States and Territories of the Arab League

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Pan-Arabism is an ideology espousing the unification – or, sometimes, close cooperation and solidarity against perceived enemies of the Arabs – of the countries of the Arab world, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea. It is closely connected to Arab nationalism, which asserts that the Arabs constitute a single nation. Its popularity was at its height during the 1950s and 1960s. Advocates of pan-Arabism have often espoused socialist principles and strongly opposed Western political involvement in the Arab world. It also sought to empower Arab states from outside forces by forming alliances and, to a lesser extent, economic co-operation.^[1]

Origins and development[link]

The origins of pan-Arabism are often attributed to Jurji Zaydan (died 1914) and his Nahda (Revival) movement. Zaydan had critical influence on acceptance of a modernized version of the Quranic Arabic language as the universal written and official language throughout the Arab world, instead of adoption of local dialects in the various countries. He also popularized through his historical novels certain heroes from the Arab history. Pan-Arabism was first pressed by Sharif Hussein ibn Ali, the Sharif of Mecca, who sought independence for the Mashreq Arabs from the Ottoman Empire, and the establishment of a unified Arab state in the Mashreq. In 1915–16, the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence resulted in an agreement between the United Kingdom and the Sharif that if the Mashreq Arabs revolted successfully against the Ottomans, the United Kingdom would support claims for Mashreq Arab independence. In 1916, however, the Sykes-Picot Agreement between the United Kingdom and France determined that parts of the Mashreq would be divided between those powers rather than forming part of an independent Arab state. When the Ottoman Empire surrendered in 1918, the United Kingdom refused to keep to the letter of its arrangements with Hussein,^[2] and the two nations assumed guardianship of Mesapotamia, Lebanon, Palestine and what became modern Syria. Ultimately, Hussein only became King of Hijaz in the then less strategically valuable south, but lost his Caliphate throne when the kingdom was sacked by the Najdi Ikhwan forces of the Saudites and forcefully incorporated into the newly-created Kingdom of Saudi Arabia).

The Arab world

A more formalized pan-Arab ideology than that of Hussein was first espoused in the 1930s, notably by Syrian thinkers such as Constantin Zureiq, Zaki al-Arsuzi and Michel Aflaq. Aflaq and al-Arsuzi were key figures in the establishment of the Arab Ba’ath (Renaissance) Party, and the former was for long its chief ideologist, combining elements of Marxist thought with a nationalism to a considerable extent reminiscent of nineteenth-century European romantic nationalism. It's been said that Arsuzi was fascinated with the Nazi ideology of "racial purity" and impacted Aflaq.^[3][4][5]

Abdallah of Jordan dreamed of uniting Syria, Palestine, and Jordan under his leadership in what he would call Greater Syria. He proposed a plan to this effect to Britain, which controlled Palestine at that time, but to no avail. The plan was not popular among the majority of Arabs and fostered distrust among the leaders of the other Middle Eastern countries against Abdallah. This distrust of Abdallah's expansionist aspirations was one of the principal reasons for the founding of the Arab League in 1945.^[6] Once Abdallah was assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist in 1951, the vision of Greater Syria was dropped from the Jordanian agenda.^[1]

The pan-Arab ideology has been accused of racism, inciting prejudice against and downplaying the role of non-Arab peoples, such as the Berbers,^[7] Turks, Jews, Persians, Maronites^[8][9] and others.^[10] Although pan-Arabism began at the time of World War I, Egypt, the most populous and arguably most important Arabic-speaking country, was not interested in pan-Arabism prior to the 1950s. Thus, in the 1930s and 1940s, Egyptian nationalism – and not pan-Arabism – was the dominant mode of expression of Egyptian political activists. According to James Jankowski, "What is most significant [about Egypt in this period] is the absence of an Arab component in early Egyptian nationalism. The thrust of Egyptian political, economic, and cultural development throughout the nineteenth century worked against, rather than for, an 'Arab' orientation.... This situation – that of divergent political trajectories for Egyptians and Arabs – if anything increased after 1900."^[11]

Attempts at Arab union[link]

Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose ideology of "Nasserism" defined the pan-Arabism of the 1960s

It was not until the Gamal Abdel Nasser era that Arab nationalism (in addition to Arab socialism) became a state policy and a means with which to define Egypt's position in the Middle East and the world,^[12][13] usually articulated vis-à-vis Zionism in the neighboring Jewish state of Israel.

There have been several attempts to bring about a pan-Arab state by many well known Arab leaders, all of which ultimately resulted in failure. British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden called for Arab unity during the 1940s, and this was followed by specific proposals from pro-British leaders, including King Abdullah of Transjordan and Prime Minister Nuri al-Said of Iraq, but Egyptian proposals for a broader grouping of independent Arab states prevailed with the establishment of the League of Arab States, a regional international organization, in 1945. In large part representing the popularity Nasser had gained among the masses in the Arab world following the Suez crisis, the United Arab Republic (UAR) in 1958 was the first case of the actual merger of two previously independent Arab countries. Hastily formed under President Nasser's leadership (but on the initiative of Syrian leaders who feared a takeover by communists or "reactionaries" and hoped to lead the new entity), the UAR was a unitary state, not a federal union, with its critics seeing this as hardly more than a small country being annexed by a larger one. It lasted until 1961, when Syrian army officers carried out a coup d'état and withdrew from the union. With the popular dream of unity still a popular force that politicians often thought they had to give lip service to, Egypt, Syria and Iraq entered into an abortive agreement in 1963 to form a new "United Arab Republic," which was to be entirely federal in structure, leaving each member state its identity and institutions."^[1] After 1961, Egypt continued to give lip service to the idea of Arab unity by continuing to call itself "the UAR" but changed its name to "Arab Republic of Egypt" in 1973. ^[14]

Also in 1958, a monarchist rival, the Arab Federation, was founded between Jordan and Iraq. But due to tensions with the UAR and the 14 July Revolution, the Arab Federation collapsed after only six months. Another attempt, the United Arab States, existed as a confederation between the United Arab Republic, Arab Federation and the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen but it dissolved in 1961.

Two later attempts represented the enthusiasm of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi; these were the Federation of Arab Republics which lasted five years and the Arab Islamic Republic which never emerged in practice. Aside from the forcible unification of much of the Arabian Peninsula by the Saudi rulers of Najd during the 1920s, the unity of seven Arab emirates that form the United Arab Emirates and the unification of North Yemen and South Yemen stand today as rare examples of actual unification. The current Syrian government is – and the former government of Iraq was – led by rival factions of the Ba’ath Party, which continues to espouse pan-Arabism and is organized in several other countries.

Decline[link]

The Arab defeat by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War and the inability of pan-Arabist governments to generate economic growth severely damaged the credibility of pan-Arabism as a relevant ideology. "By the mid-1970s," according to The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East, "the idea of Arab unity became less and less apparent in Arab politics, though it remained a wishful goal among the masses."^[1]

The Egyptians' attachment to pan-Arabism was particularly questioned after the Six-Day War. Nasser had overplayed his hand in trying to form a pan-Arab hegemony under himself. Thousands of Egyptians had lost their lives and the country became disillusioned with Arab politics.^[15] The Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978 further fractured the Arabic-speaking countries. Nasser's successor Anwar Al Sadat, both through public policy and his peace initiative with Israel, revived an uncontested Egyptian orientation, unequivocally asserting that only Egypt and Egyptians were his responsibility. The terms "Arab", "Arabism," and "Arab unity" became conspicuously absent.^[16]

By the late 1980s, pan-Arabism began to be eclipsed by both nationalist and Islamist ideologies. In the 1990s, many voiced their opposition to pan-Arabism. For instance, some Kuwaitis viewed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 as caused by an urge for pan-Arabism.^[17]

Egyptian critics of Arab nationalism contend that it has worked to erode and/or relegate native Egyptian identity by superimposing only one aspect of Egypt's culture. These views and sources for collective identification in the Egyptian state are captured in the words of a linguistic anthropologist who conducted fieldwork in Cairo: