The Arab Predicament
The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice since 1967, by Fouad
Ajami, Cambridge University Press, 1981.
This review was originally written on June 19,2003.
My reading of modern Middle Eastern history is rather patchy. The earliest
was T.H. Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”[A]. Then it jumped to
Menachem Begin’s “The Revolt”, leaving quite a gap. Finally this one jumps
again into the years 1967 –1980.
The Lebanon-born Fouad Ajami, currently the Majid Khadduri Professor and Director of Middle East Studies,
John Hopkins University, is a controversial figure among Arabs. Many of the
latter describe him as a self-hating Arab.
Nevertheless, most of this early book “The Arab Predicament” looks rather
neutral with plenty of citations to Arabic political thinkers in that period.
It is free of buzz words that are losing their impact in this post-9/11 world.
He wrote it before Anwar Sadat's assassination, before the Gulf war and the
specter of global terrorism. Even the Soviets were barely in Afghanistan
(79-89) then. The tone is that of a cool introspection, starting with a
people searching for answers in the aftermath of the humiliating defeat in a
war [B]. Although the same book was re-issued in 1992 with substantial update
about these later events, it may be more interesting, from a historical point
of view, to see how much the earlier analysis reveals.
The question “Why our society, with its glorious past, is in such decrepitude
today ?” echoes among many 3rd world countries. Indeed, the proposed
solutions are similar: embrace the West, take up nationalism, get rid of the
old culture/religion, embrace fundamentalism, import Marxism, etc. For
example, Ajami even compared a botched attempt of reforming the traditional
Arabic language to the Chinese May 4 movement (白话文运动).
Ajami covered the political thoughts in most major Arabic countries within the
time period. Using Egypt as a primary example, which has a tradition of
expressing her thoughts loudly and in written words. The major theme are (1)
the cultural alienation the Arab world (2) the failure of nationalism (3) the
rise of religious fundamentalism.
Palestine: A Symbol
This issue is pretty much the only one people across the Arab-Muslim world
could agree on, from the rich elite to the common poor, from the secular to
the deeply religious. Hence for decades it has been treated as a valuable
symbol for many purposes. In countries like Saudi Arabia, it is an excuse
for people venting their anger against their own government. The people IMHO
who really persecute Muslims because of their faith are Hindu fundamentalists.
There is already a toll of 1000+ in India and I have yet to see Muslims
worldwide protest about it.
Of course, one cannot take a symbol at its face value. The Arab countries
knew better than allowing the Palestinians to set up armed resistance on their
soil, so they persuaded them to let their Arab brothers handle this. But the
Palestinians eventually had enough of this status of being a pawn. PLO (est.
1964) started with a strong if hijacking and assassinations, when they set
their base in Lebanon, it ignited the Lebanese civil war (1975-92) between its
Muslim and Christian factions, and the Israeli invasion. That country was
torn apart and still recovering.
Iraq: Failure of Secular Nationalism
Interestingly, the founder of the Ba’ath party was not even a Muslim but a
Christian named Michel Aflaq. The original ideology was secular Arabic
nationalism (sometimes Nazified) and popular among officers. Then it
degenerated into military dictatorship under an empty shell of ideology.
I think there is a rough parallel with the Chinese history here.
三民主义 founded by Sun Yat-Tsen had similar principles, was equally
disseminated in the military (e.g.黄埔军校) eventually ended up in
dictatorship under KMT in Taiwan. Fortunately, as Ajami pointed out, China
was more politically and culturally isolated (for most of the 20th century, at
least) than Iraq and Syria. Therefore it eventually stabilized in Taiwan, and
gradually wore off had after decades.
Egypt: The Rise of Fundamentalism
Nasser, the hero of secular nationalism, suffered a decisive blow in the 1967
defeat. The entire nation was shocked by the humiliation -- thanks to modern
media, it is no longer possible to hide it. They also felt being used by the
upstarts in the Persian gulf, who wanted the war but let poverty-stricken
Egypt bear the physical burden of defeat (Egyptian army played a major role in
all 3 Arab-Israeli wars, none was clearly won).
The country reacted in two ways. The elite figured their best deal is to
befriend America, the distant superpower. Upon American urge, Sadat made
peace with Israel and accepted America as the ally. His successor Hosni
Mubarak followed the same path.
Many common Egyptians, already feeling alienated by their own government,
turned in the opposite direction [D]. Both protest and repression actually
started early: the prominent fundamentalist thinker Sayyid Qutb was imprisoned
by Nasser for 10+ years and hanged by 1966. But repression only leads to a
deeper division between the ruler and the ruled. Then the 1967 defeat left
washed away most of the legacy of Nasserism.
Sadat’s handshake with Begin was seen in Egypt as a betrayal, for which he
paid with his life in 1981. His assassin claimed on the spot that he had
killed the “pharaoh” (with no legitimacy except being Nasser’s heir). But
the trajectory of the country continues. The harder the government tries to
hunt down the religious radicals, the more riots and terrorist acts. Among
those whose belief was hardened by the imprisonment and torture, is Dr. Ayman
al Zawahiri, No.2 of Al-Qaeda today.
Saudi Arabia: Confused By Wealth
Older Arab-Islam civilizations such as Egypt, Iraq and Iran still sometimes
think of Saudi Arabia as an insular, backward country, except that they happen
to be sitting on lots of oil. Especially after the oil embargo, the rising
oil price and the fantastic rich it brought, led to the Saudi ambition to play
regional dominance.
At this point their heritage became a double-edged sword. In their political
struggle especially against the Hashimite dynasty, the House of Saud has an
old alliance with a highly puritanical version of Islam called Wahabbism. In
a simple community-centered life isolated from the outside world, such an
austere religion is possible [E]. But there is a huge difficulty when
people brought up in such traditions have to face the huge inflow of western
goods and culture. Either the religion or the Western influence has to be
given up. The royal family basically gives up religion. Yet they have to
pretend to be religious -- think of the fate of the king of Afghan and Shah
of Iran after they publicly embraced secularism. One interesting thing is
their use of the petrol dollars. Even though the royal family took some part
of the national revenue (legally they are owners of the country), there is
still plenty left. This is (1) invested securely in the West; (2) employ
Western professionals at an outrageous price [F]; rather than building their
own country. Meanwhile, 80% of the jobs there are not held by Saudi citizens.
Seems like those is SA with political power had lost faith in their own
country and people. After the invasion of Kuwait, the regime cannot see its
survival without American protection, yet this very alliance undermines their
people’s support day by day. It’s like a person on narcotics, I think.
It seems to me that the average Saudi wants both religion and Western
trappings, and the contradiction led a whole country into confusion. Then
people like Osama Bin Laden took Wahabbism to its logical conclusion: the
royal family and the Western influence have to go. The war in Afghanistan
further motivated them, as they saw how a “Muslim solidarity” could bring a
superpower like USSR to its knees. Then they tried it in their own country,
but the House of Saud continues (its generous welfare system certainly
helped). OBL lost his Saudi citizenship for his opposition of the King –
hence there cannot be much sympathy for him from the royal family[G]. The
problem is that many Saudis support some milder version of fundamentalism, and
would give money for those causes without demanding accountability. On the
other hand, military organizations such as Hezbollah actually run social
services where nobody else does - which also serves a tool for their
indoctrination - made it hard for donors to figure out where the money went.
Conclusion
Former 3rd world countries all try to come to terms with both themselves and
the world. Some largely succeeded (Korea, Brazil), some doing okay (Peru,
China), and some self-destruct on their own (Haiti, Congo). Why the Arabs
went this particular path that threats jihad on the entire world?
The simplistic explanation, sold to the Western popular media, is that “their
self-esteem has been in a downward spiral since the decline of the Ottoman
empire and the ascendance of the West. Now they are crazy with jealousy. ”
The Arabic political thoughts Ajami depicted clearly say they have tried
various ways to pull their society together. In his words:
“Caught in the midst of a massive historic crisis, buffeted by powerful
outside forces that have made their world pivotal and exposed, the Arabs have
fallen back on the symbols and weapons they know best: their religious
identity.”
Ajami thinks the major cause of fundamentalism is the failure of governments
in those countries. Even by the local standard, the rulers are both corrupt
and negligent in assuming their duties. The elite, unlike their counterparts
in Meiji Japan and colonial China, would rather join the rulers than being
responsible for the people. There is a vacuum in belief and power.
Fundamentalism is the most authentic form of protest he/she can take up.
Ajami suspects the followers are really engaging in a political struggle,
instead of being merely religious:
“Could it be that tradition mongering was carried on so loudly because people
had deep down broken with tradition and because tradition had ceased to hold
them and that they were left ‘holding it’ without real belief and
conviction? Knowing that other ways and other valleys tempt them, people try
to tell themselves that they are still at home with their own world. Almost
every great upheaval that brings a world close to ruin is immediately preceded
by a wave of cultural reassertion, by insistent traditionalism.”
That seems to be true. How could someone seriously believe he could live
today’s lifestyle, while abiding literally by a scripture written centuries
ago? The cry for Sharia (Islamic law) is more of a protest than sincere
request.
The 60s and 70s were generally not a good time of shopping for political
systems. Also, Arab countries have too much influence on each other, so
having many diverse social experiments going at the same time only interferes
with each other. Furthermore, they did not have the time and international
isolation, like China, to systematically uproot their traditional society. So
the emulation of Western nationalism failed. Neither did Marxism – the fact
that Karl Marx is a Jew did not help promoting it either.
I think the often-cited “oppression by the West” is largely psychological.
They were not forced in the same sense as the former-plantation countries.
This does not mean that past injustices were ok, but it is minor compared to
other ex-colonies who succeeded in re-building their country without extra oil
revenue. During the cold war, the Arabs first allied themselves with the
USSR, then with the US.
There is also some kind of cultural inertia at play. I hate to say this, but
compared to Christians saying “God Bless”, Muslims saying “inshallah” (God
willing) sound a lot more literal: if we stay true to the faith Allah will
take care of us. There is a stronger expectation of divine intervention in
place of human effort to compromise. For example, the Arabs’ continuous
refusal of taking a more realistic stand on the Israel-Palestine conflict. In
the aftermath of 1967 defeat, they further settled on the Khartoum agreement
(no negotiations with Israel, no peace with Israel and no recognition of
Israel), which did not help finding a practical solution.
Thus Ajami summarized his explanations of Islamic fundamentalism in the last
chapter “Fractured Tradition: the claims of authenticity”. In 1981 he was
still ambivalent about its effect:
“But history is not the domain of judgment. It is easy to judge hard to
understand the ghosts with which people and societies battle, the wounds and
memories that drive them to do what they do. Even if we disagree with people
’s choice of allegiance, we must understand the reasons for their choice, the
odds they fight against, the range of alternatives open to them. The
renaissance of civilizations is used as a weapon because so many in the Muslim
world and the Third World as a whole feel that they live in a world
constructed and maintained by others.”
There was a hint that this religious surge might be a good thing, if it
rejuvenates Arabic political thinkers with the right kind of self-confidence.
Later developments carried out his worse projections. I took a glimpse of
the 1992 updated edition and the tone seems to be more ominous. It is
possible that his view of the region gets darker over the years, while his
reputation as a pundit on the American rises.
Notes
[A] The more recent Ajami book, titled “The Dream Palace of the Arabs”,
actually was named after some passage from Lawrence’s book: “All men dream:
but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds
wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are
dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it
possible. This I did. I meant to make a new nation, to restore a lost
influence, to give twenty millions of Semites the foundations on which to
build an inspired dream-palace of their national thoughts.”
I remember reading about this paragraph as a teenager because of the
high rhetoric. Now it’s over 80 years since Lawrence first wrote this, and
the reality is kind of sad in contrast.
[B] Technically, the 1967 war started with an Israeli blitzkrieg. But the
Egyptians had expected and prepared for the war long before it broke out. In
its aftermath, nobody in Egypt was complaining about their being attacked out
of the blue.
[D] “When governments rule without popular representation or even consent,
one form of rebellion is to be more nationalistic than the rulers. If the
rulers are traitors to the nation, they should be overthrown. It is a pattern
that has occurred over and over again in east Asia, and it is not very
conductive to liberal democracy.” -Ian Buruma “Inventing Japan”, page 70.
[E] Think of the Amish and the Quakers, and the Talibans in rural Afghanistan.
[F] I heard this directly from people who worked in SA: it’s not like the
Saudis were blackmailed into paying, like, twice the salary of US workers on
the same job.
[G] News from last year: “Princess Haifa, wife of Saudi ambassador to US,
accused of funding the terrorists” Both the princess and her husband Prince
Bandar are bona fide royals. What happened was that she gave money to a Saudi
man in US, who asked for help in paying his wife’s medical bills, and man
later befriended two of the 9/11 hijackers. That is hardly a connection, and
almost certainly not an intentional one, since the royal couple are good
friends of the Bush family (believe it or not). But the entire Saudi
government was mobilized to clear the princess’name.
Now, with deadly bombings Riyadh and gunfights in Mecca, I think the Saudi
government is too scared to sympathize with Al Qaeda at all.
