The Resurrection of Pan-Arabism

     The Egyptian revolution has resurrected a new type
     of pan-Arabism, based on social justice not empty
     slogans.

Lamis Andoni 
11 Feb 2011
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201121115231647934.html

The Egyptian revolution, itself influenced by the
Tunisian uprising, has resurrected a new sense of pan-
Arabism based on the struggle for social justice and
freedom. The overwhelming support for the Egyptian
revolutionaries across the Arab world reflects a sense
of unity in the rejection of tyrannical, or at least
authoritarian, leaders, corruption and the rule of a
small financial and political elite.

Arab protests in solidarity with the Egyptian people
also suggest that there is a strong yearning for the
revival of Egypt as a pan-Arab unifier and leader.
Photographs of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the former Egyptian
president, have been raised in Cairo and across Arab
capitals by people who were not even alive when Nasser
died in 1970. The scenes are reminiscent of those that
swept Arab streets in the 1950s and 1960s.

But this is not an exact replica of the pan-Arab
nationalism of those days. Then, pan-Arabism was a
direct response to Western domination and the 1948
establishment of the state of Israel. Today, it is a
reaction to the absence of democratic freedoms and the
inequitable distribution of wealth across the Arab
world.

We are now witnessing the emergence of a movement for
democracy that transcends narrow nationalism or even
pan-Arab nationalism and which embraces universal human
values that echo from north to south and east to west.

This is not to say that there is no anti-imperialist
element within the current movement. But the protests
in Egypt and elsewhere promote a deeper understanding
of human emancipation, which forms the real basis for
freedom from both repression and foreign domination.

Unlike the pan-Arabism of the past, the new movement
represents an intrinsic belief that it is freedom from
fear and human dignity that enables people to build
better societies and to create a future of hope and
prosperity. The old "wisdom" of past revolutionaries
that liberation from foreign domination precedes the
struggle for democracy has fallen.

The revolutionaries of Egypt, and before them Tunisia,
have exposed through deeds - not merely words - the
leaders who are tyrants towards their own people, while
humiliatingly subservient to foreign powers. They have
shown the impotence of empty slogans that manipulate
animosity towards Israel to justify a fake Arab unity,
which in turn serves only to mask sustained oppression
and the betrayal of Arab societies and the aspirations
of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian pretext

The era of using the Palestinian cause as a pretext for
maintaining martial laws and silencing dissent is over.
The Palestinians have been betrayed, not helped, by
leaders who practice repression against their own
people. It is no longer sufficient for regimes in Syria
and Iran to claim support for Palestinian resistance in
order to stifle freedom of expression and to
shamelessly tread on human rights in their own
countries.

Equally, it is no longer acceptable for the Palestinian
Fatah and Hamas to cite their record in resisting
Israel when justifying their suppression of each other
and the rest of the Palestinian people. Young
Palestinians are responding to the message of the
movement and embracing the idea that combatting
internal injustice - whether practised by Fatah or
Hamas - is a prerequisite for the struggle to end
Israeli occupation and not something to be endured for
the sake of that struggle.

Events in Egypt and Tunisia have revealed that Arab
unity against internal repression is stronger than that
against a foreign threat - neither the American
occupation of Iraq nor the Israeli occupation
galvanised the Arab people in the way that a single act
by a young Tunisian who chose to set himself alight
rather than live in humiliation and poverty has.

This does not mean that Arabs do not care about the
occupied people of Iraq or Palestine - tens, sometimes
hundreds, of thousands have taken to the streets across
Arab countries at various times to show solidarity with
Iraqis and Palestinians - but it does reflect the
realisation that the absence of democratic freedoms has
contributed to the continued occupation of those
countries.

The Arab failure to defend Iraq or liberate Palestine
has come to symbolise an Arab impotence that has been
perpetuated by the state of fear and paralysis in which
the ordinary Arab citizen, marginalised by social
injustice and crushed by security apparatus oppression,
has existed.

When they were allowed to rally in support of Iraqis or
Palestinians it was mainly so that their anger might be
deflected from their own governments and towards a
foreign threat. For so long, they put their own socio-
economic grievances aside to voice their support for
the occupied, only to wake up the next day shackled by
the same chains of repression.

All the while, both pro-Western and anti-Western
governments continued with business as usual - the
first camp relying on US support to consolidate their
authoritarian rule and the second on anti-Israel
slogans to give legitimacy to their repression of their
people.

But now people across the region - not only in Egypt
and Tunisia - have lost faith in their governments. For
make no mistake, when protesters have gathered in Amman
or Damascus to express their solidarity with the
Egyptian revolutionaries in Tahrir Square, they are
actually objecting to their own rulers.

In Ramallah, the protesters repeated a slogan calling
for the end of internal Palestinian divisions (which,
in Arabic, rhymes with the Egyptian call for the end to
the regime), as well as demanding an end to
negotiations with Israel - sending a clear message that
there will be no room left for the Palestinian
Authority if it continues to rely on such negotiations.

In the 1950s and 1960s, millions of Arabs poured onto
the streets determined to continue the liberation of
the Arab world from the remnants of colonial domination
and the creeping American hegemony. In 2011, millions
have poured onto the streets determined not only to
ensure their freedom but also to ensure that the
mistakes of previous generations are not repeated.
Slogans against a foreign enemy - no matter how
legitimate - ring hollow if the struggle for democratic
freedoms is set aside.

The protesters in Cairo and beyond may raise
photographs of Gamal Abdel Nasser, because they see him
as a symbol of Arab dignity. But, unlike Nasser, the
demonstrators are invoking a sense of pan-Arab
nationalism that understands that national liberation
cannot go hand-in-hand with the suppression of
political dissent. For this is a genuine Arab unity
galvanised by the common yearning for democratic
freedoms.

Lamis Andoni is an analyst and commentator on Middle
Eastern and Palestinian affairs.

The views expressed in this article are the author's
own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's
editorial policy.

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