Arab Nationalism: A Historical Analysis of Development and Decline

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of Arab nationalism, tracing its origins in the 19th century Ottoman Levant. It examines the movement's intellectual underpinnings, influenced by European thought, and the key figures such as Sati' al-Husri and Michel Aflaq. The essay analyzes the internal weaknesses of Arab nationalism, including the emphasis on a unified state and the disregard for individual rights, drawing parallels to 19th-century German nationalism. It further explores the role of the Arab League and the conflicting interests of Arab leaders, which undermined the movement's goals. The essay also discusses the impact of Nasser's leadership, the UAR's collapse, and the influence of Western powers. Finally, it concludes by considering the decline of Arab nationalism and the potential for its resurgence, particularly in the context of the Arab Spring.

Running head: ARAB NATIONALISM
ARAB NATIONALISM
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note:

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Introduction
In the midst of the nineteenth century, early Arabism ascended in the Ottoman Levant
because of frustrated desire with the status of Arabs under the Ottoman Empire1. This
advancement, in its underlying days, was more a thoughtful wave than a strong political wander
with specific objectives. These undertakings looked into the splendid time of Islam, in which
Arabs could develop a propelled advance, while Europe was covered in murkiness. Praising
Arab inheritance and putting emphasis on Islamic and Arab characters were the observable
features of the early Arab nationalist movement2. The Arab loyalist advancement remained a
minority until the Ottoman fall in 1918. With the vanishing of the Ottoman caliphate, the
political structure inside which most Arabs had lived for four centuries had separated and this
profoundly influenced the politically mindful Arabs. It offered friendly exchanges about the way
by which they should live separately.
A considerable number individuals in this region used to perceive themselves according
to religious, territorial, and natural affiliations, so radical was the arrangement to be recognized
by the ordinary Arabic tongue. With regards to the possibility of vernacular, the stanchion of
national/Arab identity was a shipped in thought from nineteenth century German nationalist
thought. Current European thought inspired various people from the Arab world who learned at
the American University in Beirut, in Constantinople, and in Europe.
1 Cleveland, William L. The Making of an Arab Nationalist: Ottomanism and Arabism in the Life and Thought of
Sati'al-Husri. Princeton University Press, 2015.
2 Choueiri, Youssef M. "Arab nationalism." The Routledge Handbook of Muslim-Jewish Relations (2016): 317.

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Discussion
Among those Arab academic individuals who were influenced by European rationalists
was Sati' al-Husri, the “primary theoretician of Arab nationalism”. Al-Husri and the other
observable father of Arab patriotism, Michel Aflaq, the philosopher and the coordinator, with
Salah al-Din al-Bitar, of the Ba'th party assumed that Arab states are made units that must circuit
into a pot of a unitary political substance. These units have subjective points of confinement
constrained by the colonialist powers.
Considering this period of Arab nationalist figured, it could be battled that the particular
first reasons of the fold of Arab patriotism were embedded in its foundations. The Arab
nationalist researchers underscored the essentialness of the united sovereign Arab state. The
energetic breakdown of the unionist wander of the “United Arab Republic (UAR), the union of
Egypt and Syria that persevered from 1958 to 1961”, fills in for example of the inner deficiency
of Arab patriotism and its refinement from this present reality. The UAR, and in this way Arab
patriotism as a rationality, was unnecessarily blundering, making it difficult to deal with the
money related, social and political obstacles and problems it encountered.
Furthermore, the circumstance of the distinctive individual inside the Arab nationalist
movement was dubious. Each one of the terms of chance and pride were more identified with the
foreseen Arab state than the Arab individual. This irrelevance of human rights and flexibility was
a reverberate of nineteenth century German social patriotism's essentials that considered the
considerations of flexibility or internationalism as preoccupations that should be smothered if
they refuted the national will. To German loyalists, restricting together the nation was a complete
target, which required subsuming the individual will into the national will. In 1871, when
Germany joined the German-talking masses of Alsace, whose craving was to stay with France,

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the German history master Heinrich von Trietschke commented, “We need, even without
needing to, to restore them to themselves”.
Also, the nonattendance of dominant part governs framework and institutionalism, the
determination of the one-man governance was among the bona fide flaws of Arab patriotism that
undermined its ability to survive political challenges. For instance, the fall of the tyrant
nationalist pioneer would along these lines achieve the fall of the characteristics and the theory
of the organization as they are not built up and anchored normally by the state's establishments.
In the totalitarianism, the wellspring of credibility isn't the constitution or the state bodies yet the
dictator himself. That was the circumstance in post-Nasser Egypt, when President Anwar Sadat
made sense of how to develop an Egypt-driven character, which engaged him to move back
Nasser's Arab nationalist outside approach
In light of the oppression of the Arab world by the League of Nations' order structure by
the 1920s, the Arab elites began a movement of get-togethers to discuss the possible destiny of
the zone with a particular ultimate objective to address the social and political challenges and to
arrange or unite their methodologies3. These game plans of Arab nationalists realized the
crystallization of two unequivocal models that would advance toward getting to be portraying
features of the Arab legislative issues, and also noteworthy ruinous components of the Arab
nationalist desire.
As anybody may expect, drawing on the main perspective, the Arab rulers expected that
the Arab solidarity would risk their own particular focal points and may forsake them frail
against their foes in the territory. What the Lebanese Foreign Minister said indisputably reflects
how the Arab organizations deliberately at odds with the Arab patriotism wander by making a
3 Ajami, Fouad. "The Arab Spring at one: a year of living dangerously." Foreign Aff. 91 (2012): 56.

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weak Pan-Arab affiliation4. This direct concurs with the dispute that the Arab League's
brokenness isn't a result of “dissatisfaction of diagram”, yet rather the League was deliberately
“planned to miss the mark”.
The Arab League's hope to enhance the coordinated effort between the Arab countries
was henceforth stillborn with “no strategies for total action or approval' of its resolution”. The
constrained or neighborhood interests of the Arab pioneers’ bombshell to harm the League,
which was not to benefit by strong and working essential authority or decision execution
instruments. The impressive tangle in the technique for the cooperation was its settlement.
Inspecting the remedies the Arab experts familiar with the Alexandria Protocol reveals their
honest objectives and that they were settled, since the particular begin, to restrict the utility of the
partnership5. In this way, they could claim to satisfy their social requests' necessary, which
suggests scoring political concentrations and getting all the more outstanding, and meanwhile
guarantee their own specific points of interest and their state control.
A case of these progressions is the thing stressed over the asking of the Arab League to
actualize answers for common conflicts. In the hidden adjustment of Alexandria Protocol, it
communicated that “the Council will intercede in each verbal confrontation which may incite
war”. The interpretation of this correction, in congruity with this present paper's dispute, unveils
the Arab elites' reluctance to designate any bona fide ability to such a supranational
establishment. Since the originators of the League surrendered any considerations related to total
security or military interest, a few years afterward the organization together failed its first test the
4 Suleiman, Yasir. "Nationalism and the Arabic language: A historical overview." In Arabic sociolinguistics, pp. 19-
40. Routledge, 2013.
5 Phillips, Christopher. "The Arabism debate and the Arab uprisings." Mediterranean Politics 19, no. 1 (2014): 141-
144.

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coordination of Arab states to defend Palestine. At any rate Hourani sees the League as a triumph
for “coordinate Arab nationalism”6.
Nasser an Arab nationalist ideologue who rushed to underscore the statute shared by
Arab loyalists which was without the endeavor to achieve the political solidarity, Arab patriotism
would be a purposeless conviction. Beginning his govern as the guardian of Arab nationalism,
Nasser completely limited joining the Baghdad Pact, which was “an undertaking to extend the
US system of control to the Arab states utilizing British effect”. The accompanying stage in
Nasser's triumphant walk was the nationalization of Suez Canal, in 1956, to stay advantages for
back progression reaches out in Egypt7. The illustrious powers' response to this serious move was
tripartite antagonistic vibe by Britain, France with Israel on Egypt. In the result of this crisis,
Nasser ascended as a pervasive Arab legend who opposed and tried the western powers. The
Arab world acclaimed Nasser and his conquer organization; even his adversaries were
constrained to perceive his achievement.
Nevertheless, in September 1961, the UAR isolated after a resistance among Syrian
military units against their Egyptian commandants8. Nasser did not give up his part as Pan-Arab
pioneer. In Yemen's approachable war, Nasser upheld the republicans militarily after the radicals
asked for his assistance against the royalists. Saudi Arabia's fear that Nasser's certified objective
was to expel the Saudi government incited the organization to strongly back the royalists
militarily and financially. In this manner, the Egyptian troops, hindered in an unwinnable war
6 Partrick, Neil. "Nationalism in the Gulf states." In The Transformation of the Gulf, pp. 66-84. Routledge, 2013.
7 Owen, Roger. State, power and politics in the making of the modern Middle East. Routledge, 2013.
8 Khoury, Philip Shukry. Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920-1945. Princeton
University Press, 2014.

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and continuing extraordinary adversities in apparatus and work constrain, were finally pulled in
1968.
As a character, Arab Nationalism was in an incessant search for an “other” to describe
itself against. By the 1960s, Imperialism, which was the central applicable other, had ended up
being less critical, in this way Nasser, the Arab patriotism champion, expected to find another
goal to fill the void9. Therefore, Nasser's nationalist outrage wound up facilitated to what he
viewed as the 'reactionary' Arab countries. This new approach against some Arab countries and
his impediment in other countries' issues were thwarting to the Pan-Arab advancement as it tore
the Arab world into two camps. Nasser 'symbolized an extent of exercises going far past Egypt
and past the particular things he himself said and did. Nasser, like the Arab League, was an
indication of some of Arab patriotism's imperfections. The vital imperfection was the perception
of chance as simply the adaptability from western dominance, as in Nasser promising the Arabs
adaptability, which is a resound of al-Husri's conceptualization of that standard10. Second, the
despise of greater part administer regards, Nasser confined political get-togethers, saw division
of powers as 'just a noteworthy cheating' and approved damaging plans against any opposition,
for instance, the communists and Islamists, for example. Third, Nasser's unionist decisions were
more to do with insightful and symbolic administrative issues than adjusted authoritative issues.
Fourth, Nasser abused Arab patriotism as a way to deal with actualize hegemonic systems and
intervene in various countries. Finally, As the Arab loyalist presentation of Egypt was finished
with the death of Nasser, Arab patriotism as the hegemonic conviction framework in the Arab
9 Dawisha, Adeed. Arab nationalism in the twentieth century: from triumph to despair. Princeton University Press,
2016.
10 Watenpaugh, Keith David. Being modern in the Middle East: Revolution, nationalism, colonialism, and the Arab
middle class. Princeton University Press, 2014.

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world irreversibly started to rot with Egypt's 1967 destruction. “The predetermination of Arab
patriotism was resolutely associated with Egypt and its appealing president”
Conclusion
The Egyptian obliteration opened the best approach to measure up to characters to build
up the cost of the harmed Arab patriotism, like Pan-Islamism as a supra-state theory and
Watanniya (statism) at the state level. Moreover, the piece of Western powers in keeping the
augmentation of Arab patriotism can't be disregarded. American and British troops, who passed
on independently in Lebanon and Jordan to grapple the officeholder organizations in July 1958,
were an unequivocal message that a hegemonic component like Prussia, a Piedmont, or an Ile de
France won't be allowed to exist in the Arab world. The downfall of Arab patriotism has been
pronounced and wrangled about more than once. Nevertheless, in the wake of the Arab spring of
2011, there might be guarantee for another Arab patriotism.

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Reference:
Ajami, Fouad. "The Arab Spring at one: a year of living dangerously." Foreign Aff. 91 (2012):
56.
Choueiri, Youssef M. "Arab nationalism." The Routledge Handbook of Muslim-Jewish
Relations (2016): 317.
Cleveland, William L. The Making of an Arab Nationalist: Ottomanism and Arabism in the Life
and Thought of Sati'al-Husri. Princeton University Press, 2015.
Dawisha, Adeed. Arab nationalism in the twentieth century: from triumph to despair. Princeton
University Press, 2016.
Khoury, Philip Shukry. Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920-
1945. Princeton University Press, 2014.
Owen, Roger. State, power and politics in the making of the modern Middle East. Routledge,
2013.
Partrick, Neil. "Nationalism in the Gulf states." In The Transformation of the Gulf, pp. 66-84.
Routledge, 2013.
Phillips, Christopher. "The Arabism debate and the Arab uprisings." Mediterranean Politics 19,
no. 1 (2014): 141-144.
Suleiman, Yasir. "Nationalism and the Arabic language: A historical overview." In Arabic
sociolinguistics, pp. 19-40. Routledge, 2013.

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Watenpaugh, Keith David. Being modern in the Middle East: Revolution, nationalism,
colonialism, and the Arab middle class. Princeton University Press, 2014.