My Friend ... and the Coming Change

My returning friend asked me about the ways of change and transformation in local communities and peoples, and the transition from one leadership to another, or from one behavior to another. I answered him that we need a social scientist to study the inner workings of social phenomena and the secrets of individual and group behavior, as well as a political scholar to understand the mechanisms of change. Let me tell you that in Tunisia, where our national team drew with theirs in the Arab Cup, they hate the word "transformation" due to its association with the regime of the fleeing president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. In my opinion, Arabs dislike the term "democratic transition" due to the events that occurred following the Arab Spring at the beginning of the second decade of this century. I thought to myself that this sentence relieves me of the burden of answering his question.

My friend confidently stated that he realizes this and that it is an accepted matter, but change occurs in one of two ways: first, with the presence of an enlightened leadership that adheres primarily to a social vision and has foresight ‘wisdom and prudence’ in reading local, regional, and international variables, possessing the initiative ‘cunning’ in its behavior and reactions; some believe that it risks its political future or puts its destiny on the line when making decisive decisions in shaping the future for its people. The second way: change emerges from social bases ‘i.e., the roots’ through scattered and fragmented social, cultural, and political movements and the early indications of popular action to create behavioral trends from which transformative political phenomena emerge.

I quickly told him that the second method, in my opinion, was invented by the "founding fathers of the Palestinian revolution" where change was born in 1965 from the early signs of grassroots work and social dialogues, in addition to a popular need that alters political and field behavior. But my friend added, you used to say in your writings and interviews that changing the law is usually to change citizens' behavior and societal interests, initiated by an enlightening government ‘political leadership’, or to establish norms accepted by society through the government legalizing this pattern of behavior. In other words, according to my friend, leadership either initiates or surrenders.

I told him that the concept of change means development and moving forward without standing still, which is the nature of life. My friend gestured with his hands that he agrees on this point, but he added that political change is built or produced from the roots, that is, the grassroots that read reality and transformations in the social and cultural structures of society, especially after major shocks or disasters ‘the Nakba’ that befall it. I believe this is what happened after the Nakba of 1948, where social structures were shattered; farmers and traders, villagers and city dwellers, the rich and the poor found themselves living in tents, lining up for aid in front of the Relief Agency to get what they need to survive. The leaderships that existed before 1948 became traditional and did not represent the Palestinian society and its concerns, which birthed a new leadership from the womb of these transformations that express the aspirations of the refugees and the struggling masses under occupation. I thought to myself, "Oh, woe to my friend who prophesies change by returning to the roots after the catastrophe that befell Gaza and the siege in the West Bank, like a sociologist, a scholar in politics, and an expert in social movements issuing judgments and drawing the future."

He added that change in society does not require many years as it used to, for technological tools and popular demand are capable of crossing or shortening time unless the "traditional" political forces change and cause a shift in their behavior, otherwise change will precede them; for youth have the ability to achieve it in ways not accessible to the elderly, even if they possess coercive power tools and traditional means of defense.