The prevailing culture in a society is the main factor that decides whether societies change negatively or positively. It is the cultural values that distinguish societies from each other, and there is no culture without intellectuals. The intellectuals contribute to enlightening their societies and work on improving the culture they live in to reach a stage of perfect health that does not suffer from schizophrenia due to the conflict between the inherited political and social reality in the society and the dream of achieving freedom, equality and social justice.
How does the Gulf intellectual contribute to the development of society?
It is difficult to become a free and independent intellectual in the Arab world, who plays an enlightening role, like in the Western countries. It requires moral and social heroism. The Arab authority is an authority of suppression. It does not accept the other opinion. It imposes loyalty and obedience and applies the method of force and not the method of dialogue and negotiation.
The Gulf intellectual’s problems may not be very different from the problems of Arab intellectuals, but the nature of the challenges is different. The Gulf people, in the context of their wealth, live in an exceptional situation that reflects the dilemmas of the Gulf intellectual. In the midst of rapid modernisation changes and the migrant inflow to the Gulf and the human surplus it creates, the intellectual finds himself in a state of confusion and anxiety. These are the forms of tension he goes through:
- The tension between temptations of power and the attractiveness of position, and the intellectual and moral responsibility he has in practising and spreading the rational concept and the need to support the values of justice, equality and freedom.
- The tension between the reality he experiences in his society (political and social), which is one of irrationality, deviation, imbalance of values, and superficiality and the arrogance of intellectuals themselves, their ambition to change the society for the better, and his image of himself as possessing knowledge and representing the conscience and direction of society.
- The tension between the fear caused by his identity, the need to preserve his identity, heritage, blood ties, family and tribe, and the requirements of modernization and openness, and the demographic change that is sweeping the society.
- The tension arising from the growing dependence on the foreign workforce, leading to the increasing marginalization of citizens.
- The tension of relying on a single source of income and not diversifying its sources.
These forms of psychological and social tensions impede the task of the Gulf intellectual, and put him in a state of dissonance with the prevailing political, cultural and social structure and he feels alienated sometimes as his voice does not resonate. The intellectual believes that he possesses knowledge and wisdom, but finds himself marginalised and in solitude. A road without a horizon, and he could be frustrated and in despair, and might prefer isolation and stop the intellectual contribution.
The intellectual must think independently of the pressures of the Authority and its temptations. He might not be an employee of the Authority, a lawyer or a guardian, and he keeps his independence from the public opinion and does not become a hypocrite to win public praise and win fans and become a celebrity. He is the one who is always in positive conflict with the prevailing intellect, the social and cultural structure in his society as he wants to improve it and will always be criticising the imbalances in society, monitoring and warning of its consequences and diagnosing the illness.
Classes of intellectuals
Gulf intellectuals are trying to lift their societies and they have different ways and belong to different categories.
Some seek power and come close to it and can be called ‘power intellectuals’.
Some are in the opposition and criticise everything and they never see anything positive in anything and can be called aggressive intellectuals.
There are also the ideological intellectuals who belong to a political party (nationalist, leftist, Islamic) and intellectuals whose views are available for hiring by the authorities (slave intellectuals) and also the ‘ignored intellectual’ who waits for the green light from the authority to express his views and, in the context of the current blockade, there has appeared a new set of intellectuals called the ‘pet intellectual’ who may have spent a lifetime opposing the authority and crossing the red lines but has fallen silent. If they faced troubles with the authority, they become soft like pets. Our history is full of many models of intellectuals kneeling before and serving the power. There is also the public intellectual who goes with the flow and flatters the public opinion whether they are fanatic, tribal and against principles.
Finally, it is also possible to find in the Gulf a wide range of intellectuals who carry out their tasks with independence and moral responsibility.