In the Age of Collapsing Empires: On the Arabs’ Lost Moment and the Death of Global Conscience
By Dr. Mohammad Al-Ayyoubi
"We live in a world ruled by power, not morality."
What was once an academic warning decades ago has now become a lived, daily reality—especially in our Arab world, which stands frozen outside the arc of time, watching a world in decline without being part of any emerging alternative.
The United States, which long positioned itself as a ““political deity above humanity,” is now approaching a historical impasse. It is faltering in and is poised to lose its long-term strategic competition with China. This is not an emotional statement, but rather a sober assessment aligned with leading American intellectuals like Emmanuel Todd, who describe the West’s decline not only as an economic failure but as a moral and civilizational one. Are we witnessing the collapse of the global moral order?
Western Civilization Fractured: From “Liquid Globalization” to Imperial Retreat
What is happening today cannot be understood through traditional political tools. The Western system—built on the exploitation of peoples and the subjugation of the weak under the guise of “democracy” and “modernity”—can no longer even sustain the illusion of legitimacy.
The liquidity described by Zygmunt Bauman governs every domain. Political certainties have vanished. There is no social project. Even the pretense of a shared global morality has collapsed. What “globalization” left in its wake is not a connected world, but mass graves scattered across the Global South—from Gaza to Khartoum, from Sanaa to Beirut.
Meanwhile, China rises—not as a moral counterweight, but as a land-based empire with a different toolkit and a similar logic of dominance. The world is not merely shifting from a unipolar to a multipolar order—it is entering an era of ruthless competition, where every power seeks supremacy atop the rubble of international law.
America: An Empire That Has Lost Faith in Itself
The United States is not a country in crisis—it is a civilization project in crisis. What Thomas Friedman called the “Great American Decline” is a softened acknowledgment of a much harsher reality: the US-led empire has lost its legitimacy.
Since the invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and more recently its proxy war in Ukraine, Washington has accumulated defeats masked as diplomacy. Its failure to rally European allies behind the Ukraine war, to curb China's rise, or to isolate Russia underscores the growing impotence of its hegemonic tools.
More dangerously, the “New Middle East” project— replicated under various names—remains active. What we are witnessing today, in terms of Arab fragmentation, normalized relations with the enemy at no cost and the erosion of social cohesion, is no accident. It is part of a strategic restructuring of the region to secure US interests, even as its global presence wanes.
The Zionist Crisis: A Fragile Project Without Anchors
Once promoted as “the only democracy in the Middle East,” “Israel” is now entrenched in its deepest internal crisis. Despite its technological and military prowess, “Israel” is unable to generate the societal or cultural foundations needed to sustain regional leadership. Today, “Israel” offers no moral or humanitarian project. What is happening in Gaza is not a war— it is a live-streamed massacre, met with deafening silence from the so-called international community. No significant Western voices have spoken out—no governments, no major newspapers, no universities, no human rights organizations. All have entered a collective state of denial.
Because the Zionist project was not built on the foundation of a traditional “state”, but rather on a mythic “promise”, its collapse will not be political but symbolic. Gaza has stripped away its moral facade and exposed the fragility of “Israel”—not as a military entity, but as a project devoid of any ethical justification.
A Dead Global Conscience: When Massacres Become Routine
"Contemporary barbarism" is perhaps the most fitting term for today’s global condition. What we are witnessing is not merely the breakdown of the international order—it is a complete moral extinction. Once, massacres were hidden in the shadows. Today, they occur in plain sight—and the world remains unmoved.
Is the West morally dead? The more honest answer may be that it was never truly alive. Rather, it has mastered the art of cloaking its crimes in the language of liberty. What is unfolding in Gaza, as well as what occurred in Syria and Yemen, is not just the failure of global governance—it is the collapse of the Western idea itself: an idea that promised liberty, but delivered colonialism; that preached democracy, but practiced racism; that claimed to uphold peace, but waged endless wars.
The Arabs: Present at the Feast of Ruin, Yet Absent from the Stage of History
Caught between a collapsing West and a rising East, the Arab world has lost its bearings. The Gulf behaves as if it were a standalone center. The Maghreb clings to a Mediterranean identity. The Levant suffers from state disintegration. And the Arab League has become little more than a data archive.
This is a moment of profound disorientation. There is no unified Arab vision, no strategic roadmap, no shared identity. Even the concept of “Arab identity” is under dispute, replaced by dangerous alternatives—sectarianism, regionalism, or “Abrahamic” constructs that erase memory and sanitize bloodshed.
In this chaos, an urgent question arises: Is there an Arab resistance project? Resistance without renaissance is futile. Renaissance without intellectual awakening is impossible. And awakening cannot begin without freeing the mind. This is the core issue. Rejection is not enough. We must produce. We don’t need resistance that merely reacts—we need one that creates. Not slogans, but systems of thought. Not zeal, but intellect.
Resistance Begins with the Mind: A Role for Intellectuals, Not Politicians
This is not the task of generals or presidents. It is the duty of thinkers. Political action without a supporting intellectual framework leads only to tyranny or chaos.
We must rebuild the Arab mind—not by idolizing the past, but by imagining a viable future. Identity is not static—it is a continuous act of construction. Arabism must not be opposed to freedom; it should embody it. What we need is a democratic Arabism grounded in justice, equality, and mutual recognition. This Arabism is not hostile to Iran, Turkey, or the Kurds. It aspires to integrate them under a shared “civilizational neighborhood.”
We are not a people of hatred. We are a people of partnership. We do not seek protection. We seek respect.
What Is to Be Done? As the World Dies, Let Us Build Another
"We are at a turning point in the history of mankind. Either we act—or we perish".
It is a harsh truth, but an unavoidable one. The world does not need more speeches. It needs initiatives. Resistance is not just a rifle—it is also a book, an idea, a school, and a factory. There is no salvation in waiting.
Whether the world turns toward Washington or Beijing, the answer must begin with a hard question: What is to be done?
The solution is not found in leaders, but in thinkers. It is not outside—it is within. It is not in the past—it is in the future.
We must reclaim the Arab mind—not to dominate the world, but to preserve what remains of our humanity.
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