When cities fall...the intellectual must distance himself from the ruler and live with the miserable

Writer: Editor-in-Chief / Dr. Nasser Al-Laham

When societies collapse, buildings do not fall alone. Many things fall with it that cannot be seen with the eye: the prestige of institutions, people’s trust, the image of the future, and perhaps the language itself, when talking about justice becomes a luxury, dignity a slogan, and truth an adventure that no one is willing to pay the price for.

At such moments, the old question reappears: Where should the intellectual stand?

Does he sit in the salons close to the decision-makers, watching the devastation from behind the glass, and searching for words that will not anger the Sultan? Or does he go down to the street, to the alleys whose lights have gone out, to the homes that have lost their children, to the poor who no longer have anything to lose but their dignity?

An intellectual in times of stability can be many things. He can be a professor, researcher, critic, and writer, and differ in details and theories. But when the city begins to fall, the question becomes simpler and crueler: whose side do you stand?

The problem is not that the intellectual is close to power. Being close to power is not a crime in itself, just as staying away from it is not automatic heroism. The problem begins when proximity turns into silence, silence into justification, and justification into participation in creating the illusion.

The Sultan, whatever his name or form, loves the intellectual who gives him a beautiful language for what cannot be justified. He loves those who say that hunger is a phase, that fear is a necessity, that oppression is temporary, and that people do not understand the complexities of politics. He is most loved by those who can turn tragedy into elegant speech, turn the victim into a number, and turn responsibility into destiny.

But the job of the intellectual is not to make cruelty acceptable.

His job, especially in moments of collapse, is to ask the question that no one wants to hear.

Who is responsible?

Who pushed people into this misery?

Why did citizens lose confidence in their institutions?

Why has the poor always been the one who pays the price for the mistakes of the powerful?

Why does talking about freedom turn into an accusation, while silence turns into a virtue?

The intellectual who lives among the miserable does not necessarily become wiser, but he becomes closer to the truth. He hears what office holders do not hear. He knows that the numbers that appear in reports are not life itself. He knows that the rise in prices is not just a number, that the loss of a home is not passing news, and that the death of a human being cannot be summed up by the phrase “human losses.”

There, in the margins, the meanings of words change.

Homeland is not just a map.

Dignity is not a political speech.

Freedom is not a press conference.

Poverty is not only a lack of money, but a daily feeling that the whole world has decided that you are less valuable than others.

Therefore, the intellectual who chooses to stay with people at the moment of collapse does not do so out of love for poverty or in search of romantic heroism. He simply refuses to become a witness from afar.

In falling cities, people need someone to listen to them before they need someone to explain to them the reasons for their fall.

They need a journalist who is not afraid to ask.

And to a poet who is not ashamed of crying.

And to a professor who does not turn the university into an echo chamber.

And to a writer who does not measure his words by the level of satisfaction they will leave with the influential person.

Authority changes, governments go, ministers leave their offices, and palaces that seem eternal one day become mere pictures in history books. As for the words written in a time of fear, they remain a witness to their authors.

History does not only ask the intellectual: What did you write?

Rather, he also asks him: Where were you when people were suffering?

Have you been on the front lines with those who have nothing?

Or were you looking for a safe seat near those who have everything?

And here lies perhaps the most difficult tests of culture.

To know when silence becomes an attitude.

When does acquiescence turn into complicity?

When will defending stability become merely a defense of the privileges of those who do not pay the price of chaos?

But staying away from authority does not mean that the intellectual turns into a permanent opponent of every authority, or that he replaces truth with a slogan, or that he applauds every protest simply because it is a protest. The true intellectual does not live on applause, neither from the authorities nor from the street. His mission is more difficult: to maintain his mind when he is angry, to maintain his conscience when he disagrees, and to tell the truth even when the truth is uncomfortable for the people closest to him.

He does not stand with the poor because they are always right, but because he knows that a society that does not hear its poverty, does not see its oppression, and does not give the weak a voice is a society that is walking toward an abyss even if its streets are lit.

When cities fall, the value of those who remain among the people suddenly becomes apparent.

Those who didn't leave when everyone else left.

Who knew the names of the victims, not just their numbers.

Those who sat next to a mother who lost her son, next to a worker who lost his job, next to a child who no longer knows why his school was closed, and next to a man whose house became a tent.

These people do not have palaces or official platforms, but they do have something much rarer: memory.

Memory in times of collapse is more dangerous than power.

Because power can change the narrative, but it cannot always erase people's memories.

Therefore, when societies collapse and cities fall, perhaps the most important question is not: What will politicians do?

Politicians will look for their way out.

Nor: What will the elites do?

The elites will search for their positions.

Rather, the most important question is: What will the intellectual do?

Will he choose to be a voice in the palace, or a conscience in the street?

Will he write what the powerful want, or what the powerless need to hear?

Will he stand at the gates of power and wait for a confession, or will he walk in alleys where cameras do not reach?

In the end, people may forget many of the names of the rulers.

But they do not forget those who stood with them when they were alone.

Therefore, when cities become narrow, the intellectual does not need a larger palace, but rather a greater distance from the ruler, and a smaller distance from the human being.

In good times, everyone can talk about people.

But in times of fall, only a few choose to live among them.