Every country has its enemies, every enemy has its causes, and there is no normal person in normal circumstances can be a hostile to his homeland. However, he may be exposed to negative situations and repeated experiences that confuse his mind and make him first confuse the overall concept of the homeland with some of its components; such as the prevailing regime, institutions and state employees. Then feelings of anger, resentment and hatred against these components or some of them creep into his mind ending up with little or much hostility to the homeland. Therefore, who is supporting the makinghe enemies of the homeland , and what are his goals?
The meaning of the homeland
I wrote about the meaning of the homeland in a previous essay entitled “The Crisis of the Gulf Intellectual and the Concept of Patriotism“, and concluded that a person’s homeland is a group of components of his country, including his place of birth, upbringing, nationality, work. As well as, history and relics of his ancestors, memories, feelings, family, relatives, friends, school, university, place of worship, neighborhood, country’s customs, laws, government, residents, slogan, name, history, and cultural, urban and developmental acquisitions.
How can a normal person be hostile to all this components? There must have been abnormal circumstances that dislocated these components in the person’s psyche, transforming him from a citizen to an enemy or a soft-hearted enemy.
The enemies of the homeland
The word enemies of the homeland contains two parts, hostility which is internal feelings, and the homeland which is an external thing as in the meaning of the homeland mentioned-above. Therefore, hostility to the homeland comes from a defect in one of these two parts, feelings of hostility and the meaning of the homeland, so I will talk about each part separately.
Hostility to the homeland in terms of feelings of hostility
When a person hides the real hostility or the will to harm his homeland, Patriotism automatically is vanished due to its contradictions, even in secret, just as the abolition of fasting with the intention of Iftar (break of fast) according to some jurists. In this case, who loses his patriotism, deserves no pertinence to homeland.
The truth is this image is impossible or nearly impossible, as it is not imagined that the feelings of a natural person towards his homeland will turn into complete hostility, whatever the reasons. It is attributed to the poet Abu Firas Al-Hamdani, who was subjected to betrayal, hostility, and imprisonment by the regime of his homeland and some of the officials that he said:
Even if it is oppressive, my country is precious
And even if they are mean, my relatives are generous
Therefore, those who oppress him may unfairly and falsely accuse a person as being hostile to the homeland. However, this accusation came from is the regime because this person criticizes them.
Most of the prophets, messengers, and reformers did so, and they have been accused of hostility to the homeland for as a result. When prophet Noah, peace be upon him, criticized the manifestations of polytheism among his people, they accused him of plain error as stated in Holy Quran “The leaders of his people said: “Ah! we see thee evidently wandering (in mind).” Al-A’rāf verse 60. The leaders mean high-rank officials, public opinion and the media celebrities.
Moses, peace be upon him, was also accused of being an enemy of the homeland, and that he wanted to expel the Israelites from their land, the Holy Quran in Surat Ta-Ha, verse 57 mentioned” He (Pharaoh) said: “ Hast thou come To drive us out Of our land with thy magic, O Moses ?
When I mentioned above the sentence” The truth is this image is impossible or nearly impossible” I meant the hostile of a person to his homeland, and I left a small margin for the possibility of this matter, through my saying “nearly impossible”. That is because this wild, materialistic era in which we see the human being abandoning his principles, values and components of his natural personality as a human being, in return for the material and tangible interests that he gets, makes the idea of a person’s hostile to his homeland possible. The truth is that is not hostile rather it is sag, indifferent and meanness.
Humanity has known since ancient times that some people have such moral deviations. However, on a small and blameworthy scale, such as a person compromising his humanity, honor, dignity, family, homeland or religion in return for a trivial interest. He does not do this out of real hostile, but only out of meanness
Hostility to the homeland in terms of patriotism
The second part of the word “enemies of the homeland” is the homeland itself. So that a person may claim that he is attributed to a homeland, was born in it, lived in, or still live in it, however, in his heart he belongs to another homeland. This is for his complete reversal of the belief and ideas of the people of the homeland or because he was like that from the early beginning as agents of espionage, cultural and social break, and so on.
The features of hostility from the enemies of the homeland emerge in various forms, including the fabrication and promotion of malicious rumors, aiming to creating opponents for the homeland and inciting on it from inside and abroad.
Among which, deliberately leaking sensitive confidential information, with purpose of harming the homeland, or delivering this information to those who will use it in a harmful way, and other intentional acts that harm the homeland.
The word “rumors” brings out the facts, meaning that if the homeland suffers from some deviations, then a good citizen will criticize these deviations. It is not correct to call his action promoting false rumors and information. Rather, he is criticizing valid information and thinks must be corrected.
The phrase “with purpose of harming the homeland” removes error and negligence from the charge of hostility to the homeland not from tort, It also clarify whether this confidential information is harmful to the homeland in the first place, such as plots against the regime, the people or the rest of the homeland’s components.
If the person was not a seller of his homeland through his enmity or giving up with return for something, and he was not lying in claiming patriotism, then what makes him close to that, or being a fertile ground for that?
Making the enemies
It happens a lot in our Arab countries and the like, that the various security services and their affiliates harass the patriots with free opinions, including media professionals, reformers, preachers, writers, intellectuals, and others.
Be careful! We are not talking about the enemies of the homeland, but rather about the patriots with free opinions.
The patriots with free opinions mean those who love their homelands, who are independent from the circle of regime, as they are not hostile to the regime, in addition they are not a direct part of its own system.
The patriots with free opinions mean those who base their opinions from the general interest of the homeland, not from some of its components, such as tribe, color, race, government, security or financial services, and so on.
The security services’ harassment of these people varies between beating with an iron fist and what is below it. If we exclude dealing with the iron fist because of the clarity of error in it, then everything without that remains harassment that also leaves its psychological and intellectual effects on its victims, regardless of the extent of influence and limits between them.
Example: A good citizen, within the framework of freedom of speech, expresses his opinion in any means of publication on a sub or main topic in a moderate manner. He is criticizing, calling for something, wishing, noticing, directing, or even using jokes and satirical literature. Because he is in his homeland, he practices the simple freedom of speech based on his confidence in his love for his homeland, and on his assurance that the people of his homeland knew about his love.
He is pursued or summoned by one of the security services, and this is the first lack of love towards homeland he faced. Then, he is charged with disturbing the security, agitating public opinion or harming the national security and this is the second lack. He is investigated on this basis as required by the security investigation method of transgressions, even little, and this the third lack. He may be detained temporarily or imprisoned with real criminals, and this is another lack. Therefore, the lacks multiply. If the harassment is repeated, the lacks increase, and if there are many victims of this unnecessary harassment, the lacks multiply vertically in the souls and horizontally in the multiplicity of people, so we have a group of good citizens who love their homelands, frustrated and skeptical because of these arbitrary security behaviors.
Conscious persons with high education and wisdom – and they are few – will strive to separate these arbitrary security behaviors from the concept of the homeland. Whatever they suffer, they will not think for a moment about giving up the homeland, punishing, betraying, or be an enemy for it. That is because the concept of the homeland is greater than these violations. However, they are like all human beings will be affected to some extent, and the effects may appear in different forms.
As for the other medium and low conscious persons, who are the majority, they will be more vulnerable to psychological and intellectual transformations and more vulnerable to exploitation, i.e. they will be enemies to the homeland.
Who is behind making the enemies of the homeland?
A- The wrong handling
Senior officials of the security services are the most responsible for making the enemies of the homeland. Since they are wrongly handling for the problems with intention security and safety. As a result, they make, without intention, the enemies of the homeland.
As the military mind is not suited to be the main in dealing with people’s opinions, this is because the military mind and cultural on which it is based on banding, tyranny of opinion, unilateral severity and other characteristics on which the military entity is based.
The security official thinks that the correct way of dealing with what he thinks – fundamentally – is a problem, which is the problem of the other opinion, suspicious opinion, or opinion that is not fully integrated with the regime. He thinks that dealing with this will be in the way he was grew up in dealing with the problems that he faces when some of his soldiers, giving military orders, military punishment, a loud voice, restraining and binding, blind obedience, non-discussion … etc.
Based on this, he orders to prosecute the righteous accused citizen who criticized, demanded, or referred to something, and return him to the right path, with carrot and stick. If the accused citizen defended himself and his goal, or he denied the accusation, this act was considered a rebellion and a violation of obedience. Therefore it turns upon the rest of the security forces have a personal problem between them and him, so they share with the senior official in the necessity of taming this person who hates the regime using their military culture towards discipline and connection. As well as the need for discipline and full compliance with orders, they pull it on the civilian accused, which makes them forget the basic matter for which they are investigating with this person. Therefore, he is just saying a small opinion in the context of freedom of speech, they go looking for any other reason to condemn and drop him, and from here, the problem grows.
The security official thinks he has dealt with the basically delusional problem, protected the homeland, and reset the settings for the rebellious citizen, and the problem was over!
Dealing with such issues on the assumption that they deserve treatment, must be done by specialists. If the issue is media then it will be dealt with by experts in the media, and if the issue in the law is dealt with by experts in law, and so on. I.e. the person is investigated by experts in the field that is the subject of accusation and suspicion, politely and with good thought, and assuming that this person is a good citizen, not a suspicious suspect.
This is in the event that the opinion announced by the citizen approaches breach, threatening security, or bad exploitation of the right of speech. However, if this is within the freedom of meaningful and disciplined speech, then this right must be respected and not prejudiced. Not only as a matter of respecting rights and freedoms, but rather to preserve the goodness of the citizen, he can interact freely in the national space, with positivity, confidence and pride. As well as, he informs others – obligatory – of the extent of his love for his homeland and his homeland’s love for him, its uniqueness and the breadth of his homeland, its understanding and acceptance of its reformed citizens.
B- The security breach
The breach of the security services by placing hostile elements within their ranks is a well-known and famous thing since ancient times. The first thing that the hostile spy and intelligence services work of any country is to breach the security and intelligence services and the narrow circles of decision-makers. They did that in order to obtain confidential information firstly and secondly, to harm the country by weakening or destroying it as required. That happens through wrong decisions made by some of the elements tucked into high positions to implicate the country in various crises, including making the nation’s enemies inside the homeland.
The interference of the enemies of the homeland in the security, intelligence and decision-making departments may not be by implanting real elements of the hostile party directly, but rather creating a conducive environment for a specific person or several people to take over some of the sensitive positions. This can be done through recommendations, promotions and advance preparation, not on base of the competence of these people for the positions, but for their individual characteristics of the hostile plans drawn. Therefore, they achieve the required goals without a foreign external assignment, but rather with internal self-readiness.
For example: the assignment of an official with a tendency to cruelty and violence in a position that does not suit these characteristics. The assignment of an official with acute secular orientations in a position to deal with those with religious ideas. In general, the assignment of the person with the data and characteristics known in advance, in certain position in which his decisions achieve the goals that the enemy wants, without having to hire real customers.
Results of making the enemies of the homeland
The process of making the enemies of the homeland does not necessarily result in the production of real enemies for the homeland as people love their homelands by nature, but it must cause negative consequences that affect the homeland and the enemy citizen.
Some negative effects on the homeland; depriving it of the effort and generosity of the loyal citizens, and sometimes this can be in difficult times when the country needs the effort and contribution of every person, such as times of wars, crises and serious political polarization.
If this citizen is an influential in a field, such as if he was a university professor, a journalist, a prominent intellectual, or even a social media celebrity, then the homeland loses his contributions and posts. While it was very easy to benefit from his contributions and employ them appropriately, even if by not being exposed, then this citizen turns into a volunteer soldier who praises the love of his homeland and distinguishability of his country.
Some of the negative effects on the good citizen: Fatigue him with trivial issues and false accusations. This resulted on decrease his production, so he becomes frustrated, and begins to postpone or cancel his useful projects. He also may begin to seriously think about looking for another country in which he exercises his simple freedom, which is freedom of speech and opinion, without harassment and accusations, or he really implements his idea. This matter can be seen by the wave of immigration and flight from Saudi Arabia in recent years in the era of Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Translated By: Mohammed Saleh Wahban
