Desire and liberation: three revolutions in the Arab world



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The effectiveness of the Arab revolutions goes beyond their immediate political consequences and its effects are not limited to countries and societies that have experienced mass movements. It can be said that social structures in the Arab world are slowly deteriorating in various fields, in which the old powers and institutions, no matter how violent, are no longer able to achieve social control, which has implications political, cultural and moral issues. We start from the premise that human vitality and its physical, mental and psychological potential precede the mechanisms and practices of power, including their work on individual and collective self-formation, and the production of identity. Thus, the work of power is a reaction to the "world of life", and not the opposite. This idea was championed by the Arabs, or more specifically practiced in the field, by the Syrian intellectual Omar Aziz (who died in the Asadi regime's prisons in 2013), who considered the Arab revolutionary waves as a "desire to live" in the face of systems that have been decaying for a long time. Based on this biopolitical perspective, we can speak of three simultaneous and overlapping social revolutions that the Arab world has experienced over the past two decades: a political-economic revolution, a sexo-social revolution, and a cultural-linguistic revolution. Describing the "revolutions" here does not mean that they were targeted or capable of political change, but also of escape routes and uncontrollable, which subsequently required many attempts at recovery, which led only to the ambiguous situation we are experiencing today, with all its violence and upheavals. .
In this unstable reality, the physical and psychological return to the "environment" of social systems, that is to say, the reintegration of the outside, into its internal reference, and simplifies its complexity to adapt to politics, the economy, religion, ethics, law and others. This raises many questions about the capacity of the social systems of the Arab world to restore and function, as well as about the possibilities of the bodies located on the periphery of a rotting authority. They are not completely subject to their frames and are not able to build new spaces.

Beyond the revolutions

It is difficult to summarize the social revolutions mentioned by the events of the Arab Spring, which occurred during limited periods, with slogans and often conservative claims. This drives us to seek a revolutionary activity beyond the "revolutions" themselves. On the political and economic front, the most influential Arab uprisings (Tunisian, Egyptian and Sudanese) saw their first signs when the political system lost its ability to absorb the demographic situation: very young companies, many of them suffer from the worst forms of social misery, such as unemployment, poverty, high rates of celibacy and weak health and education institutions. The jobless uprisings coincided with unpredictable labor movements, such as the mining basin in Tunisia, labor strikes in Egypt and the escalation of trade union activity in Sudan. Although revolutionary mobility has often been unable to translate these movements into clear and realistic political agendas, the political and economic systems can no longer adapt to these developments and the environment has overwhelmed the system, causing many social imbalances.
However, this imbalance was not limited to the two levels mentioned, but also affected the ethical system, which determines what is appropriate and socially respected, and the concepts of fairness and unfairness, which are largely linked. in the Arab context to sex. This phenomenon has not been much discussed since it is often considered an "inferior" subject. Perhaps the most serious attempt is "Sex and Sharia", by the French scholar Mathieu Guidard, who mainly monitors the Tunisian context. Guidar compares, with perhaps a little exaggeration, what Tunisian students experienced before and during the uprising, the sexual revolution that France experienced during the 1968 youth revolution. Changing concepts of sex, perception of women, sex and the value of "virginity", but is the most important aspect of his work. It is a continuation of the attempt of the moral system, as well as of religion (the latter has not become in the naked context, an independent sub-social system, which remains intimately linked to the rest of the regimes) , to account for this unprecedented "slide", by documenting thousands of fatwas published on sexual issues, through which the institution attempted Religious, stir political Islam, bypassing the emancipation of young people, has been temporarily succumbed and some forms of socially unknown relationships are being sanctioned, paving the way for Gedar to consider an abortion of the sexual revolution and kidnapping by Islamists.

The effectiveness of Arab social systems has been associated with a particular use of the official language, which gives it two correlated characteristics: a separation of language from everyday life and a kind of transcendence and holiness, resulting from this separation. , embodied in models of predictive, moral and emotional discourses, placing the use of ordinary language in an inferior position.

Another phenomenon observed by Gedar and his collaborators is that retaliation against women is an essential means of restoring social discipline: the collective rape committed by the authorities in a number of Arab countries, most recently in Sudan, with the disengagement of HQ, and the lack of practices In Egypt, virginity has been degraded, but also in the escalation of harassment and aggression against women, even in the realms of the revolutions themselves, to force them to withdraw from the public space. The practices not only of the ruling power, but also those committed by a number of "revolutionary" men, could not move The Arab often investigates effective solidarity among the many categories, and increase their demands in a balanced way, sometimes produced especially studied for the mode of social control.

Profane language

The effectiveness of Arab social systems has been associated with a particular use of the official language, which gives it two correlated characteristics: a separation of language from everyday life and a kind of transcendence and holiness, resulting from this separation. , embodied in models of predictive, moral and emotional discourses, placing the use of ordinary language in an inferior position. Its potential for social and political communication is seriously hindered and it is difficult to find public space in a language that users perceive as inferior. However, before and during the revolutions, there was a significant change in language, not the increasing presence of vernacular language at the expense of Mandarin, but the growing tendency to dismantle dominant jargon and ridicule its cultural and moral implications. Many artistic and literary works have appeared, demolishing sedentary meanings or offering a parody about them. As well as unprecedented forms of obscenity, sensuality and rebellion. These language versions were not always revolutionary, but were often used in a repressive way.
The rhetoric of the revolutionary movement was also a step backward to restore much of the national, emotional and religious rhetoric. Yet much of the sanctity of the language has collapsed. This makes it difficult to recover authoritarian cadres.
There is another aspect of cultural change, which is reflected mainly in the transfer of the working methods and language of non-governmental organizations to the Arab context, and in spite of the negative aspects of this phenomenon, the most important of which is the emergence of a new level of separate language, which tries to impose itself on the words of the human being and the imagination, and the tendency to ask questions, However, by importing the negative aspects of identity politics and rectitude some of the most affected individuals and groups have been able to take advantage of this emerging factor to raise their problems and express themselves more boldly. Cultural wars in the Arab world are often lacking in importance and necessity.

Unsuccessful revolutions

In spite of all these truly revolutionary developments, the world of life in Arab countries does not seem to be able to recover, nor that human beings are able to release their desires and abilities in order to create new spaces of solidarity and love. We recall the vision of Matteo Guidar of the "theft" of the sexual revolution by the Islamists. We can also easily observe the trials of supposedly out-of-power experiences, such as local councils in Syria, which have moved from an autonomous sphere of life to warlords and sharia courts that may be more harsh and more authoritarian than the regime itself. Omar wrote in the Lebanese newspaper Al-Safir in 2007 that "independent spaces will not carry a humanitarian project if they are not loving, different, happy and open". What we see in our country of human formations organized in a family or religious order can not be an affectionate formation, because it sets up authoritarian methods of different types ". We can re-read this text with a fresh eye today. The collapse of the state-linked social system will not mean opening up new horizons to freedom, but rather restoring decrepit civil structures, not filling the void left by the retreat of the state. reimposing traditional values ​​virtually extinct. This makes social chaos prevail and allows the Authority to recover from or threaten the ongoing civil war. There is still an opportunity to exploit the wavering power of the state and civilian structures, but this requires conscious action in the long term at various levels and awareness of its complexity and overlap.

* Writer from Syria

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