Post by AnonMoosPost by AnonMoosI would say that on the whole radical Arab nationalism has done
far more damage to Arabs over the last 57 years or so than has
radical Sunni Islam, yet for some reason you adore cherish admire
and love radical Arab nationalism.
in response to your accusation that I support Arab nationalism
completely, totally and absolutely, it is not true. I have
extremely serious criticisms of Arab nationalism, which like all
nationalism, has fascist seeds within it. I am willing to discuss
my criticisms of AN if you like, or you may persist in your
delusions about me. Furthermore, I certainly disagree that Arab
nationalism has "caused more damage to the Arabs than
fundamentalism"!
Hasn't it? It was radical Arab nationalism which prevented any
compromise from being reached on the Israel issue in 1947-1948, and
which largely kept the destructive conflict alive militarily for
the next 35 years;
GOOD! GOOD!
It's nice for you that you're filled with such overwhelming feelings
of joyful glee -- but as a practical matter, the Arab absolute refusal
to recognize the existence of Israel, and rigid inflexible insistence
on extirpating and eradicating Israel, was a prominent cause of
Palestinian displacement and suffering, played a large role in
thrusting the middle east into the cockpit of the U.S.-Soviet cold war
conflict,
Only after 1967, and especially after 1973. Before that, not so much,
really.
Post by AnonMoosand was something which over the long term the Arabs found
that they couldn't really afford (not to mention that the whole
Israeli-Arab conflict was a major distraction from focusing on
Arab-internal development). In short, the policy simply wasn't
sustainable -- and when the Arab countries finally started to come to
the table from the late 1970's through the 1990's, they found that
they hadn't achieved anything by their decades of intransigeant
rejectionism and refusal to compromise, except that the Palestinians
now had to negotiate for something which would be much less than what
they could have had freely for the asking back on November 29th 1947.
Yeh well.......I think that's noble. Refusing to compromise, holding
out for one's ideals. I'm not into pragmatism, really. I'm an
idealist, not a pragmatist. Pragmatism is usually nothing but
defeatism.
Post by AnonMoosPost by AnonMoosand which also pointed Arabs towards autocratic government
This is a problem, but most Arab regimes these days are not that
Arab nationalist, and they are all dictatorships anyway. The Arab
nationalist regimes are dictatorships, the Islamist regimes are
dictatorships, the pro-US bought-off, whored-out regimes are
dictatorships......on and on.....Does Arab nationalism say we must
have a dictatorship?
I don't know that most versions of pan-Arabist ideology explicitly
REQUIRE autocracy, but they generally insist that the highest
priorities are pan-Arab unity, development of Arab governmental and
military strength, and destroying Israel -- so that democracy is
generally an extremely subordinate and secondary priority at best.
Well it doesn't have to be that way......
Post by AnonMoosIf you combine the fact that Arabs have no real history of democracy
with the fact that Arab nationalist and Muslim religious ideologies
generally do not set a high priority on democracy (or don't even value
it very highly at all), then it's not surprising that no Arab
countries are real democracies.
I wouldn't blame it all on Arab nationalism. The Arab dictators just
want power. They will use any BS excuse they can - Arab nationalism,
Islamism, terrorism, state of emergency, threat of Islamism, etc. to
keep their power. They are just run of the mill dictators and nowadays
most of them don't even have much to AN or Islamism anymore, and they
are still total dictators. Now they are pro-US dictators. So go
figure.
Post by AnonMoosAlthough the founders of the Baath Party were wrongly opposed to
democracy as "recipe for chaos" I do not think there is anything
inherent in the ideology that mandates this.
From the formative years of the 1930's through the 1960's, many Arab
nationalists at first thought that Fascism was the wave of the future,
I don't know much about that.
Post by AnonMoosthen that Communism was the wave of the future. How surprising it is
that there's so little democracy, then!
The ones that I hung out with were Leftists. They supported Saddam
Hussein (most of them). There were some Iraqi Arab Nationalists on
there who hated Saddam though.
Post by AnonMoosPost by AnonMooscombined with a bastard pseudo-"socialist" economic statist
ideology,
Well, the fact that these regimes practiced a more corrupt
nepotistic phony socialism as opposed to something real is no fault
of Arab nationalism.
Even if there had been less corruption, bureaucratic statist socialism
wouldn't have turned out all that well.
Well, in Iraq I think Saddam did a very good job of developing his
regime. Anywhere else, it's really been mixed economies, and there is a
tremendous amount of private sector activity in the Arab World, but I
think the private sector is sort of corrupted with these monopolistic
companies, such that entry of new actors is difficult. They make it
hard for new people to break in.
There were a few meaningful
Post by AnonMoosaccomplishments in the period after independence (such as some of
Nasser's land reforms),
Iraq did a fantastic job of developing and so did Syria. Those
countries were feudalistic backwaters in the 50's. Arab nationalists
brought those countries up from nothing.
Post by AnonMoosbut it seems that many Arab governments didn't
really even want true economic development if this would make people
feel less dependent on the government, and so threaten central regime
control.
I don't think so, it's more like nepotistic monopolies run the show and
won't let other actors in. It's more that than any kind of socialism.
Governments preferred shiny official prestige projects (like
Post by AnonMoosthe Aswan dam) to loosening bureaucratic restrictions and seeing what
people could do in the way of wealth-creation.
I can't comment except that in Iraq there were a tremendous number of
businessmen. I mean you go to Baghdad and there are businesses
everywhere, in Fallujah, in the south.....what is this crap about "the
government won't let people make money in business"? It's just a
goddamn freemarketeer lie. There were a number of government industries
in Iraq, but they provided good cheap products for the masses, and
supplied them well. Now that Iraq has gone "freemarket" they are trying
to shut down all the state industries and no one can afford the stuff
anymore.
If various Arab
Post by AnonMooscountries hadn't received a windfall of oil revenues (unearned
"rents", in economic terminology), then the Arab countries probably
wouldn't be all that far ahead of sub-Saharan Africa economically.
Hmmm, I really don't know what to say to that. I have a lot of contacts
with people in subSaharan Africa right now, and certain countries are
not any kind of economic basket cases at all. I kind of resent the way
the place is portrayed, frankly. The country where I have friends now
is growing at 5% a year and there is certainly a lot of economic
activity!
Post by AnonMoosIn fact, hardline Arab nationalists are really critical of most Arab
regimes right now,
Trotskyists were really critical of most Communist regimes back then.
The Arab nationalists say that most of the regimes now are not Arab
nationalist at all, or progressive in any way. Most of them are
"reactionary" regimes that are "occupied" by US imperialism. They are
considered to be colonies of the US that are in need of being
liberated. Occupied territories if you will.
Post by AnonMoosexcept maybe Syria.
Oh, so they love His Royal Majesty Bashshar I, scion of the hereditary
monarchical Assad dynasty, do they?
Hard to say, but most of them will at least say that it's one of the
last real hardline Arab Nationalist regimes that has the balls to stand
up to US imperialism and Israel. They don't talk about Syria much.
Sadly, I noted that many of them supported Saddam's regime and the Baath
(especially after the US conquered the place).
Considering that Syria isn't even
Post by AnonMoosa true Republic, Nasser would be turning in his grave!
I don't understand the comment.....
Post by AnonMoosPost by AnonMoosIn some ways, Saddam Hussein was the logical culmination and
epitome of various trends in radical Arab nationalism.
Unfortunately this is true. However, the fact is that most Arabs
simply ARE Arab nationalists, so the notion that Arab nationalism is
somehow some kind of "evil ideology" is just nonsense.
I don't know that Pan-Arabist Nationalism is inherently "evil", but
the way that it has worked itself out in real-world events has ended
up causing much evil -- and since none of its more grandiose or
far-reaching aspirations have been achieved, it's hard to judge it to
be anything other than a failure, overall.
There are really only 3 games in town in the Arab World:
1. Islamist reactionary bullshit
2. Pro-US, sold-out, whored-out regimes tolerant of Israel
3. Some sort of Arab nationalist type secular regime
That's all that's playing at the theater.
Post by AnonMoosThe Arab nationalists are NOT going to go away as this philosophy
represents that of the Arab masses into the forseeable future.
They will remain Arabs and nationalists, but the attractions of the
particular Nasserist variety of Pan-Arabism (among other things) is
greatly diminished from the 1960's or late 1950's, from what I can
tell.
I'm not sure what you mean. You will see a lot of Arab solidarity in
the Arab World. That's what all the concern about the Palestinians is
all about - it's Arab nationalist solidarity, same with sympathy for the
Iraqi resistance. The Arabs who poured into Iraq during the war and
after the war, unless they were radical Islamists, were often driven by
an Arab solidarity. That's all AN is to me - a sense of solidarity in
the Arab World with one another, and a refusal to identify so much with
one Arab country or one Arab tribe or one Arab religion.....that sort of
thing. From what I can tell, that sentiment is very much alive!
Post by AnonMoosNationalist projects can vary - I support a renewed Arab nationalism
purged of the fascism, racism, dictatorship, tribal morality and
brutality that this philosophy has been infected with.
Good luck!
Note that the original Baath manifesto was opposed to TRIBALISM,
RACISM, etc.
Yes -- the Ba`thists wanted Arabs to have one single undivided loyalty
to the pan-Arab state,
That's not really good. That sounds like fascism. Really, the pan-Arab
state ought to serve the people, not the people serve the state. The
Left State serves the people. In the fascist far right state, the
people serve the state.
undiminished by any secondary identities (such
Post by AnonMoosas tribal descent, "regional" origin, religious affiliation, etc).
Well now you see that is a good thing. Look at Iraq and tell where all
this sectarian shit gets anyone.
Post by AnonMoosThis really has more to do with a philosophy of statism (not entirely
free of fascist influences) than it has to do with idealistic notions
of non-discrimination.
I suppose, but I knew a guy who filled out forms to join the Baath Party
in Syria in high school. It took hours to fill them out, and there was
not one single question on there about race.
Post by AnonMoosArab nationalism because it is the state ideology that ever stood up
to Western imperialism and Israeli colonialism
It's certainly done that -- the question is whether it's accomplished
anything positive.
I believe in fighting to the bitter end and holding fast to a principle,
not defeatist notions like, "Is this battle really pragmatic?"
"Wouldn't it be more pragmatic to just hang it up and sell out?"
--
http://www.pflp.net Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
http://www.farcep.org Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
Heroes: George Habash, Nayef Hawatmeh, Naji Alloush, Kamal Nasser, Wadi
Haddad, Michel Aflaq, Camilo Torres, Tupac Amaru, Farabundo Marti,
Desallines, Augusto Sandino, Fritz Fanon, Pontiac, John Brown.