Arabs’ Dream of Pan-Arabism.
What is left of it?

by Sami Alrabaa

We, Arabs, at least some of us, have a dream, or better said, we had one: One Arab nation, one flag, one president, and one government. Is this realizable, or is it just a dream? What is left of this old dream?

At school, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf, our children are taught “Arabs have one common history, a common language, and a common culture. Hence, we are actually one actually one nation. The West divided us to facilitate ruling us, plundering us and keeping us backward. Therefore, we must be reunified in one nation, to become strong again as we used to be.” Is this really so on the ground of reality?

The project of one Arab nation, some call it Pan-Arabism, has relentlessly been propagated and zealously pushed by the Ba’th (Renaissance) party, which ruled in both Syria and Iraq, by Jamal Abdulnasser, Mu’ammar Al Gaddafi, and by Saddam Hussein. The project attracted the hopes and support of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa. Pan-Arabism served, at least theoretically, as a guide, a strategy, and a driving force in the region, and competed with other developing local nationalisms. It is a mix of nationalism and socialism. The Arab media and schools made Arabs believe that only one Arab nation would make Arabs strong, developed, and eventually defeat Israel. Pan-Arabism posited a dream of reviving the glory of the Arab empire between the 7th and 13th century.

Yet, all attempts to unify Arab countries have failed. In the early 1960s, a projected merger between Egypt and Syria came to nought. Paradoxically enough, Syrian Ba’th party members staged a coup de detent and ended the merger. In the 1970s, the merger between Egypt and Libya faced the same fate. Saddam’s annexation of Kuwait in 1990, ostensibly the first step towards unifying the Arab states failed too. Besides, the Ba’th party, which sowed a Pan-Arabist ideology, was responsible for the genocide of Kurdish people in Iraq as well as the genocide of Shiite Arabs in Iraq. Pan-Arabism does not recognize minorities living in the Arab world. Everybody in this “world” is an Arab.

In reality, Pan-Arabist regimes were more obsessed with the abstractions of nationalism than with pragmatic economic and social concerns. They were neither inclined to integrate, nor were able to unite on the basis of common history, language, and culture. Pan-Arabist leaders were more concerned with expanding their own political power. Budding Arab nationalism and vague formulations of Arab unity became increasingly interwoven with support for Palestinians in their opposition to Israel.

In fact, it is a myth to claim that contemporary Arabs are products of a common language, common history, and common culture. In their current boundaries, Arabs are as heterogeneous as their minorities, like the Kurds, the Armenians, and the Druzes, for example. A Syrian, for instance, would find it extremely difficult to understand a North African, and vice versa. They have to use Standard Arabic, which is a dead language, like Latin to the Spaniards or the French. Nobody speaks Standard Arabic as a mother tongue. It is learned as a second language.

The same applies to culture. Almost in all walks of life, every Arab country has got its own culture; they are different in terms of food, wedding ceremonies, and most social occasions.

The collapse of all Arab merger efforts delivered a severe psychological blow to Pan-Arabism. The commitment to Pan-Arabism became increasingly perfunctory and propaganda to distract from real pressing issues. By the end of the 20th century, the doctrine of Pan-Arabism had passed; and if it was not dead, it was surely a spent force. By the 1990s, Islamist political movements, inspired in part by the Iranian Revolution of 1979, were growing in popularity and strength throughout the Arab world, often supplanting the earlier enthusiasm for Pan-Arabism. For many Muslims, Pan-Islamism is a potentially more integrating power and more palatable than Pan-Arabism. It would include the Iranians, the Kurds, and the Turks.

Pan-Arabism is blocking all efforts of federalism and autonomy. All Arab regimes have incited rejection against federalism, autonomy, and to a severer extent against independence. Prime examples are Kurdistan, Western Sahara, the Berbers in North Africa, southern Sudan and Darfur.

Nabil Abdel-Fattah, an analyst from Cairo’s Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, says, “Federalism has never been one of the concepts in the Arab political dictionary, until now.” Pan-Arabists have accused the West, which supports federalism, of practicing “divide and flourish.” Michel Aflaq, the late chairman of the Ba’th party, claimed that any attempt of federalism or autonomy would end in dismantling the “Arab Nation”.

The trend toward federalism, if it catches on, could incite minorities — from Berbers in North Africa to various ethnic and religious groups in Lebanon to the sizeable Kurdish populations in Syria, Turkey and Iran — to seek their own states, said Hassan al-Barari, a researcher at Amman’s Centre for Strategic Studies.

Iraq could become a model for practical Arab federalism. In an interview on CNN on October 7, 2007, the Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani denied allegations that the Kurds are seeking independence. The man was pragmatic and stressed that an independent Kurdistan state at the moment is not doable. Its neighbors, the Turks, the Iranians, and the Syrians would oppose such a project and hence it is doomed to fail. He added, a federal Iraq would be the best for the Kurds and Iraq at large.

Religious pluralism in all Arab countries has never been in a better off state of affairs. Religious minorities, like Christians, Jews, have been tolerated, at best. Paradoxically, Arab authoritarian regimes, like the Ba’th in Syria and earlier in Iraq, and Nasser’s regime in Egypt protected these minorities. On the other hand, in Saudi Arabia, mere wearing a cross is interpreted as “missionary” and punished by jail, torture, or beheading, let alone building churches. In Egypt, animosity against Christian Copts erupts once in a while. In the West Bank, an Islamist regime would result in Talibanization. In a recent public lecture in Germany, Yosuf Al-Qaradawi, a famous Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian preacher, claimed that Christians in the Arab world are remnants of the “crusaders”.

For the time being, Arab regimes will remain adamantly resistant to all kinds of federalism and partial autonomy. Federalism would diminish the political power of contemporary Arab regimes. Hence, they will continue suppressing demands for federalism and autonomy. At the same time, centralism coupled with lack of democracy will continue hampering regional development and cultural freedom.