The Arab revolutions, at the head of which is the Syrian revolution, are invited to produce excessive meaning to face and counter the excessive power used by the Arab tyrannical regimes. The Syrian revolution is the first in line, because it has hit the solid nucleus of Arab superstition, i.e. the political superstition talking about a national unity that would immunize the domestic arena against any deviation or shift away from absolute loyalty to the president, his family and his tyrannical entourage, but also from the fictive victories and roles played on the global level, to the point where the states – whether big or small – are yearning for the ruler's consent. There is also the cultural superstition attributed to the pro pan-Arabs accomplishments that never existed in history books, and are mainly based in the formatted imaginations of the remnants of half-educated people over whom power craze came to prevail. Then there is the social superstition which denies the existence of any difference between the citizens who – in the regimes' literature – constitute a deaf rock that does not feature any cracks or scars and has no other task but to endure the strikes of the Zionist-American aggression, while in fact it is merely deterring the catastrophic repercussions of clumsy policies and keeping them away from the regime's body and head. Certainly, by “excessive meaning”, we are not referring to the ideas of French philosopher Paul Ricoeur whose work focused on the text, the narrative and the maintenance of their meanings (or their superfluity) that outlive the contexts which produced these texts or narratives, or – in other words – the changing of the meanings and the sustainment of the words. Ricoeur rather tackled literary and historical content, and not – as far as we know – the current political situation. Nonetheless, this might allow the contemplator to benefit from these terms in an area that did not interest Ricoeur, i.e. one that is closer to daily circulation but might not be less complicated due to the intertwinement of the facts, details and repercussions of reality. The Arab regimes, in their various forms – up to the armed civil groups in Iraq and Lebanon – relied on excessive power to enhance their hegemony over public life and suppress the opponents while preventing them from attempting to carry out any defiance. There is no doubt that some of the aspects of the Arab revolutions targeted this excessive power which the authorities and the regimes took pleasure in displaying, often due to the lack of meaning on the political, cultural and social levels. The easy use of naked physical and armed power might thus be the only way to compensate for absence of the power of conviction, concord and alliance, not to mention cultural hegemony and the disorders affecting society. There are many examples for that in the Lebanese case among others. Today, the Arab revolutions are facing the rush of religious powers to fill the vacuum, in a way threatening to reproduce the oppressive and tyrannical regimes. The collapse of the dominating ideas in security states and before that the collapse of the tools of material control in terms of security apparatuses, the economy and education, are opening the arena before all those carrying projects enjoying the minimum level of cohesion and organization, i.e. the Islamists. However, this should not prevent the Islamists' participation in power or the embracing of the values and visions produced by the revolutions in their struggle against tyranny. Despite the hefty prices paid by the Arab youth in their revolutions against the regimes of oppression and injustice, there is no other way but to adopt the values of plurality, democracy and the recognition of the other, while allowing the prevalence of individual and public freedoms as a necessary passageway to liberate society from the former restraints. One can say that what the Egyptian youth have put forward during the past year is reviving the hopes in seeing an awakening throughout Egyptian society, as it appeared to be suffering from hypersomnia during the past years. The same applies to Syria and Tunisia among others.
