Arab countries have not been immune to conspiratorial theories, both at the official and popular levels, for throughout modern history after liberation from Western colonialism, Arab states announce to their peoples from time to time conspiratorial plans hatched by external powers in cooperation with internal parties to strike their interests and destabilize them. The regimes in these countries continue to feed the conspiratorial theories they present to their people until they nest in their brains, and for the vast majority of them they become the truth beyond any doubt.
On the other hand, the elite minority and the circles affected by it begin to follow the information and opinions they receive, and present their own conspiratorial – and sometimes contradictory – interpretations of the conspiracies promoted by the ruling regimes in order to justify their practices, performance, defeats, failures, new plans, and internal or external projects. This contradiction between the conspiratorial theories of the ruling regimes on the one hand, and the elite popular minority, on the other, leads to disastrous results that vary in intensity and effects depending on the size of the reactions emanating from both sides. Years and decades continue to bury the truth of the information behind these theories and explanations.
The Nasserist conspiratorial plan succeeded in revolutionizing the emotions of the Arab street, domesticating its popular entity, and drugging it comprehensively that does not allow it to see the misinformation and deception to which it is exposed.
Because of the totalitarian and authoritarian state that dominates Arab regimes, and the consequent absolute ownership of the state, the absence of transparency, the monopoly of information, and the confiscation of freedoms, we do not need much effort to find examples from the Arab reality that demonstrate the state of official conspiratorial theory and counter-conspiratorial interpretation.
Nasserist conspiracy theory
Since the Egyptian military seized power in July 1952, the authoritarian totalitarian regime of the late Gamal Abdel Nasser has embraced the socialist system and joined the then eastern camp led by the Soviet Union. In view of the general Arab religious position rejecting atheist communism, the regime adopted an ambitious plan to consolidate power, extend hegemony and popularize the political model, based on the idea of liberating Arab countries from Western colonialism led by the United States of America, and working to overthrow the reactionary and backward monarchies allied to colonialism, liberate the Arab peoples, liberate Palestine and eliminate the Zionist enemy, according to the expressions used at the time. This idea has been embodied in many slogans, songs, mass events, dramatic and media coverage, and organizational formations in schools and universities, all led by brutal repressive security services.
This conspiratorial plan succeeded in creating two entities: the first is the only nationalist leader represented by the figure of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who became the hope of the Arab nation throughout the fertile Arab Crescent countries (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan) and the Maghreb except Morocco (Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Mauritania), in addition to Sudan and Yemen. The second entity created is the enemy of Western colonialism led by the United States and reactionary regimes allied with it, comprising the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Morocco, and Jordan.
This plan has also succeeded in revolutionizing the emotions of the Arab street, domesticating its popular entity, and anesthetizing it comprehensively that does not allow it to see the misinformation and deception to which it is exposed, nor to see the tyranny and corruption practiced by the regime, nor the brutality of the oppression and oppression it carries out against its opponents.
On the other hand, these (reactionary) states and elites opposed to the socialist tide, including Islamist currents, worked to provide their own explanation of what the Nasserist regime is doing in Egypt and the Arab countries loyal to it, as the imminent danger and the greatest evil that lurks in the nation and the agent of the Soviet Union, which works to spread communism and fights the Islamic religion. However, the elites opposed to the Nasserist tide did not dare to speak out in the countries loyal to it, given the iron security fist that awaits them.
The years continued in this case until the great defeat of Nasiriyah at the hands of the forces of the Zionist entity in the setback of June 1967, and the evaporation of national promises, and the collapse of popular Arab hopes, and the ugliness of the practices carried out by the regime in various fields, and the ugliness of the defect in the structure of the state and its institutions, and the ugliness of negligence in the right of the deceived people, whose most precious possession was the resonant throats whose voice does not allow the length of the chant for the sole leader. After Gamal Abdel Nasser's mysterious death in September 1970, the efforts of the regime of his late successor, Anwar Sadat, further exposed the Nasserist regime in a way that the masses could not have imagined, who came out cheering after he announced he stepped down following the 1967 defeat.
Nasser went, Nasserism collapsed, and the conspiracy theory fell with Egypt's transition to the Western camp, the signing of a peace agreement with the Zionist entity in 1978, and the restoration of relations with the Arab countries (reactionary), to start a new conspiracy theory to justify Sadat's visit to the Zionist occupation state, and enter into comprehensive normalization with it.
After the Arab Spring revolutions, the Arab region entered into bloody conflicts and intertwined crises, which do not seem to have an end near so far, and the slogans of the revolution flew, and its goals were shattered and collapsed under the piles of destruction and the bodies of the dead, to open the door wide for new conspiratorial theories looking for convincing explanations of what happened.
Confused Spring
Suddenly, without warning, so-called "Arab Spring revolutions" erupted in the Arab region, starting in Tunisia in late 2010, followed by Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria between January and March 2011. Although these revolutions toppled the political regimes of four of these five countries except Syria, the rest of the Arab countries were not spared their repercussions in one way or another.
In the face of this sudden event, the Arab regimes had to provide an explanation for this event and act urgently to confront its repercussions, which threaten their entities to collapse, so they initially resorted to conspiracy theories and accusing the demonstrators of working for a foreign agenda run by US intelligence. As events accelerated, movements were intertwined, information was blurred, and parties and roles were multiplied, reactions vary, with some countries rushing to contain the event, others quickly escalating violence, while ruling regimes collapsed dramatically in four countries within a few days and weeks in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya.
On the other hand, the rebellious party had to present its counter-theory that explains its revolution, moving it from demanding regime reform to insisting on toppling the regime.
Just as the days of spring pass quickly, the days of the Arab Spring also passed quickly, after which the region entered into bloody conflicts and intertwined crises that do not seem to have an end near so far, and the slogans of the revolution flew, and its goals were shattered and collapsed under the piles of destruction and the bodies of the dead, and to open the door wide to new conspiratorial theories looking for convincing explanations for what happened, from a conspiracy in Egypt to another in Yemen to a third in Libya, and finally in Tunisia, all of which meet in one point, which is the judiciary. On the successes of the Arab Spring revolutions through what is known as counter-revolutions. In Syria, it was the most complex of the rest.
Many questions arise, the hypothetical answers of which contributed to the formation of conspiratorial theory in the absence of information, and in the face of this entanglement of parties and collision in internal and external interests, on top of these questions:
Who is behind the Arab Spring revolutions? Why did revolutions fail in countries whose old regimes fell? Why hasn't the democratic West protected the nascent democratic experiments that converge with its so-called principles and values? Why is the democratic West silent about the humanitarian abuses suffered by the activists of the Arab Spring revolutions? Why didn't the democratic West boycott the coup regimes against the nascent democracy? Why didn't the democratic West prevent regional military and financial interventions in the Arab Spring countries? Why have young people so far been unable to do again what they succeeded in during the Arab Spring, given the strong similarity between the security conditions that exist today and what they were then?
The lack of information still stands in the way of developing a convincing explanation of what happened, leaving the chaos of guesses dominating the scene, and providing its different readings according to the point from which it starts, some begin to read the history of the event from the Tunisian Jasmine Revolution, some go further to link it to the war on terrorism, and another remains confused and hesitating between the illusion that was suddenly born in his chest to change the existing political reality for the better, and the applied defeat that the region is experiencing and does not allow it to move except within Carefully calculated steps and under strict supervision.