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The only solution: Back in Time

       


    The ideal state, statehood, citizenship, democracy and governance have been themes studied and debated by famous political thinkers, starting from Socrates, to Hobbes to Duverger. Civilizations, both based on philosophical grounds and religious doctrines (and more recently civic and judicial foundations) have all tried to come up with the supreme state-model, a blueprint for a happy and well-functioning society, an ideal type of governance and relations between citizens, nations and political class. Achieving a euphoric state is not a logical objective, but the quest is. Nations make sure that they constantly reform, modify, update, analyse and test their policies and governance strategies, all with the objective of enhancing the quality of the state and statehood in question. As modern as this may sound, this activity has been actually long practiced, starting as early as the fifth century BC Greece.
     
    Plato believed that a good man must be a good citizen who in return could not exist without a good state. He believed that no law is more powerful than knowledge, rejecting laws and customs that people accept at face value and without a critical eye. Aristotle believed that reason cannot be separated from a good state that is incarnated in both law and customs of the community that is being governed. Moral ideals, supremacy of the law, liberty and equality of all citizens and law-based governments have all been the supreme ends of any state. The pleasure seeking Epicureans for their part believed that a state is found with the sole objective of achieving security, protecting men from other men’s egoistic interests. They lectured that considering that all men are selfish and seek personal happiness and joy, and that men would do anything to achieve such happiness, men in communities agreed to form ab agreement that protects them from harm caused by one another. Men, therefore, adopt a plan to respect the rights of others with the objective of having their own rights protected. Antisthenes and his school of Cynicism  preached liberal thoughts of refusing society, laws, traditions and prejudices,  focusing on the inner merits of individuals; rich men, poor men, Greeks, barbarians, citizens and foreigners booth free and slaves, nobles and villainous are all equal  and should all be reduced to a common level of indifference. With the expansion of the Greek empire after Alexander the great, the Greek philosophy also became more universally oriented, where the concepts of universal state and universal citizenship became clearer. The Romans inherited the philosophies of their Greek neighbours and new philosophers, such as Cicero, began preaching the universal natural rights, universal states governed under the law of God and the equality of all men under this eternal celestial law. He strongly believed that only bad habits and false opinions impede men from being equal. Seneca (the Roman Stoic philosopher) then emphasized the importance of benevolence, tolerance, morals and equality of men, a set of thoughts that spread in the Roman Empire and inspired the Christian thought. From there, and since Christianity was adopted by the Roman Empire in 380 AD and Islam came to preach abut equality of human kind and that races, no matter how much they differ in color, language, and conditions, are all equal before a benevolent God. Empires then followed and the ideals kept on developing. Good. So what happened later? How could this string of intellectual progression of human political thought get destroyed by political leaders and fanatical ideological ideals? How could it be that a community in Roman and Greek empires preached and believed in equality of citizens, reason and subjection to a common law that would protect their interests, while now, in the 21st century, we are rebelling against, law, common sense, and humanity itself?
     
    A quick review of last week’s Middle East’s headlines read as follows: Iraq: Al Qaeda aims at suffocating Sunni Cities; Dozens dead in a series of blasts in different Sunni cities; Two car bombs kill 17 Shiites in south Baghdad during Karbala religious ceremony; Muslim Brothers students in Egypt’s convert universities to conflict zones with security forces; MB to boycott referendum on constitution; Jihadists chop head of three Alawi men in Adra next to Damascus. What is not being broadcast but is somehow general knowledge is that Jordanians frown upon Palestinian presence in Jordan; Palestinians are oppressed by Israelis; Israeli Jews discriminate against anyone who does not carry pure Jewish blood; Iranians want to annihilate the Zionist nation; Iraqi Shias sympathize with Iran's quest to spread Shiism; Lebanese Shias agree and feel oppressed by Sunni co-citizens; Sunnis want to join hand with anyone against Iran; Christians and Muslims doubt each other’s intentions; Kurds still deprived of full autonomous rights in Syria, Turkey and to a certain extent Iraq; Alawis are not Muslims nor are the Druuz say fundamentalists…and the list goes on. We seem to be living in a conflict zone, a moral, intellectual and religious conflict zone. Respect to human rights, freedom and dignity has evaporated, and pure fundamentalism is taking their place instead. Tolerance is no longer acceptable and is in fact considered a sign of weakness. Any comprise or deal made without bloodshed, without compensation, without wars and trials and destruction would be considered a humiliating defeat. We ridicule leaders who sit down with enemies and listen, we judge citizens who try to picture the other point of view, and we disapprove of any deviation of the accepted political/religious/social doctrine. We are living under the slogan of vengeance, when the history of our region, whether political, intellectual or religious has demonstrated elsewise throughout history.

    
   I lamentably believe that the calls for virtue, thought, subjection of laws to human intelligence, tolerance, patience and intellectual activity are being attracted by a number of actors with political agendas. What the Pythagorean cult believed in “harmony as a basic principle in music, medicine and politics” is ridiculed by our modern actors who champion rigid compliance to a sole doctrine. What Socrates believed in respect of virtue as being a learned and taught knowledge is now considered as blasphemy and a challenge to religious laws. Any intention to find a way for harmonic existence is being fought and won by such fundamentalists. Against the backdrop of mutual suspicion against anyone who does not belong to the exact school of thought, religion, set of beliefs, political orientation and affiliation and of course racial roots, and the failure to find any solution, I have a suggestion. I say we divide the region into small patches of land, each governed by a family. Black sheep can find their own patch. This way we can go back to prehistoric times – as we are on the way there by the way – and each family finds a settlement that calls it home. From there, let’s start anew. Let us start to learn how to think, live and progress. Let's learn how to develop our morals and respect for diversity and co-existence. Let us learn how to forgive and tolerate. Let us erase all the ugliness we have seen in our modern days and go back to a more developed past.

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