Pan-Arabism

Pan-Arabism is a political movement and belief system that promotes the idea that all Arabs should unite to form one country or state. The idea of was first created during the late 19th century.^[1] Its popularity grew, and in the 1950s, Middle Eastern leaders, including Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, became major supporters of the Pan-Arab movement. Pan-Arabists generally believe that all countries with Arab populations should come together or unify and that Western powers, like the United States or the United Kingdom, should not have any political power or influence in North Africa or the Arabian Peninsula.^[2]

League of Arab States

Origin and development

During the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire controlled most of the Middle East, which was very diverse. Many different ethnic and cultural groups of people lived in the region. By 1900, the Ottoman Empire was in decline, and many of the different groups of people living in the Empire wanted to form independent governments managed by people living within their own communities. ^[3]

One group that began to form their own ideas about a self-governed or self determined community was Arabs. Many educated Arab students and professors worked at universities like Al-Azhar University and began to publish magazines and form clubs promoting the idea of a unified Arab community or nation. ^[4] Those ideas became very popular across Arab regions of the former Ottoman Empire. By 1913, Arab organizations from all around the Middle East met to form the first Arab Congress in Paris, France. At the Congress, Arabs from around the Ottoman Empire discussed the possibility of freeing themselves from the Ottoman Empire and establishing Arab-governed countries. ^[5]

The Ottoman Empire responded to the Arab Congress by punishing Arab nationalists. In some territories of the Ottoman Empire, Arab nationalists were put in jail and even killed for their activities. ^[6]

During World War I, many Arab groups support the Allied powers’ military campaign against the Ottoman Empire. At the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire collapsed, and the Allied Powers met together to decide what would happen to the territory formerly under Ottoman control. Despite supporting the Allies during the war, many Arab countries were not granted their freedom by the Allies. Still eager to gain Independence, Arabs living in occupied countries began to form ideas about what a free Arab state would look like. These ideas would eventually become the backbone of Pan-Arabism. ^[7]

Philosophy

After World War I, many Arab-speaking scholars and students in the former Ottoman Empire began to write about the history of the Arabs. One of the writers, Darwish-Al Maqdidi, wrote a school textbook that outlined the beliefs of the early Pan-Arab movement.^[8] The textbook was used in many schools all across the Arab Middle East and suggested that the Arab homeland was not restricted to the Arabian Peninsula but extended to wherever Arabs lived.^[9] Moreover, Miqdadi, as well as other Arab scholars, believed that a free and unified Arab nation could exist only if western influence was removed from the Arab Middle East. Generally, the core of Miqdadi’s beliefs and of others like became the philosophy of Pan-Arabism.^[10]

Attempts at Arab Union

Egypt's President Gamal Nasser with Iraqi Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi

Pan-Arabism’s popularity began to grow after many Arab countries gained independence in the 1940s and 1950s. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1956-1970) was a major supporter of Pan-Arab nationalism. Nasser believed that the Arab world in both North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula should be unified since many of those countries share a common culture, religion, and language. During his presidency, Nasser helped establish the United Arab Republic with Syria.^[11] The republic lasted three years. Its collapse was largely caused by Nasser’s efforts to change the Syrian and Egyptian economies rapidly, and many Syrians disliked Nasser for wanting to centralize government power and operations in Egypt.^[12]

After the fall of the republic, Nasser attempted to rally other Arab countries to the Pan-Arabist cause. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Nasser led an Arab coalition (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq) to battle Israel^[13] but lost the war. The Arab coalition and Nasser’s efforts to create a unified Arab Middle East then suffered a major setback.

Decline and reemergence

Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic from 1958-1961

Decline

After the Six-Day War, Egypt's role as the leader of the Pan-Arab movement was severely weakened. Other Arab nationalist organizations started to branch out independently of Egypt and other Arab countries. The Palestinians, in particular, began to form their own organization that was centered on Palestinian nationalism, not Pan-Arab nationalism. Furthermore, Nasser's sudden death in 1970 left the Pan-Arab movement without a clear leader. ^[14]

Reemergence

A Syrian protestor spray paints anti-Bashar al-Assad graffiti during the Arab Spring in Syria

Since the late 1970s, many professors and Middle Easten experts have claimed that Pan-Arabism no longer exists ^[15] Fouad Ajami suggests that Pan-Arabism collapsed because Nasser, the clear leader of the movement, lost momentum after the Arab defeat in the Six-Day War. Moreover, other Arab groups, most notably the Palestinians, lost faith in the Pan-Arab movement and tried to branch out on their own.^[16]

More recently, though, after the events of the Arab Spring of 2011, many scholars and journalists argue that Pan-Arabism is coming back in different ways. Susan De Muth suggests that the Pan-Arabism from it was thirty years ago. She suggests that the Pan-Arabism of Gamel Nasser’s era was tied to the idea of keeping the Arab World free of foreign and Western influence, but today’s Pan-Arabism is mostly led by young people who are dedicated to reforming or making governments in Arab countries less oppressive or controlling.^[17] The new form of Pan-Arabism has been strengthened by technology, like social media. According to De Muth, protesters from different countries have strengthened their cause and even coordinate protests with movements in other Arab countries by using social media.^[18]

Other scholars are not as optimistic as De Muth; Marc Lynch suggests that the protests of the Arab Spring were long overdue and that the political movements in the Arab Middle East have been slowly building strength for the last thirty years.^[19]