07/04/2010

Our Arab societies, one notices, are suffering from the culture of the sin complex which is firmly and strongly established in our religious doctrines and values. We are the grandsons and daughters of the culture of self-crucifixion and knowledge-flogging, inheritors of the original sin which is deeply rooted in us. Our culture is the culture of hell and torture which is engraved in our minds and desires, a culture built over time to become firmly established in its doctrines and traditions and immutable concepts. It would not refrain from the criminalization of any effort or attempt aiming at softening its coarse and rough teachings. It aims the arrows of masochists who refuse any form of change or renovation at all forms of criticism. Our culture teaches us to submit to humiliation, to fight science and knowledge and to belittle ourselves so that we practice repression in its individual and collective forms. But what is the main reason behind the development and growth of such a repressive culture? Continue reading →

31/03/2010

In Arab societies, the rational individual aspires to separate religion from politics hoping to repeat the experience of secularization in these societies. But when we look closer into this subject, we find that it is more becoming of us to ask for the total and unconditional separation of religion from thought before its separation from politics. We all strive towards knowledge to discover new horizons leading to individual and collective good. Here I think comes the importance of relying on a thought open to change, not based on firm foundations that cannot be refuted. Our endorsement of immutable principles goes against changes which continuously affect our spatial surrounding and the temporal context within which we live. Continue reading →

22/02/2010

We sometimes talk so recklessly about fables and myths. We ridicule their purport and tenets as if they were a thing of the past. But what most of us fail to realize is their omniscience and elusive presence all around us. It is sometimes difficult for us to acknowledge to what extent they are inherent to many of our daily practices and firmly held beliefs. This misrecognition is partly due to the silent dissolution of myths and fables into religion where they have been preserved, nurtured and reinvented as one of its divine miracles. Continue reading →

13/12/2009

In the beginning, let me address our religious friends who are continuously preaching about their tolerant faith and its openness to contain all the straying souls from god’s flock. Now, if god is that merciful and generous, his followers will have to be patient with all those hesitant folks who wish to search for the truth and make up their own minds through their own intellectual endeavor rather than just enter into the complacent comforts of a given faith. And if this strong and mighty god is capable of leading whomever he chooses to him, wouldn’t that mean that perhaps one of the manifestations of his wisdom is to create individuals who do not believe in him? If that is the case, believers will then have to stop their preaching, resort to silence and resign themselves to their god’s will, He who better knows the mysteries ways of the unknown. Continue reading →

26/08/2008

Over the ages, humankind has suffered various forms of self inflicted violence and oppression. With the gradual development of firm grounds for the institution and dissemination of social justice and equality, this age old violent and self-destructive propensity in humankind has been curbed but not fully defeated or overcome. Narrow selfish desires still animate individual egos, pushing them to hold on firmly to racist doctrines and acts of discrimination. Continue reading →

18/06/2008

Arab societies are more like an immutable and unchanging entity, always rejecting changes that affect them, living in isolation, intolerant towards the other and refusing to have anything to do with difference. What follows is a tendency towards nationalist differentiations and distinctions between them and us and. Ironically, many Arab societies end up applying that logic of discrimination to their own people. Continue reading →

10/06/2008

From the day he is born, the Arab citizen remains tied to his destiny, his society, in which he puts an unquestionned and unlimited faith. He therefore refuses the psychological evolution that persecutes him and thus deprives himself of whatever would allow him to be receptive to external ideas, cutting himself from self assimilation and from becoming part of a greater whole. Continue reading →