In the diary of Colin Powell, former US Secretary of State and former chief of staff of the US Army, he notes that during a discussion with George W Bush, President of the United States at the time, about preparations for the occupation of Iraq and the overthrow of its dictator, he asked the president: “What will be your public message the year you implement this policy?”
Powell added: “Power may get you everything you wish for because of our military capability. However, what can be achieved becomes temporary, without lasting results, because what is permanent is rational speech to convince people at home and abroad about your policy.
“If you have a political and ethically convincing speech, it will help the military work, as well as show its goodwill in front of people. But if you do not have it, all military plans will fail even if it looks that it did temporarily succeed!”
Of course, this is a long story which I don’t intend to discuss at the moment. However, I started with this introduction to point out that what we see in the Arab world today is simply “discourse theft”, which is on the rise by the deceitful. I will give some examples of what I am talking about.
The most obvious theft of speech in the Arab world is the one done in the name of the Lord; some people do it and claim it is theirs, purporting to be the exclusive agents to interpret and implement it. When it is delivered to a faithful audience, it is believed without questioning or hesitation. The general public will not pay attention to what you have to say after that because the collective mind has been hijacked.
Of course, there is confusion here because the public believes that the religious speaker is a pious person, which is not necessarily true. By the time the public discovers the truth, it is at the expense of its interests and future, and perhaps its blood as well.
To expand on this point, I remember the Iranian experience when religious mullahs took over the government in the name of religion. They initially teamed up with the Iranian political opposition, only to get rid of its members one by one.
Even the discourse they offered at the time, from the writings of the famous thinker Ali Shariati, was later thrown away, and the country ended up with the worst record of harsh public punishments, while poverty, addiction and denial of freedoms are on the rise.
We also see theft of political speech by the Syrian regime, which says that it has declared war on terror. So anyone who opposes it and carries a gun is a terrorist who should be killed. This is just another way of fooling people and indirectly claiming that its slate is as clean as the driven snow, while in reality it deserves the “terrorist” tag for terrorising the Syrian people.
If we go to Yemen, in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, we find another type of “discourse theft” by the Houthis, who speak of nationalism from a narrow, sectarian perspective to serve their interests; all in the name of “partnership” and the interests of the Yemeni people! In fact they are preparing armies that the whole world knows are coming from the neighbourhood.
Elsewhere, we find Hezbollah in Lebanon “stealing discourse” and claiming to resist Israeli occupation while offering full and unconditional loyalty to its religious leader in Qom. It is destabilising the Lebanese government, interfering in other countries’ affairs, such as in Bahrain, and sending fighters to Syria, all in the name of resistance to Israel.
I have no doubt that there are many examples of “discourse theft” around us, whether religious or political. These are unfortunately affecting and destabilising the Arab world.
The author is an academic and researcher in GCC affairs
