EVOLUTION OF ARAB REVOLUTIONARY IDEOLOGY
Chapter IV
Dr. Elias Farah
In emphasizing the "nationalist phenomenon," Arab revolutionary ideology grasped an essential truth, in relation to the Arab Nation and our own century —a truth which came near to dealing a fatal blow both to the anti-Nationalist Right and Left.
The anti-Nationalist Left considers Nationalism as belonging to an out-dated era of socialist theory and, in consequence, no longer valid with regard to the exigencies of class-consciousness or humanity's spontaneous urge to achieve freedom. It also analyses the present Arab experience in the light of the failure of similar experiences in the West, so isolating it from its context and deviating, in the name of Marxism, from the dialectical scientific analysis of the Arab reality. It struck a blow at Arab revolutionary thought and at the same time at Marxism and Leninism.
The anti-Nationalist Right, on the other hand, views Arab Nationalism as a new-fangled invention, imported from the West. With the intention of creating a gulf between Nationalism and religion —the deep essence of which they understand nothing— they accuse Nationalists of forgetting the Nation's past and treat them as heretics and renegades, taking no account of the humanitarian values of the new nationalist socialist concept.
It has devolved on Arab revolutionary ideology to define the importance of the nationalist phenomenon and its humanitarian and secular nature. It is thus a system of thought throwing new light on the real historic context of the current Arab experience and establishing a connection between the Nation's cause and contemporary problems of the world. Arab revolutionary ideology finds it necessary to rectify two deviations:
1. That of the paralyzed, retrograde reaction.
2. That of pseudo-progressive elements of the "regionalist" or anti-Nationalist left. These are of a purely superficial nature and often deny national reality, leave it in the background or even appear to be unaware of the Arab Nation's nationalist struggle.
Arab revolutionary ideology's reply to the deviations of the anti-Nationalist Right and Left enables it to outstrip them and to avoid falling into the same mistakes. It bases its attitude on two precise points:
a) On the one hand, the idea of continuity and authenticity —the connecting link between national history and present problems.
b) On the other hand, the idea of flux and a breach into the world —the civilizing significance of the present Arab revolutionary movement.
While emphasizing the importance of the link between the Nations's past and present, it accentuates Arab personality and autonomy. It clearly states the need for revolt against the Nation's present condition and takes the future, in both its temporal and historic dimension, into full consideration. In the future, the Nation will be ready to envisage new experiments and keep in touch with other revolutionary activity throughout the world, and to confirm its international, humanitarian character. While according a primordial role to the Nationalist phenomenon, ideology has attempted to give a new impetus to Arab Nationalism by the following methods:
1. By endowing it with a secular character, respecting all religious and moral values and, at the same time, removing all confessional aspects from its concept.
2. By stripping it of sentimentality and romanticism, and giving it a scientific, realistic, original revolutionary foundation.
3. By liberating it from any racial idea, any form of chauvinism or abstract national socialist theory which is only a servile copy of the classic Marxist model, to be applied mechanically to nationalist experiments today.
4. by bringing nationalism up to date with regard to the specific stage and conditions of life today.
5. By determining the combat-methods imposed by the current Arab reality with the aim of defining the line of evolution to be followed by the Arab Nation and the world in general.
6. By accentuating the responsibility every Arab citizen is expected to assume in order to rescue the Nation from under-development and division, fight colonialism and exploitation, and also by insisting on the Arab Nation's present mission.
It is in this perspective that documents published during the preparatory period (1940-1947) and which contributed to the birth of the Arab revolutionary movement (the Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party), forcefully state the following principles:
1. Arab nationalism is a fact. It is the outcome of excessive fragmentation, under-development, exploitation and subjection. This state of things is thoroughly understood by the Arab citizen, who has reached a high level of awareness, is fully participating in his social vocation and adopting genuine attitudes towards life.
2. Arab Nationalism represents the motor-force of the Arab Nation in its struggle.
3. It gives rise to awareness of the link welding together the Nation’s past, present and future and the personality common to all Arabs. In the words of the founder and leader of the Party in 1940, Nationalism is "a living memory," the expression of "love before all else," of "love and sacrifice"; and it is a "destiny to which we aspire."
4. Arab Nationalism cannot be understood in the light of 18th, 19th and 20th century experience and concepts in advanced countries, for the following reasons:
a) It is the expression of a new context in history.
b) It is the reflection of theoretical stands adopted by the Arab Nation during the present century.
c) It is the manifestation of the harmony and homogeneity between the Arab Revolution’s theory, strategy and tactics, aiming at the resolution of all the contradictions, which would otherwise lead the Arab citizen and the Arab masses to disaster.
The Revolutionary Arab Ideology