Towards a complete story of peace in the Arab world: from the logic of victory and the defeat to the culture of citizenship and coexistence ✍️ Taha Harun Hamed
introduction
Arab societies have lived for decades for decades in a cycle of conflicts and wars, which vary in the wild between civil conflicts, sectarian conflicts, external interventions and institutional collapses. Although some of these conflicts have entered a stage known as “post-war”, the desired peace is still fragile and temporary, often based on the balance of immediate powers and not on firm foundations which promote stability and development.
The construction of a story of complete peace in the Arab world beyond the logic of victory and defeat, and restores the collective consciousness of the concepts of citizenship and coexistence?
To answer this question, it is necessary to get out of traditional executives from the approach of peace, and to start building a new story that redefines political, social and cultural concepts, and to re-formulate the relationship between the individual, society and the state.
First of all:
The need for a story of peace that goes beyond the diodes
The logic of “al -muntasir” and “defeated”:
The Arab wars often end in agreements which perpetuate the superiority of another, without attacking the deep roots of the conflict. These victorious stories exclude the other and reproduce the discourse of dominance, which has the seeds of an upcoming conflict. The Victor seeks to impose his vision on the State and society, while the “defeated” feels excluded and disappointed, which leads to the re-position which can explode later in the form of an uprising or a rebellion.
The need for a university story:
Post-war societies require a university account that is not based on victorious and defeated dualism, but rather on mutual recognition of rights, sharing responsibility in what happened and agreements on a common future. This story should examine the past in order to understand, no revenge, and the future as a space for sharing, not for conflicts.
secondly:
Towards the establishment of an inclusive concept of citizenship
Citizenship as an alternative to rival identities:
Arab experiences show that wars often break under identities – sectarian, tribal, regional – following national identity. To build a story of peace, it is necessary to rehabilitate the concept of equal citizenship, where the affiliation of the state is advanced on close affiliations, without eliminating it or suppressing it.
Citizenship as a relationship of rights and duties:
The new story of peace should be reinforced by the idea that all individuals are equal before the law and that the State is the guarantor of this equality. This requires constitutional and legislative reforms which put an end to discrimination, establish the principle of the rule of law, separate powers and equal opportunities.
Third:
Build a cultural and moral story for coexistence
Media education and reform:
Permanent peace cannot be built without changing the cultural structures that have consecrated hatred discourse, violence and exclusion. Education must establish a culture of dialogue, pluralism and tolerance, rather than indoctrination and intolerance. The media should also abandon the role of the army and turn into a tool to strengthen a critical societal conscience, and a space to tell the stories of reconciliation, survival and collective recovery.
Transitional justice as a condition of coexistence:
A coexistence cannot be carried out without recognizing the victims, the responsibility of the crimes, the revelation of the truth and the guarantee that it does not repeat itself. Transitional justice is not a revenge, but a step towards the reconstruction of confidence between the State and the citizen, and between the components of society itself.
Fourth:
The role of elites and religious and civil institutions in the narrative industry
1. Intellectual and cultural elites:
Arab intellectuals and academics should be responsible for the establishment of a new discourse which does not reproduce hostility, but rather recupective of the story on the basis of self-criticism, the recognition of errors and the opening to the other. The peace building is not only a political task, but also in its essence.
2. Religious institutions:
Religious institutions play a central or positive role in Arab societies. Consequently, religious discourse must be released from political exploitation, pushing it to confirm the values of mercy, justice and tolerance, and to dismantle fatwas and the texts built on the contexts of war and incentive.
3. Civil society organizations:
Civil society organizations represent a bridge between the State and society, and it can be an incubator for societal dialogues, coexistence initiatives and local peace consolidation programs, provided that they are managed in transparency and independence, and elite rhetoric exceeds real engagement in people’s concerns.
Fifth:
From the “post-war” narration to the “pre-peak” narration
It is a mistake to believe that the end of the war means the beginning of peace. The transition stages are fragile and they can turn into a state of “non-war and no peace”. To build an effective story of peace, we must go from a post-war management stage to plan the construction of a pre-peak step, which requires:
Deep societal reconciliation, not imposed from above, but is built from the base.
An equitable distribution of wealth, ending the disparities that have fueled conflicts.
Improve a feeling of belonging, not by subordination.
So in the end we say
A narrative building of complete peace in the Arab world is not an intellectual luxury, but rather an existential necessity. True peace is not built with supreme agreements, but rather by reshaping the collective consciousness of the meanings of belonging, difference, pluralism, citizenship and justice.
It is a complex, but not impossible. It begins with the recognition of pain and does not stop at reconciliation, but rather continues to produce a new human discourse which recounts the healing stories and the emissions under the rubble.
Peace means not only the absence of war, but the presence of justice, the dignity of man and the strength of healthy and coherent coherence. This is the story we need today … and more than ever.
