A Dangerous Doctrine

I WAS ASTONISHED by Hazem Ben-Gacem's vitriolic and patronizing personal attack on Bader El-Jeaan printed in The Crimson on 28 February. The piece very nearly violates the norms of appropriate and constructive public discourse so highly and rightly prized by academic communities.

Although I am a close personal friend of Mr. El-Jeaan, it is certainly not my place to respond to Mr. Ben-Gacem's outrageous and unsubstantiated charges against him. Rather, as a person actively engaged in campus activities related to the Middle East, I would like to attempt a rational critique of Mr. Ben-Gacem's emotional support of Pan-Arabism.

An examination of Mr. Ben-Gacem's own argument supports Mr. El-Jeaan's assertion that Pan-Arab nationalism has become a nightmare for many Arabs. Moreover, an examination of attitudes toward Pan-Arabism among the Arab masses suggests that, even before the war, it was not the all-consuming orthodoxy that Mr. Ben-Gacem conjures up.

IT IS NOT altogether surprising that Mr. Ben-Gacem's rhetorical strategy (or the lack thereof) betrays a certain ambiguity about the nature and value of "Arabism." Although he claims to have felt "tremendous shock and pain" upon reading Mr. El-Jeaan's proclamation, "I am not an Arab" (of course not a literal rejection of his Arab heritage, but rather a rhetorical attack on the Pan-Arab dream wholly consonant with the thematics of his argument), Mr. Ben-Gacem concludes that "it doesn't matter to us" if he rejoins "the Arab family" or not.

Whence this angry dismissal of a "fellow Arab" by a self-proclaimed Pan-Arabist if "Arabism is the most precious thing every Arab has," the sustaining Arab "spirit," the "blood" in the Arab soul, and so forth?

The paradox evident here points to the central problematic of Pan-Arabism: its conditional nature. One can only remain an Arab until one deviates from a vision of the "Arab nation" extending from the Atlantic to the Shatt-al-Arab. At the very least, this dynamic fails to acknowledge cultural differences among Arabs and, at the very worst, it admits of no dissent from dominant political dogmas.

Mr. Ben-Gacem succinctly summarizes this objectionable mode of thinking: "I consider you my brother, as long as you have the same force (sic) and enthusiasm to reestablish the lost Arab pride." (read: "nationalism"). Quite simply, this sort of language, typical of the Pan-Arab movement, functions as a tool of political and intellectual oppression. Consequently, it is no wonder, and hardly a matter of regret, that Mr. El-Jeaan has chosen to opt out of this questionable enterprise.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the Pan-Arabist discourse is its susceptibility to the allure of immoral solutions to the grave problems of the Middle East. If the human and cultural dignity of an Arab is conditional upon her/his acceptance of cultural and/or political nationalism, all manner of atrocities become permissible against dissenters. Thus, Baghdad could justify its crimes against the Kuwaiti people by branding them and their Arab coalition allies as "traitors against the Arab Nation."

Perhaps this reasoning begins to explain the willingness of many Yemenis, North African Arabs and Palestinians to wink at Saddam Hussein's brutality; it was cloaked in the rhetoric of Pan-Arabist "justice" and was therefore--although immoral and un-Islamic--understandable and probably excusable.

PREDICTABLY, Mr. Ben-Gacem's failure to reason beyond the bounds of the Pan-Arabist discourse leads him to the tenuous conclusion that Arabs sympathetic to Saddam's destructive Pan-Arabism "never betrayed" the Kuwaitis; rather, they simply followed a "fake" version of the doctrine.

How, then, are the Arab masses to distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' Pan-Arabism? After all, Saddam's promises match point for point Mr. Ben-Gacem's nationalistic program: to emphasize the Arabs' "common traditions, common language, common history, common culture and common feelings" (all dubious concepts) and thus "unite together one day...to restore our pride and our lost throne."

Thus, two almost indistinguishable Pan-Arabist doctrines lead to diametrically opposed outcomes: Mr. Ben-Gacem's to a Saladinesque Arab utopia, and Saddam's to the wholesale destruction of Kuwait and, consequently, Iraq. In short, Pan-Arabism is a destructive political theory because it bills itself as a moral imperative without regard to the morality of its consequences.

Happily, the spectre of Pan-Arab nationalism is hardly as threatening as Mr. Ben-Gacem's article might lead us to believe. "Dear Bader," his article intones insultingly, "the Arab masses are united. Maybe if you hadn't lived in Belgium for 12 (sic--it was only three) years you would understand what I am talking about."

A look at reliable statistics, however, suggests otherwise. According to Professor Tawfic Farah's survey of 1393 students from Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait, the U.A.E., Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, only 36 percent of the respondents agreed with the statement that the Arab world extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf; 64 percent disagreed. Concludes Professor Farah, "This is surprising, considering the fact that this is what students are taught in school and hear repeatedly in the media. It is consistent, thought, with the students' general tendency to reject the idea of Pan-Arabism."

The demise of the Pan-Arab dream evident in these surveys is hardly a recent phenomenon. According to Professor Fouad Ajami, the victory of the more "local" Ibn Saud over the "pan-Arab" Shariff Hussein half a century ago may be regarded as the first victory of the state over transnationalism. Dr. Ajami and other experts on the region have interpreted the chronic instability of Lebanon as yet another manifestation of the erosion of Pan-Arabism.

Mr. Ben-Gacem claims that Pan-Arabism is "only rooted in the Arab masses," and that "it is exploited by their authoritarian dictators to manipulate people for their own sake." Only the second half of his claim is believable; Saddam Hussein shamelessly exploited Pan-Arab nationalism in his quest to decimate Kuwait and the unscrupulous King Hussein of Jordan invoked the same principle to aid Saddam's brutality surreptitiously, probably in violation of U.N. sanctions against Iraq. Ironically, Pan-Arabism, or what is left of it, has thus become almost synonymous with inter-Arab rapacity.

Mr. Ben-Gacem concludes, "WE ARE ARABS AND WE ARE PROUD OF IT."

He is absolutely right; he should be proud that many Arabs like Mr. El-Jeaan have had the courage to reject the intellectual and moral slavery that Pan-Arabism has come to represent. He should be proud that many Arabs like Mr. El-Jeaan cherish the ideal of establishing a "moral paradigm among all the Arab people" which would guarantee justice and self-determination for all the states in the region.

Stephen W. Gauster '92 is co-president of Harvard-Radcliffe Students for a Free Kuwait.