The Failed Arab Unity Project - Essay Example

? The Failed Arab Unity Project Essay of Introduction As an outcome of the failure of Nasserism inthe Arab-Israeli war in 1967, it became common to associate failure to the abandonment of Islamic religion and tradition. Islamism, the belief that personal, cultural, political, and social life should be guided by Islamic ideals, was becoming very influential all over the Arab world, particularly after the Iranian Revolution in 1979 (Moaddel, 2005). However, the deterioration and ultimate downfall of the Soviet Union, the former supporter of Arab nationalist governments, the strengthening hegemonic involvement and presence of the United States in the region, and the intensifying movement of Israel into the region, have wreaked major havoc to Arab nationalism and unity. Confronted with the obvious failure of Arab ideologies, specifically Arab nationalism, Ba’thist Arab Socialism, and pan-Islamism, to achieve wider Arab unity, several intellectuals resorted yet again to religion. An unnamed writer in Jordan described the experience of the Arab world in the ideological domain throughout the 20th century, and concluded that the Arab world “never enjoyed a comprehensive ideology except under the State of the Prophet Muhammad and his great Caliphs, Abu-Bakr and Umar” (Rejwan, 1974, p.32). This essay discusses why ideologies such as Arab nationalism, Ba’thism, and pan-Islamism have failed to achieve a wider Arab unity. Arab Nationalism and Arab Unity It was only at the end of the First World War that the relevant concept of the ‘Arab nation’ surfaced and Arab nationalism slowly became a political movement. Intellectuals instead of political figures were at the vanguard of the movement. They adopted the ideology of nationalism from Europe and they utilised it to break new ground for the Arab nation (Young, Zuelow, & Sturm, 2007). However, Arab nationalism was an utter failure. There were challenging, overwhelming hindrances along its route. Primarily, there were rivalling allegiances to religion, faction, and tribe, as well as opposing identities. Moreover, there was persistent conflict between Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and other regional states and the bigger, inclusive Arab identity. The other, and possibly most unexpected, barrier to the idea of a united Arab world was linguistic differences in the region (Choueiri, 2005). However, the most influential rival of the notion of a secular Arab world was the idea of a unified Islamic community. Islam was one of the grand cosmopolitan ideologies with a right to the loyalty of most Arabs. Islam is more encompassing than pan-Arabism for it did not set apart Arab from non-Arab. The Islamic community was a union wherein ethnic background is irrelevant. Given these profound and persistent rifts and differences, it was an almost unachievable mission to attain the two core goals of Arab nationalism—sovereignty and unity. Another goal was created at the end of the Second World War—to protect Arab ownership of Palestine. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War was the critical stage in the fight for Palestine (Joffe, 1983). It was expected that Arab unity would be built on the combat zone against a single adversary. It was the most important ordeal for the newly autonomous Arab states, but they did not pass the test. The failure of these states to synchronise their military and political campaigns was one of the main reasons for the defeat of Palestine (Podeh, 1999). The hopeful possibilities that emerged once the Arabs conducted war against the Zionist enemies raised disenchantment and anguish over the miserable destruction of Arab Palestine. A very unique aspect of modern-day Arab nation is the startling discrepancy between vision and reality. Pan-Arabism is the declared ideology among the powerful elite and the dominant belief among the Arab people, but the Arab nation still struggles with the decline of civil life and deep-rooted disunity. Attempts at political and social unity have been prevented by oppressive situations, inequalities between urban and rural areas, the influence of age-old allegiances (e.g. kinship, religion), colonisation, enslavement, dependency, the quest for personal objectives by the traditional ruling classes in individual Arab countries, and regionalism (Baali, 2004). This problem is further made complicated by the absence of understanding of these disruptive, conflict-ridden factors and of their interplay and interrelatedness (Qaddafi, 1987). Without definite and accurate understanding of these complex forces, the Arab world will consistently fail to reconcile this reality and the vision of wider Arab unity. With the formation of the Ba’ath Party in 1941, and with the coming to power of Nasser in Egypt on a pan-Arabism ideology, Arab unity became a major political objective in numerous societies of the Arab world (Shemesh, 2008). However, unity has been very difficult to attain. Nasserism and Ba’athism were not able to build a union in the latter 1950s, and Syria and Iraq, which were both Ba’ath states, became fierce regional enemies. The 1991 Gulf War exposed the truth—Arab unity is imaginary, a creed that has concealed the actual existence of authoritarianism rooted in national interest. The Arab world is comprised of independent nations, some fully established, while others are still developing. These nations have their own goals and interests (Lebovic, 2004). Within such environment, even the passionate supporters of Arab unity have to concede that this objective is unreachable. Basically speaking, it is important to take into consideration that the truly vital objectives are Arab cooperation and the rebuilding or transformation of undisputedly autonomous nation-states. Many are asking why Arab nationalism failed to achieve a wider Arab unity. There are three major ideas (Phillips, 2012, p. 13): first, it was destined to fail from the very beginning; second, it was attainable but impeded by errors, factors, or entities; and third, it just reached its saturation point. As regards the third idea, Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri restricts the proclaimed objectives of Arabism to view it in a more positive way. By placing greater emphasis on the anti-imperialistic aspect of the ideology instead on its ability to unite the Arab world, he argues that Arabism accomplished its objective of emancipating the Arab nation from European imperialists. Since its mission has been accomplished, it does not have any more reasons to continue its existence. A more broadly recognised idea is that Arab unity was achievable but was frustrated by particular factors and occurrences. Walid Kazziha refers to the Arab regimes’ acceptance of Palestinian nationalism as challenging a broader Arab nationalism and reinforcing the identities of individual states as the root of failure (Phillips, 2012, p. 13). On the contrary, Adeed Dawisha (2009) argues it was the refusal of Iraq President Qassim to be a part of the United Arab Republic along with Syria and Egypt that broke the thrust of nationalism. He argues that Nasser definitely was Arab nationalism and it was Nasser, not Sadat, who started undoing his own efforts after the military downfall in 1967. Other scholars also believe that occurrences and individuals hindered Arab nationalism, but this took place prior to Nasser’s ascent to power, with the establishment in 1946 of the Arab League (Qadir, 2006). Instead of being a movement towards Arab unity, the Arab League in fact protected state independence and weakened the possibility of any triumphant unitary campaign. The last group of intellectuals cite the innate flaws of Arab nationalism, especially the extreme perfectionism, idealism, and impracticality of Arab nationalities and the absurdity of absolute unity. These scholars emphasises that neither ideological leaders like Ba’ath organiser Michael Aflaq nor political figures such as Nasser, paid attention to the practical details of how a unified Arab world would function (Aksikas, 2009). Ideological leaders defined an ‘Arab’, not the techniques to attain unity. Likewise, politicians like Nasser took advantage of Arab nationalism as a replacement for other sentiments like anti-imperialism and the clash with Israel, instead of creating meaningful unity frameworks. This neglect was revealed in the poor foundation, and sudden failure of the United Arab Republic (UAR) (Phillips, 2012). Old Arabism, a nationalistic ideology aiming to bring together Arab people into a single nation that had emerged since the 19th century, reached its zenith under Nasser’s regime. Hence, Arabism can be considered a failed nationalism. Ba’athism also failed. After a period of misunderstanding, disorder, and investigation, the Arabs were given, once more in Iraq, a real and concrete image of that ideology’s weaknesses (Shemesh, 2008). Giving sermons of the alleged pan-Arab ideals, Ba’athism guaranteed wider Arab unity expanding “from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf” (Ziring, 1992, p. 156) and presented a sincere Arab philosophy arising from the real situation of the Arabs and obeying Arab customs. Yet, the Arabs eventually discovered that Ba’athism lacks any philosophy and had nothing in it aside from slogans—that it was indeed “a distorted version of communism, adopting its principles and philosophy, its morality and political system of government, and practising the same terror” (Rejwan, 1974, p. 33). Since 1953, Ba’athism slowly became one of Syria’s popular parties. From 1957 to 1958, it was positioned to reinforce and campaign for Syria’s unity with a quite unwilling Egypt to create the UAR. The notion of union with Egypt had been widely accepted in Syrian politics as a remedy to regional intimidations and local disorder (Suleiman, 2002). Yet, once a union between Syria and Egypt was suggested, the Ba’ath party, worried that their status was being challenged by left-wing entities in the country, pursued political union so as to protect and strengthen their status. As a requirement of the union, Egyptian President al-Nasir mandated that every political party and its activity, as well as the Ba’ath party, be discontinued (Aksikas, 2009). Eventually, the hopes created by the initial interest in unity disintegrated in the failure of the union to deal with the local economic and political problems of important interest groups in Syria. Later efforts at unification in 1963 were also unsuccessful (Nukunya & Kumekpor, 1989). Although Ba’athist regimes devoted ideologically to the unification of the Arab world were engaged, efforts at political union collapsed on real political forces— a regional security situation that weakened efforts at collaboration, ideological rivalry throughout the region, and separatist and internal disunity. Within this environment, although the dream of Arab unity stayed rooted in the doctrine of Ba’athism, the real presence of local and regional politics forced Ba’athist states to try to fulfil national objectives (Qadir, 2006). Consequently, the concept of a ‘national state’ surfaced in conflict with the rightfulness of a state rooted in the grander objectives of the Arab nation. Meanwhile, pan-Islamism emerged in the mid-19th century, arising from the conquest, enslavement, and subjection of the Arab world by Western powers and reacting to the issues with which Arabs were confronted. It highlighted that all those who follow Islam should have shared cultural and historical ideals and common goals and come together to preserve and revive Islamic values. Its ideological foundation stemmed from Islamic self-image as a common religion not bounded by national borders, language, race, or nationality (Suleiman, 2002). It invited all Muslims across the globe to come together, to build a far-reaching community based on shared ideals, and to wage a holy war against the conquering European powers under the headship of a principled, honourable caliph until ultimate triumph. The pan-Islamist doctrine formed by Afghani was deeply anti-imperialist and conveyed the displeasure of the masses with the social order due to the penetration of Western capitalists into the Arab region (Barakat, 1993). This has greatly influenced the national awareness of Arab peoples; it is considered as one of the leading social movements and ideologies in Islam’s contemporary history. However, pan-Islamism as a movement failed to achieve wider Arab unity. The need for recognition and appreciation by pan-Islamism resulted in anti-American ideas and unreasonable compassion for Bin Laden and the Taliban by Muslim peoples after the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan. In essence, pan-Islamism is not an extremist ideology, but a social ideology generally misconstrued by Western societies and taken advantage by Islamic fundamentalists (Hassan, 2010). It is because it abides by the ideals of anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, and Islam, hence exerting great influence on Muslim peoples. The Iraqi Impasse During the interwar period, Iraq was in the forefront of the grand campaign for wider Arab unity. Advocates of pan-Arabism aspired to transform Iraq into a nationalist exemplar for the entire Arab world. However, Iraq was a seriously disjointed nation. It was an ‘unnatural’ state, patched up by Great Britain from three former Ottoman colonies, and deprived of any religious or ethnic foundation (Jankowski & Gershoni, 1997). Iraq does not have the fundamental groundwork of a national solidarity. The Kurds in the northern part demanded autonomy. The Kurdish population, being Indo-European speakers and non-Semitic, had almost nothing similar to the Iraqi Arabs besides their Sunni Muslim belief. It is not possible to integrate or assimilate them into the ‘Arab nation’ because they do not see themselves as ‘Arabs’. Yet, in their fight for autonomy, they were constantly disappointed because no one is willing to help them (Young et al., 2007). The Shiites in the southern part considered Arab nationalism as Sunni-oriented intended to relegate them further in an enlarged Sunni Arab province. Most was Shiite, but the prevailing political faction was the Sunnis (Young et al., 2007). Therefore, Iraq showed a preview of the forces that were to hinder Arab nationalism. The effort to enforce nationalism from a top-down approach by the Arab nationalists in Iraq throughout the interwar period led to foreign policy measures that were not able to enforce the objectives of Arab unity. After the demise of Faysal, the banner of Hashimite dominion throughout the Arab world was transformed into a platform for a pan-Arab merger (Palestinian, Syria, Iraq) governed by the Jerusalem Mufti and Iraqi pan-Arab military officials (Young et al., 2007, p. 205). When it became apparent that the 1941 Iraqi-British War had culminated in the downfall for the nationalist objective, the Hashimite flag was transferred to Trans-Jordan. The 1958 revolution put an end to the unity objectives of Hashimite. Nevertheless, the pan-Arab doctrine would be put back together by the Ba’th party (Shemesh, 2008). From the unsuccessful campaign of Arab nationalism and Arab unity, several observers concluded that the core concept of Arab unity had perished. Attempts at state unification were unsuccessful. In the point of view of numerous Arab leaders, specifically in Libya and Egypt, there was an intensifying denunciation of the loyalty to an Arab identity, and a bigger emphasis on the national component in ideology and politics (Moaddel, 2005). Nevertheless, the phenomenon may not be as simplistic as it seems. In fact, the inability of strong, stable states to unite should be not unexpected. Conclusions Not merely did age-old cultural, physical, and geographical distinctions preserved their strength-- currently transformed by the economic, security, and governmental objectives produced by the diversity of states-- they also discouraged cooperation among these states. Nevertheless, this did not imply that the concept of Arab unity had died. 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