My name is Iyad El-Baghdadi. I’m an Arab Spring activist and writer.
I’m Palestinian, but I’ve lived all my life – since birth – in the United Arab Emirates, better known as the UAE.
Until around this time last year, I was the most influential online voice out of the county
and among the top 30 Arab voices online.
But this past spring on the morning of April 30th, I was summoned to a government point
and informed that I am being permanently expelled from the country
There were no charges, no reasons afforded, no appeal process
and the decision was to be carried out immediately.
My wife was seven months pregnant with our first child.
When I was invited to speak before you, I thought that this is what I’ll be talking about
About how the authorities did not know where they can send a stateless Palestinian refugee
How they gave me a choice between staying in jail indefinitely, or flying to Malaysia
I thought I’ll be describing the injustice and racism and corruption that I witnessed first-hand in jail
I thought I’ll be talking about how I was stranded for three weeks in Kuala Lumpur International Airport following my release.
But this is not the story I’m here to tell.
My story fades into complete insignificance within the greater mosaic of tragedies that befell our generation, the Arab Spring generation.
A generation that three and a half years ago opened its mouth to speak, just to have a thousand forces conspire against it and smother its voice.
In early 2011, the Arab world erupted with massive protest movements demanding liberty, justice, and democracy.
The “Arab Spring” as it is now called, touched almost every Arab country, but it mostly failed to produce any visible institutional results.
Instead, our revolutions were fought back by a highly organized and deep pocketed counter-revolutionary axis
that has international legitimacy and credibility.
My friends - this is going to be a talk about how our generation found its voice, how we lost that voice, how we can regain it
and why despite all the catastrophes in the Arab world, we remain confident, and we’ll never, ever give up the fight.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mariam.
She’s a Syrian-Palestinian young woman who, in 2011, was among the first people to go down and protest peacefully as part of the Syrian revolution.
As the revolution gave way to civil war, Mariam’s family became internal refugees, hopping from neighborhood to neighborhood in Damascus for shelter.
In 2013, she eventually managed to flee Syria, alone, to Malaysia, having witnessed so much death and destruction along the way.
I met Mariam over a meal in Kuala Lumpur.
I sat across the table as she narrated her ordeal with an air of detached indifference.
She bragged that throughout it all, she never cried.
She asked to hear my story and I began to explain.
I said that I lived in the UAE, which is a bit far away from the heartlands of the revolution
It does not tolerate any kind of street activism, so as a result, my Arab Spring experience was primarily online.
As the revolutions kicked off in early 2011, I reported on the unrolling events, and helped present our story to the world.
But I like to think that my main contribution was within the realm of ideas.
Even before Mubarak was ousted I was already asking this key question.
It really bothered me that no one was asking this question. Over the next few months I raised the issue several times.
What’s next? Do we have a plan?
I had no doubt that a new order was set to arise – but I insisted that it will not arise spontaneously.
It requires original thinking, a new generation of intellectuals, and a lot of work.
Within the dizzying rush of early 2011, nobody was prepared to talk about this.
Nobody was really prepared to handle these issues.
A growing polarization was ripping our movement apart, centered upon the role of Islam
In the midst of this polarization, I provocatively called myself an “Islamic libertarian”
and talked about our need to indiginize liberty, to find our own path to freedom.
By 2012, the Arab Spring had fallen into a trap.
When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail
and our only tool was protests. We moved to the streets and then got stuck in the streets.
And we were stuck there long enough for the autocrats to stage a comeback.
A conspiracy was being planned.
It’s actually become quite fashionable in the Arab world, especially in state media, to refer to the Arab Spring as a grand conspiracy
But the real conspiracy was one to stop democracy at any price.
It was an organized assault by a counter-revolutionary axis more afraid of the rise of a thriving Arab democracy than the rise of a thousand terror groups.
Especially, the rise of a thriving Arab democracy that can tickle the imagination of their own youth.
It’s very important to note that groups like ISIS present no existential threat to the tyrants.
In fact, they’re incredibly convenient – it’s an opportunity for them to present themselves as fighters of terrorism and a force for stability.
Now, heed this: when the people demand democracy, and instead of giving them democracy you put the lid back on
even tighter than it was before, you do NOT get stability – you get an explosion.
And even if you do manage to get the lid back on and clamp it shut, you do not get stability – you get a time bomb.
At this point in my conversation with Mariam, I was rambling.
I looked up at this young woman’s face, and she was crying.
Minutes earlier she was bragging that she never cried, and now she was crying.
I did not know what sent her over the edge.
Reality was much more poignant than anything that I could say.
Here we are – two Arab activists – sitting three thousand miles away from home
Refugees, in a foreign land.
We wanted the downfall of the regimes; but it seemed like the regimes achieved our downfall.
Our Arab Spring had turned into a Jihadist Disneyland.
She looked up at me and I’ll never forget, I’ll never forget what she said next.
It was as if she poured all of her frustration, and her betrayal, and her pain, into this one question.
“Do you mean to tell me you still believe? After all of this, you still believe in an Arab Spring?”
I’ll never forget how she said that.
I said “yes,” and she looked at me like I’m crazy.
I never got to explain. I hope she’s watching this.
There are three reasons why I maintain my confidence despite all the catastrophes.
The first reason is that 2011 happened. That was NOT an illusion. It was not a dream.
Millions of young Arabs really did take to the streets and demanded liberty, and dignity, and justice.
It was NOT an illusion. Something green and fresh and beautiful appeared and captured the world’s imagination. It wasn’t a mirage. We really do exist.
We’re not a minority, either. We only appear to be a minority because we’re not organized; we’re not on the menu.
When the only options presented are black and white, it does not mean that red and blue and green are a minority. It's just not on the menu.
Our historical responsibility right now is to put ourselves on the menu.
The second reason I am confident is that the friendships that arose in 2011 cannot be undone.
The online scene is not “virtual”, ladies and gentlemen - it’s all too real.
The friendships are real, the ideas are real.
Many of us activists have never met face to face – but we talk almost daily about things we care really deeply about.
These friendships are forever.
Martin Luther King once said “Those who want peace must organize as effectively as those who want war."
I’m going to adapt this and say “Those who want liberty must organize as effectively as those who want tyranny."
These online friendships can form the nucleus for an intellectual movement as we work together on projects and campaigns and books.
The third, and perhaps most important reason why I remain confident
is that the old order - the Arab ancien regime - for all its cruelty and all its deep pockets, has no vision or hope to offer beyond sectarianism, demagoguery, and jingoism.
It lives on borrowed time, supported by mass hysteria
It's unsustainable and will bring no stability and no growth.
More importantly, they have a little secret. They’re afraid of us.
They’re not afraid of those with guns – after all they have bigger guns. But they’re afraid of those with ideas.
We are the future, ladies and gentlemen.
Despite the catastrophic scene back home, we are the future.
If they don’t let us dream, we’re not going to let them sleep.
There is yet another reason why we can never give up.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first stop at the Choeung Ek memorial site in Cambodia, better known as the “Killing Fields”
I visited Cambodia in August, in order to avoid overstaying my short-term entry that I was allowed into Malaysia.
About fifty paces into the site, on this bench, I collapsed, holding my head in my hands, a sobbing mess.
I can't even call it sobbing, it was something much deeper.
Cambodians come to this site to look at their past, but I felt like I was walking through an exhibit of what could be the Arab world’s future.
A future full of massacres, mass graves, and genocide.
My son was two months old at the time.
The Cambodian genocide took place in the mid 70s, around the time I was born.
What genocide sites will my son walk through when he’s my age?
Will it be a memorial dedicated to the Rabaa massacre, committed by the Egyptian military regime?
The Ghouta Massacre, committed by Assad’s regime in Syria?
The Sh’eitat Massacre, committed by ISIS?
Or will it be yet another horror that’s yet to come?
And more importantly, will massacres be behind us, or will my son still live in a world where he’s afraid to speak, where demanding dignity ends you up in jail
where you have to think a thousand times before saying something or tweeting something – for fear of upsetting the wrong people?
This is what awaits us if we fail, ladies and gentlemen.
At this point it’s Arab Spring, or no Arabs.
A thriving democratic Arab world is not only our salvation as Arabs
it’s the world’s best hope to end the cycle of terrorism and tyranny that we’re stuck in.
My book, “The Arab Spring Manifesto”, detailing my vision for an Islamic libertarianism, is due to be completed in December.
We’re hoping to have it out by next summer.
As far as I know, it would be the first attempt by our Arab Spring generation, and I hope it won’t be the last.
Ladies and gentlemen allow me to take a couple more minutes of your time to close with a short message to my son.
Ismael was born on my exact birthday last June.
He turned 4 months old a few days ago.
I only got to see him last week, and I only spent three days with him.
Ismael: I say this as a father. I’d rather see you die young than grow up to be a coward.
We were preceded by a generation that kept its head low and kept its nose to the grindstone
and learned to live with tyranny and corruption and accept them as a fact of life.
And they bequeathed us the Arab world we see today.
A festering pool of stagnation and retardation. A playground for tyrants and terrorists.
And now that the counter-revolution thinks it has succeeded, they are giving us the same deal again and they expect us to take it.
“Trust the great leader with your rights. Trust us with your children’s future. Trust the strongman with your security.”
NO. Do not legitimize them, even if the world does.
Do not call them Sirs and Majesties, even if the world does.
Do not call them champions and heroes, even if the world does.
Our liberty, or we die trying. Our dignity, or we die trying.
Ismael, my son. May you live long and kick ass.
But if they ever give you the choice between the two, then kick ass.