1- There are more serious concerns in our times than discussing dead ideas. Yet, historically, Fascism has struck root, suppressed opposition, & imposed strict intellectual & political regimentation in vulnerable societies at their psychological & economic nadir. #Lebanon today?
2- That is why I wish to briefly weigh in on one such Fascism today; a vicious opportunist; Arabism & its "original sin," & by association its bedfellow Islamism. Namely, I wish to address the phenomenon's original hooliganism, which strikes me as a behavioral mental disorder.
3- Without intruding on the field of Psychology, which is not my own, I shall approach Arabism & its knack for hectoring & violent outbursts from the angle of Intellectual History, Philology, & the History of Ideas & Political Thought—dovetailing closer with my own training.
4- In a nutshell, when one confronts the usual Arabist hectoring with fact, the response is often more affectation, hectoring, bombast, violent outbursts, negationism, & ultimately threats of (and then ACTUALLY) inflicting physical harm on those with opposing views.
5- The latter was my own experience recently with a buffoon issuing a public threat on @Twitter, promising to mete out violent acts against my person (suggesting it's "easy to get to" me) if I did not apologize for my ill-treatment of his ideology & its “Dear Leader.”
6- Here’s why I think @Dr_ali_zaiter's violent frenzy is a classic of Arabists & likeminded genocidal Fascist. First, like all fanatics & zealots, they are persuaded in the veracity of their own fairytales & the falsity of the "Other's" facts" (fake news" in our times' lingo.)
7- Likewise, they are convinced—& their chief ideologues from #MichelAflaq to #SatiAlHusri to #UmarFarrukh to today’s #HassanNasrallah types have produced enough mental pollution to normalize such fallacies—that Semite equals Arab, that the original home of all Semites is Arabia,
8- that the “Proto-Semitic” language (a hypothetical language that never existed in reality & that was devised as a model for linguists) is Arabic; and therefore that all Semites are Arabs ;)
Here’s for instance what Arabist theoretician #EdmondRabbath wrote on the matter:
Here’s for instance what Arabist theoretician #EdmondRabbath wrote on the matter:
9- “Semite & Arab are synonymous appellations. They express the same biological reality, and the same unity of a race which has not stayed put in its original home.. They have been called Babylonian, Assyrian, or Phoenician. In truth, they are Arab;
10- Arab in the spirit which conceived them, Arab in the hands which set them up…” Note how another Arabist Fascist, #UmarFarrukh, this time writing in Arabic, confirms #EdmondRabbath's fairytale (with goblins, unicorn milk, flying pigs, tootlhfairies and all):
11- “It is irrelevant that Iraqis deem themselves a hybrid of Aramaeans, Persians, Kurds, Turks, Indians & others" wrote #UmarFarrukh, "they still are Arabs, in spite of their racial diversity, because the overriding factor in their identity formation is the Arabic language…”
12- Likewise, he continues, "the inhabitants of today’s Morocco, Algeria, Libya… may be a mix of Berbers, Black Africans, Spaniards, & Franks; but by dint of the Arab nation’s realities, they all remain Arabs shorn from the same cloth as the Arabs of the Hejaz, Najd, & Yemen..”
13- You cannot make this stuff up! & this travesty would've gotten funnier had it not expressly called for violence & the liquidation of the "Other." The killing fields of today’s Syria, Iraq, & before them Lebanon illustrate how genocidal violence is imprinted in Arabism’s DNA.
14- To wit, #MichelAflaq stressed that “Arab nationalists must be imbued with a hatred onto death toward any individuals who embody an idea contrary to Arab nationalism..." "An idea that is opposed to Arabism" continued #Aflaq, "does not emerge out of nothing,"
15- "It is the incarnation of individuals who must be exterminated so that their idea might in turn be exterminated.” This is in a nutshell the Arabist creed: "You're an Arab if I say so; & if you dare trot out an identity model that defies Arabism, you will be put to death."
16- My best to @Dr_ali_zaiter, a Fascist "intellectual" from Lebanon, who like his genocidal inspiration #HassanNasrallah, is adept at couching murderous instincts in semi-literate ostentations, promising to get me in Boston, or intercept me at the airport in Beirut. #Thrilling.
