Pan-Arabism

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The Arab world.

Pan-Arabism is a movement for unification among the Arab peoples and nations of the Middle East. It is closely connected to Arab nationalism. Pan-Arabism has tended to be secular and often socialist, and has strongly opposed colonialism and Western political involvement in the Arab world. Pan-Arabism is a form of cultural nationalism.

Pan-Arabism was first pressed by Sharif Hussein ibn Ali, the Sharif of Mecca, who sought independence from the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of a unified state of Arabia. In 1915-16, the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence resulted in an agreement between the United Kingdom and the Sharif that if the Arabs successfully revolted against the Ottomans, the United Kingdom would support claims for Arab independence. In 1916, however, the Sykes-Picot Agreement between the United Kingdom and France determined that crucial parts of the Middle East would be divided between those powers rather than forming part of an independent Arab state. When Turkey surrendered in 1918, the United Kingdom refused to keep to the letter of its arrangements with Hussein and the two nations assumed guardianship of several newly-created states. The promised “Arabia” (later Saudi Arabia) was formed in the less valuable south.

Additionally, the United Kingdom used the Balfour Declaration of 1917 as reason to administer Palestine as a British Mandate, which it became in 1920. As a result, early ideals of pan-Arabism were not realized and instead there began a period of British and French domination of the Arab east.

A more formalized pan-Arab ideology than that of Hussein was first espoused in the 1930s, notably by Syrian thinkers such as Constantin Zureiq, Zaki al-Arsuzi and Michel Aflaq. Aflaq and al-Arsuzi were key figures in the establishment of the Arab Ba’ath (Resurrection) Party, and the former was for long its chief ideologist, combining elements of Marxist thought with a nationalism to a considerable extent reminiscent of nineteenth-century European romantic nationalism. A pan-Arab ideology lay at the basis of various attempts over the past fifty years to unite various Arab nation-states, most notably the short-lived United Arab Republic, which united Egypt and Syria.

In contrast to pan-Islamism, pan-Arabism is secular and nationalistic as many prominent pan-Arabs, such as Aflaq (Greek Orthodox) were non-Muslims and non-Arabs. Similarly, Tariq Aziz, an Aramaic-speaking Chaldean Christian and the once deputy prime minister of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, was another prominent pan-Arabist. However, in de-emphasizing the role of Islam, pan-Arab ideology has been accused of inciting prejudice against and downplaying the role of non-Arab Muslim peoples such as the Turks, Persians, and Kurds, amongst others.^{[citation needed]}

Egyptian President Nasser, whose ideology of "Nasserism" defined the pan-Arabism of the 1960s

The Syrian government is, and the former government of Iraq was, led by the Ba’ath Party, which espouses pan-Arabism. The high point of the pan-Arab movement was in the 1960s, when the movement was spearheaded by Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, but pan-Arabism was strongly hurt by the Arab defeat by Israel in the Six Day War and the inability of pan-Arabist governments to generate economic growth. By the late 1980s, pan-Arabism began to be eclipsed by Islamist ideologies. It continues however, to exert a strong influence and nostalgic influence in Arab print media and intellectual circles, particularly in the Levant.