The Arab Democratic Revolt

21st Century Pan-Arabism and Potential Implications

By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
February 24, 2011
http://www.blackcommentator.com/415/415_aw_pan_arabism.php

The Arab democratic revolt has highlighted a potential
reshaping of Pan-Arabism for the 21st century, and it
is exciting to observe.

In the period from Abdul Gamal Nasser's coup against
the then King of Egypt in 1952 through the mid-1970s,
there was a sense of Pan-Arabism that shook North
Africa and the Middle East. This was a Pan Arabism
that grew out of the anti-colonial and national
liberation struggles of the period. These efforts,
whether in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Algeria, or later Yemen,

South Yemen, Palestine, the Sudan and Libya, were anti-
imperialist and, on the global stage largely neutralist
vis a vis the two superpowers of the time (the USA and
the USSR). This Pan Arabism even took the form of
efforts at structural unification, such as the failed
merger of Egypt and Syria (to form the United Arab
Republic) and efforts to include Iraq in that process.

The disastrous June 1967 war with Israel, along with
the failure of the Arab states to develop a coherent
and implementable strategy to support Palestinian
liberation, compounded by the debt crisis (and rise of
neo-liberalism) undermined the progressive impulse that
was Pan Arabism. All that was left was the rhetoric
and a few political "outposts" attempting to keep the
flag of Pan Arabism flying.

The failure of Pan Arabism to fulfill a revolutionary
mission, both in terms of truly liberating the people,

eliminating corruption and authoritarianism, as well as
keeping Western imperialism at bay, resulted in the
creation of a void. This void began to be filled by
various forms of what came to be known as political

Islam (or Islamism). It is important to clarify that
Pan Arabism always contained an Islamic `flavor', but
it included within it non-Muslims. For that matter, it
included within its tent peoples who would not
necessarily see themselves as Arabs or be seen as
Arabs. Political Islam emerged, in both its right-wing
and left-wing variants, as a challenge to what was by
the 1980s a decrepit Pan Arabism, and substituted a
more global Islamic mission.

The Arab democratic revolt of 2011 represents the
potential for a renewal and transformation of Pan
Arabism. First, it is a popular movement that is
relying on the masses of people not as instruments of
someone's agenda but as self-conscious political forces
who are seeking freedom. As many people have noted,
this is a movement without leaders, but, as I have said
previously, it is not a movement without organizations.

It represents an effort by social movements of the
people to find their own voices. Hopefully clear
leadership will emerge and the necessary organization
in order to transform the revolts into revolutions, but
that said, the movements have themselves proven to be
transformative. If one compares this with even the
most progressive coups that took place in the Arab
World, e.g., 1952 Egypt; 1958 Iraq, those coups were
not what one could call popular democratic revolutions.
Though they were generally supported by masses of
people, they were engineered by small groups. The
Algerian Revolution (1954-1962), of course, stands in
contrast given the mass nature of the war against the
French.

The 2011 Arab democratic revolt, in transforming Pan
Arabism, could also have a major impact on the rest of
Africa. It is important to remember that the earlier
generation of Pan Arabism emerged in the context of the
broader struggles, not just in the Arab World, but in
what we call today the "global South." Egypt's Nasser,
for instance, was not simply seen as an Arab leader,

but as an African leader (including by African
Americans in the USA). The Algerian Revolution was not
viewed as an Arab/Berber uprising against the French,
but part of a wave of national liberation struggles
throughout Africa and the Arab World. In fact, after
the victory of the Algerian Revolution, Algeria
undertook efforts to support other struggles for
liberation within Africa and saw itself as part of the
progressive Pan Africanist movement.

To the extent to which the renewed Pan Arabism retains
its democratic impulse, it can address not only
tyrannies, such as the northern Sudan under Al Bashir,
but also represent an example of mass democratic
movements against corrupt neo-colonial/post-colonial
regimes that have plagued the continent. In this sense
the Arab democratic revolt , though shaped by the Arab
experience, need not be exclusive to the Arab World.

In far too many countries on the Continent regimes have
arisen that have become retrograde. In other cases,
regimes have come into existence that have,
irrespective of their rhetoric, aligned themselves with
an anti-people, neo-liberal agenda that benefits a
small minority. The current global economic crisis is
exacerbating these divisions and can produce disastrous
explosions, e.g., 1994 Rwanda, or mass democratic
eruptions as witnessed in the Arab World.

For these and many other reasons the Arab democratic
revolt needs to be embraced as very much a North
AFRICAN democratic revolt that holds lessons for the
rest of the continent and with which progressive
Africans and progressive Pan Africanists throughout the
Continent and the African Diaspora should express
solidarity.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that the Arab
democratic revolt has the potential to shift global
politics. Perhaps it can not only shift politics in
the rest of Africa but also contribute to a 21st
century renewal of Pan Africanism.


BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Bill
Fletcher, Jr. is a Senior Scholar with the Institute
for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of
TransAfricaForum and co-author of Solidarity Divided:
The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward
Social Justice (University of California Press), which
examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA.

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