Pan-Arabism

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PAN-ARABISM

Also known as Arab nationalism, pan-Arabism is the ideology that calls for the political unity of Arab peoples and states. By consensus, Arabness is defined not by religion or geographic origin, but, as Sati? al-Husri proposed, by language. Arabs are those whose mother tongue is Arabic and who identify with the history and culture associated with it.

Although some scholars trace its origins to nineteenth-century state builders such as Muhammad ?Ali of Egypt, or religious reform movements such as the Wahhabiyya, or intellectuals such as ?Abdallah al-Nadim and ?Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, pan-Arabism developed as a coherent ideology and political movement at the time of the First World War. It arose as a response to both European imperialism and to the mismanagement and pan-Turkic ideology associated with the Young Turk movement in the Ottoman Empire.

When the Hashemite-led revolt against Ottoman rule began in 1915, Sharif Husayn and his sons had managed to gain support not only in the Hijaz where they were based, but also in Syria. Husayn thought he had assurances from the British government, represented by the high commissioner in Cairo, Sir Henry McMahon, that he and his sons would govern all Arab territories freed from Turkish control. Yet, despite the efforts of Husayn's son Faysal and T. E. Lawrence at the Versailles conference, the postwar mandate system awarded Lebanon and Syria to France and Iraq and Palestine to Britain. The future of Palestine was particularly uncertain because in November 1917 the British had issued the Balfour Declaration promising favorable consideration for the creation of a Jewish homeland there. The Hashemite project for Arab unity was dealt a final blow when the Hijaz was conquered by ?Abd al-?Aziz ibn Sa?ud in 1924 and Husayn was sent into exile in Cyprus, leaving only two of his sons as rulers of British-backed monarchies: Abdallah in Transjordan and Faysal in Iraq.

Following the Second World War, Arab nationalism found two, initially cooperative, but later conflicting, expressions. The first was religious, as articulated by the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslimin), which saw the unity of the Arabs as the first step in pan-Islamic solidarity. The second was secular, as articulated by the Ba?th Party led by Michel ?Aflaq and later by the Nasserists. The common enemy for both was the lingering legacy of British and French imperialism in the Arab world, signified by compliant Arab elites, military bases, economic concessions, and the state of Israel.

Soon after coming to power in Egypt in July 1952, Jamal ?Abd al-Nasser began transforming Egypt into a revolutionary nucleus around which Arab unity would progress. He first crushed the religious groups that had supported the Free Officer revolt against the Egyptian monarchy and had quickly become disillusioned with his secularism. He then turned his attention to the conservative Arab monarchies.

The zenith of secular pan-Arabism came in 1958 when Egypt and Syria merged to form the United Arab Republic (UAR). Syria withdrew from the union in 1961, however, because of growing dissatisfaction with Nasser's repressive and pro-Egyptian policies. Subsequent efforts in 1963 to revive the UAR, this time with Iraqi participation following a Ba?thist coup there, proved unsuccessful.

Since the abortive UAR experiment, a number of events have allegedly marked the demise of pan-Arabism, including the crushing Israeli defeat of Arab forces in the 1967 war, Egypt's peace treaty with Israel in 1979, and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Yet, Arab nationalism is still very much alive rhetorically, now once again tinged with strong religious overtones, as in the manifestos of fundamentalist groups and even in the propaganda of secular dictators like Saddam Husayn, who repeatedly invoked religion to rally Arabs during the 1991 Gulf War and in the months leading to the 2003 Iraq war that ousted him from power. More importantly, perhaps, Arab nationalism today finds institutional expression in the continued existence of the Arab League, formed in 1945, and now consisting of twenty-two members, as well as in continuing efforts to create subregional organizations, the most successful being the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), formed in 1981 and comprising the six Arab states that border the Persian Gulf.