http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NI05Ak01.html
Sep 5, 2012
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SPEAKING FREELY
SPEAKING FREELY
Arab Nationalism's last heartbeat
By Riccardo Dugulin
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.
It is often a challenging exercise to analyze the course of history as it is
unfolding under our own eyes. Events may appear to have a stronger impact than
they do and lead to out-of-focus conclusions. A lesson that has to be learnt
when writing about the Middle East is that tendencies and overall
generalizations may be easy to draw but more often than not do put the author
in a theoretical framework that over time detaches him/her from the reality on
the ground.
In Le Nationalisme Arabe (1993), Olivier Carre argued that Arab nationalism
died in the Kuwaiti desert in 1991. Saddam Hussein's defeat was to Carre's eyes
the end of an era where militarized dictatorships ruled the Arab world through
an ensemble of European-style nationalism and the exaltation of a common Arab
culture. Prior to him, authors and scholars saw in the 1967 Arab defeat or the
1981 Camp David agreements other historical turning points which should have
marked the end of Arab nationalism.
In this approach, it is interesting to consider the Hegelian theory, used by
Francis Fukuyama, which sees history as an unstoppable flow leading to a
precise end. If its "end" may remain only an analytical construct, the events
on its way, those that are remarked by commentators, analysts and historians
are a hint enabling societies to understand the profound trends they are
undergoing.
The Arab Awakening that started in Tunisia in 2010 and is now culminating in
the streets of Damascus is likely to provide the region with an enormous amount
of uncertainties regarding its future; it does however indicate a clear
reality: the modern Arab nationalism which saw the light in the 1950s is no
longer a cultural and political part of the Middle Eastern power equation.
Events in 1967, 1981 and 1991 may have discredited the idea and its proponents,
but the events of 2011-2012 have shown the people's rejection of a paradigm
based on two key propositions (uniting the Arabs and fighting Israel) which
have failed over the last decades.
Arab nationalism failed over time due to the inability of this ideology to
fulfill the implicit social contract which it proposed to populations. The
limitation of personal freedoms and individual presence in the public sphere,
may it be in Egypt, Syria or Iraq, had been presented as necessary "pain" to
enable economic development and preserve peace and stability. Along with that,
the cultural aspect of a united and strong Arab world, secular and socialist
based on the values of decolonized States was at the paramount of the ideology.
This last point has since its inception been the fallacy of the Arab
nationalist agenda. Regimes such as the Egyptian, Syrian or Iraqi one, were in
fact not calling for union but for the submission of others to their regional
plans. This is why the stiff opposition led by Saudi Arabia to Arab
nationalism, through a proxy war in Yemen and religious proselytism, have been
a stepping stone to a wider discretization of these regimes.
In addition to outside challenges, corruption, crony capitalism, corporatism
and bad governance have highly limited the economic opportunities of countries
filled with a young and educated work force. More than marches toward freedom
and liberty, the 2011 Awakening started as an socio-economically driven
earthquake, where hundreds of thousands of frustrated citizens showed their
unwillingness to accept any further power abuse. From Tunis to Dara'a, revolts
started as small scale rejection of single exploitations.
The slow extinction of the ideology has also been caused by its essential
inability to fulfill any of its goals regarding the much branded fight against
Israel. In fact, none of the conventional wars waged by Arab States against
Israel has been able to achieve any of its strategic objectives (the 1973 war
may represent a debatable exception for Anwar Saddat). Not only didn't Arab
nationalism lead to any victory against the Jewish State, it also faced growing
challenges by competing regional players. Since the 1980s, the effective
"champion" of the Arab fight against Israel have been embodied by non-state
actors acting as militias and staging an asymmetric threat to Israel. Support
by foreign powers (Iran) has been instrumental in enabling these groups to
maintain their fighting posture. Hamas and especially Hezbollah have in less
than 20 years created a more serious problem to Israel's security and
challenged its defensive posture in a way no Arab conventional regime ever did.
As time is the only factor which seems to remain undefined concerning the fall
of Bashar al-Assad's regime, what may appear as the last heartbeats of Arab
nationalism are underway. The ongoing civil war in Syria, the semi-stable
status quo in Iraq and the period of uncertainties which Egypt is facing are
nothing like what Gamal Abdel Nasser, Saddam Hussein or Hafez al-Assad
envisioned for their countries.
In the meantime, if the slow but certain demise of Arab nationalism as an
ideology is underway, no clear alternative appears to be available. Political
Islam branded by the Muslim Brothers in Egypt or Shi'ite political parties in
Iraq may try to assert themselves as viable alternatives but are not for the
moment creating a concrete and stable new ideology which could in the long term
galvanize all parts of the local societies. The historical adversaries of Arab
nationalism, namely oil-rich religious conservative Gulf Monarchies have never
seen the exportation of their social model as a foreign policy interest. In
fact, Qatar interventionist role in international relations and Saudi Arabia's
growing diplomatic weight are in no ways political attempts to install a new
regional ideology.
As for the Russia, Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States
after 1991, the fall of an ideology creates an immense power vacuum and the
period of instability that follows is proportionally linked to the rise of new
interests group or movements that have been repressed by the ancient regime.
Without having the pretension to venture into any long term forecast, it may be
the case that with the fall of Bashar al-Assad's Syria unprecedented political
changes will take place in the near East as it will mark the effective end of
an ideology that structured part of the Arab discourse over the five decades.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.
Articles submitted for this section allow our readers to express their opinions
and do not necessarily meet the same editorial standards of Asia Times Online's
regular contributors.
Riccardo Dugulin holds a Master degree from the Paris School of International
Affairs (Sciences Po) and is specialized in International Security. He is
currently working in Paris for a Medical and Security Assistance company. He
has worked for a number of leading think tanks in Washington DC, Dubai and
Beirut. Personal website: www.riccardodugulin.com
(Copyright 2012 Riccardo Duguli )
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