Let us take stock!

Suddenly and without warning some of the revolutionaries in our region have become rational, and they have begun criticizing what is happening in the Arab countries that have been struck by the earthquake of change this year, and when we say “suddenly”, this is because they have now “withdrawn” their talk about the revolution and change when they discovered that the Islamists are gaining politically!

In the same manner that “deceivers” and “turncoats” have appeared to us during this period of change in the Arab world, there are also those that we must dub the “shocked” [i.e. shocked by post-revolutionary situation] who want to convince us that they are rational and who are today putting forward a critical vision.  Some of these “shocked” figures used to insult– that’s right, insult– our rationality, sometimes in newspapers, and other times on television, not to mention social networking websites, and even to foreign journalists.  Indeed some of these figures would advise foreign journalists not to listen to anybody speaking in the voice of reason because such intellectuals were nothing more than government stooges!

Today, without warning, these “shocked” figures want to convince us of their own rationality, and want to analyze the scene from a political and social perspective.  However these are the same people who attacked us when we said that Egypt is not like Tunisia, and that Libya is not like Bahrain, and that Saudi Arabia is not one of the Arab states that is suffering from a crisis of legitimacy, regardless of whether women can drive or not.  Since some people are as forgetful as they are fickle, let me remind you that this talk about Saudi Arabia took place during the period where issuing such statements was the fashion, whilst many people were rallying in support of what in the end was falsely termed the “revolution of longing” [11 March, Saudi Arabian Day of Rage].  This is not a story about the monopolization of truth, which is something that our respected friend and colleague [Egyptian journalist] Emadeddin Adib continually warned against, particularly as those who do not change according to the facts is irrational.  Rather this story, simply speaking, is that it is now up to these same “shocked” figures to firstly apologize for their transgressions, their discrediting of others, and their accusations of treason against all those who held a different opinion to them at the time.  Their changed position today should not mean that we forget what they said and did in the past, particularly as many of them – particularly those who believe themselves to be intellectuals and media figures – have made many mistakes, most notably making the same mistake again and again with regards to their own positions.

They criticized our position towards Iran, and it has been shown that they were wrong, and then they criticized our position on Hezbollah, and it was again revealed that they were wrong.  They criticized us for our position on Islamist and fundamentalism groups, and it was revealed once more that they were in the wrong. They criticized our statements about the feasibility of peaceful action [with regards to the Palestinian – Israeli conflict] and it was shown that they had once more taken the wrong side, and today we see the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas not Khalid Meshal, achieving international recognition of the Palestinian state from UNESO, and this was without any suicide bombings or prisoner exchange!  This is not all, for even when some of these “shocked” figures tried to turn their hand at rational discourse, they also made serious mistakes, and our colleague Mshari al-Zaydi has shed light on this [in his oped The Muslim Brotherhood Spring].  However these figures made other unwitting mistakes when portraying themselves as rational – and the most prominent example of this is that of [Egyptian journalist] Mohammed Hassanein Heikal – in that they failed to say a word of truth about what is happening in Syria in order to help protect the defenceless Syrian people.  On the contrary, these figures were carried away by false slogans, and the greatest falsehood in this regard is that of the “resistance” which is something that is no longer capable of even convince the Syrians themselves!

The problem with some of these “shocked” figures is not in their changeability or their fickleness, but rather their belief that nobody is watching or monitoring this,.  Therefore what we want to say to them today is that the time has come for you to be reminded of your [previous] positions!