BEYOND PALESTINE: THE UMMAH’S CRISIS OF SELECTIVE SOLIDARITY AND THE MYTH OF A SUPERMAN SAVIOR

Sat 19 July 2025:

The Superman 2025 film has been widely interpreted as an allegory for Palestinian resistance—an oppressed people yearning for a hero to break their chains. But this reading reveals a deeper, more troubling reality: the Muslim world has turned Palestine into a symbolic Superman, a singular moral cause that absolves the Ummah of confronting its own fragmentation, complicity, and the many other injustices suffered by Muslims globally. By elevating Palestine as the defining struggle, we have unconsciously created a hierarchy of suffering—where some Muslim lives matter more than others, and where solidarity is performative rather than transformative.

The Superman Trap: Palestine as Moral Absolution

Superman is a savior myth—an external force that rescues the helpless. The danger in framing Palestine this way is that it allows the Ummah to outsource its responsibility. We march for Gaza, yet ignore the Rohingya. We rage over Israeli bombs, but stayed silent on Assad’s prisons. We boycott Starbucks while our smartphones are built with Uyghur forced labor. This is not solidarity; it is selective conscience.

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Ibn Khaldun and the Necessity of Collective Sight

Fourteen centuries ago, long before the idea of the nation state, Ibn Khaldun warned that a polity’s rise and fall depends on ʿasabiyyah—the fierce social cohesion that fuses tribe into nation. Heroes may catalyse, but only solidarity sustains. The kaiju’s eye-gouging in Superman is a visceral reminder: when vision fails, monsters grow. Our task is not to import a Kryptonian or to enthrone Palestine as a singular martyr; it is to weave Rohingya grief, Uyghur silence, Kashmiri curfews, Sudanese famines and Gazan rubble into one tapestry of struggle.

It was about the collective strength of a people. When we reduce the Ummah’s struggle to Palestine alone, we violate this principle. We pretend that if Palestine is freed, all other wounds will heal. But what of the Muslims in Kashmir, still under siege? The Muslims in the Sahel, slaughtered in forgotten wars? The refugees drowning in the Mediterranean, abandoned by both East and West?

Palestine is not our Superman. It cannot—and must not—bear the burden of representing all Muslim suffering.

The Ottoman Lesson: Justice Without Hierarchy

The Ottomans, for all their flaws, did not prioritize one Muslim struggle over another. When Spain persecuted its Muslims, the Ottomans intervened. When the British starved Iraq, Ottoman ships carried food. When the Circassians were ethnically cleansed, Istanbul gave them refuge. The Ottomans understood that the Ummah’s strength lay in its refusal to accept a hierarchy of victims.

Today, we do the opposite. We amplify Palestine (rightly) but let other atrocities fade into silence. This is not just moral failure—it is strategic suicide. A body that only feels pain in one limb while ignoring gangrene in the rest will not survive.

The False Allies: Russia, China, and the Illusion of Resistance

Some argue that focusing on Palestine is pragmatic—that it’s the most visible struggle, the one that unites us. But this is a dangerous illusion. Russia bombs Syria while posing as Palestine’s friend. China imprisons a million Uyghurs while voting pro-Palestine at the UN. These regimes exploit our emotional fixation on Palestine to whitewash their own crimes against Muslims.

The Ottomans were ruthless realists—they knew empires only act in self-interest. Why do we keep falling for the same trick? If we demand freedom for Palestinians but not Uyghurs, we are not resisting empire—we are enabling it.

The Delusion of “Pure” Resistance

Some claim Turkiye isn’t “truly” resisting because it still trades with the West or engages with Israel. But this purist mindset is why the Muslim world keeps losing. The Ottomans traded with Venice while battling it, borrowed European guns while defeating European armies, and paid tribute to the Mongols only to overthrow them later. Survival isn’t about grand gestures—it’s about patience and repositioning.
Turkiye’s critics—both Western liberals and Muslim idealists—fail to grasp this. They want either total submission or defiance. Turkiye offers a third path: calculated resistance.

The Way Forward: Beyond Symbolism, Toward Strategy

The Ummah doesn’t need a Superman. It needs:

More Turkiyes – Nations that refuse to be boxed into “with us or against us” binaries.
Economic Leverage – Turkey’s drone industry, defense exports, and energy projects show how Muslim nations can build power without begging the West.
Selective Alliances – Cooperate with Russia on Syria, China on infrastructure, Europe on trade—but never trusts any of them.
Rejection of Victim Hierarchy – Gaza matters, but so does Sudan. Palestine is not a “get out of jihad free” card for ignoring other oppressed Muslims.

Conclusion: The Ottoman Playbook in the 21st CenturyTurkiye is not perfect. But it is proving that Muslim nations can navigate this multipolar world without surrendering to Washington, Moscow, or Beijing. The Ottomans lasted 600 years because they mastered the art of flexible defiance—alliances shifted, but sovereignty remained.

The Superman 2025 narrative is dangerous because it suggests salvation comes from outside. Turkiye’s example proves otherwise: Muslims must save themselves—not with slogans, but with strategy. Palestine will only be free when the Ummah stops waiting for heroes and starts acting as one united front.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Independent Press.

Author:

Mariam Jooma Çarikci

Mariam Jooma Çarikci is an Independent researcher, focused on the politics of Africa, Zionism in Africa, and Türkiye’s evolving role in the Middle East and Africa.

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