December 21, 2007
From Arab to Islamic Nationalism
There are large numbers of Muslims who do not fit neatly into the normal categories which usually describe jihadis and their sympathizers because they are not very religious. Their sympathy for jihad is motivated not out of some idealistic goal of implementing sharia, but rather out of what would normally be called "nationalism".
That is, they identify with the mujahdin as "us" and with those who they are fighting as "them". They think of themselves as "Muslim" in the same way you and I think of ourselves as American or British.
They are, in fact, the perfect embodiment of Samuel P. Huntington's Clash of Civilizations thesis, in which Islam is conceived as a civilization rather than a religious construct. A very large number of Muslims around the world are opposed to our endeavor in Iraq not because they oppose any of our goals--such as stabilization or democratization--but because we are doing it. The outsiders once again showing the weakness of yet another Muslim country.
Baathism is quite different than this. Baathism is a movement based on Arab nationalism. The Baathist goal has always been the uniting of the Arab world into a single Arab state. This is not a religious ideology, but an ethnic one. A literal descendant of fascism and Nazism.
But is Baathism now passe? Has it been relegated to the ash heap of history like so many of the fascist ideologies of the 20th century? It's not clear, but this First Post article suggests that the one of two de facto leaders of the Baath party in Iraq, Izzat al-Duri, has moved the party's ideology from Arab to Muslim nationalism:
What concerns General Petraeus's advisers on counter-insurgency is that Izzat is now adopting the banner and slogans of Islamic nationalism in Iraq; the pan-Arab socialism of the Baath movement is now seen as so last decade....Recent reports indicate that Izzat al-Duri is on the run. This is welcome news if his faction has begun to cling to an ideology which could be far more destructive than Baathism ever was. It's also welcome news that military analysts actually get the difference between the old and new Baathism, a difference which would seem rather subtle to the outsider looking in given that even the Arab nationalists were prone to using Islamic rhetoric.
But should Muslim nationalism as an ideology become a larger phenomenon, then we could be in some serious trouble. Remember, the largest Muslim country in the world is not Arab, it is Indonesia. Followed by Bangladesh.
The uniting of the Muslim world into a single ummah seems ludicrous if one sees Osama bin Laden as being the great uniter and restorer of the Caliphate. But a secular caliphate based on Muslim nationalism and perhaps a loose confederation of states seems a far less preposterous idea--and therefore far more dangerous.
Something to think about. Thanks to James.
