Following President Donald Trump’s statement that he would annex the Strait of Hormuz to the United States, an American spokesperson clarified that the president had been joking. And if the commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful military is joking, then thank God there is still room for humor in these critical times. But how is a frightened world supposed to distinguish between what is serious and what is merely a joke?
From threats to wipe Persian civilization off the face of the earth, to threats directed at Europe and attacks on its leaders, and warnings of the largest military strike since the war—where does reality end and rhetoric begin?
The truth is that we have understood very little about the war unfolding around us. Fleets fill the seas and the surrounding region, yet we have heard of no decisive battle. We are supposed to believe that Iran is standing firm in the face of American power. But can a country be considered victorious when it mortgages its economy for decades without end?
The entire world appears to be in a state of collective unawareness.
The distinguished thinker Yahya El-Nemnem invokes the story of “The Madwoman” from the works of Naguib Mahfouz to paint a detailed picture of the collective loss of reason prevailing today. A war begins with a false rumor that a young man has been killed. Then the young man appears alive—but by that point, the war has already given birth to another war.
Similar stories can be found across peoples and throughout history. During the Lebanese Civil War, Ghassan Tueni wrote a play titled The Night of Madness, portraying how an entire country was afflicted by a collective bout of insanity. In 1860, a war erupted between the Druze and the Maronites in which 60,000 people were killed, all because of a dispute that began among a group of young boys.
No one knows exactly how wars begin—or how they end.
What we do know is that American diplomats have not returned to their homes or countries for some time, and neither has Iran’s foreign minister or its negotiating team. Each side denies what the other insists is true.
And it seems that both sides may be right.
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