The Arab World’s Sacred Lies — and the Parody That Finally Told the Truth

By Khaled Salih — Third Essay in the Pax Arabic Series

A Trilogy of Disillusionment — and a Reckoning Long Overdue

When I wrote my first article, “A New Pattern for a Cursed Landscape,” I believed I was simply mapping the contours of a region defined by its perpetual contradictions. The Middle East has long been a graveyard of illusions, but I hoped that tracing its fault lines might at least clarify the shape of the disaster. That first piece laid out the pathology: a political culture that manufactures rhetoric faster than it produces justice, and an Arab world forever claiming resistance while perfecting repression.

My second article, “The Song of the Oppressor and the Parody of the Oppressed,” pushed deeper. It exposed what more of Pax Arabica, the unspoken architecture holding together an Arab imperial order built not on unity or liberation, but on enforced silence. It examined Arab states not as victims but as perpetrators, especially toward the peoples they insist on calling “minorities.”

Then came a message from a friend. After reading that first piece, he sent me a link with a casual, almost mischievous note:

“You should see this.”

It was the parody of “Where Are the Millions?” — an attack so raw, so blisteringly honest, that it felt as though someone had ripped the façade off the Arab nationalist imagination and thrown it into the street for public autopsy.

If the first essay diagnosed the political disease, and the second charted its imperial anatomy, this third piece is the scream from the victims — the reply from those who have lived under Arab nationalism’s boot and finally found a language, however crude or furious, to name their oppressors.

This is the final article of the trilogy.

Not a conclusion — an indictment.

It brings the threads together:

• the illusion of Arab unity,

• the imperial reality of Arab domination,

• and the new cultural moment when the mask slips because the oppressed have begun to speak.

This third essay is the Kurdish rejoinder to a story that never wanted to include us.

And like any true reckoning, it does not apologize. It does not soften.

It tells the truth — finally, and without permission.

“Where Are the Millions?” — An Anthem of a Mythic Arab World

The original song, “Where Are the Millions?”, thunders with the confidence of a people who believe themselves eternally righteous and eternally wronged. Julia Boutros, in her 1990s Tripoli performance, sings as though summoning an army of sleeping titans.

But from Kurdistan, the view is different.

The anthem’s cries for “Arab honour,” “Arab rage,” and “Arab unity” ring hollow for those who remember Arab tanks, Arab generals, and Arab chemical warheads. To Kurds and Amazighs, the song is not a hymn of resistance but the soundtrack of an empire nostalgic for its own imagined purity.

Boutros’ performance under Qaddafi’s dictatorship — a regime that imprisoned, erased, and Arabized — remains one of the most unintentionally revealing spectacles in modern Arab cultural history.

An anthem of liberation performed inside a police state.

A cry for honour broadcast by a regime that had none.

This contradiction is the seed of everything that follows.

The Parody: When the Empire’s Subjects Finally Speak

Then comes the parody.

A cultural detonation.

An act of heresy.

Where Boutros rallies the “millions,” the parody asks the only honest question:

“Where are the pimps?” — وين الگواويد؟

Seven syllables — and the entire mythology collapses.

The “Arab people” become “the lying people” (الشعب الكذّاب).

“Arab honour” becomes “Arab shame” (العار العربي).

“Arab rage” becomes “Arab hypocrisy” (النفاگ العربي).

And then comes the line no Arab nationalist has ever dared utter:

“We killed, chased away, displaced more than the children of Hitler.”

Not against Israelis, Americans, or imagined crusaders —

but against Kurds.

Against Amazighs.

Against the empire’s internal victims.

This is the truth Arab nationalism has buried for seventy years:

the oppressed can also be oppressors.

And in the Middle East, they often are.

The Collapse of Honour, Victory, and Sacred Symbols

False Honour

Boutros sings of a noble Arab people rising for the land.

The parody answers with a reminder: these same “honourable” people massacred Kurds, erased Amazigh identity, and crushed dissent.

Honour, in this version, is costume — a performance for outsiders.

False Victory

The original claims: “We are the victorious.”

The parody counters:

“We steal, we plunder — we are the victorious ones.”

This is the empire’s true victory:

victory over the weak, not the strong.

False Faith

Religion becomes theatre.

Martyrdom becomes choreography.

The parody exposes how Arab regimes swear by the qur’ān and invoke Omar al-Mukhtar while behaving like petty tyrants and provincial conquerors. When pimps carry the flag of victory, the sacred is not desecrated — it is exposed as a political prop.

This is hypocrisy at its purest, the kind Hitchens loved to dismantle.

Arab Hypocrisy and Mental Dissonance: The Psychological Ruins

1. Genocide Inside, Solidarity Outside

Arab nationalism has always preached unity against foreign threats while committing atrocities against peoples with its artificial borders.

The parody reminds us graphically: the Arab empire created many Halabjas.

2. The Inversion of Shame

The parody depicts total humiliation before Israel — and then the proud declaration:

“We do not feel shame.”

This is not courage.

It is denial raised to the level of metaphysics.

3. The Rhetoric-Reality Chasm

Boutros sings of honour and history.

The parody answers:

“All our history is a lie.”

Not because Arabs lack history, but because they replaced it with mythology.

The Final Mirror

The parody does what no Arab nationalist text, song, or intellectual has dared:

it tells the truth from below.

It lets the empire’s victims speak.

It turns “Where are the millions?” into the question it always should have been:

Where are the victims in your story — and why did you bury them?

This trilogy ends as all imperial stories do:

with the mirror.

Arab nationalism has exhausted its excuses, its martyrs, its myths, and its miracles.

All that remains is its reflection.

It is not heroic.

It is not noble.

It is not revolutionary.

It is what the parody names it:

A society drowning in denial, intoxicated by its own lies, and finally — finally — unable to silence the voices of those it tried to erase.

And as Christopher Hitchens might say:

The beginning of wisdom is the destruction of sacred illusions — especially the ones a society builds about itself.

Here are extracts from the Parody and the Original.

The Parody

Where are the pimps?

This text uses extremely derogatory language (الگواويد / Al-Qawawid) and highly popular imagery (in Middle Eastern context) concerning sexual domination to express contempt for Arab leaders and societies, juxtaposed with claims of violence against specific ethnic groups.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedوين وين وين، / وين الگواويد؟Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhere, where, where, / Where are the pimps/cuckolds?Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedالشعب الكذّاب وين؟ / النفاگ العربي وين؟Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhere is the lying people? / Where is the Arab hypocrisy?Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedالعار العربي وين؟ / الكذب العربي وين؟Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhere is the Arab shame? / Where is the Arab lie?Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedوين الگواويد؟ / وين وينText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhere are the pimps/cuckolds? / Where, whereText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedقتلنا، طّرّدنا، شرّدنا أكتر من بني هيتلرText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWe killed, chased away, displaced more than the sons of Hitler.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedنطّرّد، نقتل، نشرّد الشعب الکردي الحرText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWe chase away, kill, displace the free Kurdish people.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedيشنق، يدفن، يقبر، نحن ما نهتمText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedHe hangs, he buries, he inters, we do not care.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedدم الکردي الاحمر رخيص، متل عصیر رمانText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThe red blood of the Kurd is cheap, like pomegranate juice.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedقتلنا، طّرّدنا، شرّدنا أكتر من بني هيتلرText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWe killed, chased away, displaced more than the sons of Hitler.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedنطّرّد، نقتل، نشرّد الشعب الامازیق الحرText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWe chase away, kill, displace the free Amazigh people.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedنسکت، نخرس، لا نشوف، نحن ما نهتمText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWe silence, we shut up, we do not see, we do not care.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedالدم الکردي الاحمر رخيص، متل عصیر رمانText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThe red blood of the Kurd is cheap, like pomegranate juice.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedنطردهم من البلاد بالملایینText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWe chase them out of the country by the millions.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedنسرق، نسهب، نحن المنتصرینText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWe steal, we plunder, we are the victorious ones.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedوين وين وين، / وين الگواويد؟Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhere, where, where, / Where are the pimps/cuckolds?Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedإسرائیل ینیچنا / إسرائیل یرکبناText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIsrael (sexually dominates/violates) us / Israel rides us (dominates us).Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedفی منتصف النهار / فخورین، لا نشعر بالعارText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIn the middle of the day. / Proud, we do not feel shame.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedکل تأریخنا أکذوبة / نصدر الإرهابText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAll our history is a lie. / We export terrorism.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedصناع الکراهیة / وين وين وين، / وين الگواويد؟Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedManufacturers of hatred. / Where, where, where, / Where are the pimps/cuckolds?Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedسرگنا شجر الرمان، من کردستانText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWe stole the pomegranate trees, from Kurdistan.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedما عندنا الإیمان، نحن الگواویدText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWe do not have faith, we are the pimps/cuckolds.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedینچنا إسرائیل / یرکبنا إسرائیلText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIsrael (sexually dominates/violates) us / Israel rides us.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedمن الخلف و الأمام / من الفم و الأمامText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFrom the back and the front / From the mouth and the front.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedلا نشعر بالعارText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWe do not feel shame.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedنحلف بالقرءان، بدم عمر المختارText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWe swear by the Qur’an, by the blood of Omar Al-Mukhtar.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedعندنا رایة الانتصار / بید الگواویدText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWe have the flag of victory / In the hands of the pimps/cuckolds.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedوين وين وين، / العار العربي وين؟Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhere, where, where, / Where is the Arab shame?Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedالكذب العربي وين؟ / الشرف العربي وين؟Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhere is the Arab lie? / Where is the Arab honor?Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedوين وين وين، / وين وين وين، / وين الگواويد؟Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhere, where, where, / Where, where, where, / Where are the pimps/cuckolds?

The Original

Julia Boutros - “Wein El Malayeen” (Where Are the Millions?)

This song is a powerful call to action, questioning the absence of the Arab masses while declaring commitment to resistance and identifying opponents through religious/historical allegory.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedآه آه آه، آه آه آه / آه، آه، آه (Repeat)Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAh Ah Ah, Ah Ah Ah / Ah, Ah, Ah (Repeat)Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedوين، وين، وين (Repeat) / وين الملايينText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhere, where, where (Repeat) / Where are the millions?Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedالشعب العربي وين / الغضب العربي وينText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhere are the Arab people? / Where is the Arab rage?Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedالدم العربي وين / الشرف العربي وينText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhere is the Arab blood? / Where is the Arab honor?Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedوين الملايين / ويـن، ويـنText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhere are the millions? / Where, whereText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedالله معانا أقوى وأكبرمن بني صهيونText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedGod is with us, stronger and greater than the sons of Zion.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedيشنق يقتل يدفن يقبر أرضي ما بتهونText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedHe hangs, he kills, he buries, he inters—my land will not surrender/be diminished.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedدمي الأحمر راوي الأخضر في طعم الليمونText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy red blood irrigates the green with the taste of lemon.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedنار الثورات ما تسعر نحن المنتصرينText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThe fire of revolutions does not rage—we are the victorious ones.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedويـن، ويـنText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhere, whereText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedأقوى من الجبال، أكثر من الرمال (Repeat)Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedStronger than the mountains, more numerous than the sands (Repeat).Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedداخل الإعتقال نغني شهدانا حيينText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedInside detention, we sing that our martyrs are alive.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedخارج الإعتقال نقاتل لا نركع لا نلينText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedOutside detention, we fight, we do not kneel, we do not yield.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedاللي في وسط الضلوع، أقوى من الدروع (Repeat)Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThat which is within the ribs (the heart/spirit) is stronger than shields (Repeat).Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedفي صدري مخزن رشاشة ونقول خوتي وينText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIn my chest is a machine gun magazine, and we say, “Where are my brothers?”Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedنحنا الحق ونحنا الثورة وهم أصحاب الفيلText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWe are the truth and we are the revolution, and they are the People of the Elephant.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedجيل الحق وجيل الثورة طيورالأبابيلText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThe generation of truth and the generation of revolution are the Ababil birds.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedلازم يرميهم بحجارة حجارة من سجيلText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThey must strike them with stones, stones of baked clay (Sijjil).Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedلا يركع لا يسقط أسرى وكيدها في تضليلText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedHe does not kneel, he does not fall captive, and their malicious scheme is in delusion/misleading.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedلولا كتابك يبقى بينا إكتب يا زمانText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIf your writing (or your book) remains among us, write, O Time.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedأبداً ما تهون أراضينا والثورة عنوانText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedOur lands will never surrender/be diminished, and the revolution is the title/address.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedإكتب يا زمان / الثورة إيمان / الثورة عنوانText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWrite, O Time. / The revolution is faith. / The revolution is the title/address.