Adeed Dawisha's article remember's Arab nationalism (See Requiem for Arab Nationalism), once a powerful force, aiming to revive the glory of Arab nation.
He talks about Nasser, the undisputed leader of Arab nationalism, and the effect of 1967 defeat.
It took some time for the light to go out on Arab nationalism, but its power generator went down in June 1967. After the Six-Day War, the slide of Arab nationalism toward political marginality became irreversible. And what finished it was the fact that Egypt, under Gamal Abdel Nasser, lost the war. Egypt's devastating defeat was Arab nationalism's mortal loss, for the fate of Arab nationalism during the struggles, triumphs, and reversals of the 1950s and 1960s was inexorably linked to Egypt and its charismatic president.
Had Syria or Jordan, or even both, lost the war, it would not have been the unmitigated disaster for Arab nationalism that it proved to be. But Arab nationalism could not survive the abject humiliation inflicted on its acknowledged prophet, who, through his shrill and overzealous propaganda machine, had promised a fabled triumph in al-Ma'raka al-Masiriya, the battle of destiny.
Arab countries and their flags
The main competitor of Arab nationalism was, of course, individual country/territorial nationalisms. Arab nationalism was all about unity and indivisibility of the proud Arab nation but gradually borders between Arabs became important.
Part of the reason for this "sanctification" of borders was that Arab political and economic elites developed a vested interest in the survival of each particular state. Not surprisingly, these elites were loath to put themselves at risk for the sake of Arab unity.So they argued that Arab nationalism was really just a license for some elites to browbeat others. The advocates of territorial nationalism also relied on geo-political and cultural arguments in making their case. They insisted that Arab nationalists had failed to understand that while various Arab states might accept an overarching Arab identity, geographic and even cultural differences were real enough to preclude an organic unity. And they were right: the decline of Arab nationalism from 1961 validated their argument.
But territorial nationalisms were not the only enemy. Many sub-state and supra-state identities also damaged the Arab nationalist's cause. Tribal loyalties, argues Adeed, were powerful in many Arab countries and didn't disappear as Arab nationalism and territorial nationalisms fought for the primary loyalty of the Arabs.
In some states, tribal affiliations formed the backbone of popular support that shielded local leaderships from the advancing tide of revolutionary Arab nationalism. Such was the case in Saudi Arabia, where the tribal-based demographic structure contributed to the stability of the political order.Successive Saudi monarchs, in the process of shifting the loyalty of the Bedouin from tribe to state, made sure to act and be perceived as tribal overlords.
Bedouin military personnel were also responsible for the survival of Jordan's young King Hussein, in the face of seemingly impossible odds. Jordan's "Arab Legion" was initially formed to combat Bedouin anarchy in the new country. In a stroke of genius, the Arab Legion's founder, the British officer John Bagot Glubb, decided to harness the warlike qualities of the Bedouins by recruiting them into the army. Very quickly, the Arab Legion became the Arab world's most disciplined fighting force. But one thing that Glubb did not change was tribal solidarity, which he nurtured every step of the way to make the Arab Legion "the Bedouin prop of the Hashemite polity.
Coming to the focus of this blog, religious identities also didn't allow Arab nationalism to take hold. Sectarian loyalties divided Arabs and in many countries, especially when they were politicized as in Iraq. These loyalties were weakened and laid dormant during the heyday of Arab nationalism and Nasser but they were back with a vengeance in the 1970s.
Iraq's sectarian divisions formed another hurdle in the Arab nationalist march. The country's Shi'ite majority never overcame its suspicion of Arab nationalism as a Sunni project. Shi'ite grievances against the Sunnis were primarily political, pertaining to Sunni dominance over Iraq's political order. The Shi'ites would point to the paucity of their numbers among the decision-making elite and in the ranks of the administrative and military institutions.
It is not that the Shi'ites did not believe in Arab nationalism, or that they did not consider themselves to be Arabs. Shi'ite men of letters penned some of the marvels of Arabic literature. Iraqis of all religions and denominations flocked to the Arab nationalist cause under Abdel Nasser's leadership in the 1950s and 1960s. But that did not mean that tribalism and sectarianism were erased. They were too deeply ingrained to disappear; they simply retreated into the recesses of people's consciousness. Once Arab nationalism began to suffer reverses and setbacks, and Abdel Nasser's ability to work his magic came into question, all the particularistic, anti-national tendencies reemerged and even surged to the forefront.
Although Adeed talks about 'radical Islam', as the last competitor of Arab nationalism, how he explains it, this 'radical' Islam is closer to what others have called political Islam or religious nationalism ('Radical' Islam is usually used to describe militant Islam). Political Islam and Arab nationalism share many myths. The glory and grandeur of Arab nation happened after Arabs accepted Islam and Islam is empty without Arab contribution.
In one sense, this competition is surprising. The vast majority of Arabs are Muslims, and the most glorious periods of Arab history occurred during the dazzling medieval Islamic empires. Similarly, all Muslims, moderates or radicals, could not but admit the central role of the Arabs in their religion. After all, Islam was born in the Arabian Peninsula, the Prophet Muhammad was Arab, and God's message was revealed in Arabic. One would think that the two social movements would share a cooperative relationship.
Instead, it was downright hostile. Arab nationalists, from Husri to Abdel Nasser and Michel Aflaq, founder and philosopher of the Baath Party, accepted the special place that Islam occupied within the Arab nationalist movement. But they stressed only those aspects of Islam that were moral and spiritual in nature. They resolutely rejected Islam's political and constitutional implications and insisted on its complete subordination to Arab nationalism. The nationalists vehemently argued that it was not religious but linguistic and historical ties that would knit the Arab nation into a cohesive whole.
Religious nationalists, of course, could not accept religious loyalty being relegated by ethnolinguistic loyalty. They denounced Arab nationalists and claimed Arab nationalism means denying the primacy of Islam/God/Prophet. Adeed, in the following section, only talks about militants but there were many more Arab Muslims who silently disliked Arab nationalism than those who attacked it militarily.
This was sheer blasphemy to the radical Muslim groups, and nationalists became the target of these groups' jihad. The concept of jihad, holy struggle, was central to the lexicon of Islamic militancy. Jihad was to be waged against the perceived enemies of Islam—i.e., all those who would try to infuse Muslim society with alien and blasphemous ideas, imported primarily from the West. To the Muslim radicals, perhaps the greatest offenders were the secular nationalists, who propagated ethnicity at the expense of religion and advocated the separation of Islam from politics.
Adeed then talks about causes of Arab nationalism failure. But let's leave it for some other time.
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