It took some time for the light to go out on Arab nationalism, but its power generator went down in June 1967. After the Six-Day War, the slide of Arab nationalism toward political marginality became irreversible. And what finished it was the fact that Egypt, under Gamal Abdel Nasser, lost the war. Egypt’s devastating defeat was Arab nationalism’s mortal loss, for the fate of Arab nationalism during the struggles, triumphs, and reversals of the 1950s and 1960s was inexorably linked to Egypt and its charismatic president.

Had Syria or Jordan, or even both, lost the war, it would not have been the unmitigated disaster for Arab nationalism that it proved to be. But Arab nationalism could not survive the abject humiliation inflicted on its acknowledged prophet, who, through his shrill and overzealous propaganda machine, had promised a fabled triumph in al-Ma’raka al-Masiriya, the battle of destiny. Indeed, Cairo’s radio station “The Voice of the Arabs,” in a baffling act of self-deception, continued to proclaim victory after victory on the Sinai battleground long after the summary defeat of the Egyptian army.[1]

Intrinsically linked to Egypt’s defeat was Abdel Nasser’s own loss of charisma. Max Weber defined charisma as “a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as though endowed with supernatural, superhuman or, at least, specifically exceptional qualities.”[2] These perceived qualities allowed Abdel Nasser to assume the uncontested leadership of the Arab nationalist march. He alone, so it was believed, could unite the Arabs and defeat their enemies. The charismatic halo began to fade after the collapse of the United Arab Republic (UAR) in 1961,[3] but it evaporated with the June 1967 rout. Fouad Ajami writes,

Ajami overstates Abdel Nasser’s weakness, for the Egyptian president was still the most influential Arab leader. After all, at the height of the Jordanian civil war in September 1970, where did King Hussein of Jordan, Yasir Arafat, and the other Arab leaders go but to Cairo, and to Abdel Nasser, to resolve the crisis?[5] Yet, influential as he might have been, this late Abdel Nasser was not the charismatic leader he had been a decade earlier. To the flock, he no longer seemed possessed of the superhuman qualities of old, and among the other Arab leaders, he was now, at best, a first among equals. Even his most loyal followers and disciples, now freed from his charismatic hold, began to jump ship. Such was the course of action followed by the Arab Nationalists’ Movement (ANM), which, since the mid-1950s, had unquestioningly tied its fate to Abdel Nasser. After the 1967 debacle, the ANM publicly abandoned “Nasserism” which it branded as a “bourgeois movement that had been destined to fail,” and instead espoused Marxist-Leninist principles.[6] The Six-Day War was the culmination of a string of setbacks and reversals suffered by Abdel Nasser, beginning with Iraq’s refusal to join the UAR. Defeat was no longer a word; it had become a culture, eating away at the aura of Abdel Nasser and the mystique of Arab nationalism.

One reason for these setbacks was the gradual loss of “imperialism” as the target of Egypt’s Arab nationalist mission. At the time of the Egyptian revolution in 1952, there were very few truly independent Arab countries. Even ostensibly sovereign states with membership in the United Nations, such as Egypt and Iraq, still had British bases and personnel on their soil. So imperialism, which for the Arabs subsumed colonialism, became the much needed “other” for Arab nationalism.[7]

The anti-imperialist crusade began with Egypt’s assault on the Baghdad pact, whence it moved on to all imperialist interests, projects, and alleged agents in the area. Imperialism was a convenient foil. The “imperialist forces” were outsiders, alien to the area. They had committed many injustices against the Arab people, and therefore, “deserved” the abuse heaped upon them. And that pretty much summed up the fight against imperialism. It was as much about language as it was about concrete policies. Hurling insults at the once invincible outsiders was as good as defeating them militarily.[8] Arab nationalism prospered as long as it could chant anti-imperialist slogans.

By the 1960s, however, imperialism had become less relevant. The British presence in Egypt and Iraq had been eliminated; the Baghdad pact had been defeated; Jordan’s British chief of staff, Sir John Bagot Glubb, had been dismissed; Lebanon’s pro-Western president, Camille Chamoun, had been replaced by the independent Fu’ad Shihab; and the Algerians, sacrificing a million dead in a heroic struggle, had triumphed over French colonial power. Abdel Nasser, as the custodian of the Arab nationalist narrative, had to find new targets, new “others.” So Abdel Nasser turned Arab nationalist fury against Arab countries that he deemed to be “reactionary.”

But in such a milieu, with Arab pitted against Arab, there were no easy victories on the shelf. No word or term could match the symbolic power and emotional resonance of “anti-imperialism,” with its conceptual separation of Arab from non-Arab, of “us” from “them.” Iraq’s ‘Abd al-Karim Qasim, Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal, or the monarchists in Yemen could not be defeated by symbolism alone. By 1967, the loss of the imperialist foil had eroded Abdel Nasser’s charisma, undermining his perceived ability to bring the other parts of the Arab world into his Arab nationalist caravan. This symbolic diminution of Abdel Nasser’s aura was as devastating for Arab nationalism as the June 1967 military defeat of Egypt and the other Arabs.

In any case, in the aftermath of June 1967, Abdel Nasser faced horrendous domestic problems that effectively claimed every iota of his energies and relegated Arab nationalist issues to the bottom of his agenda. To begin with, there were the masses of Israeli soldiers camped on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal, a mere three hours’ drive from Cairo. If their commanders felt like making the trip, Abdel Nasser knew that he did not have an army to stop them. Then there was the abysmal condition of the fragile economy, made even weaker by the financial strains of war and its attendant demographic dislocations. The task of domestic reconstruction was Herculean, robbing Abdel Nasser of any inclination to look beyond Egypt’s dented frontiers.

Abdel Nasser, by moving away from revolutionary Arab nationalism and its touchstone of comprehensive and organic Arab unity, was at least partly to blame for the growing prominence of competing ideologies. His deepening dependence on the financial support of conservative Arab states—the same oil kingdoms that had fought Abdel Nasser’s Arab nationalism tooth and nail—set the seal on the Arab nationalist creed. Pragmatic considerations outweighed ideological fidelity in Abdel Nasser’s decision to seek detente with the status quo forces in the area. He signaled this change of attitude by closing down the “Voice of the Arabs” radio station, which for so long had been the shrill voice of radical Arab nationalism. Then came the Khartoum summit meeting, consecrating the territorial nationalism of each Arab state (wataniya) as the dominant ideology, regulating inter-Arab relations on the principle of state sovereignty.

The argument for state sovereignty was not a new one, and even in its heyday, Arab nationalism had to contend with statist sentiments. Sati’ al-Husri voiced the frustrations of Arab nationalists in an introduction to a book published in the 1950s. Written in the form of an elegy, the introduction was entitled “How Strange":

Part of the reason for this “sanctification” of borders was that Arab political and economic elites developed a vested interest in the survival of each particular state. Not surprisingly, these elites were loath to put themselves at risk for the sake of Arab unity.[10] So they argued that Arab nationalism was really just a license for some elites to browbeat others.[11] The advocates of territorial nationalism also relied on geo-political and cultural arguments in making their case. They insisted that Arab nationalists had failed to understand that while various Arab states might accept an overarching Arab identity, geographic and even cultural differences were real enough to preclude an organic unity. And they were right: the decline of Arab nationalism from 1961 validated their argument.

Iraq was a case in point. Many Iraqi nationalists who had supported Abdel Nasser in his feud with the pro-British prime minister, Nuri as-Sa’id, were nevertheless very wary about such phrases as “the Arab people of Iraq.”[12] Nasserists and Baathists ceaselessly invoked it, ignoring the existence of a non-Arab Kurdish community that constituted some 20 percent of the Iraqi population. Nor were many Arab Shi’ites sold on Arab unity, which they perceived as a cover for Sunni hegemony. Iraq’s communal mosaic afforded Qasim the opportunity to fend off demands that Iraq join the UAR, even at a moment when Arab nationalism seemed unstoppable. Qasim promoted an “Iraq first” identity, emphasizing the country’s historical status as the cradle of great pre-Arab civilizations. He deliberately added the Akkadian eight-point star of Ishtar to the national flag, and likewise incorporated the insignia of the sun god Shamash in Iraq’s national emblem.[13] The prestige of Arab nationalism suffered much because Iraq, throughout the five years of Qasim’s rule, pursued policies that were vehemently anti-unionist and zealous for Iraq’s sovereignty.

Even when the Baathists seized power in 1968, their enthusiasm for Arab nationalist projects was tempered by a recognition of their country’s own needs. A party resolution admitted that

It was not that the Iraqi Baathist regime had abandoned its commitment to Arab nationalism. Rather they felt that focusing on Iraq—achieving some form of political harmony, reviving the country’s economy, building its infrastructure, and especially solving its ethnic and sectarian problems—was a more urgent priority than a full-fledged charge toward Arab unity. In instructing an educational committee, Saddam Hussein said: Could there be a clearer expression of the desire to reorient the ideological compass of party loyalists, indeed to subvert their lifelong Baathist beliefs? Arab nationalism was not discarded, but it yielded primacy of place to territorial nationalism. Saddam was pointing out realities: the internal condition of Iraq was the stuff of politics.

The Syrian Baathists were no less focused on Syria. When they scrambled to Cairo after the Baathist coup of March 1963 to talk unity with Abdel Nasser, their motives were more local than regional. They proclaimed Arab nationalism to be their goal, but they trumpeted it to legitimate their own project inside Syria. “We need to exploit your excellency’s name,” a member of the Syrian delegation told Abdel Nasser, “that’s all there is to it.”[16] In the talks, the Syrian Baathists, the stalwart propagators of comprehensive Arab unity, insisted on measures of autonomy so far-reaching that they would render any union almost inconsequential. In the end, the talks simply afforded the Syrian Baathists the breathing space they needed to neutralize all opponents to their rule in Syria—including pro-Nasser elements.

Cynical as their maneuvering might have been, the Syrian Baathists were in fact reflecting an ideological duality woven into Syria’s socio-political fabric: the tension between Arab and Syrian nationalisms, between Syria’s perceiving itself as “the beating heart of Arabism” on the one hand, and as the center of bilad ash-Sham (“Greater Syria”) on the other. The latter concept was given intellectual coherence by Antun Sa’ada as early as the 1930s.[17] Sa’ada was executed in 1949, his party outlawed shortly thereafter, and his program swept aside in the 1950s by a triumphant Arab nationalism. But his idea of a certain Syrian uniqueness and excellence still found an echo in Syrian sensibility. While this sense of separateness was dormant during the 1950s—the Arab nationalist decade—Syria’s bitter experience under the UAR moved it to the forefront of Syrian consciousness.[18] Regardless of the grandiose rhetoric about Arab unity, successive Syrian leaders have always catered first and foremost to Syria’s interests. President Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria from 1970 to 2000, was no exception. While beating the drums of Arab nationalism at every opportunity, Assad was a pragmatic, even Machiavellian, politician whose regional and international policies were tailored to Syria’s own interests.[19]

And then in Egypt, in Abdel Nasser’s house, with all the means utilized by the authoritarian state to implant Arab nationalism into the Egyptian psyche, Egyptian nationalism could not be erased. As late as 1963, after almost a decade of concerted Arab nationalist campaigning, Abdel Nasser voiced his doubts about the depth of the Arab loyalty of his countrymen.[20] Given the inherent strength of this feeling of “Egyptianism,” it was hardly surprising that Abdel Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat, would use it in order to escape the overbearing legacy of his towering predecessor.

Sadat began by changing the name of the state from the United Arab Republic to the Arab Republic of Egypt, “where ‘Arab’ is only the adjective and ‘Egypt’ is the noun.”[21] And Sadat’s policies, especially after the October 1973 war, which culminated in the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, were motivated solely by considerations of Egypt’s interests. These policies were undertaken without regard to the rest of the Arabs; indeed, they were perceived universally in the Arab world to be against the Arab will. Simultaneously, Sadat embarked on a policy of cultural reorientation toward Egypt. This was evident in subtle changes in school curricula, highlighting Egypt’s long history, cultural prominence, and unique personality.[22] The government-controlled media similarly spotlighted Egypt’s prestige and status in international affairs. By the end of the 1970s, Egyptian nationalism had won the day in Egypt.

It was not only the state but also sub-state identities that competed with Arab nationalism. In a number of Arab states, tribe, religion, and sect continued to be the major foci of loyalties. This was a massive obstacle to the growth of Arab nationalism before World War II. The Arab nationalist lexicon despised and disparaged such loyalties. With the spectacular rise of Arab nationalism in the 1950s, it became decidedly unfashionable to profess a tribal or sectarian identity. But that did not mean that these identities were expunged from people’s consciousness. They simply went underground.

In some states, tribal affiliations formed the backbone of popular support that shielded local leaderships from the advancing tide of revolutionary Arab nationalism. Such was the case in Saudi Arabia, where the tribal-based demographic structure contributed to the stability of the political order. Successive Saudi monarchs, in the process of shifting the loyalty of the Bedouin from tribe to state, made sure to act and be perceived as tribal overlords. For example, in 1952 the monarchy instituted the majlis by a royal decree. This granted every subject, in true tribal fashion, the right of access to the royal family. In these gatherings, the ruler was expected to settle disputes, take note of complaints, acknowledge oaths of loyalty, listen to poetic panegyrics, and simply chat in general conversation. Pandering to tribal identity allowed the Saudi rulers to withstand Abdel Nasser’s Arab nationalist onslaught during the decade between 1957 and 1967.

But the Saudis did not stop there. They also created a military force, the National Guard, which was independent of the regular armed forces and which was entrusted with safeguarding the monarchy, lest Nasserist elements succeed in infiltrating the regular armed forces. The novelty of the National Guard was that it was composed almost exclusively of Bedouins from tribes inhabiting the Najd province of Saudi Arabia, from which the House of Saud originated.

Bedouin military personnel were also responsible for the survival of Jordan’s young King Hussein, in the face of seemingly impossible odds. Jordan’s “Arab Legion” was initially formed to combat Bedouin anarchy in the new country. In a stroke of genius, the Arab Legion’s founder, the British officer John Bagot Glubb, decided to harness the warlike qualities of the Bedouins by recruiting them into the army. Very quickly, the Arab Legion became the Arab world’s most disciplined fighting force. But one thing that Glubb did not change was tribal solidarity, which he nurtured every step of the way to make the Arab Legion “the Bedouin prop of the Hashemite polity.”[23] This certainly saved Hussein’s throne during an attempted coup by Nasserist officers in 1957. The following description of events gives a flavor of the tribal connection:

In contrast to Hussein’s conscious reliance on the tribal connection, successive Iraqi governments tried to crush the tribal spirit. In the 1950s, Iraq’s Arab nationalists belittled tribalism as “reactionary.” The nationalists employed a powerful argument: the Arabs were once a great people, but then they embarked on a seemingly endless journey into oblivion, and when they finally stirred from their deep slumber around the turn of the twentieth century, they arose into a world that was no longer theirs—a Western world; a world of technology, science, and cultural advancements associated with modernity. To catch up with the West, the Arabs had to absorb Western ideas, to leave behind the old ways, turn the corner, and take the route of modernity. And tribalism was decidedly not the stuff of modernity.

Given the dominance and political power of this argument in the ideological and political discourse of the 1950s and 1960s, one would think that tribalism and tribal values would have receded into irrelevance. Yet the eminent Iraqi sociologist ‘Ali al-Wardi, writing about Iraq in the late 1960s, tells us that even in the cities, modernization was superficial, many of the city folk were Bedouin at heart, and the trappings of modernity, such as Western clothing, simply camouflaged deeply-ingrained tribal values.[26] As late as 1982, a leading member of Iraq’s Baath Party would lament that, along with sectarianism, tribalism was “tearing the unity of society to pieces.”[27] A decade later, in the wake of Iraq’s defeat in the Kuwait war, that erstwhile Arab nationalist and lifelong member of the Baath Party, Saddam Hussein, would draw on this enduring reservoir of tribal values, elevating tribalism to the very forefront of Iraq’s political and ideological concerns.[28]

Iraq’s sectarian divisions formed another hurdle in the Arab nationalist march. The country’s Shi’ite majority never overcame its suspicion of Arab nationalism as a Sunni project. Shi’ite grievances against the Sunnis were primarily political, pertaining to Sunni dominance over Iraq’s political order. The Shi’ites would point to the paucity of their numbers among the decision-making elite and in the ranks of the administrative and military institutions.[29] Iraqi leaders such as ‘Abd as-Salam ‘Arif, who wore Arab nationalism on his sleeve but was well-known for his anti-Shi’ite prejudices, only added to this sectarian tension. He was inclined to think of Iraqi Shi’ites as Persians and was not averse to let slip such thoughts even to Shi’ite members of the Baath Party.[30] Moreover, it was not only Shi’ites who were the target of ‘Arif’s Sunni prejudices but Christians, too. He once told a Syrian minister that he could not understand how the Arab Nationalists’ Movement (ANM) could allow a Christian (George Habash) to lead “the youth of Muhammad.”[31] Consequently, Shi’ite enthusiasm for Arab unity was tempered by the fear that it was just a ruse to justify Arab Sunni domination.[32]

It is not that the Shi’ites did not believe in Arab nationalism, or that they did not consider themselves to be Arabs. Shi’ite men of letters penned some of the marvels of Arabic literature.[33] Iraqis of all religions and denominations flocked to the Arab nationalist cause under Abdel Nasser’s leadership in the 1950s and 1960s. But that did not mean that tribalism and sectarianism were erased. They were too deeply ingrained to disappear; they simply retreated into the recesses of people’s consciousness. Once Arab nationalism began to suffer reverses and setbacks, and Abdel Nasser’s ability to work his magic came into question, all the particularistic, anti-national tendencies reemerged and even surged to the forefront.

Another competitor with Arab nationalism for people’s loyalty was radical Islam. In one sense, this competition is surprising. The vast majority of Arabs are Muslims, and the most glorious periods of Arab history occurred during the dazzling medieval Islamic empires. Similarly, all Muslims, moderates or radicals, could not but admit the central role of the Arabs in their religion. After all, Islam was born in the Arabian Peninsula, the Prophet Muhammad was Arab, and God’s message was revealed in Arabic. One would think that the two social movements would share a cooperative relationship.

Instead, it was downright hostile. Arab nationalists, from Husri to Abdel Nasser and Michel Aflaq, founder and philosopher of the Baath Party, accepted the special place that Islam occupied within the Arab nationalist movement.[34] But they stressed only those aspects of Islam that were moral and spiritual in nature. They resolutely rejected Islam’s political and constitutional implications and insisted on its complete subordination to Arab nationalism. The nationalists vehemently argued that it was not religious but linguistic and historical ties that would knit the Arab nation into a cohesive whole.

This was sheer blasphemy to the radical Muslim groups, and nationalists became the target of these groups’ jihad. The concept of jihad, holy struggle, was central to the lexicon of Islamic militancy. Jihad was to be waged against the perceived enemies of Islam—i.e., all those who would try to infuse Muslim society with alien and blasphemous ideas, imported primarily from the West. To the Muslim radicals, perhaps the greatest offenders were the secular nationalists, who propagated ethnicity at the expense of religion and advocated the separation of Islam from politics.

Islamic militancy made little headway so long as the premises and promises of secular Arab nationalism fired the imaginations of Arab populations. But as the sun set on nationalism, it rose on Islamic militancy. This does not mean that there had been no manifest Islamic opposition in the 1950s and 1960s; there was. But its potency, both objectively and in the eyes of those it challenged, took a mammoth stride after 1967, as nationalism nursed its fatal wounds. In the last three decades of the twentieth century, radical Islam became the main opposition force to Arab leaders. The Islamiyyun (as the Islamic radicals called themselves) mounted challenges to Arab governments throughout the Middle East, most notably against the Baathist government in Iraq in the late 1970s, the other Baathists in Syria in the 1980s, Algerian secular leaderships in the 1990s, and successive Egyptian governments during all three decades. The rejuvenation of Islam as a radical political alternative deprived nationalism of whatever chance of recovery it might have had after 1967. Arab nationalism found itself squeezed out of the political arena by the dominance of state nationalism at the official level, and radical Islam at the popular level.

Why did Arab nationalism fall prey so easily to these other emerging political forces? How could an ideology, once so mighty, collapse and disintegrate because of a few setbacks? Did Arab nationalism, while projecting an image of invincibility, actually lack inner strength and vitality?

These questions have been asked many times, and many answers have been given. R. Stephen Humphreys hints at perhaps the most compelling answer:

Although Humphreys does not spell it out, what is implied here is that the inability of Arab nationalism to survive political setbacks was at least partly due to the unwillingness of its custodians to create workable democratic institutions.[36]

Authoritarian systems elevate their political leaders to positions of dominance over the legal-institutional structure, leaving the legitimacy of the political system and its values dependent solely on the leader’s credibility. Thus, when an authoritarian leader falls, the system’s ideology and values become vulnerable, since they are not underpinned by constitutional arrangements independent of the leader. In a democracy, chief executives derive their authority from the constitutional legitimacy of the political system. Democratic systems and their values transcend the personality, policies, and survival of their political leaders. The old European dictum, the king is dead, long live the king, denoted procedural legitimacy. Later, with the spread of popular democracy, the dictum would acquire constitutional substance by signifying the continued legitimacy of the political institutions, regardless of their leader.

Arab nationalism operated throughout its glory days in a sea of authoritarianism, and this happened not because of some unfortunate circumstance. Indeed, the very way Arab nationalism was defined and developed accounted for the absence of democracy. And when nationalism finally collapsed, there were precious few institutions to come to its rescue.

The tenets of Arab nationalism, as formulated by Sati’ al-Husri, reflected the ideas of nineteenth-century German cultural nationalism. To German nationalist thinkers, unifying the nation was the supreme goal and a sacred act, which necessitated the subordination of individual will to the national will.[37] Notions of liberty or freedom were distractions, and when they contradicted the national will, they had to be repressed. How else would the eminent German historian, Heinrich von Trietschke, justify the annexation in 1871 of the German-speaking population of Alsace, the majority of whom wanted to remain politically within France? “We desire,” Trietschke writes in a chilling tone, “even against their will, to restore them to themselves.”[38]

English and French nationalisms were the ideological responses to indigenous efforts to liberalize the absolutist state and create a liberal and virtuous society. German nationalism, in contrast, sought not to

This was the intellectual legacy upon which Husri built his theory of the Arab nation. Arab nationalism, until its final decline late in the twentieth century, continued to embody the tenets of German cultural nationalism. Arab nationalists advocated the rejuvenation of the Arab nation, its political unity, its secularism, and its sovereignty. Yet Arab nationalists, infused with the illiberal ideas of cultural nationalism, had almost nothing to say about personal liberty and freedom. Husri once said that On the rare occasions when advocates of Arab nationalism mentioned personal liberty, it was to make it conditional upon the nation’s well being. In the words of Husri himself: “patriotism and nationalism before and above all ... even above and before freedom.”[41] Husri aimed this message especially at those Arabic-speaking people who did not share his views, and who might have been less than ablaze with exuberance at the prospect of being called Arabs. Husri’s response is uncompromising: Husri did not offer remedies—specific methods by which “Arabs without conscience” would be, in Trietschke’s words, “restored to themselves.” Michel Aflaq was not so coy. Aflaq, whose writings bear the unmistakable influence of Husri’s ideas, candidly identified “cruelty” as the most reliable instrument to effect the desired transformation: “When we are cruel to others, we know that our cruelty is in order to bring them back to their true selves, of which they are ignorant.”[43] Indeed, Aflaq defined cruelty as a facet of the nationalist’s love for his people.

Husri’s nationalist beliefs were carried over into the 1950s and 1960s, becoming the slogans of the nationalist avalanche. By then, Arab cultural nationalism had emerged triumphant over other competing ideologies and identities, capturing the hearts and minds of that quintessentially nationalist generation, a generation that fervently believed in Arab nationalism as the elixir by which a glittering past would be transformed into a glorious future.

But that was easier said than done. The task ahead was fraught with untold difficulties and obstacles. Foreign powers still controlled much of the Arab land. There were the political divisions into many states, artificially created (so nationalists believed), but clearly gaining acceptance and legitimacy with the passage of time. And there were those regional, sectarian, and tribal identities, which the Arab nationalists saw as products of “false consciousness,” encouraged and perpetuated by the colonialists and imperialists. This was to be a titanic struggle, and as the nationalists embarked upon it, they had little patience for words such as liberty, freedom, and democracy.[44] What need was there to listen to another point of view, to debate a contrary perspective? Would it not be a distraction, a diversion from the course of the struggle? Were all Arabs not united in their one sacred endeavor to effect an organic unity of their lands and their peoples, and to free them of Western domination? How could there be a position contrary to that?

Husri’s intellectual authoritarianism penetrated the nationalist psyche and was reinforced by the political circumstances of the era. The nationalist generation of the 1950s and 1960s came to believe fervently that the West would deliberately and effectively block the goals of Arab nationalism, that it would see the nationalist vision of an independent and assertive Arab nation as a dangerous move against Western economic and political interests in the area. The nationalist struggle, therefore, became essentially a struggle against the West.

In the midst of this nationalist ferment emerged the charismatic Abdel Nasser. He vilified the West as the perfidious “other,” the undying nemesis of the Arabs, the determined obstacle to their progress. In fiery speeches, Abdel Nasser reminded Arabs continuously of their glorious history and of their military and intellectual superiority over the West. All the catch phrases of Husri’s cultural nationalism were there: the glory of the Arabs’ heritage, the excellence and originality of their forefathers, the overwhelming power of the Arabs when they were united, their ensuing weakness as they quarreled and dissolved into many small entities, and the necessity to unite now in order to be free and strong again.

In promising the Arabs freedom, Abdel Nasser echoed Husri’s conception; it was not personal freedom and liberty, rather, it was freedom from Western domination. Liberal democracy had no place in this new order.[45] Abdel Nasser did not offer it; he disdained it. “The separation of powers,” he once said, “is nothing but a big deception, because there really is no such thing as the separation of powers.”[46] But neither did the nationalist multitude in those heady days ask for democracy, let alone demand it. The illiberal intellectual tradition of cultural nationalism, combined with the anti-Western struggle, which reached a crescendo in the 1950s and 1960s, justified the centralization of power in the minds of most Arabs, and contributed to the emergence of Abdel Nasser’s popular, populist, and authoritarian rule.

The Baath Party, the other leader of the Arab nationalist march, followed a parallel route. The custodians of Baathist ideology focused their intellectual energies on “Arab unity” and the “anti-imperialist struggle” but said little about democratic institutions. While the constitution of the Baath Party did assert the principle of the people’s sovereignty and Baathist support for a constitutional elective system, it also gave the Baathist party the central role in determining the scope and extent of political freedoms. From the very beginning, Aflaq’s ideas were endowed with a “strong statist strain [in which] individual self-realization [would] derive from participation in the general will of the community.”[47] Freedom would be associated with the struggle against imperialism rather than with individual liberty.[48] This illiberal orientation would be reinforced during the party’s flirtation with political power in the 1950s and early 1960s. In the party’s sixth national congress held in 1963, the Baath finally and unequivocally rejected the notion of liberal parliamentarianism, espousing instead the Soviet concept of democratic centralism, based upon the party’s role as the “vanguard” political institution in the state.

The misfortunes of liberal democracy in the Arab world were compounded by its association with the pro-Western forces in the area. To the nationalist, it was not only Israel that was the “puppet” of the West but also (and perhaps more galling to the nationalist cause) the traditional Arab elites. The nationalists charged that these elites, in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, and in pre-republican Egypt and Iraq, depended totally on the Western powers for their survival. The traditional elites were doing the West’s bidding in the area, in return for Western patronage and protection. The central theme of Abdel Nasser’s assault against the “enemies of Arab nationalism” was their perceived association with Western imperialism. His extensive and ever-hungry propaganda machine quickly took the hint. They mounted a relentless and vicious campaign against the Arab friends of the West, labeling them all as the “lackeys of imperialism.” The leaders of monarchical Iraq had no right to speak on the affairs of their own country because they spoke “on behalf of Western imperialism.”[49] The Christian president of Lebanon had no right to speak on behalf of Arab Christians because he was “an underling of the West.”[50] As for King Hussein of Jordan, Egyptian propaganda ominously reminded him of the assassination of his grandfather by a Palestinian, and then allowed him to ponder a rhetorical question: “Did imperialism save [your] grandfather from his end at the hands of the people?”[51]

This antipathy to Western imperialism translated into a hostility not only to the policies of the West but also to its institutions. A number of pro-Western Arab countries had adopted parliamentary systems, modeled on the British or French political systems. Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan had had parliaments and legislative councils since the 1920s, and Syria and Lebanon instituted them immediately after they gained their independence following World War II. In the second half of the 1940s and early 1950s, all of these countries had experimented with various forms of multi-party politics. Admittedly, they were by no means true liberal democracies when judged by Western standards. There were cases of rigged elections, harassment of opposition parties, institution of emergency laws, and the like. But, when all is said and done, these systems still were far more open and far more civil than those subsequently instituted by the nationalist generation.

Take the case of the press in Egypt and in Iraq. In pre-revolutionary Egypt, Cairo boasted fourteen dailies and twenty-three weeklies, and Alexandria, Egypt’s second largest city, had fourteen dailies and seven weeklies. All were either privately owned or belonged to political parties, which made for a vibrant and freewheeling press. In monarchical Iraq, one year before the 1958 military coup which toppled the monarchy and created a nationalist government, fourteen non-governmental newspapers were published in Baghdad, five in Mosul, and four in Basrah. While the government would occasionally ban a newspaper for a particularly virulent attack, the ban typically would last for a short period and the paper would duly reappear. After the Egyptian and Iraqi nationalist revolutions, the press came under strict governmental control, and in both countries a handful of state-owned dailies were published, distinguishable from each other only by the name on the front page.

The same held for political parties. True, in the pre-Nasserist era, the concept of competitive political parties was neither universally respected nor uniformly applied. But the nationalist generation in the 1950s and 1960s endeavored to delegitimize the very concept itself. “Arab nationalism exterminates the Western political parties!” This was one of the favorite slogans shouted by rioters and demonstrators who celebrated the demise of Iraq’s monarchy in July 1958. There was no need for different parties with different visions since all Arabs supposedly adhered to one unifying vision—namely, the nationalist creed.

But parties were more pernicious yet: they would undermine the nationalist march; they would sow divisions in Arab ranks; they would become fifth columns for greedy outside powers. Abdel Nasser argued that these parties would never subordinate their own interests to the general good,[52] particularly in the underdeveloped world, still suffering from social cleavages and foreign domination.[53] Hence, if parties were allowed in Egypt, Abdel Nasser warned, they would act merely as agents for the intelligence services of the various imperialist powers.[54] Baathist writers and activists echoed this sentiment, demonstrating disdain for a Western-inspired multiparty system. In a sense, the position of Abdel Nasser and the Baath was essentially a fusion of the existential element of anti-Westernism with the intellectual legacy of cultural nationalism. The result was the elimination of multiparty systems and their replacement with unitary political institutions, whose function was no more than the mobilization of the masses.

As long as Arab nationalism dominated the political and psychological landscape, it paid no price for its authoritarian proclivities, and Abdel Nasser’s own charisma helped to legitimize them. But as the reverses set in, climaxing in the fiasco of the 1967 war, Arab nationalism stood naked. Political representation and participation, freedom of expression, and the rule of law—all of them woefully absent—might have resuscitated the ailing ideology. But the post-1967 Arab leaders, while they shared Abdel Nasser’s hunger for absolute rule, lacked his charismatic hold on the people. Under them, authoritarianism became ever harsher and more brutal. The unforgiving totalitarianism of these “nationalist” leaders would further alienate the people from Arab nationalism.

Fouad Ajami notes,

So it was with Arab nationalism. Many factors militated against its continued success. Many of these were internal to the region; others were external to it. Some were inherent in the very ideology of nationalism; others emerged as unforeseen consequences of historical development. In the end, as an idea and an ideology, Arab nationalism ran its course, eventually failing because it could not deliver on its promise to bring about the unity of the Arab peoples.

By the end of the twentieth century, when Arab nationalism had lost its vibrancy and political direction, when people no longer believed in the possibility of comprehensive Arab unity, and when Arab nationalism had been overtaken by other forces and ideologies, people tended to forget the majesty of it all. R. Stephen Humphreys writes,

The English explorer, Freya Stark, traveling in Iraq in the 1930s, recalls one semi-literate Arab telling her: “What do we live for, if not the words that are spoken of us when we die?”[57] Ideas, not unlike people (whether dead or still alive) should be judged by what they accomplished in their prime. Arab nationalism, in its heyday, seemed to have bestowed many gifts on its children: independence from the outsider, purposeful strides onto the road to social and economic modernity, a sense of dignity after the long years of colonization, a set of words and phrases that allowed the Arabs to narrate their own history, and an abiding belief in the Arabs’ ability to sweep aside all doubters and naysayers who blocked the way to progress.

For too long, the Arabs had languished under foreign control, suffering the sense of unremitting inferiority so typical of people who are not the masters of their own house. Naturally, they looked for remedies to even the score. Not until the Arab nationalist tide of the 1950s and 1960s did the Arabs acquire the confidence in their own prowess to believe that they could stand up to the mighty colonizers. The Arabs had become accustomed to turning the other cheek, not out of generosity but out of submission and inferiority. Now, during the nationalist decades, they could stand up, be counted, and slap back. In a sense it was this regeneration of Arab self-confidence, a revitalization of the Arab spirit, that was Arab nationalism’s greatest gift and most enduring accomplishment.

But like a great dynasty that falls on hard times, bringing ruin in its wake, Arab nationalism is remembered more for its shortcomings than its achievements. It is remembered for the debacle of the 1967 war, its failure to heal Arab divisions, its inability to come to the aid of its Palestinian children, its overblown and meaningless rhetoric, especially as compared with its meager actions. By the end of the twentieth century, many Arabs saw Arab nationalism not as the mirror which had allowed them to peer into their glorious past and glean future possibilities, but as the mirror which political leaders had turned on their own people, blinding them with empty promises and preventing them from seeing the true and abysmal face of defeat.

In the last few years, some analysts have detected the emergence of a new kind of Arabism—a spiritual and political bond that is evolving independently of state institutions, particularly among Arab intellectual elites.[58] And indeed, one can easily glean this Arabist sentiment from the editorials and reporting in the parts of the Arab media that reside in Europe, beyond the control of Arab governments.

How this “new Arabism” might develop is uncertain. So far, however, it has not amounted to much. It is the offspring of the nationalist media, but it has found little echo among the people. In a number of recent issues of that most nationalist of newspapers, al-Quds al-'Arabi, the editor scolded Arab leaders and people for their “impotence” in the face of Israel and American threats against Iraq,[59] contrasting this with the many demonstrations in European capitals. “How many thousands more have to die [in Palestine],” he lamented in one editorial, “before we can witness one demonstration in an Arab street or behind the walls of a university or a mosque?”[60]

The truth is that this new Arabism will remain ineffectual as long as it is not translated into deeds. Sulking away in sidewalk cafés does not measure up to the tumultuous passions engendered by the popular eruptions of the nationalist generation two or three decades earlier. It is not that Arabs today do not feel strongly about certain “Arabist” issues. It is simply that allowing these Arabist sentiments to sublimate all other competing interests and concerns is now a thing of the past, as arcane and archaic as Arab nationalism itself.

[1] Douglas A. Boyd, Broadcasting in the Arab World: A Survey of the Electronic Media in the Middle East, 2d ed. (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1993), p. 323.
[2] Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. A.M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons (London: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 358.
[3] ‘Ali Karim Sa’id, ‘Iraq 8 Shibat 1963: Min Hiwar al-Mafahim ila Hiwar ad-Damm, Muraja’at fi Dhakirat Talib Shabib (Beirut: Dar al-Kunuz al-Adabiya, 1999), p. 217.
[4] Fouad Ajami, The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice since 1967 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 85.
[5] Mohamed Heikal, Nasser: The Cairo Documents (London: New English Library, 1972), pp. 15-8.
[6] ‘Abdallah Salum as-Samara’i, “Harakat al-Qawmiyin al-'Arab wa Dawruha fi al-Wa’i al-Qawmi,” Al-Mustaqbal al-'Arabi, Feb. 1986, p. 86.
[7] Edward Said, Orientalism, 2d ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), pp. 331-2; A.I. Dawisha, “Perceptions, Decisions and Consequences in Foreign Policy: The Egyptian Intervention in the Yemen,” Political Studies, June 1977, pp. 201-26. The struggle against colonialism also constitutes the third “fundamental” principle of the constitution of the Baath Party. See Sylvia Haim, ed., Arab Nationalism: An Anthology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962), p. 234.
[8] Adeed Dawisha, “Anti-Americanism in the Arab World: Memories of the Past in the Attitudes of the Present,” in Alvin Z. Rubinstein and Donald E. Smith, eds., Anti-Americanism in the Third World (New York: Praeger, 1985), pp. 67-83.
[9] Abu Khaldun Sati’ al-Husri, Al-'Uruba Awalan (Beirut: Dar al-'Ilm li al-Malayin, 1955), p. 7.
[10] Walid Kazziha, “Al-Qawmiya al-'Arabiya fi Marhalat ma bayn al-Harbayn al-'Alamiyatayn,” in Al-Mustaqbal al-'Arabi, Jan. 1979, p. 61.
[11] Abbas Kelidar, “A Quest for Identity,” Middle Eastern Studies, Apr. 1997, p. 411; Salim Mattar, Adh-Dhat al-Jariha: Ishkalat al-Hawiya fi al-'Iraq wa al-'Alam al-'Arabi “ash-Shirqani” (Beirut: al-Mu’assasa al-'Arabiya li’d-Dirasat wa’n-Nashr, 1997), pp. 196-7.
[12] Riyad Taha, Qissat al-Wahda wa al-Infisal: Tajribat Insan ‘Arabi Khilal Ahdath, 1955-1961 (Beirut: Dar al-Afaq al-Jadida, 1974), p. 96.
[13] Amatzia Baram, “Mesopotamian Identity in Ba’thi Iraq,” Middle Eastern Studies, Oct. 1983, p. 427.
[14] Quoted in Amatzia Baram, “Qawmiyya and Wataniyya in Ba’thi Iraq: The Search for a New Balance,” Middle Eastern Studies, Apr. 1983, p. 193.
[15] Ibid., p. 196.
[16] Quoted in Malik Mufti, Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), p. 150.
[17] Majid Khadduri, Political Trends in the Arab World: The Role of Ideas and Ideals in Politics (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970), pp. 186-94.
[18] Itamar Rabinovich, Syria under the Ba’th, 1963-1966: The Army-Party Symbiosis (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1972), p. 20.
[19] R. Stephen Humphreys, Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a Troubled Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 73-4.
[20] Al-Jumhuriya al-'Arabiya al-Muttahida, Mahadhir Jalsat Mubahathat al-Wahda (Cairo: The National Printing and Publishing House, 1963), p. 94. “The centuries of Ottoman tyranny,” writes Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, “isolated [Egypt] from the [rest of the Arabs]. Egypt ... was unable to shift its attention from its own soil so that it can look across the Sinai and discover its Arab position.” Al-Ahram (Cairo), Nov. 3, 1961.
[21] Eberhard Kienle, “Arab Unity Schemes Revisited: Interest, Identity, and Policy in Syria and Egypt,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Feb. 1995, p. 66.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Uriel Dann, Studies in the History of Transjordan, 1920-1949: The Making of a State (Boulder: Westview Press, 1984), p. 11.
[24] Hadar had historically denoted settled communities, and in Jordan it symbolically separated the cities, especially the capital Amman, from the rest of the country. The implication here was that the urbanites were particularly susceptible to Arab nationalism, especially as the Palestinian community was almost entirely urban.
[25] Uriel Dann, King Hussein and the Challenge of Arab Radicalism: Jordan, 1955-1967 (London: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 59.
[26] ‘Ali al-Wardi, Lamahat Ijtima’iya min Tarikh al-'Iraq al-Hadith, al-Juzi’ ar-Rabi’, min ‘Am 1914 ila ‘Am 1918 (London: Dar Kufan li an-Nashr, 1992), pp. 402-3
[27] Amatzia Baram, “Neo-Tribalism in Iraq: Saddam Hussein’s Tribal Policies, 1991-96,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Feb. 1997, pp. 2-3.
[28] Ibid.; Adeed Dawisha, “Identity and Political Survival in Saddam’s Iraq,” Middle East Journal, Autumn 1999, pp. 562-7.
[29] ‘Abd al-Karim al-Uzri, Tarikh fi Dhikrayat al-'Iraq, 1930-1958 (Beirut: Markaz al-Abjadiya li’s-Saf at-Taswiri, 1982), pp. 242-3.
[30] Mattar, adh-Dhat al-Jariha, p. 172.
[31] Sa’id, ‘Iraq 8 Shibat, 1963, p. 308.
[32] Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq’s Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of Its Communists, Ba’thists, and Free Officers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 818; Yitzhak Nakash, The Shi’is of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 134.
[33] Mir Basri, A’lam al-Adab fi al-'Iraq al-Hadith (London: Dar al-Hikma, 1994). It is instructive to see how many Shi’ites figure in Basri’s comprehensive list of Iraqi men of letters.
[34] Walid Khadduri, “Al-Qawmiya al-'Arabiya wa’d-Dimuqratiya: Muraja’a Naqdiya,” Al-Mustaqbal al-'Arabi, Feb. 1998, p. 45.
[35] Humphreys, Between Memory and Desire, pp. 66-7.
[36] Sa’d ad-Din Ibrahim, “Thawrat Yuliyu wa I’adat Tafsir at-Tarikh,” in Sa’d ad-Din Ibrahim et al., eds., Misr wa’l-'Uruba wa Thawrat Yuliyu (Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-Wahda al-'Arabiya, 1983), p. 13.
[37] Elie Kedourie, Nationalism (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1960), p. 47.
[38] Hans Kohn, The Ideas of Nationalism: A Study in its Origins and Background (New York: Macmillan, 1944), p. 582.
[39] Hans Kohn, Prelude to Nation-States: The French and German Experience, 1789-1815 (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1967), p. 254.
[40] Khadduri, Political Trends in the Arab World, p. 201.
[41] Abu Khaldun Sati’ al-Husri, Safahat min al-Madhi al-Qarib (Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-Wahda al-'Arabiya, 1984), p. 42.
[42] Abu Khaldun Sati’ al-Husri, Abhath Mukhtara fi al-Qawmiya al-'Arabiya (Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-Wahda al-'Arabiya, 1985), p. 80.
[43] Michel Aflaq, Fi Sabil al-Ba’th (Beirut: Dar at-Tali’ah, 1963), pp. 161-2; Kanan Makiya, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 206.
[44] Khadduri, “Al-Qawmiya al-'Arabiya wa’d-Dimuqratiya,” p. 42.
[45] Ahmad Hamrush, Qissat Thawrat 23 Yuliyu: Kharif ‘Abd an-Nasir, al-Juzi’ al Khamis (Cairo: Maktabat Madbouli, 1983), pp. 386-7; Sami Gawhar, As-Samitun yatakalamun: ‘Abd an-Nasir wa Madhbahat al-Ikhwan (Cairo: al-Maktab al-Misri al-Hadith, 1975), pp. 89-92.
[46] Quoted in Sa’id, ‘Iraq 8 Shibat 1963, p. 213; Mustafa ‘Abd al-Ghani, “‘Abd an-Nasir wa’l-Muthaqafun,” Al-Mustaqbal al-'Arabi, Dec. 2000, p. 110.
[47] Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Authoritarian Power and State Formation in Ba’thist Syria: Army, Party, and Peasant (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990), p. 89; Elie Kedourie, Democracy and Arab Political Culture (Washington, D.C.: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1992), p. 90.
[48] John F. Devlin, The Ba’th Party: A History from Its Origins to 1966 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1976), p. 31.
[49] British Broadcasting Corporation, Summary of World Broadcasts, Part IV, The Arab World, Israel, Greece, Turkey, Iran (hereafter, SWB), May 13, 1958, pp. 2-3.
[50] Ibid., June 2, 1958, p. 1.
[51] Ibid., Oct. 8, 1966, p. 5.
[52] The Sunday Times (London), June 24, 1962.
[53] Al-Ahram (Cairo), July 2, 1959.
[54] Egyptian Gazette (Cairo), May 9, 1966; United Arab Republic, President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Speeches and Press Interviews (Cairo: Information Department, 1959), p. 547.
[55] Fouad Ajami, “The End of Pan-Arabism,” Foreign Affairs, Winter 1978/79, p. 355.
[56] Humphreys, Between Memory and Desire, p. 61.
[57] Freya Stark, Baghdad Sketches (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1996), p. 165.
[58] Shibley Telhami, “Power, Legitimacy and Peace-making in Arab Conditions: The New Arabism,” in Leonard Binder, ed., Ethnic Conflict and International Politics in the Middle East (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999), pp. 55-9.
[59] For example, Al-Quds al-'Arabi, Sept. 18 and 23, Oct. 5 and 23, 2002.
[60] Ibid., Sept. 23, 2002.