The Morality of Oppressed Peoples

“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
— John 8:32

Ibn Khaldun said that oppressed peoples lose their moral character.

His statement was not an insult to nations, but rather a profound insight into what happens to human beings when they live for long periods under fear, tyranny, fanaticism, and deception. Oppression does not merely break the body-;- it distorts the soul. It destroys the ability to distinguish between strength and mercy, between genuine faith and the exploitation of religion, between sincere patriotism and empty slogans.

The most dangerous affliction that has struck large parts of the East is not poverty, lack of resources,´-or-foreign conspiracies—as some endlessly repeat day and night—but the collapse of human and moral conscience under the pressure of long decades of tyranny, fanaticism, and political and religious deceit.

Our peoples have grown weary of beautiful words that bear no resemblance to reality.
Weary of politicians who speak of dignity while citizens are humiliated every day.
Weary of those who speak of mercy while their actions reflect arrogance and cruelty toward the weak.
And weary of speeches about national unity while sectarianism lives within hearts, institutions, education, media, and religious discourse.
Weary of endless talk about morality while injustice has become a normal part of daily life.
They speak of humanity while their actions resemble those of predatory beasts.

In many societies across our region, a person is no longer valued according to his humanity, but according to his identity.
Your name may determine your future.
Your religion may determine your opportunities.
And your sect may determine the degree of safety you feel in your own homeland.

What moral collapse is this?

How can a society claim religiosity while those who are different fear declaring their identity?
How can we speak of mercy while human dignity is crushed because of belief?
And how can we speak of civilization while children are raised to despise others instead of respecting them?

Some societies have become environments that produce fear and hatred more than they produce knowledge and freedom.
A child is sometimes taught that the one who is different is dangerous before learning that the one who is different is human.
He learns that only his own group possesses the absolute truth, and that the rest of humanity is of lesser value´-or-farther from God.
He is even taught that his blood is more valuable than the blood of those who follow another religion.
He learns that if he kills, he may not deserve the same punishment because his soul is considered superior to that of the other.

And from here, the true destruction begins.

When Coptic girls are abducted, and society is then asked to remain silent “for the sake of stability,” this is not a healthy state-;- it is a society afraid of confronting the truth. A racist society. An unjust society.

And when millions of Copts often feel that they are citizens under constant examination, forever required to prove their patriotism and belonging, while hate speech against them is at times tolerated, then the problem is not an isolated incident, but a deep flaw in the very concept of citizenship itself.

The Copts have known the meaning of pain through long centuries:
abductions and forced conversions to Islam,
churches demolished and burned,
villages subjected to violence,
opportunities lost because of silent religious persecution,
and extremist religious rhetoric that nourished hostility instead of a culture of love and equality.

Then politicians emerge with lengthy speeches about “the fabric of the nation,” while the real wound is left open without genuine justice´-or-courageous confrontation.

The same happened to the Yazidis.

The world witnessed Yazidi women abducted, raped, and sold as slaves in the twenty-first century by ISIS.

To what level of moral degradation can a human being descend when he believes he draws closer to God by humiliating a woman?
And what kind of culture is capable of justifying brutality in the name of the sacred?

Then came the crime that exposed the corruption and racism of a decayed global consciousness: the slaughter of the 21 Copts by the terrorists of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a moment of shame in the history of modern humanity.

Twenty-one simple men went out in search of their daily bread, only to return as martyrs upon the seashore.
They were slaughtered before the cameras because they were Christians, while the killers shouted in the name of religion.
Their throats were cut by followers of evil.

At that moment, the world was not merely witnessing murder.
It was witnessing a terrifying moral collapse.
It saw how extremist ideology can transform a human being into something without value, turn bloodshed into spectacle, and transform hatred into doctrine.

Sadly, this scene was not an exception.

From our region emerged some of the most dangerous terrorist organizations of the modern age:

ISIS, Boko Haram, the Taliban, Al-Shabab, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Al-Nusra Front, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Ansar al-Sharia, the Armed Islamic Group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, Abu Sayyaf, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hurras al-Din, Sinai Province, Khorasan Province, Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Salafi Jihadism, Takfir wal-Hijra, Ansar al-Islam, Fatah al-Islam, Jaysh al-Islam, and Ahrar al-Sham.

All of these terrorist groups, along with many other movements of death, raised religious slogans while committing the most horrific forms of terrorism against Christians, Yazidis, Alawites, and all who were different.

Here, we must have the courage to speak the full truth:

These groups did not emerge from nothing.
They came out of environments in which reason was suffocated, questioning was forbidden, religious and political figures were sanctified, education was transformed into indoctrination, criticism into treason, and inhuman narratives from a distant past were endlessly memorized and repeated.

These groups emerged from oppressed societies.

When human beings are denied freedom of thought, they become easy prey for extremists.
When societies fear criticism, they begin to worship lies.
And when diversity is destroyed, civilization dies.

We now suffer from a dangerous civilizational schizophrenia:
a highly refined official language alongside a deeply painful reality.
We speak of tolerance in conferences while those who are different fear the streets.
We speak of freedom while writers are prosecuted, artists attacked, and thinkers accused of treason.
We speak of morality while corruption, hatred, and discrimination eat away at the foundations of society.

The most dangerous form of lying is lying to oneself.
When a nation convinces itself that it is morally superior while remaining incapable of respecting human beings who are different.
And when every criticism becomes a conspiracy, and every attempt at reform becomes “an offense to the image of the homeland.”

But nations are not built through media propaganda.
They are not saved by slogans.
Nor protected by chants.

Nations are built through justice.
Through equality.
Through freedom of thought.
Through respect for women.
Through the protection of minorities.
And through faith that the human being is sacred and must never be humiliated in the name of religion, politics,´-or-the majority.

I do not write this article out of hatred, but out of both pain and love.
The pain of a human being who has watched his societies morally collapse beneath the weight of fanaticism and fear,
and the love of one who still believes that the East can rise again if it finds the courage to confront itself.

True renaissance does not begin with the construction of towers, but with the building of the human being.
It does not begin with an abundance of religious slogans, but with the depth of mercy and justice.
And it does not begin when we believe ourselves superior to the world, but when we learn how to respect every human being regardless of difference.

Civilization is not measured by the number of mosques and churches, nor by the grandeur of capitals´-or-the height of skyscrapers.
Civilization is when a human being feels safe without fearing his name´-or-his faith.
Civilization is when a woman can live in full dignity, not as social property.
Civilization is when a child goes to school to learn how to think, not how to hate.
Civilization is when the law becomes stronger than the sect, conscience stronger than fanaticism, and love stronger than fear.

And when the human being in the East reaches the moment when he sees his fellow human being before seeing religion, sect,´-or-race—only then does the future begin.

And when defending the oppressed becomes more important than defending the group—only then are true nations born.

And when we understand that God does not need the hatred of human beings in order to triumph—only then does the human spirit regain its meaning.

Civilizations do not die only when they lose wars.
They die when human beings lose their mercy,
when injustice becomes normal,
and when hatred becomes a daily culture.

True renaissance begins from the moment one human being respects another human being.

“He has shown you, O man, what is good-;- and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”
— Micah 6:8

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