spread and that was good for all of humanity. Apart from a historical review of our Arab world from the beginning of the last century until today, the reasons for our various defeats in war, thought, development, and building healthy societies did not exceed two reasons: that our enemy is strong, prepared, greedy, and has long experience, and that we were not up to the challenge. Our defeat was not the defeat of a class, thought, person, entity, party, or faction; it was the defeat of an entire nation. By the way, our days are witnessing occupations, sieges, attacks, bombardment, an open holocaust, and the desecration of more than one Arab capital, and we are not talking here about Jerusalem only. By the way, our Arab world is witnessing its worst periods of defeats these days, as the defeat has reached the point of robbing even the will to protest, denounce, or break away from this situation! I say the worst period of his defeats because some of us started fighting each other for the sake of our common enemy, that is, we reached a situation where we started financing our enemy’s wars. This is truly amazing.

To overcome the crisis discourse, there must be a living example or model that can fill in the gaps and provide theoretical and practical content for the idea. All ideas are great without application, and all ideas are subject to criticism when applied. Because of the crisis and the disappointments and stumbles it brings, we had three models, each of which presented an attempt to overcome the crisis. The first model was Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was afforded circumstances that no Arab leader in the modern era had. Abdel Nasser turned into a legendary symbol, and hopes and dreams were pinned on him. Benefiting from the international circumstances and the popular mood in the Third World at least, Abdel Nasser tried to be the incubator for the revolutions of the Arab world and its neighbors, reaching a unified entity in some way. Regardless of our debate with Nasserism, its mistakes and achievements, this experience was struck, then besieged, and finally dried up. Here, we do not want to evaluate the experiences and models that we present, because our goal is the fate of those models and attempts. The second model was Saddam Hussein, who wanted to create development with iron and fire, and wanted to present a living embodiment of the theory of the just tyrant, who wanted to present himself to the public as if he were Saladin and Bismarck at the same time, but this experience or this model was used, besieged, struck and then eliminated. The third model is the martyr Yasser Arafat, who was able to establish a revolution that swept the Arab world over decades! Yasser Arafat, who wanted to be a symbol of revolutionaries and the renaissance of peoples, and who wanted to be the conscience of the world with the suffering of his people, was also not tolerated by the West despite everything, so it besieged him and then killed him. These are three models that were struck by force by the West or its tools. This means that these three models, regardless of our dialogue with them or our argument about them, are models that wanted to go beyond their reality, ceilings and conditions. Was it too adventurous? Was it too dreamy? Was it too deceived? Whatever the answer, the West could not tolerate these models, even if they compromised, entered into settlements, or even colluded in some way.

By induction only, we expect the fourth model to be different from Saddam’s iron-fistedness, Nasser’s compromise, and Arafat’s flexibility. We expect this model to face more difficulties, because the West will be more alert and vigilant, and this model will face non-governmental organizations that are not subject to the state, a normalization discourse that accepts defeat and exploits it, governments that betray their people, and many direct occupations, more than the current ones.

Our fourth model is the “resistance” that will not coexist with defeat because living with defeat is certain and shameful death, and because the adaptation called normalization is worse than surrender, because surrender does not assume acceptance of the occupier, while normalization or adaptation is acceptance of the occupier in terms of existence, narrative, interests, and illusions.

Our fourth explosive model that has swept the world will reject the language of ambiguity, flexibility, and false eloquence, because it uses a simple and crystal clear language, in which it says that the occupation must end and that coexistence with it or adaptation to it is only an extension of its life and a participation in its survival.

It may take a long time for this model to be achieved or to reach its goals, because the West is no longer content with managing affairs from overseas. The West has begun to come here with its warships and is present among us. It no longer asks for secret agents, but has become so impudent as to ask for public agents who collect their wages in front of all the people and in front of the camera lenses. Therefore, it may take a long time for the fourth different model to triumph.

We say normalization, this is an inaccurate term for accepting surrender, normalization is adapting to the occupation, to the interests of the occupation, and to the dream of the multiple and different occupation with many names. When we say normalization, we are practically saying satisfaction, submission, and life under the roof of the occupying power.

Normalization is a demand of the strong, not the weak. That is why the weak are usually cornered into defending themselves and explaining motives and reasons, and in this way the weak turns into a victim that no one believes or respects. The discourse of the weak victim is a discourse of a real crisis, as he cannot even convince himself. That is why normalization is a demand of the strong, because this demand includes, among other things, accepting the condition and demands of the strong. Normalization here is accepting the other’s narrative, as it has been said, because the other’s narrative about himself is too lofty to be a demand of the strong here for the weak. Rather, simply put, the normalization required is not to revolt, not to protest, and to accept becoming a mere living creature, whose only virtue is that it keeps quiet in the face of massacres, consumes food, and excretes it.

The crisis discourse accepts and rejects normalization, because the crisis discourse places everything next to everything else, and this is one of the most severe and worst diseases. The occupier who follows, studies and researches knows that we are in moments of real badness, and for this reason, he has reached the point of impudence, arrogance and haughtiness that he imposes a humiliating equation that says normalization in exchange for nothing. This is where we arrive, that the occupier collects the price in advance in order to promise something that may not happen for any reason. Normalization is worse than surrender, in a sense, in order to stop an illegal and illegitimate act. This is where the crisis discourse brings us. This is where the absence of models brings us.