Group+4.5+PanArabism

Group 4.5

=__Pan-Arabism__=

__**Pan-Arab Parties**__ Pan Arabism is the ideology of all Arab nations including twenty-two Arab countries and a population of 360 million people uniting and becoming one. Two of the biggest political parties that tried to spread the ideology of Pan-Arabism are the Ba’ath Party and the party formally known as the Nasserist’s, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. The Ba’ath Party, which means the resurrection of a secular political party, was founded in Damascus, Syria in 1947. Some fundamental laws taken from the constitution of the Ba’ath Party are the following; “The Arab homeland is an indivisible political and economic entity and no Arab country can make up for conditions of its existence away from other Arab countries.” Another fundamental rule taken from the constitution from the Ba’ath Party is that “The Arab nation is one educational entity. All differences existing among its natives are casual and fake.” “They can be removed by the awakening of the Arab conscience.” These two excerpts taken from the constitution are significant examples that explain part of the ideology that the Ba’ath Party believes in. Their whole idea was to get rid of outsiders ruling in their own nations. One of the most well known leaders of the Ba’ath party not necessarily for good reasons was Saddam Hussein in Iraq. He brought democracy as well as infrastructure to Iraq and made Iraq a better place for people to live for a short period of time. One issue that came about within the Ba’ath Party and Pan-Arabism is the idea of anti-Persians, so Hussein went out of his way to rid Baghdad of Persians and turned it into an ethnic genocide. Once this started to happen the idea of Pan Arabism became counter productive and Saddam Hussein stay in power started to become controversial after he started to kill his own people in his country. Another Pan-Arabic party was called the Nasserist’s, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser was the main reason for the overthrow of the Egyptian and Sudanese Monarchy in 1956. Shortly after this happened a Pan-Arabist party won a parliamentary election in Jordan, which put Sulayman Al Nabulsi in power, a supporter of Nasser. Nasser gradually gained support from all over the Middle East. One of Nasser’s biggest accomplishments was that he extinguished British Rule in Egypt and the Middle East in general. Nasser’s idea was to spread unity among the Arab nation. The ideology of Pan-Arabism since these two parties have thrived has ceased. Perhaps if the leaders of the Pan-Arab ideology didn’t take it too far by ethnic genocide of the Kurds in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, then Pan-Arabism may still be around and potentially the whole Arab nation would be united as one. By: Daniel Smith References are at bottom

__**The History of Pan-Arabism**__

The rise of the ideology of Pan-Arabism was a slow and gradual process. The idea of all Arab nations uniting and becoming one has been around for centuries. They first started thinking about it in the 14th century. As World War I began, France and Great Britain were in need of an ally. They started to push for pan-Arabism to become an official so that they could use all of the Arab nations as an ally. A major rallying point for the party was when Zionism, a Jewish political party, decided to be hostile towards Palestine. The Zionist wanted to control Palestine while the Palestinians wanted to be independent (Woolbert). This happened because there were a lot of Jewish immigrants in the Palestine and they thought that they should be able to control it due to the substantial amount of them and the Arabs thought that they should control it because they were there first (Dov and Kark). Finally, after World War II Pan-Arabism was declared official in the Arab league. It also had a couple of unification attempts. In 1958, Pan-Arabism had attempts within the Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan, and also the Arab Union. Others were in the United Arab Republic and the Arab Maghreb Union. Throughout the 1960’s the main political party that was representing the idea of Pan-Arabism was the Ba’ath Party ("Pan-Arabism"). The decline of Pan-Arabism started in 1967, after the 6 day war. The war was the Arab Israeli war and in the end the Arabs lost which hit them hard. Another large setback for the ideology was when Gamal Abdal Nassar, an Egyptian and important Arab leader died in 1970. During this time there a merge between Egypt and Libya was expected but ended up not happening. In 1978 there was peace agreement made between Egypt and Israel. This showed everyone that the Egyptian leader Anwar Al Sadat was for their country rather than the Arabs uniting as one. As the Ba’ath Party went down, other countries started to turn away from the ideology of Pan-Arabism. Eventually by the 1980's they turned to the idea of nationalism (Ajami). Along with this sudden change, some of them turned to their religion asthe basis of their political ideas. In 1973, during the Arab Israeli war the Arab nation realized that they could use the oil in their countries as an advantage internationally. They used this together and it helped Pan-Arabism take a tiny step in the right direction because the Arab nations were uniting. This unity was all broken by the Camp-David accords and Iran war ("Pan-Arabism"). Today most people do not even recognize that Pan-Arabism even exists. There was a survey done that showed how modern people did not realize it anymore (Zureik). The most recent event that was put under the Pan-Arab ideology was the adventures with Saddam Hussein, who considered himself to be a part of the Ba’ath Party. Since then, there has not been much written or talked about on Pan-Arabism. By: Amanda Schoeppe

__References__
 * Gavis, Dov and Kark, Ruth. “The Cadastral Mapping of Palestine, 1858-1928.” The Geographical Journal 159.1 ( Mar., 1993): 70-80. //Jstor.// Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <[]>
 * Ajami, Fouad. “The End of Pan-Arabism.” Foreign Affairs 57.2 (Winter, 1978): 355-73. //Jstor.// Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <[]>
 * Woolbert, Robert Gale. “Pan Arabism and the Palestine Problem.” Foreign Affairs 16.2 (Jan., 1938): 309-22. //Jstor// Web. 10 Mar. 2011. [|
 * Zureik, Elia. “Reviewed work(s): Pan-Arabism and Arab Nationalism: The Continuing Debate by Tewfik E. Farah.” Contemporary Sociology 17.1 (Jan., 1988): 49-50. //Jstor// Web. 11 Mar. 2011. <[]>
 * “Pan-Arabism.” Infoplease.com. n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. < []>

 **__Growth (Rise)of Pan-Arabism__** Pan-Arabism was mainly introduced to unite the Arab countries and fight against the colonizers during the colonization. It was in progress of enlargement after the World War 1. It was really helpful to the people of Arab countries. The Ideology of pan-Arabism let to the introduction of lots of parties which helped the Arabs to unite and fight for their own identity and place. During the 1920-1940s the relationship between the elites, traditional families, the westernized middle stratum and the Politicians was complex. These families consisted of traditional notable families and newly risen families since the 19th century Ottoman Empire’s tanzimat reforms. After the World War 1 these elites stood at the center of the new states and were helpless. The Politicians of these elites struggled to get these states their independence. During these times it comprised an important element in characterizing the political and ideological environment in the social conditions in which the Arab nationalism and Pan-Arabism became highly influential factor. This was the only way they could built new communities and develop them. Under Pan-Arabism lots of parties were introduced, some of them like United Arab Republic, Arab league, Ba’ath party and many more. The first pan-Arabism was pushed by Sharif Hussein Ibn Ali, he was the Sharif of Mecca. Sharif wanted independence for the Mashreq Arabs from the Ottoman Empire, and also the establishment of United Arab State in the Mashreq. Pan-Arab satellite Channels and Newspapers also played a role to unite the Arabs, as these things decided to emphasis on the regional news over the local. The Arabic spoke in these newspapers, television was same all over the place which helped to form a simpler and common dialect for the Arab people. Even after the fall of pan-Arabism due to lots of reasons people thought it will be the end of it. But the revolution in Egypt is leading the people who live there to approach Pan-Arabism. Where people are getting together to form new groups to help the country get out of the crisis.

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__ The Decline of Pan-Arabism __
 * Early Pan-Arabism Developments**

Pan-Arabism’s decline began in 1967 after the Six Day War. Though the various Arabic regimes had survived the war, they had lost any semblance of legitimacy or honour. In particular, Pan-Arabists in Cairo, whom had always been one of the main proponents of the movement, were heavily affected by the defeats during the war. Having sustained massive military defeat, the vulnerabilities of Egypt and, by extension, those of the Pan-Arabic movement were showcased and the movement lost much of its appeal as many Arabs became disillusioned with the political ideal. Palestine, once a major supporter of the movement, no longer saw Egyptians as supporting them in the battle against Israel (whom many Arabic countries saw as the main enemy of all Arabs). Feeling that other Arabic countries could not protect themselves from the Israelis, let alone help Palestine gain independence, Palestine moved away from the Pan-Arabic ideal favour of their own form of Palestinian nationalism. In 1978, Egyptian leader Anwar Al Sadat entered into a peaceful agreement with Israel, marking a decided shift in Arabic thought within Egypt. Through his public policy and the initiative with Israel, Al Sadat had made it clear that his concern was the Egyptian people, not the greater Arabic community. Egyptian-Israeli peace had the additional effect of increasing the division among Arabic countries, leading to a greater sense of nationalism as opposed to an overarching sense of Arabism. Furthering the decline of Pan-Arabism was the virtual destruction of the Ba’ath party. Without the strongly Pan-Arab political power, Pan-Arabism had lost another of its main proponents. Thought the Ba’ath party still exists, it maintains different ideologies than it once did and is no longer the powerful fighter for an Arabic state that it used to be, generally avoiding more extremist solutions. By the late 1980’s, Pan-Arabism had been replaced with nationalist and Islamist ideologies. With Egypt, once the foremost supporter of the Pan-Arabic movement, moving towards a sense of Egyptian nationalism, other countries began to move in the same direction, favouring more isolated ideologies focusing on the unity of peoples in a single country. In short, the interests of the state have trumped those of the Arab community at large. The 1980’s also saw a shift towards Islamist ideologies as well. Instead of focusing on the ethnicity of the people, the Islamist movements looked more towards their religious similarities. Finding common ground that all Muslims could identify with, Islamist movements flourished where Pan-Arabic movements had failed. Though the movement seems dead and gone, current protests in the Middle East suggest a possible resurgence in Pan-Arabic thought. The common fight for a more democratic process in many modern Arabic states may foster a sense of common brotherhood among Arabs, leading to a revival of the Pan-Arabic movement.

Written by Zachary Slagel

Reference: [] __ References __ www.baath-party.org/eng/constitutionl.htm

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