Khalil Anani – the myth of "oriental despotism"

Two years ago, I met a Western researcher specializing in the field of democratic transition, on the sidelines of a scientific conference in Washington. We discussed the causes of the failure of the Arab revolutions and the inability of the Arab countries to achieve an effective democratic transition, as was the case in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and other parts of the world. Africa. After discussing the nature of the structural factors that contribute to the consolidation of tyranny in the Arab region, such as repression, poverty, ignorance and Western support for authoritarian regimes, the researcher stated that tyranny was rooted in Arab culture and therefore difficult to change or to flee. After our owner had received the necessary criticism and commented on his clear orientalist observation, which excited the term "oriental despotism", which often echoes the inevitability of the Arab people under tyranny and tends to explain with indulgence a complex problem such as that tyranny, And that they are true or not. I remembered this incident by preparing one of my lectures on the roots of tyranny and its mechanisms of production. It is interesting to note that the term "Eastern despotism" is rooted in one of the most important philosophers of politics since the dawn of history, Aristotle, who believes that tyranny is inherent in It is because the Asian peoples (called barbarism) inherently tend to tyranny "because they are slaves by nature". "Barbarians are, by their nature, more foreign than Greeks, and Asians are more European than they are, so they tolerate an authoritarian regime without protest," he says. "These goods are like tyranny. That their conditions are stable because they are hereditary and legitimate. "

"It is undeniable that the Arab region remains the last region in the world to make the transition to democracy"

Is this the same idea that has been repeated and passed on from one philosophical generation to another, and even in the languages ​​of some of them the most important thinkers of democracy in the West, like the French thinker Montesquieu (1689-1755), author and founder of the theory of the "separation of powers" The rule of ignorance, the ignorance of the despot himself, the ignorance of his flock, d & # 39; Where the total lack of virtue.) He also believes that the princes of the East "have always been deeply absorbed in filth and lust."
The same idea shifted from Aristotle to the dialectical rationalist, Hegel (1770-1831), who viewed the authoritarian regime as the "natural system of the East" based on patriarchal patriarchy. When the Eastern order is based on the principle of a free person, the ruler who exercises "his reign in the manner of the father with his children, and that he has rights, can not be opposed because he is the father of all, his obedience is a duty ". According to Hegel, the Orientals "only have the worst feelings." They were created solely to drag the chariot of the emperor, and this inevitable destiny, customs and traditions, as well as their daily behavior testify to the lack of respect that they reserve for themselves as human beings ". Thus, Hegel, the father of materialistic mental philosophy, sees the East and its inhabitants. This is also the idea adopted by Karl Marx, in what he calls the "Asian production model". Researcher Zahid Farid Mubarak has managed to trace the origins of the idea of ​​Oriental despotism in his book "The Origins of the Arab Autocracy", showing the roots and evolution of the idea since Aristotle.
To come back to our landlord, it is undeniable that the Arab region remains the last region in the world to move to democracy, but it is not about the Arabs' willingness to free themselves from tyranny, nor a "natural" to tyranny, nor that their culture, their religion and their customs favor the tyranny of freedom. What we have seen and are still uprisings, revolutions and demonstrations calling for freedom and freedom from tyranny in more than half of the Arab countries in the last decade confirms that there is a real demand for freedom and the desire to put an end to tyranny. The more they think, like our friend, that Arab revolutions and uprisings are over, especially in Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Libya, the more they will be surprised by the new demonstrations and uprisings in other parts of the world. Arab, as in Sudan and Algeria. While our owner, like him, ignores the support of the West and his country of authoritarian regimes, which seem capable of abandoning all attempts to liberate tyranny. Take Egypt, Syria and Algeria, for example, the three countries that have experienced revolutions and uprisings

"The problem is not the Arabs' refusal to free themselves from tyranny, nor their" natural "tendency to tyranny.

Different steps. But its upheavals were annulled and reversed by a political alliance between authoritarian regimes and the West. In Egypt, the West was unable to call a coup on July 3, 2013, despite its clear clarity. But the support, and still the regime that took power afterwards, practiced all kinds of repression, murder and torture. Without Russian military support for the Syrian regime, which would have almost dropped by the end of 2015, Bashar Assad would remain in power. Without France's alliance with Algerian military forces in the early 1990s and their coup d'etat against the results of the 1991 parliamentary elections, Algeria would not have entered a bloody civil war which would have cost millions of dollars and some still fear to repeat it.
This does not mean that the West is solely responsible for the tragedy of tyranny in our countries, but rather that the "Eastern tyranny" adopted by our author and by the great philosophers of Greece and the West is not an escape from reality and a naive justification for the support of their successive Arab dictators.