The crisis of the Arab world during the past decades was not a crisis of resources, nor a crisis of political cleverness, but rather a crisis of not understanding the nature of the transformations that the region has been going through since the Second World War.
The Arabs, both elites and masses, had a apparent understanding of what they did not want: they did not want colonialism, nor did they want to remain underdeveloped. The problem, precisely, was that they did not know how to achieve these objectives. This is where the flaw became apparent, and the region began to enter a series of incomplete experiments, hasty decisions, and immature visions.
At the moment the colonizer left, many Arab countries sought to imitate the Western model and its democracy. Emerging parliaments, party governments, and newspapers where multiple voices that appeared. The nascent democracies were built on a social foundation whose conditions were not yet complete. Education was weak, the middle class was limited, while tribal, sectarian, and ethnic loyalties controlled the society. Therefore, the new democratic institutions could not resist the disputes of the elites or external pressures. Political life quickly turned into arenas of conflict, instead of spaces of consensus. We witnessed this phenomenon in experiences such as monarchical Egypt, the parliament in Iraq, and Syria, Lebanon, and Libya in the forties and fifties, where democracy began to resemble a caricature, lacking the solid structure that protects it and the political culture that lead it.
As popular frustration accumulated, the military emerged on the political stage as the decisive alternative, and coups followed one after another, bearing the slogans of liberation, development, unity, and social justice. However, these slogans, which presented themselves as a path to salvation, actually turned into a long period of totalitarian rule. When the armies took power, the security apparatus expanded, politics dissolved into the military, and the state became run from the top down without real civic participation. The experiences of Egypt in 1952, Syria after 1963, Iraq after 1968, Libya after 1970, and Sudan can be read as examples of an entire era in which repression expanded, the productive economy shrank, while slogans remained the official language of the state.
In the same context, other Arab countries drifted towards adopting the socialist model. The idea was based on achieving justice through the state and maximizing public ownership. However, this transformation took place without any prior construction, economic base, productive culture, or institutions capable of managing the nationalized economy. The result was that Arab socialism turned into widespread nationalizations, an inflated public sector, a decline in individual initiative, the collapse of the private sector, and a widespread corruption. Due to the weakness of the economic and social structure, the state became a huge employer, but one unable to provide efficient services.
In the midst of this political and economic confusion, a huge event occurred, which changed the direction of the Arab path: the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The so-called Nakba (catastrophe) became the focus of Arab politics, and national priorities were redefined on its basis. Then came the defeat of 1967 War, which constituted a deep shock, prompting regimes to use the slogan “No voice is louder than the voice of the battle” to justify repression, persecution, and the disruption of political life. Thus, the state of emergency has persisted in many Arab countries for decades.
Some Arab countries have also entered into circles of chronic internal conflict, such as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya. These conflicts were not merely the result of internal divisions, but were also the product of the absence of a comprehensive national project for the state. In contrast, the Gulf states succeeded in building different models, as they have focused since the 1960s on modern administration, economic development, and investment in human beings. These models provide evidence that the absence of Arab progress was not a historical destiny, but rather the result of immature political and administrative choices.
The long Arab experience highlights one fact: a modern state cannot be built on slogans, development cannot be achieved without stable institutions, and regional and international challenges cannot be faced without a realistic vision. Ballot boxes are not just about voting; they represent culture, responsibility, and institutions. Socialism is not about nationalization but about the ability to plan. Military rule does not produce stability; it stops the wheel of development.
Today, after all these experiences, the need to redefine what is wanted seems urgent. Then, a state of law is badly needed, not a state of slogans, and a society that participates through independent institutions is preferred to the temporary political mobilization. And before all that, new elites are needed, capable of thinking about the future and seeing the world with realistic eyes, not with the illusions of the past.