1001 questions: Breaking the spell

What if one were to weave the tales of 1001 Nights not through the gilded adventures of Aladdin, Sinbad, or Prince Iqban, but through the bewildered eyes of Gaza’s children and women? What new narratives, fantastical yet steeped in post-realism, might emerge from their pain and resilience? What kind of magic could arise not from genies or enchanted carpets, but from the survival of the human spirit amidst the smoldering ruins of history?

And what if, in the real world of internet-driven superpowers, the global players treated the Arab world as a pawn, a fragile toy manipulated by unseen hands? Imagine the intricate chessboard of Turkey, Iran, and the ever-volatile Israel, alongside the ambitious emergence of Saudi Arabia. How might these powers jostle and recalibrate their alliances, their ambitions stretching across the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, the Gulf, and into North and East Africa? What stories would ripple from such seismic shifts, reshaping borders, economies, and allegiances?

Questions multiply like waves crashing upon Gaza’s shores. What is the fate of the Palestinian Authority, its legitimacy teetering on a precipice? And when this Israeli government inevitably meets its demise, what will rise from its ashes? Will the chaos give way to another iteration of the same, or will something unimagined take its place?

What about the American administration? Will Trump, or whoever inherits his mantle, decide to “lower the boom” on Israel, demanding better behavior as a precondition for continued support? Or will American foreign policy, tethered as it is to shifting domestic tides, veer into deeper ambiguity?

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine casts its shadow over the region. Could there be a moment where Syria and Ukraine are bartered like pieces on a geopolitical chessboard? If a new US president were to step into Beijing’s lair and draw a firm line in the sand, how would this reconfigure fossil fuel trade? Would Arab-China relations flourish or falter under such pressure?

And what of Europe? Will it finally rise above its paralysis to assert a clearer role in the Arab world? If so, Lebanon, with its fragile beauty, and perhaps Jordan, to a lesser extent, might become the new focal points of European alliances.

As for Egypt, will it continue its relentless pursuit of economic growth, paying less attention to its broader geopolitical constraints? Or will it pivot, focusing on its troubled neighbors, Sudan and Libya, to establish meaningful, people-centered partnerships? Could peace-building become Cairo’s renewed priority, fostering strategic ties built on mutual profit and shared stability?

The flood of questions cascades endlessly, a torrent as unrelenting as Niagara Falls. But within this overwhelming stream lies the threadline of our generation’s future. Are we, like Byzantine priests in their ivory towers, destined to discuss these dilemmas with dazzling sophistry but no actionable ideas? Or will we muster the clarity and courage to prioritize these questions, to untangle them and strive for solutions?

Even as the Arab world sinks further into its current state of egocentrism, turning every situation into an argument, a loop of entropy, we must carve out space for cooperation. Not synergy for its own sake, but synergy to counter disintegration, to avoid the drift into chaos.

Perhaps we could rely on magic, hoping the Djinn of old might rise from a shattered lamp to rebuild nations and whisper harmony into leaders’ ears. But the Djinn, as the stories warn, are capricious, granting wishes with cruel twists. Could we risk the fate of millions on such whimsical hands?

Or perhaps we should turn to astrologers and diviners, waiting for their charts and prophecies to untangle our future. But placing our destiny in the stars is indulgent folly. Dreams without action don’t spark change; they leave our minds in the sky and our heads in the sand. 

What if there was a council of wise men, a pan-Arab assembly of thinkers and planners bound by logic and the will to act. There are many people who fit this description. Their role would be to transcend rivalries, confront challenges with honesty, and foster pan- Arab cooperation to say the least. This council must become a sanctuary for wisdom and positive action, uniting the region’s fractured will into a collective future driven by clarity and courage.

But who will shoulder this burden of thought, this act of dreaming forward? Who will toll the bells of progress? Perhaps, in the end, it will take Sheherazad’s soft, unyielding hands to awaken us: “The rooster has declared it a new morning. Wake up!”