Talking about \u201chope\u201d is no longer possible or meaningful in this beautiful Levant, drowned in violence and death. Any discussion of it is nothing more than an illusion, an ideology, or a failure to understand what we are truly experiencing. \u201cHope\u201d \u2014 for change in circumstances without transforming the underlying conditions, capabilities, and dispositions \u2014 is a form of perpetuating what we are trying to escape. While this may sound negative, it is also a rational perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespair\u201d is not merely a temporary absence of \u201chope,\u201d nor is \u201csadness\u201d simply a fleeting lack of happiness. Rather, they are profound value structures\u2014symbolic fabrics woven into our collective psychological complexes. Nations do not need a superficial awareness of sadness but rather a stark confrontation with its essential truth. It is not a \u201cproblem\u201d that can be solved with doses of artificial optimism or with dreamy (and often delusional or false) narratives and discourses. Instead, it is an integral part of our makeup, engraved in our collective memory like an indelible tattoo.<\/p>\n
So far, the horrors unfolding in this beautiful Levant are far less than what the forces and systems driven by imaginary, desire-driven values\u2014brimming with hopes and aspirations for violence, death, and genocide\u2014actually carry or contain. Fortunately, there are circumstances that prevent those murderous imaginary and desire-driven impulses\u2014between groups and nations, toward one another, within each of them, and toward their components and representations\u2014from becoming reality. Imagine what could happen if all parties were able to achieve what they wish for and aspire to, each toward the other!<\/p>\n
Reproducing Life<\/strong><\/p>\n This is a tragic reality in every sense of the word\u2014a heavy history, and more importantly, a mindset and aspirations that seem to leave little room for hope or opportunities for overcoming. Here, and this is the main theme of the paper, emerges the concept of the \u201cRight to Despair.\u201d At first glance, this may seem contradictory, but at its core, it is a call to \u201cliberate consciousness.\u201d It is not an appeal to surrender to nothingness, but rather an acknowledgment of the necessity of confronting harsh reality without sugarcoating or numbing.<\/p>\n This \u201cRight to Despair\u201d is a rejection of illusions and artificial hope\u2014goods sold to anesthetize populations. It recognizes that life, in itself, carries within it a measure of suffering and contradictions. Attempts to expel this dark side are nothing but \u201cself-denial\u201d and \u201ca erosion of consciousness.\u201d Illusions and false hope are a \u201creproduction\u201d of what we suffer from, not a way to contain or transform it.<\/p>\n Schopenhauer<\/strong>\u2019<\/strong>s Call<\/strong><\/p>\n Arthur Schopenhauer, with his pessimistic philosophy, offered profound insight into the meaning of pain and suffering as an inseparable part of the universal Will that drives existence. For him, suffering is not an exception but an eternal rule that imposes itself on every living being. From this perspective, life itself is a manifestation of a blind, insatiable Will. Every momentary gratification leads to boredom, then to new desires and new pains.[1] In this context, despair becomes not weakness or passive impotence, but a higher state of awareness of reality as it truly is\u2014a penetrating vision that removes the veils of illusion and superficial optimism.<\/p>\n Acknowledging this existential despair is the first step toward genuine liberation and toward reshaping our relationship with the world. From the heart of this acknowledged, rather than repressed, despair can emerge the capacity to \u201creproduce\u201d life with a more authentic and profound meaning. This is not a call to surrender, but rather a starting point\u2014stripping away illusions and seeking a new, deeper meaning of life that transcends imposed limitations.<\/p>\n Embracing the Shadow<\/strong><\/p>\n In this context, the ideas of thinkers like Jacques Le Goff loom large. He explored the \u201chistory of mentalities\u201d and the depths of societal morale, recognizing that grief or the \u201ctragic sense of life\u201d is not an emptiness, but a fully formed cultural entity.[2] Ulrich Beck, in his discussion of the \u201crisk society\u201d[3] and how Germans have dealt with their burdened past, offered an unforgettable lesson: they did not \u201covercome\u201d their grief, but rather \u201cembraced\u201d it, understanding that defeat could serve as a springboard to avoid greater catastrophes.<\/p>\n Perhaps salvation does not lie in trying to \u201cexpel\u201d grief from our societies, but in \u201cembracing\u201d it. Learning to live with our contradictions, our existential despair, and the truth that we may never be \u201chappy\u201d in the prevailing ideological sense. Maybe\u2014and only maybe\u2014within this acknowledged grief, we find some measure of freedom: the freedom to detach from illusions and to see the world as it truly is. Ultimately, this may be the only path to genuine happiness: the happiness of a conscious, miserable, and acerbic awareness that emerges from a stark confrontation with reality.<\/p>\n Rebellion and the Opium of Sadness<\/strong><\/p>\n Societies forced to swallow their sadness, and afflicted by a \u201cphobia of joy\u201d due to repression, become ticking time bombs. The jokes, stories, and exuberant art seen at weddings and festivals are not merely outlets; they are both illusions of happiness and calls to invoke that happiness simultaneously. Conversely, authorities of various types seek to create official occasions to contain and manage this pressure, claiming to care about the well-being and happiness of the populace.<\/p>\n When we speak of \u201chappy societies being less prone to violence,\u201d we must ask: what kind of happiness? Not the superficial happiness offered by systems of power as a false compensation. In this context, entertainment, consumption, and fashion are nothing but forms of repression.[4] We seek genuine happiness\u2014happiness that springs from self-realization, justice, and freedom.<\/p>\n People in this East did not take to the streets in protests and revolutions merely because they sought \u201chappiness\u201d in its glittering form, but because they were fed up with the alienating sadness, exhausted by falsehoods and oppression that had turned their lives into nightmares filled with \u201cjoy phobia.\u201d They took to the streets because they rejected this imposed sadness and demanded the right to define their own sadness and happiness. Revolutions are not just a quest for abstract happiness; they are a refusal of a state of chronic, alienating sorrow that no longer bearsable. Here, we are not judging events by their outcomes, though that is often a common approach. Instead, we are focusing on the active, imaginative moment at the start of the regional upheaval (2011). Yet, what initially embodied vitality, freedom, optimism, and joy ultimately resulted\u2014across many societies and countries\u2014in sadness, destruction, and horrific disasters.<\/p>\n For example, Albert Camus\u2019s voice echoes in \u201cThe Rebel\u201d: \u201cThe rebel is he who says: No.\u201d This \u201cNo\u201d is not merely a rejection but a declaration of limits: \u201cThings have gone on too long,\u201d \u201cIt is acceptable up to this point, and unacceptable beyond,\u201d and \u201cThere is a boundary that must not be crossed.\u201d At this moment, sadness and resignation transform from passive states into a revolutionary moral force. They cease to be constraints and become an existential question: Why do I accept this? Why do I live like this? Why don\u2019t I demand something else?[5]<\/p>\n But hold on! There is a deeper level of tragedy\u2014one that some may reject: sadness itself has become an opiate, a collective drug justifying powerlessness. Even our \u201cright to be sad\u201d has been taken away. This sadness is not authentic but manufactured, programmed, and tamed\u2014presented to us as a \u201cfalse alternative\u201d to confronting terrifying realities. As Theodor Adorno pointed out, we do not mourn [or rejoice] because we want to, but because authorities and systems of meaning and power want us to do so in their way.[6] This is the ultimate alienation: to be forced even to feel the emotion that is supposedly our last refuge.<\/p>\n At the Heart of This Acknowledged Sadness\u2014Authentic, Not Alienated\u2014we Find Freedom Echoes of Sadness\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n The echoes of these ideas resonate powerfully through the works of literary icons who shaped the consciousness of an entire generation in the Middle East. The Iraqi poet Muzaffar al-Nawab, in his poem \u201cNot sadness, But Sad!\u201d, does not merely describe fleeting romantic sorrow; he captures the essence of the great tragedy afflicting our societies. His words: \u201cNot sadness, but sad\u2026 like a jasmine seedling torn apart by rain! Not sadness\u2026 but sad\u2026 like a wedding box sold as scrap love as the years pass!\u201d go beyond simple description to paint a portrait of sadness that has become a permanent destiny\u2014dry, withering sadness that invades souls and emotions alike.<\/p>\n Al-Nawab skillfully distinguishes between \u201cthe sadness we experience as individuals\u201d and \u201cthe sadness we are obliged to endure as a collective,\u201d a sadness that is not free but \u201ca moral duty, a symbol of loyalty.\u201d Even his invitation, \u201cOh sadness, I wish I knew you \/ I\u2019d turn you into a jasmine garden \/ and a walkway of wedding tiles \/ in front of your house,\u201d is not an endorsement of sadness but an attempt to understand it more intimately\u2014to break its shackles and transform it from an imposed fate into a conscious choice, perhaps.<\/p>\n The Damascene writer Zakaria Tamer treats sadness as raw material for his stories\u2014not a gentle emotion, but a cynical despair, a black humor that slaps the face of absurdity. In his story \u201cThe Call for Help\u201d [7], we see how the statue of Youssef al-Azma morphs from solid copper into a screaming, furious figure, then is cast into prison. He describes Damascus as \u201ca sleeping child with her head and hands severed, a burning dust, and birds whose wings are leaving the sky, and trees.\u201d This painful symbolic image of a statue moving to express buried grief and repressed despair, only to be suppressed again and returned to inertness, serves as a powerful metaphor for our societies\u2014ones that do not permit their grief to turn into action or rebellion.<\/p>\n The grief of Tamer\u2019s characters isn\u2019t rooted in the loss of something, but in the realization of the emptiness of everything: the emptiness of existence itself. It\u2019s a \u201cweariness\u201d\u2014a fatigue from waiting and false hopes. In his story \u201cTigers on the Tenth Day\u201d [8], the tiger becomes a \u201ccitizen,\u201d and the cage a \u201ccity,\u201d after a brutal taming. This terrifying embodiment of grief portrays the deep sorrow of losing freedom and dignity\u2014the symbolic death of the soul under systematic repression. Tamer shows us how maintaining grief\u2014\u201cneutral, frozen, devoid of any possibility of \u2018action\u2019\u201d\u2014becomes the condition that sustains power.<\/p>\n We must not forget the cry of poet and playwright Muhammad al-Maghut: \u201cJoy is not my profession.\u201d This is not a rejection of joy per se, but a denunciation of its illusory fabrication\u2014those manufactured \u201cjoys\u201d that hide more brutal oppression. His grief isn\u2019t defeatist; it\u2019s the grief of a rebel who sees through the falsehood and exposes it. In his poem \u201cSadness in the Moonlight\u201d [9], he addresses Damascus: \u201cO pink chariot of captives,\u201d describing how \u201cfor twenty years we\u2019ve been knocking on your sturdy doors \/ And rain falls on our clothes and children \/ And our faces, choked with a painful cough, \/ look sad like a farewell, yellow as tuberculosis.\u201d When he declares, \u201cI will betray my homeland\u201d [10], he\u2019s not speaking of the geographic homeland but about \u201cthe homeland of violence, terror, hypocrisy, and murderous thuggery.\u201d It\u2019s a bold cry that shatters the myth of glory and happiness, revealing that what is promoted as joy is merely an illusion forced upon consciousness.<\/p>\n The grief of \u201cAl-Nawab,\u201d \u201cAl-Maghut,\u201d and \u201cTamer\u201d is not simply defeatist despair but a \u201csad rebellion\u201d\u2014an absolute rejection of false patriotism and ideologies that drive people to dance in pain. These literary voices, with their mournful yet rebellious tones, affirm that true, unalienated grief is the key to consciousness\u2014and perhaps the spark that drives nations to seek freedom and dignity, even if that means embracing the \u201cright to despair.\u201d<\/p>\n The Courage of Despair<\/strong><\/p>\n In the midst of this scene of acknowledged despair, a question may arise: Is there hope? Here, the insights of thinkers like Slavoj \u017di\u017eek come into play. \u017di\u017eek challenges the conventional notion of the \u201clight at the end of the tunnel\u201d in a provocative way, emphasizing that the real danger does not lie in failing to see the light, but in the possibility that the \u201clight at the end of the tunnel\u201d might actually be a train heading straight toward us. This is despair of illusions\u2014despair of easy solutions and false promises. It compels us to abandon naive hope that justifies stagnation and to confront reality in its harsh, unvarnished truth. Here, despair is not an end but a necessary turning point.[11]<\/p>\n Societies deprived of even their \u201cright to mourn\u201d are societies headed toward moral and spiritual death, regardless of how loud or flag-waving their displays may be. When people are denied the right to honestly express their bitterness and despair, or are forced to wear masks of artificial joy, they lose their capacity for self-awareness and reconciliation with their reality. Repressed sorrow becomes a slow poison that extinguishes the flame of the collective spirit, depriving it of the ability to renew, innovate, or even think critically. This enforced \u201chappiness\u201d kills the genuine potential for change.<\/p>\n Herein lies the paradox: hope, in its naive or manufactured form, can itself become the greatest obstacle to contemplating radical alternatives and driving meaningful change. As long as false hope is promoted, protest is delayed, and the impulse to alter patterns and realities is suppressed. Conversely, true despair\u2014arising from a clear, cold comprehension of the depth of the crisis\u2014is what motivates nations to craft new paths. Not because they love or desire despair, but because they \u201cdislike what they are in and fear what is to come.\u201d It\u2019s not merely about losing traditional hope; it\u2019s about realizing that continuing in the current pattern will inevitably lead to catastrophe. This awareness becomes the catalyst for forging unprecedented routes forward. This kind of hope, paradoxically, can be aligned with \u017di\u017eek\u2019s concept of the \u201ccourage of despair.\u201d[12] By openly acknowledging the bitterness of reality and the alienation of emotions, we open doors to moments that can lead to the rebirth of life itself.<\/p>\n Ultimately, the \u201cright to despair\u201d appears as a right to self-recovery\u2014an act of seeing the world with a conscious eye that transcends illusions. It is a call to free oneself from the shackles of alienating grief, toward an authentic sorrow that awakens consciousness. Perhaps, in this embrace of shadows, lies the only path to genuine happiness\u2014one that only those willing to confront their despair can dare to attain. It is a despair that does not lead to nihilism or defeat but to a deliberate, relentless effort to redefine the meaning of existence and to rebuild life on the ruins of old illusions and false promises. Perhaps, honest despair is the seed of true freedom and the first step toward a more authentic, dignified future.<\/p>\n Footnotes:<\/p>\n [1] Arthur Schopenhauer, The Charge of Despair, translated by Al-Tayeb Al-Hasni, (Riyadh: Dar Safha, 2019).<\/p>\n [2] Jacques Le Goff, Memory and History, translated by Jamal Shahid, (Beirut: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, 2017).<\/p>\n [3] Ulrich Beck, Risk Society, translated by George Kattoura and Ilham Al-Shaarani, (Beirut: Al-Makkah Al-Sharqiya, 2009).<\/p>\n [4] Byung-Chul Han, Topologies of Violence, translated by Badr Al-Din Mustafa, (Riyadh: Dar\/Manassa Ma’na, 2021).<\/p>\n [5] Albert Camus, The Rebel, translated by Nihad Rida, 3rd ed., (Beirut-Paris: Awidat Publications, 1983), pp. 17-18.<\/p>\n [6] Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments, translated by George Kattoura, (Beirut: United Book House, 2006).<\/p>\n [7] Zakaria Tamer, Damascus Fires, Stories, 3rd ed., (Beirut: Dar al-Rayyes for Books and Publishing, 1994), pp. 143-150.<\/p>\n [8] Zakaria Tamer, Tigers on the Tenth Day, Stories, 2nd ed., (Beirut: Dar al-Adab, 1981), pp. 54-58.<\/p>\n [9] Muhammad al-Maghut, Sadness in the Moonlight, (Beirut: Shi’r Magazine, 1959).<\/p>\n [10] Muhammad al-Maghut, I Will Betray My Country: Delirium in Terror and Freedom, 4th ed., (Damascus: Dar al-Mada, 2004).<\/p>\n [11] Slavoj \u017di\u017eek, \u201cHe Will Come Like a Thief in the Night,\u201d translated by Hassan Al-Hajili, Hikma website, (April 24, 2018).<\/p>\n [12] Slavoj \u017di\u017eek, The Courage of Hopelessness, New York: Penguin Random House, 2017.<\/p>\n References:<\/p>\n Talking about \u201chope\u201d is no longer possible or meaningful in this beautiful Levant, drowned in violence and death. Any discussion of it is nothing more than an illusion, an ideology, or a failure to understand what we are truly experiencing. \u201cHope\u201d \u2014 for change in circumstances without transforming the underlying conditions, capabilities, and dispositions \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3441,"featured_media":6238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,61],"tags":[1164,1162,1163,40],"ppma_author":[1206],"class_list":["post-6237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-slider","tag-albert-camus","tag-arthur-schopenhauer","tag-sweida","tag-syria"],"authors":[{"term_id":1206,"user_id":3441,"is_guest":0,"slug":"akil-said-mahfoud","display_name":"Akil Said Mahfoud","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2025-01-08-at-11.06.29.jpeg","url2x":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2025-01-08-at-11.06.29.jpeg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3441"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6239,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6237\/revisions\/6239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6237"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=6237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFreedom to detach from illusions; freedom to see the world as it truly is. This might be the only path to genuine happiness: the happiness of a conscious, miserable, and searing awareness! Collective sadness is easier to control than individual joy. It\u2019s simple to mobilize people for funerals, mourning, or grief over the past (or the present). But gathering them for genuine laughter is much harder, because laughter demands something alive\u2014something that cannot be faked. Authorities manipulate sadness to say, \u201cThere\u2019s no time for joy now; you\u2019re under threat.\u201d Then they organize official festivals of happiness, as if joy should be granted from above, not emanate from within.<\/p>\n\n