After several botched attempts at jumpstarting a revolt against their respective regimes, would-be protesters in Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Oman put out a call to hire mundasseen (مندسّين infiltrators) to help saw strife and ignite protests. Currently, there are 173 such calls/ads roaming the web and social media. After witnessing the success of the mundasseen in wreaking havoc in Libya and Syria, protesters started forming a special task force in their respective country to import, enlist, and hire hoards of mundaseen.
According to Hatem who wishes that his identity and location remain anonymous, “it has been difficult to mobilize people against the regime without the mundasseen.” After being pressed, he admitted that their protester counterparts in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria were begging people to protest to no avail during the first weeks of the so-called protests. He relayed that most people would tell the measly number of protesters “give me one reason to protest against our leaders! Can you give me one? Can you? Eh khalas.” Only after the mundasseen were introduced to the struggle did the protests take off. Asked about the mundasseen’s work schedule, Hatem and his counterpart from a different country, `Assaf, responded by saying they work nearly 6 days a week, but they do overtime on Fridays. The only two times they took time off in both Libya and Syria was when pro-regime demonstrations were held. One mundass noted that “it really pissed me off to be a madsous for nothing on those days. I really wanted to indass, but my contract prevented me from doing so.” Another madsous responded by saying “kill ma y-dissouni I get caught but then the authorities would let me go. I never got that.” It was clear that there was a lot of confusion about the role of mundaseen. One mundass was pretty miffed about unmet expectations: “no one dasdassni.”
The mundasseen phenomenon started to worry all Arab regimes and their permanent leaders or their sons. In an undisclosed location last Friday, Arab leaders got together and chanted for minutes:
“الدكتاتوريون يريدون اسقاط المندسّين”
This move, repeated for three consecutive weeks now, irked the protesters in various Arab countries. Such marches by Arab dictators were viewed as disruptive, considering each dictator came to the dictators’ demonstration with 2 or 3 hundred cars full of bodyguards and cold water bottles. Protesters doubted that these were indeed the authentic leaders and pointed to the possibility of upscale mundasseen staging these marches. Two dictators educated in the west (which made them modern and open-minded) denied such claims and asserted that only dictators participated, and that it is utter dishonesty to say otherwise. One of them asserted that “[T]his is a dirty attempt to delegitimize our needs and make it look like there’s no reason for us to speak out in defiance of the mahzala taking place in the Arab street with the support of the low-life mundasseen.”
The conflict, charges, and counter-charges continue to this day. All the while more than 7 new Schools for training and graduating mundaseen were erected in various parts of the Arab world. Each mundass gets trained in local settings where they undergo rigorous procedures that equip them to do their job. Clearly, the price of one mundass, even if they do not perfect the host country’s dialect, let alone skin color(s) and religious affiliation, has reached $1200 per week (اللغلوغ الواحد باربعطعشر جينيه). At least one third of the mundasseen graduates complained about late payment, non-payment, and even abuse by protesters. Given that Arab regimes consider most of the protesters mundasseen, and considering that protesters across the Arab world reached several million (after Egypt), it is estimated that the natural rights of at least 3.7 million of the mundasseen were compromised or outright violated. In response, Human Rice Watch launched a campaign to defend and restore their rights.