Arab socialism

[CrveniTalas]

Hello everyone,

I have started publishing articles pertaining to the topic of Arab socialism on the website Commentario Politica. it is generating a bit of discussion and I would appreciate it if comrades could check it out and add to the discussion.

Thanks!

commentariopolitica.com/2014/01/27/the-power-of-arab-unity/

[IBleedRed]

"Arab socialism" is silly since socialism must be international or it cannot be at all. I don't really have anything more to say than that, and I'm too lazy to post it on your website:(

[#FF0000]

"Arab socialism" is silly since socialism must be international or it cannot be at all. I don't really have anything more to say than that, and I'm too lazy to post it on your website:(

You should read things before commenting on them.

[goalkeeper]

You can disagree as much as you like, 'Arab Socialism' was a historical moment which has long since passed

[goalkeeper]

I don't get why anyone would want 'Arab Socialism' (as a specific tendency, not a movement for socialism by Arabs) back anyway. All it produced was corrupt and murderous dictatorships, a brief moment of an actual unified Republic between Syria and Egypt, neutered and/or decimated marxist or socialist groups of various tendencies, moderate economic advance, and repeated defeat in war.

[goalkeeper]

Oh and before anyone mentions it being secular, while this is true, it hardly achieved a secularisation of society, considering a lot of places were more secular before 'Arab Socialism' than after. Which is probably something that should be explained (purely laying blame on Saudi petrodollars and American aid to Afghanistan rebels in the 1980s doesn't suffice)

[Dodo]

Oh and before anyone mentions it being secular, while this is true, it hardly achieved a secularisation of society, considering a lot of places were more secular before 'Arab Socialism' than after. Which is probably something that should be explained (purely laying blame on Saudi petrodollars and American aid to Afghanistan rebels in the 1980s doesn't suffice)

I thought the most common argument of the left was that the destruction of welfare and invasion of neo-liberal wave led people to jump to Islam and its Waqf's who "took care of people". The fall of secular left with their welfare ideas led to rise of Islamic radicalism. It was not a widespread phenomena until recently. Most of the Arabic resistance to Israel for instance was "radical left" rather than Islamic. Iran also had a powerful leftist tradition which got smahed by the Islamists all of a sudden in 80s.

Heck its the case even in developed countries, look at USA and rise of religion again among poor communities as opposed to "left" movements.

[Red Commissar]

"Arab Socialism" while it is a convenient way to lump together many different nominally leftist governments in the cold war era, it meant different things to the leaders who took it up. Nasser's conception was a more statist one, kind of a variant of social democracy, Ba'athists focused on one with central planning inspired by the Soviets, Qaddafi was erratic, going from a more republican Nasserist-inspired viewpoint to an "islamic" one of his own invention by the 80s, and then a host of left-nationalist kinds like in Algeria or Palestine. In this sense it is similar to the way "African Socialism" varied depending on what ever leader proclaimed to be putting it into effect, inspired by both anti-colonial resistance and more domestic issues of overcoming old social structures, modernization, land reform, etc.

On paper many were pluralistic, but this often extended only to Christian populations which honestly came off as much as their own viewpoints as it was attempts to present a good face to western states (though for obvious reasons this wasn't the same case towards Jewish populations which had more or less completely emigrated out by the 60s). This approach wasn't as evenly applied to other minorities though. Kurds in Iraq for example were at best treated in a paternalistic manner, with the government presenting itself as a way to liberate Kurds from backwards feudalism and uplift them into the 20th century with a long-term goal of assimilation, and at worst outright genocide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Anfal_Campaign) justified by national interest and anti-imperialism (Kurds at different times were supported by Americans, Imperial Iran, and Israel in the 70s and later Islamic Iran in the Iran-Iraq War). Of interest maybe is to consult the original platform of the Ba'ath Party in Iraq (http://www.marxists.org/history/iraq/baath/index.htm), which was a lot more optimistic and forward looking than it ended up being. Syrian Ba'ath took more or less the same steps though it didn't go into killings on the level of Iraq's- they were arguably more supportive of the Kurdish movement in Turkey by way of the PKK to advance regional interests, and this is a tie that still exists to this day though it went through a rut in the 90s.

Ba'aths themselves had their own rifts, starting with the Jadid coup in 1966 and the Assad coup in 1970, which then led the Iraqi and Syrian Ba'aths to basically take opposite positions of each other on major issues. Both competed for influence in the Palestinian movement, Syria providing support to Iran in the Iran-Iraq War in both material supplies, cutting Iraq's pipeline to the Mediterranean, giving support to Kurds who were backed by Iran, etc. Iraq took steps to differentiate itself from the overtly pro-soviet alignment of Syria by making overtures to the US and European nations, though it kept important arms ties with the USSR. Qaddafi became pretty combative towards his rivals too, I know in the case of Syria he picked up support for the Palestinians for awhile through the 80s when they had broken them in the Civil War, and had even helped Iran and Iraqi Kurds during the Iran-Iraq War to further his ambitions.

I guess some attention should also placed on the different communist groups in the Arab states, of which the pro-Soviet ones were the largest. They were in a weird position and often supported Arab socialist movements as progressive steps towards creating conditions more favorable to communism as well as pushing back against both reactionaries and foreign puppets. The Communists in Egypt originally worked with Nasser but they ended up facing pressure and dissolved themselves- and their members coming under open repression following Nasser's death and the successive administrations of Sadat and Mubarak. Iraqi and Syrian CP's both joined into fronts with the Ba'ath government, but this ended up with the former being violently purged out of government and driven underground and the latter becoming a weak loyal opposition party as the years went by. Likewise the Lebanese CP (as well as other nominally left groups) was decimated by the events of the Lebanese Civil War in large part due to Syria shifting its allegiances and later finding ways to manipulate ethnic and religious tensions to its advantage.

While foreign powers stirring up religious reactionaries did play a role, different Arab Socialist governments were also adversely affected by their own actions. Most ended up turning into more police states with the party being a career vehicle, providing connections for lucrative business opportunities and foreign investment, and in effect these governments becoming synonymous with corruption and nepotism as the years went on. This was particularly the case in Yemen, Egypt, and Algeria, and Iraq and Syria were both ended up having their respective parties turn more into an elite social club. This shifted the arena to allow Islamists to present themselves in a populist stripe and frame the political debate in their own way and undercut popular support for these governments when pressure was really ramped up on them. I think this also kicked back at many other groups considered "left" as they got roped in as being cronies, yesmen, corrupt, much in the same way negative perceptions of the CPs in many parts of Eastern Europe remained after the fall of the USSR.

[CrveniTalas]

I would encourage all of you to read the follow up that I have published yesterday. It deals specifically with the origins of socialism in the Arab lands, some of its basic premises and deficiencies by looking at the example of Egypt. For all the critiques, Nasser was not only a pan-Arab, but a true internationalist.

I think it is counter-productive to engage with Trotskyists about this topic because of their totally closed and dogmatic equation of socialism with Trotskyism. For those who are really interested in discussion and debate, in the article I examine some the reasons why socialism in the Arab lands had to distance itself from some of the premises of scientific socialism. However, as I stated in the second article, any socialism that is not scientific can only be utopian and bound to fail.

On a side note, I cannot post links until I reach a certain post quota which is ridiculous in my opinion and a policy that should be changed. I think it really keeps people, especially those who are new to the site, from posting interesting links. That's my two cents and now go visit the site :D

[SensibleLuxemburgist]

Arab socialism was largely flawed, despite its innocent beginnings in the ideology of Nasser and his wishes to free the Egyptian people from Western colonialism. It later became a front for authoritarianism of the worst form not seen since 1930s Fascist Europe.

Examples:

Iraq - Arab socialism took root in the 1958 Revolution which saw the violent overthrow of the monarchy. The government that took root under Abd El Karem Qassim was incredibly progressive taking steps to include Communists openly although in the end it was a military government. The effects of the 1958 Iraq Revolution were a lot more widespread than people generally believe. It led to the entrance of the US in Middle East affairs through the 1958 intervention in Lebanon and the closure of Arab socialism to Communists hence afterwards leading to the repression of Communists in Egypt. This repression led to a backlash in Syria that led to the dissolution of the UAR in 1961. Various coups in the 1960s led to the rise and fall of autocrats pandering back and forth to the US and then the Soviets. The 1968 coup solidified the political direction of Iraq under a Ba'athist government which was also progressive in its initial inclusive policies towards Communists. However, as the 70s rolled in and the Iraqi government consolidated its ties to the Soviets the Ba'athist government turned on the Communists and rooted them out. Islamic Iran rises to power in 1979 and the Ba'athist government finds itself between the Soviets and the Americans, ultimately choosing to become double-agent for the time being. The economic power Iraq enjoyed in the 1980s being the client of two Cold War powers (a rare occurrence) turned the Ba'athist party into a front for nepotism especially with regards to Saddam and his sons. The 1991 Gulf War turns Iraq upside down and Saddam starts employing Islamic rhetoric to consolidate the lessening control he is facing over his nation's population. 2003 rolls in and the rest is history...

Syria - Arab socialists came to power gradually over time unlike the coups that brought socialist governments immediately to power in Egypt and Iraq. Starting with Nasser's rise to power, Syria gradually became a radical pro-Soviet Arab state. The 1961 coup in Syria brought Ba'athists to power for the first time although, like in Iraq, various coups in the 60s would bring various strongmen to power until finally the 1970 coup settled upon Assad taking power. Again, like in Iraq, Syria's government did invite Communists in although it did eventually manipulate them into loyal "opposition" parties. The Lebanon conflict breaks out in 1975 and Syria finds itself in an opportunity to allow their pragmatic politics to play out against Israel and the Lebanese Christians. The Syrian occupation of Lebanon from 1976 to 2005 begins during the conflict. At this time, the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria exploits populism to bring itself in direct conflict with the Assad government. The 1982 Hama Massacre ends this wave of Islamism in Syria. The 1991 Gulf War bring a temporary thaw in relations between Syria and the West although events in 2003 would widen the gap once again. Emerging sectarian tensions in Syria brought over from the Iraq War break out into civil war in 2011. The rest is history...

Egypt - The first Arab socialist government was under Nasser who came to power in 1954. Initially, he openly pandered to the Americans to obtain military and economic support to challenge the British who had until recently occupied the country through a large military garrison. However, 1955 brings the Soviets into favor because the Americans wouldn't dare give weapons to Nasser to fight the UK with. 1956 Suez War makes Nasser the all-time hero in the Arab world. His timely popularity leads him to search for a popular political ideology. As the Soviets' primary friend in the Arab world, he pays lip service to socialism unique to the Arab narrative. He brings in land redistribution and such but by the dissolution of the UAR in 1961, his idealistic approach to politics ends and he begins teetering between non-alignment and being a pro-Soviet clientele. As Nasser gradually shies from the Soviets, the Syrians take advantage of this and become the primary Soviet client in the Middle East. After the 1967 Six-Day War, the Soviet client status that Egypt enjoyed slowly shifts to Syria. By the Yom Kippur War, all Soviet support for Egypt ends especially with the kicking out of Soviet military advisors by Sadat in 1972. The 1978 Egypt-Israeli Peace Treaty leads to the beginning of neo-liberal policies in Egypt with the Infitah. By the time Mubarak comes to power, Nasser's legacy has been lost in the interests of becoming an American puppet regime.

Algeria - Independence in 1962 brings to power the most progressive regime in Arab history with Ben Bella receiving open support from Communists and Socialists. Fidel Castro even lent military supplies to Algeria during the 1963 Sand War with Morocco. The 1965 coup ends the progressive era and degenerates into your typical Arab strongman-ruled state with Boumediene in power until 1978. Despite giving support to groups like the Black Liberation Army, the Black Panthers, the Polisario, the PFLP, the PLO, and other revolutionary groups in the Middle East this is mostly in order to get brownie points from the Soviet Union in return for military support and client status. The regime of Chadli Benjedid leads to a gradual turning towards the West for support. By the end of the 1980s, Algeria has turned into a pro-Western state. The Algerian Civil War ends any semblance of true Arab socialism and the result is a pro-Western puppet regime under Abdelaziz Bouteflika which recently lent support to the French occupation of Mali during the 2013 intervention.

Libya - 1969 Military Coup brings Muammar Gaddafi to power under the banner of Arab socialism and anti-Zionism. Pursues revolutionary policies into the 1970s by even supporting Marxist groups like the Baader-Meinhoff Cells, the PFLP, the Irish Republican Army, etc. However, the year 1977 brings major ideological changes to the Gaddafi regime as he publishes his Green Book and announces the creation of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya based on the ideology of the Green Book. This marks a turn in policies towards an Islamic tinge with his pursuit of "Islamic socialism" with an outlook towards liberating Africa from Western imperialism. He implements his policy by supporting anti-Western African Muslim regimes like Idi Amin and Goukouni Oueddei. Due to his radical policies, he becomes relatively isolated internationally and even the Soviets start to get tired of him. During the 1980s, he supported Chadian rebels against the French-backed Hissene Habre regime. This was during the peak of Libya's economic and military power. By 1987, though, French state-of-the-art weapons mounted on Toyota trucks bring Gaddafi's aging Soviet equipment to a screeching halt and Gaddafi's ideological Islamic empire in Africa is done for. The 1986 Bombing of Libya and the Fall of the Soviet Union bring Libya's influence down to a wimpering minimum as his radical anti-Western policies become outdated in the post-Cold War world. At this point, he sees the post-Cold War West as a possible ally and gradually settles in. By the 2000s, he openly backs neo-liberalism and receives Western leaders like Tony Blair and Nicolas Sarkozy even getting the long-standing American embargo off his back. Then, 2011 rolls in and the West backstabs him in the interest of installing a more complacent leader and the rest is history...

Tunisia - A largely obscure North African nation that has seen relatively stable in its 67 year history. Habib Bourguiba become the nation's first president in 1956, beginning a 31-year regime. In 1964, Tunisia becomes an openly socialist state with the changing of Bourguiba's party to the Socialist Destourian Party. However, he largely remains neutral in the Cold War and maintains ties with the East and the West. After a surprisingly uneventful 31-year reign other than the 1985 Israeli air raid on the PLO headquarters in Tunis sparked by Tunisia's newfound support for the PLO after their expulsion from Lebanon, Bourguiba's reign gradually gives way to another pro-Western neo-liberal puppet under Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 1987.

Sudan - Sudan's legacy as an Arab socialist state is muddy at best. Gaafar Nimeiry's government never paid more than lip service to socialism and famously massacred Communists after the 1971 coup in Sudan. Almost immediately afterwards, he gradually became a pro-Western puppet and nothing more significant came out of him afterwards besides supporting Western imperialism in Africa. In the early 1980s, his capital came under direct attack by Libyan bombers due to his support for France during Libya's war in Chad. By 1983, he had declared sharia law in bowing down to the growing tide of Islamism in the Arab world bringing to full circle how hopelessly un-genuine he was as an Arab leader. The 1985 coup brings in an even more crooked regime under a military junta whose ideology was lost between Sudanese nationalism and Islamism. His brief 4-year reign gives way to Omar Al-Bashir who brought in a vehemently anti-Western, Islamist ideology that led to Sudan becoming incredibly isolated in the Arab world. However, the 1990s bring Iran and Sudan closer due to American air raids on Sudan in the aftermath of the 1998 Kenya bombings and the United States' afterwards declaring Sudan a state sponsor of terror which was recently retracted. Overall, Sudan has not been a happy place for socialism in its entire history.

Yemen - The 1962 coup in North Yemen brought to power a pro-Egytian Nasserist junta under Sallal. This followed a bloody 8-year civil war that ended in the Republicans consolidating their power under an Arab nationalist government. During the 1960s and 1970s, the North Yemen government enjoyed some support from the Soviet Union due to their connections with Egypt and Nasser but the creation of South Yemen whose openly communist government irked the more moderate North Yemen government led to a turn towards the West. This led to a closing of relations between North Yemen and the West when the U.S. delivered jet aircraft to North Yemen in order to fight insurgents sponsored by South Yemen in 1979. 1979 also brought the despot Ali Abdullah Saleh to power. Despite the lip service to Hussein in the Gulf War, Saleh was never more than another puppet dictator of the West. His nepotistic policies, authoritarianism, and the degeneration of the General People's Congress into neo-liberalism led some Yemenis to turn to Islamism. Hence the 1990s brought in a wave of Islamic insurgency in Yemen. This led to the seizure of territory by Al-Qaeda militants thereby leading to an everlasting dependence of Yemeni security on the US which by the 2000s led to Saleh openly inviting American drones to murder his own people. The 2011 revolution came and some degree of change has come to Yemen although the current government is still dependent on the US for drone strikes. Overall, North Yemen at best paid lip service to Arab socialism but like Sudan jumped for an opportunity to embrace the West when such an opportunity presented itself.

South Yemen was a different story. Born out of an anti-colonial uprising in the British colony of Aden, the left-nationalists that originally uprooted the British in 1967 gave way to a communist government in 1969 with the declaration of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. Thereafter, a contest began between South Yemen and North Yemen for political dominance. South Yemen remained vehemently a Soviet client even giving them a naval base near the Gulf of Aden. In return, South Yemen supported the PFLP and trained them in camps. By the 1980s, things took a drastic turn with the emergence of tribal rivalries between two South Yemeni politicians. In 1986, this led to open civil war and the degeneration of the Yemeni Socialist Party into a nepotistic cabal. In 1990, years of inter-political rivalries, economic inefficiencies, infrastructural weaknesses, and the fall of the Soviet Union forced them to unite with North Yemen.

In general, the closest an Arab state ever came to true socialism is between Algeria, Libya, and South Yemen. Eventually, Algeria fell under a brutal nationalist regime under Boumediene, Libya came under the impression of an "Islamic socialist" fantasy playland for Gaddafi, and South Yemen degenerated into the typical hard-line state capitalist Soviet regime. If any Arab political leader I respect the most for their adherence to ideology, it would be George Habash.

[GerrardWinstanley]

(purely laying blame on Saudi petrodollars and American aid to Afghanistan rebels in the 1980s doesn't suffice)Yeah, I mean... it's not like the USA and Saudi Arabia spent billions sponsoring political Islam or deliberately created al-Qaeda to break up and destroy popular Arab governments or anything.

This just in, Saddam Hussein is to blame for car bombs in Iraq.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Arab socialism was largely flawed, despite its innocent beginnings in the ideology of Nasser and his wishes to free the Egyptian people from Western colonialism. It later became a front for authoritarianism of the worst form not seen since 1930s Fascist Europe.

Doesn't Arab Socialism have an older origin than that? From what I gathered comparatively, Sun Yat-sen's minsheng zhuyi evolved from mere Georgism (land value taxation) to something much closer to Arab socialism, combining statist economic development with authority-driven governance.

[SensibleLuxemburgist]

Die Neue Ziet, that is interesting and I didn't know that. In addition, political theorists like Michel Aflaq also had an enormous influence on post-WWII Arab politics although his influence was focused in Syria and Iraq due to the rise of Ba'athist parties in both countries. I'm not sure as to Aflaq's influence on Nasser's ideology but during the time of the UAR, Nasser forced Aflaq to disband the Ba'athists in Syria so that he could consolidate his political foothold in Syria. Overall, it is safe to say that Gamal Abdel Nasser and Michel Aflaq were the two greatest political influences on the Arab World's politics from the 1950s up until the 1990s even years after their deaths. So far, Ba'athism has had the most lasting effects in the Middle East due to its continuing development in Syria to this day. Nasserism fell out of favor after the Six-Day War in 1967 and all the Arab nationalist states started going on divergent Arab nationalist strands with various forms of socialism infused into them.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Indeed. Sun Yat-sen's later collaboration with the Comintern resulted in changes in his economic positions. However, he still disdained "Marxist philosophy" for its class politics. That's something quite common with Arab Socialist thinking.

[Rafiq]

It is clear that they (Chinese and Arab nationalists) were bourgeois romantics. The ideologues of Arab socialism, Aflaq and Arsuzi, spoke of how the materialist of conception of history was somehow inapplicable to the very unique and apparently transhuman Arab nation. Saddam went on to say that class struggle was impossible in Iraq due to, again, 'the particularly unique nature of Iraq's culture' and so on.

[SHORAS]

All this analysis is about as insightful and nuanced as the BBC.