The Arab World is going through an identity crisis. Neither were existing regimes able to overcome it, nor did the many groups present manage to find a solution to it. Neither the slogans nor the political programs put forward represented a common denominator that would bring these groups together (in Iraq they call them constituents). Let us take Syria for example. Arabism, which the Baath Party put forward and in the name of which it ruled, was supposed to represent a unifying framework for quarrelling sects, confessions, ethnic and other groups. Yet Arabism as a political identity has become, in Syria as in other countries, cause for disagreement, reaching the extent of Arabs waging war against other Arabs (the invasion of Kuwait and the coalition war against Iraq). Let us not forget in such a context the battles waged between Morocco, Algeria and the inhabitants of the Western Sahara. Let us also not forget that some Arabs have held reconciliations with Israel, while others are in the process of doing so. Arabs disagree over who their enemies and who their friends are. What is true of regimes is also true of the opposition. All the meetings, conferences, international and Arab pressures and financial incentives were not able to bring the Syrian opposition together over a unified program that would represent the alternative to the regime's proposals. The Syrian National Council (SNC) is exerting its utmost efforts to bring in foreign military intervention, and so far remains unconvinced that such intervention is impossible at the present time. Others in the opposition are against foreign intervention. Some support dialogue with the regime. Others brand as infidel anyone who would engage in such dialogue. Some favor armed violence. Others prefer peaceful demonstrations, etc… Even those who hold an Islamist ideology are divided between the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafists and Al-Qaeda. Their disagreements go beyond politics, reaching Sharia law. Some of them want it to pave the way to the Caliphate. Others want it to be an instrument to educate society and individuals, not for the management of public affairs. Some of them favor the Turkish model. Others prefer the Iranian model. Other still have no model at all. In such a climate of “creative chaos” – which by the way is a religious concept taken by the American Neoconservatives from the Old Testament – there is none better than Al-Qaeda, in terms of organization, armament and ideology, to manage the game of death and destruction. Nor is there anyone better to claim the “divine right” to inherit the current regimes in every part of the Muslim world. Division within the ranks of political Islam is no lesser than division within Nationalist, Left-wing and Right-wing movements, if one does not add to it the divisions between schools of Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh), which are only natural. Indeed, it is not true that religion affects people while people do not affect religion (Amin Maalouf – In the Name of Identity). And such disagreement adds to the tyranny of existing regimes a different kind of tyranny, one armed with the sacred. Amid this accumulation of disagreements, Kofi Annan's warning against the eruption of a civil war in Syria becomes out of place. Indeed, war is a reality which Syrians are experiencing every day. Those displaced from the Hamdaniya district in Homs, from the countryside of Hama and Aleppo, and from some of the neighborhoods of Damascus, know this, as do the families of those who have been abducted and killed, as well as those who have been and are being exposed to assassination attempts. The Iraqization of Syria started from the first day of the uprising. It started with setting up websites on the internet that divide the Syrian people into sects, confessions and ethnic groups – each with its own literature, legends and science, and with its own independent history. The civil war began with the arming of some groups against others. And what are the attacks waged by Al-Qaeda, among them the bombing in Damascus a couple of days ago, but the embodiment of such a reality, and of this war to which both domestic and foreign forces are taking part? And they all claim to be concerned for Syria.
