Saleh ِAl-Qallab
Jordanian writer, Former Minister of Information, Minister of Culture and Minister of State. Member of the Board of Trustees of the Saudi Research and Marketing Group
TT

Why Care about Mao… The Problem is the Reality in Our Arab World

Even if US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping were to sit through a thousand dialogues, the two countries would inevitably clash militarily. Indeed, the tensions between these two countries will inevitably lead to a military confrontation. There is no escaping this eventuality, as the struggle in this inflamed world is one of interest and center of power. We can be absolutely sure that it cannot be quelled, even if the two leaders were to have a phone call, whether on the phone or with video, fifty times a day, not five.

The discord between the two great powers cannot be contained… Even if there were genuine attempts at quelling them… The fact is that this is a “strategic” conflict. We see many like it today and have seen many others throughout history, even during the times of primitive tribes that fought over water and pasture. Each tribe wanted to impose its will on the others, just as great and minor states do today!!

The “People’s” Republic of China has come to believe that it has become the leading power in the world, among other things. That it has become so is a fact, whether the US approves of this development or is angered by it, and regardless of whether China lifts its fist and yells: “we’re here!” The facts speak for themselves. And the truth is that China has no competitors. This is true for social cohesion and political and military power… and international status as well. This is the reality, and the US cannot deny it despite trying not to bow its head to the facts of the matter, which only a charlatan or those ignorant of the facts of history deny.

Neither President Biden nor any other leader can deny that China has become the world’s great power economically, politically, and militarily… every other respect as well. The indicators tell us that after undergoing a bitter phase in the past, China has become the leading player on the world stage. With all due respect to the United States, it can no longer raise its fist and tell the world: “we’re here!”

We cannot deny that the United States is a superpower. However, the “People’s” Republic of China has surpassed everyone else militarily, and some say economically as well. Mao Zedong (the founder of modern China) has surpassed, it is often said, every other popular leader in history by establishing the People’s Republic of China. Even after all these years, Mao is still seen as one of the most influential leaders to have ever lived. Indeed, his grave has become a site of “pilgrimage” for his people, as well as some of the great leaders of the world. The problem, however, is that all this grandeur collapsed after a health problem, the damned Parkinson’s disease.

Of course, some, after all these years, pose the question: is Mao Zedong really the man who led China’s rise, or is he, on the contrary, the man responsible for the calamities that have befallen this great country and the deaths of millions of his people? All of this despite the fact that his father was a simple peasant. Despite this, Mao Zedong, the son of a self-made peasant who worked to provide for his son, led to the extraordinary rise of China. His father’s efforts made him a remarkable historical leader. The fact is that one cannot really understand the history of this great country without knowing the history of this great leader. If we’re being honest, he founded and built the People’s Republic of China.

However, after the departure of Mao Zedong, which is now in the distant past, he was not venerated by subsequent generations. After all these years, you see him painted as a “cartoon hero” whose contributions were significantly “inflated.” We saw this done to many other communist leaders. The same applies to many Third World leaders whose followers inflate their legacy like an air balloon in the media.

Then, as soon as they are deposed, the dark pages of their lives are opened, some of their graves are dug up, and their followers and kin are pushed out. These leaders are treated as though they had been stooges and “despots” who put the “poor, innocent” people in jail cells and hung them. We then see their families, dependents, and everyone close to them barbarically butchered.

We could say that this applies to many Third World leaders and figures who lead coups. These leaders created a lot of suffering in the Arab world, and those who want to look into the details should read the “files” of the generals who led coups in the Arab world and raised revolutionary slogans. Without naming names, and they are very many… they all either ended up on the noose or putting others on it. In other instances, the men who stuck pretty colorful stars on their chests and shoulders put the targets in prison.

We don’t want to mention names. However, we have to take the example of Syria- the great “beating heart of Arabism.” We have to discuss how the coup left it on its backside and how sectarian figures shared the spoils they had stolen from the people. We cannot avoid mentioning the prison in Mazzeh and other cities- how they came to brim with innocents whom the sectarians in the upper echelons of power “tyrannized.”

The number of prisoners in Mazzeh and other places would rise tenfold with each coup. This applies to some of the Arab countries that were cursed with what were called revolutions. All these revolutions ate up the country’s patriots, and the modern history of Syria attests to this… as do Iraq and other places that tasted the poison of so-called revolutions. Moreover, every revolution would eat up the other… Those hoping to look deeper into this matter should refer to the ties between Syria and Iraq… as well as Yemen, which could have been prosperous if it had not been for the “curses” that many other Arab countries had witnessed, with the rivers of blood getting up to the knees!

The problem is that those behind these “military” coups that were called “revolutions” set up the nooses on day one. They set up prisons and detention centers. What hurts is that they called their destructive actions revolutions…

The question that the new generation should ask is: what have these revolutions led to in the Arab countries that became sick… What does it mean that Syria has met this fate? The same is true for Iraq and other Arab countries.

This is the state of affairs in many other Arab states whose citizens were “force-fed” these revolutions… One certainty is that every revolution leads to others… the Arab world has become heavily burdened… All of this has pushed the Zionist enemy to treat the Palestinians appallingly. They did so relying on these revolutions that we ask God not to bring to Arab countries that had never entered this circle of hell.