By Husam Dughman

O people of MENA! Let’s not waste any time, shall we? First of all, let’s find out what you want: Do you desire to have a MENA of mayhem, conflict, fear, brutality, tyranny, underdevelopment, persecution, oppression, discrimination, and violence? If that is your wish, you can count me out. Alternatively, do you dream of a MENA where, to the best of human endeavour, there is justice, safety, security, mutual respect, freedom, order, peace, love, and happiness? If that is your goal, hear me out.

Within MENA countries, what you have to do is establish constitutional governments, not absolutist governments. There must be the rule of law reigning above the governed and the governor alike, with no bias or favouritism. Make sure you have an independent judiciary whose decisions are not only impartial but also binding and enforceable on all, governor and governed alike. Set up transparency-monitoring agencies to ensure the minimization and punishment of political and economic corruption. Allow for open media critique. Encourage private enterprise that is not held hostage to the government and its policies. Stay away from Islamism. I am sure that you are aware of the magnitude of the destruction wreaked by the Taleban, the Islamic Republic of Iran along with its friends Hezbollah and the Houthis, the Muslim Brotherhood- including Hamas- and the Salafi jihadis like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. Do separate religion from the State, for when politics and religion mix, both become corrupted. Protect belief in religion only within the private personal sphere, neither to be mixed with politics nor to be given the chance to achieve cultural hegemony over society in any way, shape, or form. Stay away also from Pan-Arabism. Do I need to remind you of how Nasser, Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein, and Assad ruined their countries? Safeguard personal liberty; let people breathe freely. Keep the military away from power, for the armed forces belong to the barracks, not to the sphere of politics. Give more rights to women to contribute positively to society’s progress. Hold as sacred the rights of minorities. Invest massively in the most important resource of all: the human resource which will bring about your great development. Promote freedom of thought and expression; unhindered intellectual prowess can achieve miracles. Have respect and compassion for the weak, the poor, the vulnerable, the downtrodden, and the marginalized; give them as much assistance as you can and, where possible, empower them.

On the other hand, your interaction with the rest of the world must be based on enlightened self-interest, namely pursuing your own national interests as states within the overall collective interests of the countries of the world at large. The non-Muslim world is not your enemy. The vast majority of non-Muslim people and non-Muslim countries, including even the Israelis, have no intention whatsoever of harming, let alone destroying, you. You are not sure, especially about Israel? Think about whom Israel has attacked since 1948: countries like Egypt, Jordan, and Syria which had initiated hostilities against the Jewish state. However, since the signing of peace agreements with both Jordan and Egypt, Israel has attacked neither. It has attacked Lebanon only because, to begin with, the PLO and its allies turned southern Lebanon in the 1970s and early 1980s into a base for attacking Israel, something which Hezbollah has more recently been doing. Israel has never attacked Iraq, except for the elimination of Osirak in 1981 because it posed a serious threat to Israel’s security. It had not attacked Yemen prior to the Houthis. It has never attacked the Gulf states. It has never attacked Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, or Morocco, except in 1985 when it launched strikes against the PLO headquarters in Tunisia- rather than against the Tunisian state per se- because of the murders of three Israeli civilians by individuals whom Israel suspected of being PLO supporters in what became known as the Larnaca yacht killings. Moreover, Israel has not been involved in attacking Muslim-majority countries, including Iran during the days of the Shah, and even since the Ayatollah regime took over in 1979 until the last couple of years when Israel attacked Iran due to its massive support for its anti-Israel proxies in the Middle East and the 2024 attacks on Israel in April and October of that year. In other words, do not threaten the security of Israel and no harm shall befall you. All that non-Muslim countries in the world, including Israel, want is to live in peace, security, and prosperity. That is all. You, too, can do the same, if you choose wisdom over foolishness. Yes, it is undoubtedly the case that the US in particular has done a lot of harm in MENA over the last 75 years or so: The Americans helped in the overthrow of Syria’s constitutional government by the military in 1949. They did practically the same thing in Egypt in 1952, in Iraq in 1958 (despite some Americans’ unconvincing protests to the contrary), and in Libya in 1969, to mention but only some examples out of many. The US later encouraged Islamist jihadism as a way of destabilizing parts of the USSR in the 1970s, particularly the Muslim-majority Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, before massively arming, training, and financing the mujahidin in Afghanistan in the 1980s when they were fighting against the Soviet Union. This, as we all now know, blew up in the face of the US when many of those much-lionized mujahidin formed Al-Qaeda who subsequently launched the 9/11 attacks on the US back in 2001. Nevertheless, just because the US conducted itself on some occasions in that senseless, counterproductive manner does not mean that it has always done so, for it has in fact also done what some of you may consider good things in MENA as well as in some other Muslim-majority countries: It saved Egypt in the Suez Crisis of 1956, it openly sympathized with and supported Algeria’s struggle for independence from France in the 1950s and early 1960s, it fought on the side of the Bosnians against the Serbs in the 1990s, and it has recently tried- albeit without much success- to help the people of Libya, Iraq, and Iran.

The only way forward is above all through the application of reason, sound common sense, and wisdom. Learn from the examples of Japan, Germany, Singapore, and South Korea. It is actually within your power to elevate yourselves to high levels of development where you can become shining examples sitting proudly among the great nations of the world. Be focused. Cut out all of your pompous rhetoric, blind stubbornness, and volatile emotionalism. Concentrate on what really matters to take you from your present sorry, miserable state to one of which you and your descendants will truly be proud.     

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About the author

Husam Dughman is a Libyan Canadian political scientist, religious thinker, linguist, and an expert on immigrants and refugees. He received his formal education in Libya and the UK. Mr. Dughman later worked as a university professor of political science in Libya. Due to confrontations with the Qaddafi regime, he resigned from his university position and subsequently worked in legal translation. Mr. Dughman has worked with new immigrant and refugee services in both Canada and the US since 2006.

Husam Dughman has published a book entitled Tête-à-tête with Muhammad. He has also written numerous articles on politics and religion. He has now completed the full manuscript of a book which he hopes to have published in the near future. The new book is an in-depth examination of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and the non-religious school of thought.