Arab Nationalism: Mistaken Identity

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Martin Kramer. Arab Nationalism: Mistaken Identity. THREE. LINES OF POETRY PLOT THE TRAJECTORY of Arab national consciousness. "Awake, O Arabs,.
Martin

Kramer

Arab Nationalism: Mistaken Identity

LINES OF POETRY PLOT THE TRAJECTORYof Arab

THREE

O Arabs,

consciousness.

"Awake, ode of Ibrahim al-Yaziji,

famous

and

penned

arise!"

national

the begins in Lebanon.1

in 1868

George Antonius deployed the line as the epigraph of his influential book, Arab

The

Arab

desire

for

as

Awakening,1

the

first utterance

from Ottoman independence the of resistance poem begins

am an Arab!"

of

a nascent

I "Write down, the Palestinian poet by rule.

Mahmoud Darwish, written in 1963 to assert an Arab identity denied by Israel and theWest.3 The poem immediately entered the Arab of

to be recited from memory canon, In the century that separated of people awakened and arose, gradually

nationalist

schoolchildren.

millions the world

and

one

another

that

they

by a generation these two lines, insisting before as

should

be written

down

line ends

a poem

of anguish

Arabs. "Are we most

read

widely

had

one

Arabs

big

lie?" This

in the midst of the latest Gulf crisis by Nizar Qabbani,

written gone

wrong

defiance;

Arab contemporary to sustain exclamation

they were

poet

and

critic.4

Too

of awakening points a mark of doubt. question by

replaced

the

much and Once

half of Europe and a Superpower had admitted to living a lie for most

of this century,

the Arabs

not

could

suppress

their own

doubt

any longer. Their god had also failed, spectacularly so. It had been called

Arabism,

or Arab

or pan-Arabism,

nationalism,

time Qabbani posed his question,

and by the

it had been in full retreat for a

generation. Martin

Kramer

African

171

Studies

is Associate at Tel Aviv

Director University.

of the Moshe

Day an Center

for Middle

Eastern

and

172

Martin Kramer

At

their belief in the Arab present, many Arabs have suspended now a and doubt is whether there Arab collective nation, openly mission. of

swept up by Islamic activism prefer to think recently as Muslims, first and foremost and do so without their lexicon has turned "the Arabs" into a times,

Those

themselves At

apology.

and wastefulness, implying incompetence, to as Arabs plainly prefer be known Egyptians, Moroccans? citizens of over twenty independent

label, Other

derogatory subservience.

Syrians, Jordanians, its own flag and own states, each with asMiddle taken to referring to themselves

interests.

Some

even

have

in anticipation of cooperation

Easterners, order peace and a new regional on Europe. A few intellectuals modeled keep the Arab flame alive. are or Paris, where most in Yet often London abroad, they they command audiences of Third Worldists and "pro-Arabs." dwindling over whether For a decade and they have quarreled pan-Arabism of an Arab-Israeli

Arab

are simply in remission or beyond all resuscitation. It has existed "Arabness" still persists. for as long as

nationalism sense

A

of

the Arabs have walked to negotiation In this half.

the stage of history, and it has been subject

by every

generation this sense

a millennium for nearly must of "Arabness"

generation, the growth of loyalty to separate Arab the global of liberal democracy, triumph

anathema

and

the prospect as nationalism

capitalism, to Arab

to

states, a burgeoning the ascendancy of

terms with Islam, market

a

and come

of peace with Israel. All were over most it evolved of this

can doubtless "Arabness" accommodate the new challenges, century. a modern as it has always done. Arab nationalism, creation of this well under their century, may altogether impact. disappear to But whatever its history the prospects of Arab nationalism, this point rapid history broader

and

rise, birth, a new deserves

enjoy

of

the most

decline telling,

instances

remarkable

any modern for it has not

of

nationalism. been

invoked

of

the

That in the

over

of identity that marks the growing instability a time when Arab nationalism this century. There was a place of some prominence in the comparative study of

debate

the end of did

one

represents

it became the domain of specialists, which as Hans and who Arnold well. Kohn, just Toynbee to integrate into some wider Arab nationalism first attempted the its virtual partisans between became framework, comparative

nationalism, was perhaps

world

wars

but

later

despite

their

own

reservations

about

nationalism

in

Arab Nationalism: In a

Mistaken

173

Identity

of mea

for British culpa?Toynbee's policy, most the for Zionist?they extravagant accepted slogans of as statements of sociological fact or incontrovertible Arab nationalism moral its surface. beneath claims, and saw none of the contradictions general. Kohn's

When

spirit

states

the Arab

these

contradictions

kept

later theorists

after World War II, gained independence to in the fore all their and surged complexity, at arm's length. "No brief summary of the long

and intricate history of the Arab world could hope to disentangle wrote Rupert its states and peoples," have shaped a in scarcely concealed "For full-scale exasperation. analysis to evaluate the whole be necessary record of Arab experience,

the forces which Emerson itwould

such matters including the effects of Ottoman

as the tribal, sectarian, rule, the machinations

and other of

divisions, the European and culture."5

and the role of Islam and of the Arab language powers, In short, itwas a job for someone else who knew it better. But even those comparativists who knew Arab nationalism quite well chose not to make it the pivot of their comparisons, for fear of perhaps losing The

the general case Arab

standards

reader does

of Europe. two hundred million,

in a labyrinth.6 a dauntingly remain

The

speakers in a zone stretching to the Arabian Sea?a region

of Morocco

of Europe from the Atlantic

complex

of Arabic from

one number

today the Atlantic

that extends

parallel

by

the over

shores to all

seaboard of Iberia to the Urals. No

a potential as large, nationalism has claimed European constituency as far-flung, or as fragmented. It has never been easy to document across this zone, of political the historical evolution consciousness a thinness in its persists study. as a straightforward Nor did Arab nationalism reaction originate toWestern of the kind in familiar elsewhere Asia and imperial rule,

and

Africa. Western

Some

Arab

rule, while

over a century of direct experienced peoples none at all. As a result, Arab others experienced

nationalism followed distinct courses of development the Arabian Crescent, peninsula, coast. Each of these zones African

the Nile encountered

in the Fertile

and the North valley, on different theWest

on Arab nationalism times. Variations terms, at different multiplied, even inspiring separate classifications, sometimes such as Nasserism arcane subclassifications, and Ba'thism, and even more such as neo Ba'thism.

Many

of these became

rivals, even to the point

of bloodshed.

This has made it difficult to generalize about Arab nationalism, and

174

Martin Kramer to deploy

treacherous

such generalizations

in the larger debate

over

nationalism. in the following Emerson

The purpose It is to attempt

is not to attempt as a prelude wished,

pages

what

the treacherous. to comparison:

to trace the political trajectory of Arab nationalism plotted by the poets, to walk an idea briskly through its historical phases, and to to those

its relationship

characterize

other

ideas

have appealed to "the speakers of the dad"

and

identities

that

that sound which

is

to Arabic.

It is the story of a nationalism that arose fitfully, then faltered It and failed. is an account of spread dramatically, how millions to of people themselves be Arabs and imagined then, as though in a case of mistaken to have been claimed identity, someone else all along. unique

THE EMERGENCE OF ARABISM Arabism

first arose

century not as a direct reaction a of the state of the Ottoman rule, critique over most of the Arabic-speaking whose reach had extended since the early sixteenth For nearly four hundred century.

to Western Empire, peoples

in the nineteenth

but

as

years, these Arabic speakers had been fully reconciled to their role seat of the Empire was in Istanbul, and its vast in Ottoman administered But the Ottomans Turkish. of their Arabic Islam, as did the overwhelming majority state as a Their evolved in Islam, subjects. partnership

in the Empire. domains were professed speaking embracing language Muslims

God

The

all of

the Ottoman

they spoke. who spoke

Arabic

revealed the Qur'an

seventh conquests,

century. which

sultan's Muslim retained

in Arabic

They also celebrated carried Islam from

a pride

subjects, in their

whatever

language:

to an Arab prophet

in the

the history of the early Arab to the Pyrenees. And the Oxus

they took pride in their genealogies, which linked them to Arabia at the dawn of Islam. But that very fidelity to Islam bound them to on other and prided themselves spoke languages new to who and the defense and genealogies, brought vitality of Islam. Since the fifteenth century, the Ottomans showed expansion

Muslims

who

other

to an Islamic zeal that had carried this vitality, harnessed precisely All the Muslim Islam to the very gates of Vienna. subjects of the saw themselves as participants Ottoman house in and beneficiaries

Arab Nationalism: Islamic

this shared Arab

Mistaken

and they drew

enterprise,

175

Identity

no distinction

between

and Turk.

But with the relative decline inOttoman power, especially in the nineteenth

the

century, The

weaken.

great

foundations

Ottoman

to symbiosis began at rolled both up being

of

carpet

this

was

ends: by Europe's Great Powers, locked in imperial rivalry, and by Christian

the discontented whose Ottomans

lost

of Ottoman

rule

in Europe, form. The

took a nationalist independence on a succession of Westernizing reforms but in the the North Caucasus, Balkans, footing

for struggles embarked

eventually

subjects

their

Africa, and Egypt. As the Empire dwindled, so did the confidence of its remaining remaining the Fertile the Arab

discontent

even

of the Empire, provinces Arabic-speaking come Crescent?a discontent that would "awakening."7 controversies

Many

some

and

subjects,

still

surround

the nature

in the appeared in Arabia and as

to be known

and

extent

of

this

to have drawn two it is generally discontent, upon agreed sources. were there the minority communities of Arabic First, much influenced who currents, Christians, speaking by European to transform Arabic worked into a medium of missionary work and but

modern

learning.

From

their efforts did much

about

the middle

of the nineteenth

century,

to kindle interest in secular Arabic belles

to the modern of Arabic conventions of lettres, through adaptation the press, and the theater. The Arabic the novel, literary revival, centered in Beirut, did not translate immediately into Arab nationalism. But it did argue for the existence to which of a secular Arab culture, Christians

and Muslims

in equal measure. the Christian legacy, minority of the Muslim and to win for majority

had supposedly this shared Arab

upon By elaborating sought to erode the prejudice

contributed

Christians their full equality as fellow Arabs. Arabism

also

arose

a second

from

absorbed the Arabic-speaking Muslim over competition and bureaucratic such demand

century Ottoman

in the conduct opened, Empire

Rivalries

had

always

elite, especially in the keen

to Ottoman

government positions of those grievances passed over for turned into the governors occasionally

appointments sinecures. The

spoils by Ottoman that Istanbul accord

autonomy

source.

of

more provinces As the twentieth

cities spread to all the major was Arabic but it centered spoken,

this Arabism where

the Arabic-speaking their own affairs.

of

the

upon

176

Martin Kramer its adherents

where

Damascus,

began

to organize.

While

the Arabism

of Muslims resembled that of Christians in its pride of language, it differed fundamentally in its deep attachment to Islam. It appealed to Muslims their name

that

the greatness in of the Arabs resided in the of Islam. The Arabs, understanding acting had created a great empire and civilization, and only

by arguing

privileged of Islam,

the Arabs

restore

could

nothing

secular

closely

associated

about with

to

its pristine this assertion of Arab Islam

Islamic

There was grandeur. became genius, which and

apologetics

reformism.

This "Arab awakening," Christian andMuslim, a trenchant

social

criticism

or a truly modern

failed to produce of politics.

language

Ultimately, itwould defeat itself by its apologetic defense of tradition and religion.8 But it did go far enough to shake the confidence of some

Arabic

pamphleteers

in the legitimacy of Ottoman speakers even tried to conjure up Ottoman fears

subsidies) by publishing Most of these appeared Europe's

capitals

began

tracts

in the name

in Europe, to debate

and

rule. A

few

(and foreign of an "Arab movement."

some

"the Arab

in of opinion The debate question." journals

was premature. In 1907 the English traveler Gertrude Bell gave the commonplace

assessment

of these

stirrings:

Of what value are the pan-Arabic associations and inflammatory leaflets that they issue from foreign printing presses? The answer is easy: they are worth nothing at all. There is no nation of Arabs; the is separated by a wider gulf from the Bedouin than Syrian merchant the Syrian country is inhabited by Arabic he is from the Osmanli, races all eager to be at each other's throats, and only speaking from prevented fulfilling their natural desires by the ragged half fed soldier who draws at rare intervals the Sultan's pay.9

Yet by the eve ofWorld War

I, Arabism did begin to take a more

form against the two challenges of Turkification palpable status quo. the cultural threatened Turkification

and Zionism. The

Turkish

to

speaking subjects of the Ottoman

Empire had been exposed

nationalism, European-style Balkans. Turkish-speaking

into the its penetration through to construct for then began

themselves philologists an ancient

largely Muslims

a trend strengthened by Western identity as Turks, to the of establish and romantics who greatness sought As the Ottoman "Turanian" civilization.10 Empire

a new

to give the polyglot authorities stumbled, Ottoman Empire attempted more nation-state the of a European of the character by enforcing

Mistaken

Arab Nationalism: use of Turkish

at the expense

of other

never

This

languages, including Arabic. in caused some apprehension War I, and may have helped

fully implemented, policy, on the eve of World the Arab provinces to rally the supporters of cultural Arabism Zionist

in Palestine

settlement

111

Identity

to a political the political

threatened

purpose. status quo.

Ottoman authorities tolerated the influx of Jewish immigration in the belief that itwould ultimately benefit the Empire, as it had in successive

waves

sultan's

subjects land on which

not

But

since

the Spanish Inquisition. since this latest wave concurred,

all of

the

saw of immigrants as a refuge but as

they were settling not merely in the making. As the pace of Zionist and immigration their immediate settlement grew apprehensive increased, neighbors From the turn of the of dispossession. about the looming possibility the

a state

became amatter of growing century, Ottoman policy toward Zionism in the Arabic and criticism debate press.11 unease Arabism thus arose from a growing about the pace and direction

of

change.

Yet,

while

the Ottoman

Empire

lasted,

this

Arabism did not develop into full-fledged nationalism. Its adherents not Arab for administrative decentralization, pleaded independence, and they had no vision of a post-Ottoman order. They imagined in the form of an accountable solution and professed government for the liberal democracies

admiration

vague

of the West,

a a

especially

of France and England, although they had an imperfect grasp of the behind the slogan of "liberty." Above all, they were practical. meaning in not dreams of Arab in did power. Their grievances, They indulge the words "were of a critic of later Arab local and nationalism, services or to the they related to the quality of government and those who proper scope of local administration; sought redress in their communities, for such grievances were mostly men well known specific;

a sober constitutional to conduct able perhaps to entertain limitless ambitions."12 grandiose,

War

I, they were probably Muslims

Arabic-speaking about the legitimacy

to defend

still in the minority,

outnumbered

and

raised

Christians

of Ottoman

rule,

who and

even

stood

no

by

doubt

prepared

it.

THE ARAB NATION

World War

but not opposition eve On the of World

AND THE EUROPEAN EMPIRES

I forced a choice upon the adherents of Arabism. After

some hesitation,

the Ottoman

Empire

entered

the European

war

on

Martin Kramer

178 the

side of Germany,

Britain

prompting

to fan

and France

every

ember of dissent in the Empire. The Allies held out the prospect of they

"the Arab something they called a a in local potentate found partner

for

independence eventually

and

nation," of Mecca,

the

Sharif Husayn. The Sharif had an ambitious vision of a vast "Arab kingdom" for his family, and in 1915 he secured commitments from

its future regarding he finally raised the standard

In and frontiers. independence of revolt against Ottoman rule.

Britain

1916,

The Arab Revolt which began in Arabia had little to do with the Arabism that had emerged in the Fertile Crescent. Itmore faithfully of the Sharif, and the enthusiasm the dynastic ambition and desert tribes. However, guns gold among Arabia's

expressed for British

the Sharif's sons, the Emirs Faysal and Abdallah, contacts

with

the

existing

in Damascus,

societies

Arab

also established and

the

revolt recruited dissident Arab officers who had deserted Ottoman ranks.

officers

These

had

Ottoman

attended

academies,

military

where they had imbibed the idea of the army as the "school of the nation" them.

from The

the German

revolt

who

officers

thus made

had

a volatile

for

trained

and

advised

whose

mix,

diverse

participants dreamed the different dreams of Arab kingship, desert and military While dictatorship. in the drive for differences

liberal constitutionalism, anarchy, the revolt lasted, they suspended independence. In 1918, as the Ottomans

their

retreated

before

British

arms

in Palestine,

the Arab Revolt culminated in triumph when Faysal led his followers into Damascus

and

there

union

eventual

of

these

an "Arab Government."

formed

to Versailles, where Asia" be of recognized peoples and that "no steps be taken he went

areas

he

asked

that

as "independent inconsistent with under

one

In 1919, "the Arabic-speaking sovereign peoples," the prospect of an

sovereign

government."

Finally, in 1920, a "General Syrian Congress" declared the independence of a "United Kingdom of Syria" including the entire and

Levant,

proclaimed

Emir

Faysal

king.

From

an

Damascus,

"IraqiCongress" also proclaimed Iraq independent, under the kingship of the Emir Abdallah.13 An Arab

nation

its members

outset, other claims. Most to France

and

had made

the game of nations, claims which far-reaching

entered

and

from

the

ran up against commitments

Britain had made wartime notably, The first, the so-called the Zionist movement.

Sykes

Arab Nationalism:

Mistaken

179

Identity

Levant as agreement, secretly recognized most of the northern a zone of French the Balfour the second, Declaration, privilege; a in Britain also home Palestine. national Jewish publicly supported

Picot

in the territories interests strategic and economic sons. The and his the Sharif Husayn contradictory at Remo San the sorted out in April conference, 1920,

demanded

had

and France

on

settled

of occupied as separate

the division

to administer they planned On the basis of these mandates. which

agreements,

Faysal and his followers from Damascus

claims

Britain

where

Ottoman League French

by were

territory, of Nations' forces

drove

in a brief battle in July,

French rule on Syria that would last for a quarter of imposed a century. At the same time, Britain began to fulfill its commitment to more extensive under the Balfour Declaration by opening Palestine and

Zionist

and

immigration

settlement.

Arab

violence

Jews

against

first broke out inApril, presaging the strife between Arab and Jew June,

a fixture

become

that would

a widespread

of the British mandate

insurrection

against

In

for Palestine.

the British

broke

out

in

Iraq, which British forces suppressed by force. Increasingly Arab nationalists charged that Ottoman rule had been replaced by British even more alien than itsMuslim government imperialism, to compensate Britain did move the leaders of the Arab

and French predecessor.

Revolt in 1921: it appointed Faysal as the king of Iraq in expanded an emirate

and carved

borders,

it then which mandate, turned over to Abdallah. against deep grievance territories they wanted,

Jordan out of the Palestine from Zionist and exempted immigration now nursed a But the Arab nationalists the denial

they believed had been promised to them. Arab

and Syria, which once

nationalism, inspired by theWest's itself as a negation of its imperialism. The Arab nationalist lament against Fertile

Crescent

commensurate Transjordan, geography

over the partition of the in Palestine of independence

and France

Britain and

of Trans

liberalism,

the arbitrary partition of the states was of the new

validity. a political community. Lebanon?these Palestine, with

history,

to redefine

None

had much

or classical

began

and

their

Syria, names borders

Lebanon, derived largely

Iraq, from reflected

the imperial jostling for strategic position or oil.14Only the idea of Lebanon had some historical depth, since theMaronite Christians of Mount and had

Lebanon achieved

a strong sense of separate even in the late Ottoman autonomy

maintained some

identity period.

180 But

Martin Kramer were

the Maronites

too few,

and the borders

in 1920 by the French (atMaronite of Muslims.

would

nation,

culture dating back to the Phoenicians?safely

before the rise of any

But the Maronites contemporary religions. in Lebanon that the idea of "eternal the Muslims

of Lebanon's persuade

anything expressed Half themselves.

more

than the sectarian

solidarity their forced population regarded as still another as cruel as trick of imperialism,

idea of an Arab

its supposed there

established

fragmented accustomed

societies

most

nation

thought had been played

to most just as arbitrary the makers and backers of the

seemed

It satisfied

members.

Arab Revolt, who and

Lebanon"

in 1920.15

them

of

to

of theMaronites

the other tricks the Arab nationalists against But the

failed

of Lebanon's

in Lebanon

inclusion

drawn

to manufacture later attempt the idea a commerce and by distinguished seafaring

Maronites

of a Lebanese

of Lebanon

insistence) included largenumbers

regrouped in Iraq after their flight from Syria, another of

to regarding to classify continued

the

Arab Fertile

themselves themselves

nationalist

state.

But

few persons Crescent, as Arabs. As in Ottoman

in the were

times, sect, and genealogy. by religion, or Sunnis or Shiites, Maronites

or Christians, or that clan, family, tribe, village, or urban of this Druzes, not to be ruled by foreigners from over the wish did quarter. They sea. But neither did they desire to be ruled by strangers from across They

were

Muslims

members

even if those the desert, some of them had made

the war, strangers During spoke Arabic. to secure separate their own diplomacy, to difficult the war, their allegiance After proved independence.16 soon as The Arab nationalist discovered. the Arab nationalists win, to be chaotic, in Damascus and his proved on In in of the rested the British. bayonets Iraq reign subsequent a "The Great British called the Imposed," Faysal correspondence, a stranger to his subjects, who had been awarded polity fragmented in Faysal's nationalists The Arab in arbitrary borders. entourage state

under

Faysal

dreamed of a great Arab state, but itwas all they could do to keep together

the would-be

Arabs

that

they

ruled.

Faced with masses of people who had not chosen to be Arabs, the a doctrine them any other that denied developed discarded the wars, the Arab nationalists choice. Between progressively as a voluntary formed by the French idea of the nation contract, to secure their liberty. Increasingly their nation resembled individuals

Arab

nationalists

Arab Nationalism: Volk, a natural of language by the mystery restore its greatness, could the German

surrender

nation and even

Mistaken

above

181

Identity

all human

bound volition, the unity of this nation

lore. Only if the price

of unity

meant

the

of freedom.

This struggle had to be conducted not only against imperialism, but

also

were else.

the would-be Arabs themselves. against and some openly professed eager to be Arabs, In such instances, Arab nationalism assigned

Not

all of

them

to be something itself the task of

educating them to an Arab identity, preferably by persuasion but if necessary nationalism's

by

to

According compulsion. first true ideologue and

Sati'

a confidant

al-Husri, of Faysal,

Arab

Every person who speaks Arabic is an Arab. Everyone who is affiliated with these people is an Arab. If he does not know this or if he does not cherish his Arabism, then we must study the reasons for his we must teach him It be the result of may position. ignorance?then we must the truth. Itmay be because he is unaware or deceived?then awaken him and reassure him. Itmay be a result of selfishness?then we must work

to limit his selfishness.17

This ominous passage presaged the drift of Arab nationalism away say

from that

aspirations slogan of nation

the

of a voluntary we to which should

liberal model

the

system is a Fascist

"solidarity, as an obedient

system,"

wrote

obedience,

and

community. our direct

in 1930, sacrifice."18 The

al-Husri

and

hopes raising idea of

to the army

army Itwent

can

"We

the the

itself,

immediately appealed hand in hand with a growing militarism, belief that only the armed rise above forces could the on "selfishness" of the sect and clan, enforcing the nation. discipline

especially and the

its officers.

this trend. The country became in 1930, Iraq pioneered independent in 1932. Less than a year later, and joined the League of Nations a massacre the army conducted of the Assyrian (Nestorian Christian) to the Arab cause. accused of In 1936, a coup minority, infidelity

d'?tat established a thinly-veiled military dictatorship, in the name of national unity. Finally, in 1941, a junta of colonels led Iraq into a war

of

the course

"liberation" of which

with

Britain, the nationalists

it promptly inspired a pogrom

which

lost, and against

in the

Jews of Baghdad. Mistreated retrospect,

minorities, Iraq's

early

strongmen,

military experience

of

independence

lost

battles?in

anticipated

an

182

Martin Kramer

entire era of Arab

Yet

nationalism.

this nationalism,

and its extravagant in popularity from

extrapolation, pan-Arabism, gained immensely the 1930s. Accelerated from desert encampment migration

to settled

town, from village to city, began to unloose primordial ties, diminishing to nationalist resistance the expansion of education, ideology. With masses Arab nationalist indoctrinated of young pedagogues people, from primary

school

through

the growth

of the Arabic

nationalism

into

every

university.

The

press brought

classroom,

clubhouse,

spread

of

literacy

the message and

and

of Arab

coffee

shop.

In

the public arena, Arab nationalism gradually achieved a firm hold on political and all other discourse, to spread beyond It also began

loyalties became unspeakable.19 to include the Fertile Crescent,

first Egypt, then North Africa. Arabic-speaking Africa had come under

foreign

rule earlier

than Arabic-speaking

Asia.

France

began

colonization of Algeria in 1830 and occupied Tunisia in 1881, while Britain occupied Egypt in 1882. In every instance there had as local to foreign rule. But it had been formulated in most instances Islam. Until the patriotism, strongly tinged with saw as themselves and the earliest few Arabs, 1930s, Egyptians been

resistance

Arab nationalists did not include Egypt in their vision.20 InNorth a Africa, resistance

its inhabitants.

united language

of the population and spoke Berber, took an Islamic form, since only Islam But no definition of the Arab nation based on

large proportion to foreign rule could

long

exclude

Arabic-speaking

Africa,

and

the very

geography of imperialism created a potential bond of solidarity and the Syrian, the Algerian number of Egyptians time, a growing as Arabs. see themselves Paradoxically,

between

the Egyptian and the Iraqi. In and North Africans began to the empires of Britain and

France linked together Arabic-speaking lands which had enjoyed few if any organic ties inOttoman times, inspiring for the first time the idea of an Arab world stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf. At

the time,

the division

of this world

did not yet seem permanent,

and themessage of Arab nationalism, calling for the full independence did not seem completely contrived. and unity of all Arabs everywhere, to divest War Britain and France After World II, weary began of their troublesome of the more themselves portions empires. and Trans Jordan became Egypt and independent. Syria, Lebanon,

Iraq, their independence effectively revoked by Britain during the

Arab Nationalism: war,

to renegotiate the terms for the great majority

began

independence

matter states,

Identity

183

of British

withdrawal.

Full

seemed

of Arabs

nationalists

that an Arab

hoped

a

only

by individual

be acquired piecemeal

of time. It would but Arab

Mistaken

commonwealth

might emerge from this fluid situation. Elaborate plans for Arab unification But

proliferated. these plans quickly

its own

elite,

ran aground.

By now each state possessed and anthem. Their proposals "Greater Crescent unity,"

and

flag, bureaucracy, for "Fertile

aggrandizement.21

were schemes federation," Arab much After negotiation

ruling

counterproposals, and "Arab Syria,"

self

for

British

and

the independent Arab states established the Arab mediation, in 1945, a compromise that recognized the distinct League sovereignty of each of them. In the end, independence did not alter

the map

drawn

Arab

by

imperialism. to assist one

The

states

member but

none

of

the

would

another, League promised the Arab League of sovereignty, which their prerogatives sacrifice In Article 8 of the charter particular, meticulously upheld. nonintervention: "Each member of the charter principle upheld

in the of government established the systems respect as concerns states and regard the exclusive them other member to abstain states. from any action Each shall pledge of those to change of established calculated systems government."22 state

shall

while the article of nonintervention, to its greatest weakness. Not quo, pointed the unencumbered their rulers commanded Yet

citizens

and

much.

They Arab larger

subjects. invariably purpose,

By

reasons

of

state.

independence

and

The

remained

nationalism

rhetoric, as advancing a their actions their own they were pursuing

justified even when

in the

Fertile

Crescent, to invoke

the confidence

paradox a loose

solidarity.

the status states and

of their allegiance as admitted they

own

their

purposes. Especially parochial reason lacked created without

sanctifying all of these

could

m?lange But a growing

so

pass of

number

long

states openly as Arab

about slogans of intellectuals

and officers, abhorring ambiguity, turned their Arab nationalism saw the Arab nationalism They professed as posturing to argue the need for and began came when Their moment the fragile Arab order over Israel.

into a rigorous by rulers and revolution. stumbled

doctrine.

states

184

Martin Kramer

ARAB REVOLUTION The

rhetorical

Nations

a chasm

into

turned

gap authorized

the partition

in 1948, after into two

of Palestine

the United states,

one

Jewish and one Arab. When the neighboring Arab states moved against Israel in 1948, they claimed to be fighting in concert, to their

uphold

to the Arabs

commitment

brotherly

own

each sought a separate modus interests, a hard-fought ended with war, which even more had than been allotted territory

was

and with

Nations, hundred

thousand

Arab

as

states

the Arab

In

of Palestine.

its own war to defend its

fact they did just the opposite: each waged

vivendi Israel to her

reluctant

with

Israel.

It

in possession of the United by hosts

to

seven

refugees.

The events of 1948, like those of 1920, shifted the ground from beneath Arab nationalism. While the Arab states negotiated fitfully to stir. The began Constantin intellectuals, exemplified by the Syrian historian Zurayk, criticism leveled a withering the conduct of the and war, against

with

intellectuals

and officers

it difficult for Arab states to present 1948 as anything less

made than

disaffected

Israel,

a rout.

stabbed old-guard in 1949;

Then

the

officers

moved, charging they had been senior and commanders. by politicians Syria's turned out by a military nationalist coup leadership was two more in 1952, that year, with another coups followed

in the back

and yet another in 1954. Abdallah, who and

Jordan, kingdom as his "West Arab Palestine

Israel. The monarchy dealings with of "free officers," invoking Egypt's of official corruption allegations monarchy

in a bloodless

in 1949 renamed his

remnant the adjacent annexed of was in 1951 assassinated for his Bank,"

in 1950

coup

barely held on. In 1952, a group failure in the Palestine war and in

its conduct, overturned the a revolutionary republic.

and established

By 1954, one of these officers, Gamal Abdul Nasser, had emerged as undisputed

leader.

In 1958,

a sanguinary

coup

by more

"free

officers" destroyed the Iraqimonarchy, and the regicides established a "popular republic." which Arab nationalism, became

became after

"revolutionary" that the Arabs, demonstrated remained disunited, politically

1948.

after "anti-imperialist" in Palestine The war

despite militarily

their

formal

weak,

and

1920, had

independence, economically

underdeveloped. The failure could still be blamed on imperialism,

Mistaken

Arab Nationalism: Arab

and much

nationalist

global conspiracy, which

went

thought

Identity

into drawing

images

185 of a

allegedly implanted Israel to assure the

But some intellectuals of the Arabs. domination continuing in Arab of intrinsic weaknesses the existence began to suggest

West's also

culture

that these had made the task of the arguing new of Arab nationalism, fiery champions a social revolution now promised overcome that would

and

society, easier. The

Zionists

young colonels, these weaknesses

prosperity.

and propel

the Arab

world

to unity,

power,

and

In the spirit of the times, they usually defined this

as socialism?or, more Arab lest it socialism, precisely, be alleged that the changes were not authentically Arab in inspiration. no longer meant Arab nationalism only literary revival and anti revolution

It meant

extensive land reform, and nationalization, all in the name of "the revolution." And if, in their

imperialism.

five-year plans, new lexicon, Arab nationalists as "revolutionaries," cast themselves then their opponents could only be "reactionaries."23 took two parallel The new dispensation became forms, which known

as Nasserism

nationalism

and Ba'thism.

to the personality

Nasserism cult

married

of Gamal

Abdul

revolutionary who

Nasser,

enjoyed immense prestige in the Arab world after he pulled a political victory from the combined British, French, and Israeli attack

on Suez

like reform

in 1956. Nasserism

combined

with

a program of socialist the charismatic Nasser

the idea that Egypt under the very heart of the Arab world, and had the resources to lead all Arabs to unity. A streak of pragmatism ran and will to which evolved from while Nasser through Nasserism, day day an ideology too makeshift to constitute held power. It was and constituted

relied more

on Nasser's

doctrine. glow than on any systematic to at first Arab gave character, priority Egypt's to or out times he made be Afro-Asian? Muslim, African, Egypt But it was precisely whichever served his particular that purpose. And

while

warm

Nasser

ambiguity which made Nasser all things to all Arabs, and permitted Egypt to imagine herself to be the bridge to Arab nationalism, linking

the Arabs

of Asia

and Africa

to unity.24

in the march

Ba'thism tended to bemore ideologically stringent, if only because its founders

were

Sorbonne-schooled

from minority sects, who had debates and Nietzsche, Fichte, to chose call themselves They

filled

teachers hailing Syrians, mostly their spare time with academic

and Houston the Ba'th,

Stewart

meaning

Chamberlain.

resurrection,

and

186

Martin Kramer

they were

as amatter

"revolutionaries"

of principle.

Their

constitution,

adopted in 1947, announced that their goals could not be achieved by means

"except

of

revolution

and

struggle.

To

rely

on

slow

evolution and to be satisfied with a partial and superficial reform is to threaten

to their failure and loss." The and to conduce was a single Arab creation the of state, since all goals were differences "accidental and unimportant. among Arabs They will all disappear with the awakening of Arab consciousness." And these aims

first of these

as "a necessity nationalism itself."25 As

socialism

they

regarded depth of Arab

the Ba'th demonstrated "their

party:

emanates

which

from

an early member

the

attested,

all the characteristics of an ideological of events was

interpretation

almost

identical,

but

they

did not trust one another; they loved the people, but hated the individual; they held thewhole sacred, but they despised the parts."26 The Ba'th spread its influence by penetrating the junior officer corps and eventually acquired power through military coups in both Syria and

Iraq. The

usual

pattern

was

for the military

wing

of the

local

party to purge the civilian wing and install a military dictatorship, under

the Ba'th

Nasser

and

socialism."27 freedom, slogan of "unity, to the summit the Ba'th carried Arab nationalism

of

early gambles paid off because he was the to play foreign nationalist leader who was first Arab positioned a one in he called another powers against game "positive neutralism." its achievements.

When came

Nasser's

the Americans

refused

to his rescue. When

backing France

of the Algerian (in league with

The Arab world, radio transistor,

to finance

the Aswan

his nationalization uprising

provoked the United

the Soviets Dam, of the Suez Canal and

an attack by Britain and came to his rescue.

States

Israel), through glued to these maneuvers before Nasser's stood breathless

the now ubiquitous act. The high-wire

Ba'th in Syria longed to join it and pushed for negotiations with Nasser over unity. In 1958, the talks culminated in the birth of the United Arab Republic?a union of Egypt and Syria, offered to the Arab world as the first step toward a general Arab union. The names of Egypt and Syria disappeared from themap, replaced by a region." Arab nationalism region" and a "northern Nasser's its high-water first visit to Damascus, mark during Other Arab enthusiastic crowds. he was greeted by wildly "southern

trembled for their

as "Nasserists" long-awaited

filled Bismarck.

the streets Lebanon

reached where leaders

to clamor of their capitals invited American troops

Mistaken

Arab Nationalism:

187

Identity

to stem the tide; Jordan accepted British forces. No Arab state of Arab unity on its own. the march capable of withstanding that succumbed. the United Arab Republic in the end, itwas a struggle for into turned and the Ba'th of Nasser The marriage In this uneven the camp of Arab nationalism. within domination seemed But

run a badly ran Syria like a colony?and the Egyptians at that. The union did not release some pent-up potential

contest, colony

which only the combining of Egypt and Syria could tap. Quite the opposite: the union threatened to kill all productive initiative, especially in Syria, through the imposition of "Arab socialism." In a Syrian

1961,

coup

ousted

Nasser's

from Damascus

viceroy

and

declared the union finished. The breakup demonstrated the salience of differences far too deep to be blown away by blithe slogans. There

and more

1963,

and the Ba'th in between Nasser negotiations never and treaties. But there would unity schemes

be more

would

be a repeat of the United Arab Republic.28 In retrospect,

the collapse

of the Egyptian-Syrian

union

in 1961

the beginning of the long slide of Arab nationalism. The following year, Nasser contributed to its undoing by his massive

marked

intervention

on behalf

side

of the "revolutionary"

in Yemen's

civil

war. Everything Egypt did inYemen, including aerial bombing and napalming, had the opposite of the intended effect. A British journalist who

the Egyptians

watched

ignorance

and

at work

in Yemen

was

amazed

by their

arrogance.

one of the more piquant experiences of my post-revolutionary in Sanaa to be hailed by most of them with a chummy affability stay in that implied as clearly as any words that they and Iwere somehow as in the of civilisation embattled this thing together representatives midst of savagery. "What can you do with these people?" they would often laugh, in tones of vastly superior deprecation, "They are not come from British colonial see...." like us, you Having directly more all the the I recognised Aden symptoms easily. Creeping Itwas

is a catching disease, and those Egyptians were imperialism step away from clapping their hands together and shouting, service.29 when they wanted In Yemen,

similarity,

as

in Syria,

vast

leaving Arab

incomprehension.

differences

to war Arab

overwhelmed

any

only

a

"Boy!"

remote

in a spirit of mutual

Martin Kramer

188

Nationalist

theory had promised that unity would bring liberation

but in the hands of actual practitioners it had foreigners, a whip became of domination, wielded by some Arabs over others. scars as did the to grow, its of Arabs The number bearing began one Syrian, were wrote The Arabs, disillusionment. "like the from

inhabitants of an island who have been promised that the ship of soon

will

deliverance

arrive.

have

They

buried

their

tools

and

the ship arrives, it is a

packed their meager belongings; but when

to believe in some The will still remained strong an to of show. Arab doubt nationalism's quarters, edge began Its champions responded supply of persuasive words began to dwindle. use more of the persuasive of Abu prisons by making frequent slave

boat."30 but

Za'bal

near Cairo, Mezze

and Tura

in Damascus,

and

the cellars

of

the Nihayyah Palace in Baghdad. The crisis finally broke in 1967. The Arabs may well have blundered into war with Israel that June, but once they were in the thick of it, they expected more than in 1948. Most assumed that they had been not weakened, strengthened, social revolution, the Ba'th, of Arab under the banner

two decades by nearly and the militarization and

nationalism

of Nasser

and

of politics,

all

the

against struggle delivered defeat, Instead, they got less: a truly ignominious in six days. Its territorial consequences included the Israeli occupation the West of East Jerusalem, Bank, and Gaza?all densely populated Israel.

by Arabs?and that had

kept

of the Sinai and the Golan, two geographic buffers Israel

at a distance

from Cairo

and Damascus.

The

of pan-Arabism."31 less than "the Waterloo nothing represented to step down, the crowds filled the streets to Nasser offered as their leader. Through demand that he continue years of pounding to silence every Nasser Ba'th had and the indoctrination, managed defeat

When

and many voice, only Arab nationalism. of language

other into

the

collective

understood But

and

the limited spoke its way deep worked in voices would be raised

as defeat

two other psyche, One spoke nationalism.

to Arab opposition states. The to individual

other

the language of allegiance of Islam.32 loyalty to a universalist spoke

THE TRIUMPH OF THE STATE Arab individual creation, to interests. their separate give priority Since

their

states Yet

had

never

hesitated

they had been persuaded

to

Arab Nationalism:

Mistaken

Identity

189

by their perceived lack of legitimacy to pledge formal fidelity to the Arab nation, and thus risked being dragged into crises generated by accused of breaking Arab ranks for states, or being out. As 1967 such crises could deteriorate however, staying proved, into war, in lives, territory, and exact a steep price and quickly states of these lumbered under immense prestige. Many already to assume economic burdens. did not have the means the They other

Arab

burdens of their neighbors, especially theweighty Even mighty

Egypt

could

no

longer

assume

load of Palestine.

the sole custodianship

of the Arab cause (an Egypt which sent tens of thousands of troops to defend the Arab cause as far away as Yemen, yet had difficulty its own people at home). If these states were ever to set their feeding own priorities, to justify openly have their separate they would and demand the primary of their citizens and existence, loyalties subjects.

Paradoxically, Egypt led the way again, this time under Anwar as-Sadat.

Sadat

launched

an attack

against

Israel

in October

1973,

but this time Egypt fought a strictly Egyptian war for the return of the Israeli-occupied Sinai. Although Egypt waged thewar in tandem with Syria, it quickly broke with Syria in the war's aftermath. By the decade's the Sinai.

end, Sadat's

Sadat

had given of recognition

Israel a peace treaty in return for on the United Israel, his reliance

liberalization turned all the assumptions of States, and his economic on their head?and Arab nationalism no apologies Sadat offered so. Instead, he made an explicit case for Egypt's for doing right to chart its own course and address its own problems first. Sadat paid

for his policies with his life, and Egypt was briefly ostracized for its states cautiously Arab followed suit. now their choices justified they by invoking Saudi, or Iraqi national Syrian, Jordanian, interests, not Arab national as states, despite their origins themselves destiny. And by legitimizing in imperial map closer to legitimizing rooms, they came that much in rooms. its Zionist Israel, despite origins drawing

peace More

with

Israel.

often

than not,

But

other

For the first time, it became possible to criticize the myths of and to see the differences Arabism, among Arabs not as "accidental" even but as living realities, of respect. Lebanon's most deserving

prominent historian, Kamal Salibi, criticized Arab nationalism for "deluding the general run of the Arabs into believing that the political unity they had once experienced under Islamwas in fact an

Martin Kramer

190

Arab national unity which they have subsequently lost, or of which they have been deliberately robbed." This made it "difficult for to to properly accommodate Salibi called on intellectuals present."

the

them

realities

political

of

the

to:

view of this history as a Arab nationalist united national march that went wrong at some point, and correctly an account of assess it as the parochial history that it normally was: so many different Arab regional experiences of one kind or another, fitting more or less into a general pattern. No Arab country today its actual existence as a willful or need feel any guilt about accepting the erroneous

discount

departure from an Arab national historical norm. It is only the Arabs succeed in ridding themselves of the highly idealized vision of their past that they will be able to live Arab nationalist in Arab world as a coherent political community the modern together and relate to one another constructively various members whose unwillful

when

without

After

reserve.33

this once

1967,

surreptitious

view

could

be pronounced

openly,

and it laid the intellectual foundation for the growing self-confidence of

states.

individual

But that self-confidence

rested

as much

as on persuasion.

on power

Despite their difficulties on the battlefield, these states had mastered that The regimes realized surveillance. the technologies of domestic to forestall any dissent and they resolved defeat left them vulnerable, to state The the make these ubiquitous. technologies by using

largely worked.

approach

a bout

inaugurated

of

Unlike

instability,

the defeat of 1948, which

the even more

defeat

humiliating

of 1967 marked the beginning of an era of unprecedented stability, even immobility. The flood of oil income that followed the 1973 war

state had not to buy off dissent. The regimes permitted In of the words it had become become omnipotent. legitimate,

also

only one Syrian

intellectual:

"The cancerous

growth

of the state has been

accompanied by the increasingly diminished power of everybody and everything enjoy

calling

the whole

some Arab else, especially what As a consequence, 'The People.'"

thinkers

and

leaders

"Arab

society

is on

cancelled out as a reality of political significance in the

of all Arab regimes."34 By the time communism collapsed, reckonings one-man of protracted the last preserve lands had become the Arab rule, and so they remain today. The king of Jordan has reigned now for forty

years,

the king

of Morocco

for thirty-two

years.

Libya's

Arab Nationalism: leader made

his

coup

twenty-four

Palestine Liberation Organization

Mistaken

years

191

Identity

ago. The

chairman

of

the

(PLO)has held his title for twenty

four years. Syria's president has held power for twenty-two years. over ruler has held the for sway Iraq's country years, twenty-two as president. the last fourteen The emir of Kuwait has reigned for

fifteen years, the king of Saudi Arabia for eleven years. Egypt's president has held office for twelve years. Not one of these states could be categorized as a democracy, although after 1967 they laid unprecedented claims to the loyalty of their citizens and subjects, and

intruded

every aspect of virtually the Lebanon, Only perennial exception, over its legitimacy and its power enhancing upon

society. proved society

of

incapable after 1967.

In

this birthplace of Arab nationalism, social peace had come to depend on

an equilibrium "one Arab nation."

between

the myths of "eternal The Maronites agreed to march

Lebanon"

and

in step with

the

Arabs, so long as they could carry the flag of Lebanon; theMuslims agreed to parade behind the flag of Lebanon, provided the parade to an Arab

marched

cadence.

By this understanding,

Lebanon

would

supply intellectual rationales for Arab nationalism; others would provide the soldiers for its battles. For a time the equilibrium held, and

Lebanon

free-market duty

established

a quasi-democratic In times of regional

economy. and managed

by words,

to dodge

war

order public crisis, Lebanon with

Israel.

a

and did

But

its

after

1967, Lebanon began to lose its balance. The Muslims, wracked by guilt,

demanded

that Lebanon

finally take up the Arab burden of its southern to attacks border Israel. against

and open Palestine, The Maronites, awed by Israel's example, thought they could turn the state of Lebanon into something a small comparable: powerhouse,

armed to the teeth, defiant of the Arab world around it. In 1975, the situation

under and

in civil war, and Lebanon exploded virtually disappeared a checkered of militia crisscrossed map fiefdoms, by green red lines. The only lines that did not count were Lebanon's

borders, and both Syria and Israel entered the fray.When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, itworked feverishly with its Lebanese allies

to remake

power

over

the country in its image, but to no avail. Since to has tried do the resolve and success. 1989, Syria same, with more Aside from Lebanon, states exercised more all other confident their societies,

and more

Before 1967, Arab nationalism

independence

from one another.

appeared to drain states of their

192

Martin Kramer

legitimacy.

After

legitimacy

that

its slippage both strengthened

to produce a surge of incumbent regimes.

seemed

1967,

states

and

This strength had severe limitations: Arab states still could not enemies such as Israel. But they could one and enforce their will over another, by an with almost ruthless efficiency.35

stand up to powerful off interventions

ward

their own

societies

external

THE CHALLENGE OF ISLAM

The voice of Islam also bid to fill the silence left by Arab nationalism. Arab

nationalists and had

rival, element out

of

had always tried to disarm

in Arab their way

nationalism. to argue

loyalty as a potential Islam as a primary

Islamic regarded it by incorporating Even

the Christians

that Arab

them went

among

nationalism

complemented

rather than contradicted the Islamic loyalties still felt by so many Arabs. "The power of Islam," affirmed Michel Aflaq, the founding ideologue of the Ba'th and a Christian by birth, "has revived to in our days under a new form, that of Arab nationalism."36 appear Arabs saw this as a confidence But many Muslim game, and regarded as mutually For exclusive. Islam and any form of nationalism

Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian ideologue of Islam who was executed by If in 1966, Arab nationalism signified "spiritual decadence." no so "was he doubt capable had the Prophet Muhammad wished, in order to of pan-Arab nationalism of setting forth a movement

Nasser

unify

the

strife-riven Arab

mankind,

tribes

of Arabia." to submit

and non-Arab,

Instead, to God.

he The

called

all of

Arabs

thus

enjoyed no privileged standing in Islam, of the kind claimed by Arab

is the Muslim real chosen people or of territorial affiliation of ethnic, racial, regardless on the concluded that Reflecting early Islam, Qutb "God's

nationalism:

community, its members."

"sole collective

identity Islam offers and other

Persians, Byzantines, banner." God's During that Arab nationalism announced

Arabs, under

his had

is that of the faith, where nations

and colors

are equal

interrogation, Qutb police its role in universal "exhausted

history."37

The Islamic critique of Arab nationalism theory

to its practice.

Arab

nationalism

had

extended beyond erred

in breaking

its the

primary bond of Islam during the Arab Revolt?a bond that linked Arab and Turk. The Arab nationalists betrayed their fellowMuslims

Arab Nationalism:

Mistaken

to side with

in order

the British, who naturally their trust those who placed

for just reward Arab nationalists on God

Identity

193

them?a betrayed in unbelievers. The

their error by abandoning reliance then compounded to in order become liberals, fascists, and law,

and his divine

socialists, inmimicry of foreign ideological fashion. And while they professed respect for the faith of Islam, they filled their prisons with the truly

faithful,

whom

they

accused

of

subversion

for preaching

theword of God. Who did not doubt that the rout by the Jews, and of Jerusalem

the falling

into Zionist

hands,

a punishment

constituted

for straying from God's path? Did not Israel itself prove the power of religion and state combined? This brand of Islamic loyalty enjoyed an immense appeal among a majority

formed

confessional

community

Saudi Arabia acknowledged "golden during

The first was composed of Shiites, in Iraq and Kuwait, the largest single in Lebanon, in and important minorities

of two underclasses.

the members who

and the Arab Gulf states. Arab nationalism them as fellow Arabs, but it glorified precisely that as disastrous, same caliphs

the Shiites mourned age" of Arab history which its heroes were martyred which by the very

lionized in Arab nationalist historiography. In the present, the institutions of Shiite Islam, and even many Shiite families, straddled the divide between the Arab states and Iran, so that many Shiites as an artificial nationalism division, regarded Arab incompatible with the Arab-Persian of Shiism. After contemporary symbiosis so Iran's revolution in 1979, many in Arab Shiites lands identified success to its with that declared their the strongly they allegiance revolution's Lebanon's

and repudiated leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, states in which and loyalty to the individual Hezbollah took this the furthest, professing

obedience

to the

nationalism

"the Arabs" The

other

leader

of the Islamic

revolution,

and whose

lot worsened

as populations

grew

they lived. absolute

and denouncing to Israel.

for self-worship and their capitulation of the tens of millions underclass consisted

who had abandoned the countryside and flooded

both Arab

of indigents

into the cities,

and oil

incomes

fell.

In the slums and bidonvilles of Cairo and Algiers, not only did the doctrines

of Arab

sound obsolete, but the promises of states to in also hollow those the grip of rang prosperity by In and the poverty numbers, grinding unemployment. growing to movements their Islamic which gave dispossessed loyalty employed made

nationalism

194

Martin Kramer

a more

familiar vocabulary and called for the reinstitution of Islamic as law the panacea for all political, ills. These social, and economic were to Islamic movements work within states, prepared existing but only as a matter of convenience. They professed loyalty only to

Islamic law, and committed themselves to fight for its implementation wherever of Arab their

even in distant Afghanistan, where many as volunteers Soviet fought against

possible, Muslims

"atheistic"

For

clients.

thousands forces

and

these

their political believers, Afghan not at did end the border crossing of any state, or even community to any place where It extended where Arabic ceased to be spoken. or to Islam reigned had be defended. supreme

In the void left by Arab nationalism

after 1967, two ideas of

thus competed for primacy. On the one side stood those community a who that the inhabitants of any one state constituted argued a sense. in distinct this idea, political Regimes people championed

for it legitimized their claim to act solely in the interests of the state?identified

increasingly

with

one

ruling

group

or one

ruler.

On the other side stood thosewho believed that allMuslims constituted a universal

political community, standing above any narrower political This idea suited opposition since it denied movements, authority. to An all immense gap separated existing regimes. virtually legitimacy these two visions, but their adherents Arab agreed on one point: nationalism

had

or too narrow

failed

been irredeemably, having to satisfy the quest for identity.

ARAB NATIONALISM

too broad

either

ADRIFT

And what of the remaining Arab nationalists? After 1967, their numbers

and

influence

intellectuals

Many in Arabic

except steadily dwindled, did live a pan-Arab actually

for an audience

that

among

intellectuals.

reality. They "from the Ocean

stretched

wrote to the

Gulf," and published in pan-Ar ab journals that circulated just as widely. They jetted from capital to capital for conferences on the state of the Arabs. They had one foot (and sometimes both) in the West, where the freest Arabic press and publishing houses did their In this rarefied

business. could

still be sustained.

atmosphere, For the most

the myths part,

of Arab

these

nationalism

intellectuals

did not

regard the defeat of 1967 as a failure of their idea, but rather as a failure

of

its implementation

by others,

who

were

criticized

for not

Arab Nationalism:

Mistaken

being sufficiently radical or sufficiently ruthless. Much nationalist

after

"self-criticism"

advocacy who could

But

of violent

change. an idea whose

revive

even

1967

of the Arab

further

pushed intellectuals lacked an Arab come

time had

195

Identity

toward Bismarck

and nearly

gone.

Nasser had faltered, and in 1970 he died. The Ba'th in Syria, after more

twists

master

came

turns,

to rest

in 1970

were

Palestinians

a desperate

a al-Asad, lack of better

under Hafiz

above

put Syria realpolitik Arab nationalists fixed their hopes on Saddam Hussein.

alternatives, and finally The

and

who

of

all. For

first on the Palestinians,

choice,

since

they

themselves

had largely despaired of other Arabs. At the height of Nasser's powers, they had allowed themselves to believe in him, and to see him PLO

as their

redeemer.

in 1964,

Nasser

also

the auspices

under

the creation of the prompted of the Arab League. But even

before the Arab armies collapsed in 1967, Palestinians had begun to into an instrument

of their own. The dominant no Fatah demanded component pretensions. pan-Arab even the moral zones of exterritorial support of the Arab states, and was Israel's It to frontiers. operation, especially along prepared assure to the of these But it bastions. fight independence promoted no message of Arab and it gave first priority to the revolution, a state, which of a Palestinian establishment "entity," presumably transform

the PLO

Fatah

had

state system.38 the existing Arab a different Palestinian took course, announcing groups to that they would work the "petty bourgeois of topple regimes" states as a stage in their struggle to liberate Palestine. the Arab This was the pan-Arab of the so-called Arab Nationalists promise would

fit into

But other

Movement

and

its most

flamboyant

offspring,

the Popular

Front

for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), both founded by students at the American hijackings

University made them

like their New "revolution"

of Beirut. the heroes

Their of many

Left contemporaries

now.

The

and rhetoric high-strung Arab intellectuals who,

in the West,

demanded

the Palestinian

in the guerrillas hills opposite became the of this Israel, symbols struggle. and Guevara, Living on the edge and citing Mao they were themselves in poetry celebrated and song by the pan-Arab But intellectuals. fedayeen,

rock-strewn

although the fedayeen sought to imitate the methods of guerrilla warfare which succeeded elsewhere, they completely failed to liberate any part of Palestine

or the Arab world,

and they provoked

Jordan's

196

Martin Kramer in 1970. As Jean Genet the Palestinian recorded, in "to summed the have been up phrase, a a of for thousandth second."39 As the second passed,

ruthless

suppression "revolution" could

be

dangerous Arab nationalist

for the Palestinian enthusiasm and fringe waned, even the fringe finally endorsed the mundane demand for a Palestinian more Arab one to make state alongside Israel?one state, prepared

more

"Our future is with the spokesman of Israel," compromise. a in French 1970?two told academic the PFLP, Ghassan Kanafani, nor China, years before his assassination by Israel. "Neither Europe,

nor are

nor the Arab the Soviet Union, in us or would do interested

or individually, for us."40 The

states,

collectively decisive anything

Palestinian uprising that began in 1987 in theWest Bank and Gaza just that: a Palestinian of arms in Arab quantities

was

would

Palestinians more The more

valuable choice desperate

modern upon

Iraqi the

architecture, and motifs,

fight

sympathy of Saddam

uprising,

relying not but on stones

arsenals, their own fight, of the West.

as the pan-Arab Saddam

step. If anything, ruler to cultivate

hero had

a specific

funds upon

the massive

and knives.

in an effort

legacy of ancient Mesopotamian and poetry, the state encouraged it lavished

on

to win

represented done more

Iraqi loyalty, civilization.

The the far

an even than

any

drawing In art,

the use of Mesopotamian archaeological digs and restorations.

Since no loyalties had survived from antiquity (whichwell predated the Arab

be accommodated Iraqis could by the Sunnis and Shiites. After and Kurds,

all

conquest),

myth?Arabs

Mesopotamian

Saddam blundered intowar with Iran in 1980, Iraq billed herself as of the eastern

the defender

Arab

flank

against

the Persian

hordes?

all the better to justify the demand for war loans from Gulf Arab states.

But

dismissed

Saddam

was

the pan-Arab

no vision

ardent as an

pan-Arabist, idea whose

and

in 1982

time had

passed:

is no linking unity to the removal of boundaries to It could have been Arab present mentality. longer acceptable to or into ten We consideration have take twenty years ago. acceptable the Arab mind and psyche have undergone. We the change which must see the world as it is... .The Arab reality is that the Arabs are The

question

of

now twenty-two states, and we have to behave accordingly. Therefore, not must be unity imposed, but must be achieved through common fraternal opinion. Unity must give strength to its individual partners, not cancel their national identity.41

he

Arab Nationalism: Those included

twenty-two Kuwait.

In 1990,

on which

states,

Saddam's

Iraq

invaded

Mistaken unity

Kuwait,

197

Identity not

"must

be

imposed,"

it a province

declaring

of Iraq. Possession of Kuwait would have filled the Iraqi treasury in perpetuity (a treasury that held a cash reserve of $30 billion back in 1980 but groaned under a debt of more than $100 billion a decade later). Significantly, Iraq did not formally justify its invasion as an act of Arab

nationalist to the state

unification. and

of

belonged Iraq claimed that Kuwait an asserted that the annexation

Iraq, an Arab moral claim. But Arab nationalists Iraqi legal right, not were a reincarnation as of Nasser, seized upon Saddam though he at that, for being far more reckless and ruthless. and an improvement

properly

lacked Nasser's

he

While

and nuclear

charm,

potential?power,

he had

oil, missiles, that would he hinted,

nerve

agents, at the

be put

service of all the Arabs. He would be their sword, much like the four giant swords he had cast for his victory arches inBaghdad, dedicated at a ceremony

in 1989

during which

he paraded

upon

a white

horse.42

Hichem Dja?t, the preeminent Tunisian historian, exemplified the In 1978, in a sober mood, he wrote of the intellectuals. euphoria some to pin all hopes on achieving not be healthy that "it would an state to sort of absolute and that attempt unity," by any Arab use

its power

for that purpose

would

be "not

only

dangerous

but

doomed to failure." No Arab state had sufficient power to effect such unity, and no Arab or Russia would Europe, the heart

could allow

The analysis it to the winds

of the Old World."43 threw

this

"entertain so cohesive

the notion that America, a unity to be founded in makes after

perfect Saddam

sense

to

annexed

day, yet Dja?t to Saddam Hussein, "a new perspective he declared, Thanks Kuwait. And Iraq is its pole and motor." is opening up, that of unification. a start: it still represented If that meant war, or even defeat,

to tell you, as Europeans, that your nations were born In annexing Kuwait, Saddam Hussein has entered the was sure to He of a source of make of trying history. dynamics In addition, he was undertaking for himself, material means. wealth I don't have out of wars.

the beginning of the unification of the Arab world. is more important than legality.44 "Our pursue

Sometimes

legitimacy

our goals we goal let us seek by the edge of the sword / For are thus surely secured." This verse from Yaziji's ode of

198 1868 surface

Martin Kramer anticipated of Arab

the preference for coercion that ran beneath the no longer Once its slogans nationalism. swayed nationalism of persuasion, gave up even the pretense

Arab millions, raw to worship

But power. that power; despite incredible like the Palestinian fedayeen a for thousandth "dangerous

Saddam

not

had

amassed

military expenditures, a generation before,

of enough Saddam's Iraq,

could only be In the end, Dja?t was state to by any Arab

of a second."

in 1978 that an attempt he wrote right when to failure." In battle, be "doomed force unity would the Iraqi "motor" broke down, of unification and the scenes of immediately soldiers and armored burned-out columns recalled surrendering Iraqi as the defeat

so much

nothing

of

1967.

And,

in the end,

Saddam

was right when he said in 1982 that the "Arab mind and psyche" not

would

accept

borders. Most

the imposition

or the removal

of unity

of existing

of the Arab states joined the international coalition

a state system which had become their own, against him, to uphold even if it originated it was And long ago in an imperial partition. not only Arab governments invasion: which the the rejected publics to polls, never took Saddam in the Arab coalition states, according as a pan-Arab savior.45 The Arab nationalists called 1991 seriously a defeat

of the Arabs In 1967,

analogous. was lost

to foreign only Iraq was

as a whole, three Arab occupation,

analogous states were and

to 1967.

itwas

But

not

Arab

defeated, territory In all Arabs felt humiliated.

state was the sovereignty of an Arab defeated, in Casablanca, of Arabs and millions restored, Cairo, Damascus, themselves the victors. and Riyadh considered 1991,

In the war's Israel moved

that victory

the ultimate

would

represent Eastern order, Middle state among legitimate

following The new

the United

aftermath, to translate

a negotiation order would

the Arab States, a new into regional of Arab

undoing than Arab, would states, to be recognized of peace and a definition

rather

also

include Turkey,

states, order

nationalism. include

Israel

and that That as a states

by all Arab of Israel's borders.

and perhaps

other

states

that wished to define themselves asMiddle Eastern. The rationale for the idea of theMiddle East, made most fully by some Cairo vision nationalist had become that the Arab argued a in It was age, and it postideological ideological war of a costly Arab cold for a continuation Israel, against the Arabs could no longer count on any outside support

intellectuals, anachronistic. pressed although

Arab Nationalism:

Mistaken

199

Identity

following the end of the Superpower Cold War. The moment had come

to shift priorities

to the domestic

of economic

agenda

growth,

lest theArab world sink under theweight of its swollen populations. seemed to demonstrate, of Europe the economic to future belonged formations of many nations. regional composed to promote These cooperated economic and collective growth security, economies of the massive burden of military relieving expenditure.

As

the unification

arms

Water,

the environment,

control,

tourism?these

trade,

and

hundreds of other issues could not be negotiated to a resolution by the Arabs

alone.

states were

Arab

also Middle

Eastern

and

states,

while they belonged to an Arab state system, they also belonged to a Middle

Eastern

order would Arabs

and

order. The of that regional shape and content over time; a first step would be the progress of at the negotiating table.46

evolve Israelis

The idea of the Middle East as a framework of identity faces many obstacles. It has nothing like the depth of the idea of Europe. The Middle East is a term that was first put into wide currency by an American

naval

indeterminate

area guarding a part a colorless It remains

Singapore."47 idea of an Arab

nation

and the term Middle usage.

in 1902

who

strategist,

"from

and

the Ocean

inaccurate to the Gulf"

from

"an to

Suez but

the

term, is no older,

East passed long ago into common Arabic into an organizing

Its translation

the sea route

of

it as

described

of regional

principle

relations

would constitute the final triumph of the realmap over the imaginary

now on adding the last touches on the real map ? map. All depends the mutually that will define Israel. agreed borders TALKING DEMOCRACY Is it true, as Fouad Do nationalism"?

AND

ISLAM

Ajami wrote, its defenders,

at the end of the road

that this signifies the "end of Arab in exile, inhabit "fortresses mostly

that are yet

to receive

the dispatches

that all

is lost and the battle is over"?48 Arab nationalism has suffered yet another inspiring

blow, a few

and

has

societies

and journals published under

the mercurial

retreated

in Europe. With

Mu'ammar

to

almost in Beirut,

and clubs

al-Qaddafi,

its point of origin, some newspapers

and

the exception of Libya no Arab

state makes

any credible pretense of championing Arab nationalism. Yet Arab nationalists

have

not

lost hope

that

from

their

last fortresses,

they

200

Martin Kramer return

to recapture the center. Did that not triumphant an case to one in of Iran, where the old ayatollah, banished happen a revolution of Shiite Islam, launched of the last bastions and swept

might

to power? The to Arab hope

return

of political that

Islam

holds out purgatory do the same. Their

from

nationalists

they might on Saddam of failed, but there are other avenues gamble desperate can adapt to the Arab nationalism return, provided spirit changing of the times. Arab The

has never

nationalism

core of its message

of one Arab

been

has never

changed, to be drawn

destined

nation,

messianism.

As

the division

established

and

recognized, became

But

nationalism

Arab

immense

the

given

moment

to such adaptation. and remains the existence

and socialism, radicalism, ever more world became

this borrowing achieved less, so that ever more in its Utopian presumptions. economic and social problems that face nationalists

a revolutionary

become

might

fascism, the Arab

of

are Arab

there

societies,

averse

in some form of together an enemies. of external array against borrowed themes supplementary

unity, and poised antagonistically But in the past, Arab nationalism from liberalism, and vocabulary

Arab

totally

who one.

believe They

that

intend

any to be

there. Since

they have bid to stay in the contest by as the natural and ally of democracy never required a commitment to nationalism

of 1991, nationalism

the "defeat"

Arab presenting Islam. In theory, Arab it showed either, and in practice and

dictators prime,

Arab

parties

and

a strong nationalists

executing they now

unity. That a matter of conviction prevailing

order

has

aversion had

a strong preference for revolutionary to Islamic movements. In their

no

Islamic

qualms

activists,

about all

banning in the name

political of Arab

and Islam is less upon democracy convenience. understand that the They not two weaknesses. Its democratic. First, it is have

fixed

than

are under pressure now in power for a generation, aging rulers, for and that yearns that gets younger from a populace every year, a measure in it is not legitimate of political Second, participation. have of frustrated who numbers the eyes of the growing people yearn for a They genuinely can which of authenticity, only be achieved by they believe in the of an Islamic state under Islamic law. Somewhere the creation to one of it is possible succumb that a regime might Arab world filled

measure

the ranks

of

Islamic movements.

Arab Nationalism: these weaknesses.

nationalists

Arab

and perhaps emerge or Islam or both.

triumphant

Mistaken

Identity

201

to join the resulting fracas either by championing democracy hope

a reading of the leading it journals of pan-Arab opinion, to sing. that the slogan of Islam has been more difficult appears most is plenty There of common Islamic discourse, ground with From

notably

in the shared conviction that the Arab world

from

imperialist But normalized.

domination

and

Islam

that Israel's

has

its champions,

already mass movements, and disciplined and well-organized no an in interest almost alliance with the discredited Arab

nationalism.

still suffers must

not

be

in the

form

of

presence

these

express of stragglers

The

round-table debates among Arab lengthy about their possible with Islamic relationship are not reciprocated movements leaders by the Islamists, whose once have no need for guidance from others, those who especially nationalist

intellectuals

them.49 Still, some Arab nationalist from intellectuals, persecuted in Europe their perches and America, have offered their intellectual services to the defense of Islamic movements before Western opinion? something themselves. although apologists denounced

Islamic movements

to undertake been ill-prepared foundations of a relationship, are pleased or not all Arab nationalists to become prepared a for varieties of Islam which, few years ago, they only This

has

have

created

the

with all their polemical force. In contrast, the slogan of democracy There are no mass democracy movements, now to Arab claims be committed regime conversion themselves. conference and means

often

seems

And

so

attitudinal existing identification away or Islam. The show

nationalists

a similar

if the people were only allowed to express endorse the Arab nationalist program: greater of the United and withdrawal from States,

is that

themselves, they would Arab unity, repudiation the Arab-Israeli peace

date

than that of the Arab

the

brim with articles, journals pan-Arab and study-group reports on the methods proceedings, of promoting in the Arab world. The democracy this sudden enthusiasm for underlying political pluralism

assumption and free elections

state

less credible

to appropriate. and while every virtually to democracy, their late

is easier

process.50 This belief flies in the face of the show a continuing shift of self surveys, which from the Arab nation, and toward either the results

of those

polarization

free elections held to relatively between the party of the state and

202

Martin Kramer of Islam. No

the party in these

elections.

Arab

And

nationalist

while

there

parties have been a factor is a constituency for some

elements of the Arab nationalist program, Islamic American Islam.

it clearly belongs

to

similar repudiations of platforms incorporate are in and but couched the of Israel, language hegemony In these circumstances, of Arab nationalists the commitment parties,

whose

as superficial as that of the Islamists to democracy remains and the more mass seen one as It is for mobilization and regimes. slogan or as a the and then shield order, overturning existing undermining of a triumphant Islam. But even as the Arab the revenge against of democracy, their eyes remain fixed on the man who next next the the Saddam?the Nasser, horizon, awaiting save the Arabs from themselves and unite them. Even now, will is on everyone's when the slogan of democracy lips, half of the Arab nationalists

speak

in a recent survey believe that Arab unity intellectuals not can only be achieved by democracy.51 by force, now has lost almost But Arab nationalism, having everything, and Islam has been of democracy little to lose, and its endorsement should now cast in just that spirit. That Arab nationalism made nationalist

itself as the defender of freedom and the faith is ironic. The irony is who have a strong sense of history themselves, it Arab nationalism memories. discarded because They long an exorbitant even as it exacted of power, failed to keep its promise to and faith. It was not the only Utopian ideology price in freedom more the useful comparison, when do so at the time. And perhaps

not

lost on the Arabs

and

is longer, the perspective two Soviet communism:

may great

be between myths

of

Arab

nationalism

solidarity,

and

impossible

in

their scale, deeply flawed in their implementation, which alternately stirred and whipped millions of people in a desperate pursuit of power through themiddle of the twentieth century, before collapsing in exhaustion?and lounges

of

stranding

their

last

admirers

in the

faculty

the West.

ENDNOTES Tbrahim

al-Yaziji,

"Tanabbahu

wa

istafiqu"

2George Antonius, The Arab Awakening: Movement (London: H. Hamilton, 1938).

("Awake

and Arise").

The Story of the Arab National

Arab Nationalism: 3Mahmoud Darwish, 4Nizar

"Bitaqa hawiyya" an asta'dhina

"La buda

Qabbani,

Mistaken

203

Identity

("Identity Card"). al-watan"

("IMust

Ask

the Homeland's

Permission"). 5Rupert

From

Emerson,

to Nation:

Empire

The

to Self-Assertion

Rise

of Asian

and

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960), 126.

African Peoples

6See, for example, Elie Kedourie, Nationalism (London: Hutchinson, 1960); and Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (London: Basil Blackwell, 1983). 7First assessed

by Antonius,

The Arab

Awakening.

For subsequent

accounts,

see Zeine

N.

Zeine, Arab-Turkish Relations and the Emergence of Arab Nationalism (Beirut: Khayat's, 1958); Sylvia Haim, Arab Nationalism: An Anthology (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1962); Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal (London: Oxford University Press, 1962); C. Ernest Dawn, From Age 1798-1939 Ottomanism to Arabism: Essays on the Origins of Arab Nationalism (Urbana, 111.: University of Illinois Press, 1973); Philip S. Khoury, Urban Notables and Arab Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); A. A. Duri, The Formation

Historical

of the Arab Nation,

trans. Lawrence

I. Conrad

(London:

Croom

Helm, 1987); Bassam Tibi, Arab Nationalism: A Critical Inquiry, 2d ed., trans. Marion Farouk Sluglett and Peter Sluglett (New York: St.Martin's Press, 1990); and Rashid Khalidi et al, eds., The Origins of Arab Nationalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991 ). 8For the most

systematic

critique

of

the

see Hisham

"awakening,"

Sharabi,

Arab

Intellectuals and theWest (Baltimore,Md.: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1970). For its difficulties in creating a modern vocabulary of politics, see Ami Ayalon, Language and Change in theArab Middle East: The Evolution ofModern Arabic Political Discourse (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). 9Gertrude Bell, The Desert and the Sown (London:W. Heinemann, 10Turkishnationalism, outlook

of early Arab

Turkish Nationalism,

inspired by Balkan nationalisms, nationalism.

On

1876-1908

its genesis,

1907), 140.

in turn inspiredmuch of the

see David

Kushner,

The

Rise

of

(London: Cass, 1977).

nSee Neville J.Mandel, The Arabs and Zionism Calif.: University of California Press, 1976).

before World War I (Berkeley,

12ElieKedourie, "Pan-Arabism and British Policy," in Elie Kedourie, The Chatham House Version and other Middle-Eastern Studies (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970), 213. 13OnArab politics in the immediate postwar period, see Zeine N. Zeine, The Struggle for Arab Independence: Western Diplomacy and the Rise and Fall of Faisal's Kingdom in Syria, 2d ed. (Delmar, N.Y.: Caravan Books, 1977). 14For the genesis

of

the names

that

filled

the postwar

map,

see Bernard

Lewis,

"The

Map of theMiddle East: A Guide for the Perplexed," The American Scholar 58 19-38. (1) (Winter 1988-1989): 15Thedeep debate in Lebanon over the very definition of its history is considered by Ahmad Beydoun, Identit? confessionnelle et temps social chez les historiens libanais contemporains (Beirut:L'Universit? Libanaise, 1984); and Kamal Salibi,

204

Martin Kramer

A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered Calif.: University of California Press, 1988).

times, most famously by

16While the story of the Arab Revolt has been told many T.

E.

Lawrence

and

there

Antonius,

George

are

(Berkeley,

accounts

fewer

of

the

rival

campaigns for separate independence in different part of the Fertile Crescent. For awidening of the perspective, see Eliezer Tauber, The Arab Movements inWorld War I (London: Frank Cass, 1993). L. Cleveland, The Making 17Quoted by William of an Arab Nationalist: Ottomanism and Arabism in the Life and Thought of Sati( al-Husri (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971), 127. 18Ibid.,

163-65. see C. Ernest

19On this evolution,

of a Pan-Arab

Formation

"The

Dawn,

the Inter-War Years," International Journal of Middle (February 1988): 67-91.

in

Ideology

Eastern Studies 20 (1)

20On the Egyptian debate over identity, see Israel Gershoni and James P. Jankowski, (New York: Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian Nationhood Oxford University Press, 1986). 21These plans have been considered in great detail by Yehoshua Porath, In Search of Arab Unity 1930-1945 (London: Frank Cass, 1986). nJ. C. Hurewitz, The Middle East and North Africa inWorld Politics: A Documentary Record, 2d ed. (NewHaven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979), 736. 23For a contemporary

of the transition

discussion

24For

an

assessment,

see Nissim

Rejwan,

Critics (New York: JohnWiley,

26Sami

al-Jundi,

of

see Leonard

politics,

Nasserist

Ideology:

Its Exponents

and

1974).

25Translation inHaim, Arab Nationalism: a member

to ideological

in theMiddle East (New York: JohnWiley,

Binder, The Ideological Revolution 1964).

the

Ba'th

An Anthology, from

its

233-41.

earliest

years

who

wrote

a

devastating account of the party, as quoted by Elie Kedourie, "Arabic Political in Elie Kedourie, Arabic Political Memoirs and Other Studies Memoirs," (London: Frank Cass, 1974), 201. 27For the early history of the Ba'th, seeKamel S. Abu Jaber, The Arab Ba'th Socialist Party: History, Ideology, and Organization (Syracuse,N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1966); John F. Devlin, The Ba(th Party: A History from Its Origins to 1966 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1976); and Kanan Makiya [Samir al Khalil], Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1989), 149-257. 28For this period, seeMalcolm H. Kerr, The Arab Cold War: Gamal 'Abd al-Nasir 3d ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1971); and His Rivals, 1958-1970, and P. J.Vatikiotis, Conflict in theMiddle East (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1971). 29DavidHolden,

Farewell to Arabia

(New York: Walker,

1966), 101.

Arab Nationalism:

Mistaken

205

Identity

30AbdulAziz Said, "Clashing Horizons: Arabs and Revolution," inMichael Curtis, ed., People and Politics in theMiddle East (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1971), 279. 31Fouad

"The

Ajami,

End

and Arab Nationalism: 1987), 98. 32The most

in Tawfic

of Pan-Arabism,"

The Continuing Debate account

thought-provoking

of

E. Farah,

ed.,

Pan-Arabism

(Boulder, Colo.: Westview crisis

the post-1967

of Arab

Press,

nationalism

remains Fouad Ajami, The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice Since 1967 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Other works

of

representative

the reassessments

made

by Arab

nationalist

intellectuals

include Abdallah Laroui, The Crisis of the Arab Intellectual: Traditionalism or Historicism*, trans. Diarmid Cammell (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1976); Samir Amin, The Arab Nation (London: Zed Press, 1978); and Hisham Sharabi, Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change inArab Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). For a variety of assessments by non Arabs, seeMichael Hudson, Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977); Jacques Berque, Arab Rebirth: Pain & Ecstasy, trans. Quintin Hoare (London: Al Saqi Books, 1983); David Pryce Jones, The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs (New York: Harper &; Row, 1989); and Olivier Carr?, Le nationalisme arabe (Paris: Fayard, 1993). 33Salibi,A House 34Kamal

of Many Mansions, "Cultural

Abu-Deeb,

218, 231. in a Fragmented

Creation

Sharabi, ed., The Next Arab Decade: Westview Press, 1988), 165. 35The strengthening

of

the Arab

state

served

Alternative as the

theme

in Hisham

Society,"

Futures

(Boulder, Colo.:

of a multiyear

project

on

"Nation, State and Integration in the Arab World," which generated four volumes of detailed studies. The most significant of these studies are collected in Giacomo Luciani, ed., The Arab State (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1990). 36MichelAflaq, Fi sabil al-ba(th (Beirut:Dar al-Tali'a, 1963), 55. 37Quoted by Emmanuel Sivan, Radical Islam: Medieval Theology Politics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985), 30-32. 38On

the

39Jean Genet, 40Quoted

of

evolution

1959-1974:

this

approach,

see Moshe

Arab Politics and the PLO Prisoner

by Carr?,

of Love, Le

nationalisme

trans.

The

Palestinian

Entity

(London: Frank Cass, 1988).

Barbara arabe,

Shemesh,

and Modern

Bray

(London:

Picador,

1989),

239.

175.

41 Quoted by Amatzia Baram, Culture, History and Ideology in the Formation of Ba(thist Iraq, 1968-89 (London: Macmillan, 1991), 121. The book includes a detailed discussion of the issue of identity in Iraqi politics, and the genesis of the Mesopotamian

myth.

42See Kanan Makiya Art, Vulgarity and [Samir al-Khalil], The Monument: Responsibility in Iraq (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1991). 43Hichem Dja?t, Europe and Islam (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1985), 140-41.

206

Martin Kramer

44Quoted by Kanan Makiya, Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising, and the Arab World (New York: Norton, 1993), 242. The second half of this work is devoted to the rush of Arab nationalist intellectuals to endorse Saddam Hussein before and during the Gulf crisis. 45David Pollock, "The Arab Street"? Public Opinion in the Arab World, policy paper no. 32 (Washington, D.C.: The Washington Institute forNear East Policy, 1992), 29-41. 46An example of this trend is the article by the Egyptian intellectual Lutfi al-Khuli, "Arab?

Na'am

wa-lakin

sharq

awsatiyin

aydan!,"

al-Hayat

(London),

20 May

1992. 47RodericDavison, "Where is theMiddle East," inRichard Nolte, Middle East (New York: Atherton, 1963), 16-17. 48FouadAjami, "The End of Arab Nationalism," 12 August 1991.

ed., The Modern

The New Republic

(Washington),

see the of a roundtable of Arab of such a debate, proceedings example a nationalist-Islamist on the of nationalist intellectuals rapprochement possibility

49For an

in al-Mustaqbal al-arabi (Beirut) (161) (July 1992): 96-119. 50Fora typical statement of this view, seeAs'ad AbuKhalil, "ANew Arab Ideology?: The Rejuvenation of Arab Nationalism," Middle East Journal 46 (1) (Winter 1992): 22-36. at Yarmuk conducted survey was by researchers one thousand from several Arab almost respondents

51The

al-arabi

(164) (October 1992): 27-33.

and included University, countries. See al-Mustaqbal