Sinwar's courage between two philosophies

Some have written about the absurdity of Yahya Sinwar, the nihilism of his courage, a courage that belongs to the time of fighting with swords and sticks, in the time of drone wars, F-16s, and technological wars, the courage of Antarah Ibn Shaddad, riding his horse, in the face of the might of the deadly military machine, a courage that provokes astonishment!

Writings about courage as a form of destruction and disregard for people’s lives, a courage that deserves to be denounced rather than praised, as the time of courage in the classical religious concept of ethics has passed, which is no longer valid for a time governed by artificial intelligence, robotics, and cyber warfare!

The media has pumped out many of these phrases that indicate a great influence of philosophical backgrounds that go deep into centuries of conceptual value transformation in Europe, starting with the revolution against the church and the palace, passing through the revolution against God, and reaching the twentieth century and beyond, where the essence of the previous revolutions is added to it the arrogance of the machine, the deification of man, and the transition from idealist philosophy that sees the connection of morals to fixed religious values, and views values as connected to ideals, duty, and human nature, to realistic or pragmatic utilitarian philosophy that sees morals as a system of changing behavior, according to the era, society, and different interests.

During the nineteenth century, philosophy tended to abandon many sayings, and criticized various religious beliefs. The shift from God to man began with Nietzsche, and man shifted from his rational ideals to his instinctive needs. Darwin spoke about the animal origin of this man, a theory that later fed most of the “human” trends that came after it, which reduced man to his body, and confined him to a group of psychological complexes based primarily on his instinctive needs. This is the line that later culminated in Freud’s theories in psychoanalysis, then the existential trends of Sartre and the philosophers of the twentieth century, and other trends that were based on rejecting “paternal guardianship,” whether that guardianship was from God, the father, the Pope, the authority, the value and moral system, and other trends of rebellion that extended to various political, cultural, scientific, philosophical, and social aspects.

Since man is reduced to his instinct, pleasure, interest and benefit, according to these trends, ethics must be utilitarian ethics, far from the ideals of religions and religious beliefs, as it is necessary to separate ethics from religion, because even though they represent two adjacent fields, they are two separate fields, according to the utilitarian view of ethics that must be secularized, far from religious interpretations of values, with the necessity of separating the European man from the ethics of the “Holy Book”, on the basis that the Christian view of man is that he is contaminated with deficiency and sin, which is the view that the Enlightenment rejected in the eighteenth century.

The increasing calls for separating religion from morality were contributed to by the ugly practices of the religious church institution, such as its alliance with monarchies and feudalism, its claim to spiritual mediation between God and man, and its exploitation of religion for benefit through indulgences, in addition to the practice of tyranny against thinkers and scholars, the horrific crimes of the Inquisition, and the persecution of anyone accused of violating the doctrines of the Holy Book. This led to the rejection of the “morals of the Holy Book,” according to their manifestations in the behaviors of the priestly system, and their interpretations that a number of Enlightenment thinkers linked to myths and legends, such as the ideas of “original sin,” “incarnation,” and “the divinity of Christ.” Then the call began for secular morality, which would later develop into opportunistic, instrumental morality, or pragmatic utilitarianism, after it was freed from metaphysical relationships.

Here, and in contrast to the religious approach, ethics are no longer interpreted on the basis that they are innate, stemming from the innate constitution of man, and rooted in his nature and his constant tendency towards perfection, goodness, beauty and truth, as idealist philosophy says, which links ethics to the human essence and the rational concept of duty, as we notice in the philosopher Kant, as well as Durkheim, who refused to link ethics to social interactions, and the individual’s personal experiences and expertise, but rather made them linked to the rational ideals associated with performing duty, whatever its results.

By separating religion from morality, morality became changeable and not fixed. It became a utilitarian means, not an ideal goal. It became linked to the body, not the soul, and to reality, not the ideal. It became linked to interests and benefits. Since interests and benefits are changeable and not fixed, values are changeable and not fixed. Rather, they differ from one era to another and from one society to another. What is right in one era or society became wrong in another era or society, according to the instrumentalist view of morality.

Here, ethics became a system of gradual behavior that is influenced by human experiences, personal expertise, and societal interactions, according to an interpretation that links ethics to the achievement of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. These are concepts that are rooted in the thought of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who interpreted ethics on the basis that they are behaviors that lead to the achievement of pleasure for man and the elimination of pain, even though Epicurus preferred spiritual and mental pleasure over physical and sensual pleasure.

The English philosopher Jeremy Bentham and his student John Stuart developed this utilitarian view of ethics, where actions and behaviors are justified in view of the benefit sought from them, according to Bentham’s saying: “If I find no benefit in my little finger, I will not move it,” which is a view that makes the utilitarian motive the basic incentive or the logical explanation for ethical behaviors.

After Stewart and Bentham came the philosopher of “pragmatic ethics”, John Dewey, who linked ethics more closely to instrumentalism, to benefits and interests, indicating that since interests change, ethics change accordingly, and that ethics is what achieves benefit and pleasure and keeps away harm and pain. Dewey also linked ethics to scientific development, as “societies achieve moral progress, to the extent that they achieve scientific progress”, which is the idea that indicates that values can develop, as knowledge and science develop, and it is a hypothesis that may not hold up in the face of the reality of using innovations in weapon technology, outside the value and moral frameworks.

According to all this shift in concepts, Sinwar's courage becomes a kind of absurdity, nihilism, and meaninglessness, and other dangerous descriptions that do not take into account the importance of constants in the lives of nations and peoples, and even the importance of moral constants for a people under an occupation that is superior to it in armament and power, which makes adherence to values and principles, and supporting the moral system important to compensate for the difference in armament. If the Israeli occupation possesses material power, then it is necessary to preserve the moral and spiritual power of the Palestinians, to compensate for the huge difference in material power that is in favor of the occupying state. Also, canceling the traditional view of morality is dangerous at the level of creating inspiring models that remain incentives for resistance and the continuation of the struggle.

Underestimating the quality of courage - as a moral value - is a mistake made by those who wanted to criticize the policies followed, but they went beyond criticizing what could be criticized from the variables represented in the policies of the resistance fighters, considering them human beings who make mistakes and are right, to criticizing the moral and spiritual foundations of the resistance, these foundations that are among the authentic constants necessary for the continuation of the struggle of a people who have been groaning under occupation for more than seventy years.

*Quoted from Al-Quds Al-Arabi