Arab Nationalism: Origins, Success, and Failure during Interwar Era

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This essay examines the emergence, progress, and eventual decline of Arab nationalism during the interwar period (1918-1939). It traces the roots of Arab nationalism to the pre-World War I era, highlighting the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire and the influence of Islamic modernism. The essay discusses the initial successes of the movement, including independence movements in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, and the formation of pan-Arab organizations. However, it also analyzes the internal divisions within Arab societies, such as conflicting ethnic and religious identities, which ultimately undermined the goal of a unified Arab nation. The essay concludes that Arab nationalism, despite its initial promise, faced significant obstacles and ultimately failed to achieve its objective of creating a cohesive and independent Arab world due to internal fragmentation and conflicting interests.
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Running head: HISTORY ESSAY
The Origins, Success, and Failure of Arab Nationalism in the Interwar Period
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1HISTORY ESSAY
Introduction
Introduction
Interwar period, in the context of modern history, refers to the time between the end of
the World War I in November 1918 and the start of the World War II in September 19391.
Despite being a short period, this era brought significant changes in many aspects, such as,
politics, economics and social life across the world. It gave rise to the petroleum associated
mechanisms, economic prosperity for middle income group people and many more technological
and social advancements, resulting in Golden or Roaring Twenties, and with over indulgence,
this era gave way for the Great Depression, damaging many large economies of the world2. One
of the most important events of the interwar period is the independence of Egypt and Iraq in the
Middle East and the rise of Arab Nationalism.
Arab Nationalism refers to the ideology, which asserts that the Arabs constitute a united
nation. This ideology represents a belief that says Arabs are a single nation and celebrates the
glories of Arab culture, history, literature, arts along with political unity of all the countries3. The
main purpose of this concept was to end the influence of the Western influence in the Arabian
world, which is considered as a nemesis of the Arab strength and culture. Hence, the
governments, which were dependent on the Western power, were removed by the Arab armies,
as in case of the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century4. However, this ideology
of a single nationalism experienced success as well as failure during the interwar period due to
many factors. This essay will discuss the rise, success and failure of the Arab Nationalism during
the interwar period.
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2HISTORY ESSAY
Discussion
The origin of the Arab nationalism can be traced back to period before and during the
World War I when the Arab nationals of the Ottoman Empire started to revolt against the
government. A sense of loyalty towards the Arab Fatherland was developed, which condemned
the Ottoman Turks for betrayal towards Islam and Arab Fatherland for the West that followed
Christianity5. The rich history and strong cultural heritage of the Middle East worked as a
fundamental principle for the Arab patriots. The Ottomans deviated from the true Islamic values
while reforming and attempted to borrow the western culture and practices, which the Arab
patriots considered as corrupt. The desire for reviving the Islam influenced the Arab patriots in
those regions, that is, Egypt and Levant and within the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire’s
entry into the First World War in November 1914 provided the final spark for outright revolt. All
of these led to a great rebellion against the Ottoman Turks6.
In the beginning of the 20th century, the modern Arab Nationalism emerged when groups
of Arabic speaking Muslims were influenced by the Islamic modernism and revive of the
eminent Egyptian scholar, Muhammad Abduh. He showed that while Europe advanced by
adopting the modernism of Islam, the Muslims failed as they abandoned and corrupted the ideas
of true Islam7. Arab Nationalism focused on reviving the glory of the past. With more Arab
nationalist parties emerging since 1911, the movements against the Ottomans started during the
First World War. As stated by Dawisha (2016), the concept of ‘Arab nation’ only became
pertinent after the World War I and the Arab nationalism eventually took the form of a political
movement. It was seen that education played a crucial role in raising the political awareness
among the mass, glorifying the Arabian past and history, and inflicting the nationalist spirit
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3HISTORY ESSAY
among the young Arab generations. Intellectuals, and not the politicians, led the movement, who
borrowed the idea of nationalism from Europe and used in Arab to bring revolution8.
Geogre Antonius highlighted that in the 19th century, a concept of national identity was
started to develop among the Arabic speaking population in the Ottoman Empire and in World
War I, and this led to a full-fledged revolutionary movement. On the other hand, Adeed Dawisha
contradicted to this conventional view and pointed out that the Arab revolt was declared in the
name of Islam, that is, religion and not for Arab nationalism. He stated that religious identity was
more important for the revolt than the national identity. Hence, Arab Revolt should not be
considered as a part of the Arab nationalism9.
The religious sentiment, nationalist spirit and the urge to break free from the British
colonialism had helped the movement to gain success during the interwar period. The Iraqi revolt
in 1920 against the British rule was a success for the Arab patriots. The revolt in Syria in 1925
against the French rule was another milestone towards the Syrian independence. Egypt also
revolted against the British under the leadership of Nasser after the World War I and earned
independence in 1922. However, the historians state that Egypt revolution was backed by
Egyptian nationalism, rather than Arab nationalism10. These events provided the boost to the
Arab nationalist movements. The movements and parties grew in huge numbers in almost all the
Arab countries, like Syria, Kuwait, Iraq and Palestine in the 1930s and solidarity among
governments developed. Arab Independence Party was established by the Iraqi and Palestinian
activists in 1932 for Arab unity and solidarity. In 1933, League of Nationalist Action (LNA) was
established to reduce customs barrier among the Arab countries and establish a common market
for the Arab nations. However, the LNA lost its foothold in the 1940s, around the World War
II11. Developments of many activist parties and many issues regarding the solidarity of the Arab
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4HISTORY ESSAY
nations, Jewish settlement in Palestine and independence from the British and French rule
contributed in the growth and success of the Arab nationalism during the interwar period12.
However, the Arab national movement faced quite formidable obstacles in its course.
There were conflicting identities between religious and nationalist ideologies, competing
loyalties to the region, tribes and religions, tension between the Syrian, Iraqi, Egyptian and other
identities and the encompassing Arab identity, and the linguistic diversity in the region, creating
obstacle to concept of coherent Arab nation13. In the interwar period, Iraq was at the forefront of
the Arab nationalism movements. Sati’ al-Husri, one of the major proponents of Pan-Arabism,
had hopes to turn Iraq into a nationalist model to the Arab world14. However, Iraq was an
extremely fragmented country, as it had provinces out of the Ottoman Empire and British colony
and thus lacked of religious or ethnic rationale. Hence, the national bond was missing. The
Kurds, living in the north of Iraq, spoke Indo-European language, were non-Semitic and had
very little in common with the Arab Iraqis, except for the Sunni Muslim faith. They wanted to
gain political independence from Iraq and build Kurdistan. They considered themselves
completely different in ethnicity from the Arabs, and hence, it was impossible to bring them
under the notion of a single Arab nation15. At the same time, the Shia Muslims in the south used
to view the Arab nationalism movements as the Sunni project that aimed to reduce them into
minority in an expanded Sunni domain in the Arab nations. Although half of the population was
Shia Muslims, the Sunnis formed the politically dominant group. These conflicting issues formed
the ground reasons for the failure of the Arab nationalism during the interwar period. Not only in
Iraq, the divisions and conflicts among different ethnicities in different Arab nations created
obstacles in achieving the objectives of solidarity and independence. As stated by Barakat
(1993), Arab society is not a simple mosaic of ethnic groups, sects, tribes, regional entities and
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5HISTORY ESSAY
local communities. Rather, it carries within it the potential for both divisiveness and unity16.
Regional interests were more advocated than the bigger interest of a common Arab nation. Apart
from that, the religion interest were started to become more prominent than the nationalist spirit.
This led to the revival of Islam and Arab nationalism started declining. Kramer (1993) stated in
his paper that over the years Arab nationalism had turned into a mistaken identity. The revolution
started with the spirit for independence and unity of the Arab nations, but with various internal
problems regarding ethnicity and political interests, the ideology of Arab nationalism was turned
into a mistaken identity, based on religion17.
Conclusion
Arab nationalism was one of the major movements that started in the latter half of the
19th century. The Ottoman Empire ruled over the Arabia since early 16th century. However,
during the era of World War I, many Arabs were inspired by the 19th century nationalist ideas of
the western countries and launched the Arab nationalism to unite the Arab nations and gain
independence from the Ottoman Empire. During the interwar period, many such revolt activities
took place in Egypt, Syria and Iraq leading to their independence from the British and French
rules. However, the internal conflicts regarding political interests and religious beliefs had led to
the decline and failure of the movements to establish a single and united Arab nation. During the
interwar period, the Arab nations faced the rise of the ideology, its success as well as fall and
finally encountered shattered hope due to the lack of focus and consciousness, which is described
as a mistaken identity by Kramer.
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6HISTORY ESSAY
Endnotes
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1Historytoday.com. "The Limits Of Nationhood". Historytoday.Com. https://www.historytoday.com/conan-
fischer/limits-nationhood. 2017.
2 Wolf, Nikolaus. "Europe’s Great Depression Coordination Failure after the First World War." (2010).
3 Choueiri, Youssef M. 2009. "Pensée 2: Theorizing Arab Nationalism". International Journal Of Middle
East Studies 41 (01): 13. doi:10.1017/s0020743808090053.
4 Owen, Roger. "State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East." (2013).
5 Dawisha, Adeed. Arab nationalism in the twentieth century: from triumph to despair. Princeton University
Press, 2016. p. 2
6 Nzhistory.govt.nz. 2018. "Rise Of Arab Nationalism - The Ottoman Empire". Nzhistory.Govt.Nz.
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/ottoman-empire/rise-of-arab-nationalism.
7 Sedgwick, Mark. Muhammad Abduh. Oneworld Publications, 2014. p. 1-2
8 Choueiri, Youssef. Modern Arab historiography: historical discourse and the nation-state. Routledge,
2013.
9 Dawisha, Adeed. Arab nationalism in the twentieth century: from triumph to despair. Princeton University
Press, 2016. p.14-15
10 Goldschmidt Jr, Arthur. "A Concise History of the Middle East." In FLETCHER FORUM. 1996.
11 Choueiri, Youssef M. "Nationalisms in the Middle East: The Case of PanArabism." A Companion to the
History of the Middle East (2005): p.307
12 Choueiri, Youssef M. "Arab nationalism." The Routledge Handbook of Muslim-Jewish Relations (2016):
317.
13 Owen, Roger. "State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East." (2013).
14 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 (p. 13-14).
15 Sawani, Youssef Mohamed. "The ‘end of pan-Arabism’revisited: reflections on the Arab
Spring." Contemporary Arab Affairs 5, no. 3 (2012): 382-397.
16 Barakat, Halim. The Arab world: Society, culture, and state. Univ of California Press, 1993. (p. 4-5)
17 Kramer, Martin. "Arab nationalism: mistaken identity." Daedalus (2010): 171-206.
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Routledge, 2013. [Available at: https://books.google.com.au/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=zUJFAQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&ots=RIbaswEOGj&sig=V7mJsP7QSM5Cim
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https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/ottoman-empire/rise-of-arab-nationalism.
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Owen, Roger. "State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East." (2013).
[Available at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/38939569/Roger_Owen_-
_State__Power_and_Politics_in_the_Middle_East_3rd_Ed.pdf?
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T64VK7Ir9PLxN2Xl6iH0%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename
%3DRoger_Owen_-_State_Power_and_Politics_in.pdf]
Sawani, Youssef Mohamed. "The ‘end of pan-Arabism’revisited: reflections on the Arab
Spring." Contemporary Arab Affairs 5, no. 3 (2012): 382-397.
Sedgwick, Mark. Muhammad Abduh. Oneworld Publications, 2014.
Suleiman, Yasir. The Arabic language and national identity. Edinburgh University Press, 2003.
Wolf, Nikolaus. "Europe’s Great Depression Coordination Failure after the First World War."
(2010). http://www.cesifo-group.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp3164.pdf
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