The great make history.
Imbeciles worship it.
It is distinguished about the cultures of the orient that they
highly praise humility and modesty, to an extent that they shame individuality.
They promote hard work, perseverance and sacrifice only if it follows social
guidelines and norms under a steel, low-ceiling of traditions.
Divergence is a sin.
If your hard work makes you shine, if your perseverance makes
you ascend above your personal weaknesses and challenges, if your sacrifice
makes you personally fulfilled and happy... none of that counts because you
have sinned by focusing on yourself and perhaps weakening the group pride.
Others would look at you with awe, undermining what you have achieved in every
way possible, yet deep inside envying your courage.
Your hard work must bring on the growth of the group the way
they have been taught is necessary to grow... your perseverance must not, under
any circumstance, break the norms or destabilize the inherited roles... your
sacrifice must only make society pleased because your happiness will come from
being content, and to be content you should be a sheep, a white one or maybe
one of a blemish here or there, but not too unique.
In the Arab world, sheep make a prestigious feast, not
history.
Arabs need great minds to plan a future as "great"
as our past, a past which, for so long, there was no mission more divine than
transforming it into legends closer to mythologies. The steel strong ceiling of
traditions we live under had made it impossible to look up for new heroes.
Arabs born in the twentieth century have had little choice but to glorify
historic figures predating the Ottomans, the latest era of defeat alive in Arab
memory. From our history, heroes revived were two kinds, the one that had a
brain and the other that had a sword. In the absence of vision, tolerance, and
ambitions, the former found few followers while the latter seems to have
occupied the imagination of the imbeciles between us. We, who export a wealth
of human and natural resources, are facing the surreality of becoming victims
of our worshipped traditions and glorified legends.
It is time we admit that humility will not save us. Modesty
will not defeat the psychopaths who threaten our future in the name of
tradition and religion. It is time we admit that our Arab history is not the
beacon to be followed in the twenty first century. There are more highly
distinguished people of Arab origin alive today than there was ever in history,
only most live in the West in places that respect individuality and individual
choices.
The Arab society today is living a nightmare. Our pride-rich-dreams
of reclaiming an esteemed position among the nations, blaming everyone for what
we are, brainwashing ourselves with bloody fantasies predating the fifteenth
century, and living in total denial to the kind of sheep we have become and
pretending to be wolves, was all magically turned to reality in the form of a
Caliphate; an army of hooded criminals committing genocides in the name of
religious and historic duties.
How do we plan on ending the nightmare? With weapons and
armies?
By definition, a nightmare ends when a person wakes up, so
wake up.
In addition to modern laws, we have enough collective wisdom
in our culture with no need for divine obligations that hold our afterlife to
ransom. We need a brighter future. We need new sources of inspiration for young
generations. We need to create modern heroes. It is time we get rid of the
carrot and stick of heaven and hell. Let us imagine what would life be in two
centuries, not what it was ten centuries ago. Let us fantasize about science,
about space and galaxies, and not rule our lives by quotes of a warlord or a
clergyman that died a thousand years ago.
Allow yourself to dream and be the great one that makes
history.
by Nael Gharzeddine
by Nael Gharzeddine
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