Everything before us today refers to a further retreat from democracy. I won't say that the retreat from democracy across the world began with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

However, what I want to say is that this invasion and its consequences have upgraded the worldwide retreat from democracy to a critical level that establishes a new era contradictory to democracy and human rights, and to a spiral of confrontations, wars, conflicts and economic crises, as is the case in Europe and the world since after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Wars, muscular policies and invasions portend a series of economic, energy and food crises that will hit the whole world in various aspects of life. Major repercussions in this regard manifest themselves in the decline of democracy and human rights in international relations, and the increasingly favorable climate for dictatorships and nationalist and racist chauvinism in Europe and the whole world.

I am not one to be pessimistic, but our siding with the values of democracy and human rights requires us to realize the risks of global retreat from democracy, and to come up with appropriate initiatives to confront the effects of global wars and conflicts and protect ourselves from a potential global change that may drag humanity back into conflicts in which there is no room for human rights values, and the world will go back to a time of wars, brutality, invasion, massacres and mass killings.

Europe and America’s responsibility towards democracy brings them face to face with their commitments to cope with today’s great challenges to democracy, as confronting fascism is not achieved by proceeding the same way of retreating from human values, democracy and human rights, as was the case of international relations in the period following the World War II with its horrific tragedies that shook Europe.

 

Dear all friends,

Our today’s meeting to explore the future of democracy is convened  amid this growing retreat of the world from democracy and in light of a setback in the global trends acting as a backstop to the system of modern values that prevailed from the end of World War II to the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s.

We meet today to work together in the face of unprecedented global risks arising from the Russian war on Ukraine and its resulting challenges like the energy crisis especially in Europa and food crisis in the world in general, which has created global unrest and tensions in international relations.

We meet today to discuss the means of our joint action to confront the retreat from democracy and human rights in a world experiencing growing risks of fascisms, wars and political unrest.

We meet today while Europe is experiencing a war of invasion nobody has ever imagined, a thing that has come to complete the circle of turning on democracy, human rights and the values of the modern state, which began with the complicity of Western democracies with the wars against the Arab Spring revolutions in the past decade. The return of fascism to pose a threat to Europe is not disconnected from events and transformations.

When the international community remains silent about fascist wars and major powers act as being safe from their threats just because they are taking place in very far regions, one should then be sure that their consequences will hit everyone.

Autocratic coup regimes, extremist groups and sectarian militias have found themselves recognized and immune from accountability for their crimes. As a result, they without hesitation declared their wars on peaceful popular revolutions and societies as punishment for their demands for change, freedom and democracy, and for daring to stand against them.

A structural change and a reconsideration of global politics are required due to the threats to democracy, Europe and the whole world. Change and flexibility to meet new challenges starts first from a change to global trends in the face of all threats to democracy, human rights and the values of freedom, peace and global stability.

Let’s be frank and say that change requires a broad global vision in which the rise of fascism, be it the Middle East and Africa or in Europe and the West, is categorized as a real risk to everyone.

Today’s world, namely the global order and major Western countries, has remained silent on fascist regimes, I mean Iran and Saudi Arabia, in the belief that they pose no threat to them, while these two regimes are responsible for hostile policies and interventions that have led to civil wars, unrest, state collapses and the rise of militias as proxy actors.

The issues of democracy, justice, civil society and human rights should be taken as one package, without dealing with according to considerations that divide the world into a civilized part and a non-civilized and inhuman one.

Do you remember the global promises to spread democracy and the resulting high expectations with the end of the Cold War?

Over three decades ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall built by World War II took place. Nevertheless, today at the early second decade of the twenty-first century, many walls are being built between countries, peoples, civilizations, and individuals.

While expectations, with the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, were promising us the growth of emerging democracies and the commitment of states to standards of human rights and good governance, the world followed another path leading to the decline of democracy after it served as a value role model for the whole world.

The major democracies have chosen anti-immigrant and overly isolationist policies indifferent to a global record of violations unparalleled in modern history, on pretexts of protecting their interests and security.

Democracy and human rights are no longer a guarantee that is highly valued and taken as a criterion stressed by major powers in their international relations. In their place, unspoken understandings emerged, understandings that are blind enough to be complicit in witnessed massacres and major crimes against humanity.

When will we realize that we live in one world linked by intertwined interests and overlapping relationships and affected by their common destinies, no matter how diverse they are?

Our struggle for common human values ​​that uphold democracy and human rights will remain a global goal that unites people of different races, religions and countries.

For such orientations, we are gathering here to raise our voice and express our determination to build an intertwined global vision that restores the values​​of democracy and human rights, and redefines people based on their common human affiliation, the mutual interests and the common destiny of their lives and world, not based on their ethnic and racial conflicts and fascist wars imposed on them by fascist regimes and the personal adventures of war-thirsty leaders who leave behind only corpses, graves and ruins.

In the face of the war and invasion as a threat to Europe, which portends a possible development of  this war into a world one, the possible collapse of the global economy and a series of energy and food crises, and in the face of coups, anti-Arab spring counter-revolutions, tyrants and sectarian and extremist groups, we have come together to confirm our adherence to the values of freedom and democracy and re-emphasize our aspirations to build a new world where civil values, human rights and equality are respected, and peace, security, and the spirit of responsibility and freedom prevail.

Years before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and through many major global platforms, I had always emphasized that we all live on the same planet, and that building walls of isolation along the own borders will protect nobody from the consequences of the slide of some parts of this world into wars, chaos, political turmoil, and economic and living crises.

In my view, the European dilemma arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine is an opportune moment for us to work together towards transformations and structural changes that help us as a global civil society unite in the face of new fascisms and widespread wars and their resulting series of crises.

It is the right time to remind the Western democracies that they have abandoned us, abandoned our region’s freedom and democracy revolutions, and allowed the regional anti-democratic axes of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia wage their war of revenge on our societies only because we wanted to be human like others. We have revolted peacefully for dignity, the rule of law, civil society, equality and human rights.

The insistence on demonizing the Arab Spring is actually support for fascist Putinism and its oppressive battles of invasion in Ukraine, which thus prolongs the suffering of Europe. Indeed, the silence over retaliatory wars on our peoples and our nations- Yemen as an example - led by Saudi Arabia and Iran puts Europe in the position of supporter for fascism.

The crimes of Saudi Arabia and Iran in Yemen and other Arab Spring countries are not different from those of fascist Putinism. The demonization of the Arab Spring is a clear expression of turning on democracy and human rights. Any global trend to restore respect for democracy, freedom and human rights will first have to give its word towards this part of the world, which is exposed to collective punishment and revenge wars because of its peaceful popular revolutions in 2011.

Forgive me, my friends, as whenever I try to reflect on the crisis of global democracy, I find myself returning to the essence of change process represented by the Arab Spring, and how this was a real test to international positions on all issues of democracy, human rights, and the desired transformation towards civil society and the modern state.

All the slogans repeated by the international community about supporting democracy and the right of peoples to determine their own destiny and choose their rulers evaporated due to its position on the Arab Spring revolutions. We faced a world war that continues to this day.

We have not violated the laws of the universe when we raised our voices for change. At that moment, the autocratic regimes had reached the point of complete failure. Unemployment, poverty, oppression, repression, crackdown on freedoms, corruption, and the passing of republics to sons were prevailing during the pre-Arab Spring period.

Terrorism was a product of dictatorships, whether through their sponsorship of extremist groups, or as a result of their economic and political failure and leading their societies to a dead end.

Millions of Arab youth found themselves without hopes and life chances. We did not make revolutions out of nowhere. In fact, the Arab revolutions should have been earlier, and that’s why their outbreak provided us with a historical opportunity to catch up with the times.

But the global order provided support for the counter-revolutions led regionally by Saudi Arabia and the UAE that pumped hundreds of billions to confront our aspirations for democratic countries where citizenship and the rule of law prevail. We had not attacked them, nor did we declare war against them, but they saw in our freedom a threat to them and in our calls for change an attack on them.

In conclusion, I assure you that fascism will be definitely defeated and will go to the dustbin of history, whatever the price and the scale of killing, intimidation and destruction. The values of democracy, freedom and human rights will remain as long as people exist on earth.

Like old ones, new fascisms are doomed. The new world will only be what we believe in. Glory to the continuous human struggle for democracy, freedom, justice and human rights!