Arab Nationalism's Last Gasp
7 January LA Times commentary - Arab Nationalism's Last Gasp by Robert Kaplan.
Quote:
Just as the demise of Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia closed the lid on national communist parties in Eastern Europe, the demise of Saddam Hussein in Iraq appears likely to do the same for secular Arab nationalism across the Middle East.
And just as communism exited the European stage exposed for what it always truly was -- fascism without fascism's ability to make the trains run on time -- secular Arab nationalism will exit the stage revealed for what it always was: a despotic perversion of the western nation-state that lasted as long as it did mainly because of secret-police techniques imported from the former Soviet Union.
Arab nationalism's roots go back to the revolt against European colonialism in the early decades of the 20th century. But as it developed, it faced a serious problem: Because it was organized around the artificial national borders that these same colonialists had drawn -- which generally ignored ethnic and sectarian lines -- the result, in too many cases, was multiethnic rivalry and the subjugation of one part of the population by another.
In Iraq, for instance, the national borders created a state in which the majority Shiites were subjugated by the minority Sunnis (as we all now know). In Syria, the majority Sunnis came to be subjugated by the minority Alawites, who constitute a branch of Shiism (and who had been favored in the armed forces by the French). In Lebanon, it was the Shiites who ended up subjugated by both Christians and Sunnis.
No sooner were these independent new states created than the ties of faith and tribe were undermining them. A fragile unity of sorts could only be achieved by recourse to secular nationalism, which, on paper at least, aimed to transcend those bitter rivalries...
We're returning to the Middle Ages
Quote:
Those who proclaim today that the only real solution to the Arab dilemma is political freedom are correct. The problem is that they are describing a process that could encompass several bloody decades. After all, it took centuries for stable democracy as we know it to evolve in Europe. In this Darwinian shaking-out process, the new forms of political legitimacy may more closely resemble militarized social welfare organizations such as Hezbollah and the Al Mahdi army than the ramshackle contrivances of the European model that we saw in the post-colonial era.
Right before the trap door was opened, Hussein's executioners chanted "Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada," referring to Shiite militia leader Muqtada Sadr — because what was supposed to have been retribution for crimes against humanity had, despite all of our efforts, turned into another sectarian killing. Such is the abyss that follows secular Arab nationalism.
We opened Pandora's box, one that probably would have burst open eventually, but now we have to take responsibility for it. I agree with the parallel that I read elsewhere that the current conflict in the ME is very similiar to the hundred year war in Europe. The political legitmacy that Kaplan refers to it will probably look similiar to city states (tribal states in some cases), and gradually evolve into larger entities. We can't establish politcial legitmacy, so instead of sending more soldiers, we probably need to work our way back to the periphery of this fight.
