The "Arab World"

Résumé du document

The feeling of being a part of the Arab nation is hindered by the diversity of territories and nations, by the divisions determined by historical backgrounds and an unequal access offered by the territories of the different states. These disparities led to national egoism. Nevertheless, the existence of Arabs does not contribute to the existence of a cultural, economical or political entity. The dream of unity of the Arab world seems to be approaching an end.

Extraits

[...] The bombings begun the 16th January 1991 and Iraqi army withdrew the 27 February 1991. After the Iraqi military capacities had been destroyed, it was feared that a weak regime would be more dangerous then Saddam Hussein's one. So the upraising of the Shiites in the South and of the Kurds in the North Iraq was not really supported by the intervening governments Redefinition of the Arab world The end of Panarabism and the growth of Islamist movements Panarabism is yet moribund. [...]

[...] The definition of the Arab world is no more that of an entity one would like to be politic. Its is a world where one seeks for peace, where one tries to strengthen the trade links but where nobody wants to re-consider the existing states. The lonely Iraqi radicalism and the peace process in the Middle-East (only if Israel still wants to be involved in it) show the signs of new relationships. The main rocky question deals with the acknowledgment of minorities within the States: Palestinians in Israel, Kabyles in Algeria (or Berbers in North Africa), Kurds (non Arab Muslims) in Iraq or in the Middle-East, Maronites (Christian Arabs) in Lebanon, black population in Sudan etc. [...]

[...] In North Africa, at last, it deals with the unity of new forces to fight against the foreign domination. The theories about the Arab nationalism, which were still unclear, are improved. At the beginning of WWII, the sympathy of the Arab opinion for the Axis characterizes a manifest hostility towards Great-Britain. It leads Great-Britain to adopt a more favorable attitude towards the Arab unity. The English help Lebanon and Syria in their accession to independence and promote the project of an Arab League. [...]

[...] The unity of this empire was mostly based upon the religion and the language used by its leading classes more than upon a ethnic-racial phenomenon. The reign of the Abbasside caliphates (750-1258) was a luxurious period, before contributing to the decline of the Empire (because of the successive conquests, the internal dissension and the religious schisms). The cultural and trade exchanges significantly increased between the different areas of the Empire. Many roads were built. A single currency unit, the dinar, was created and replaced the barter system (le troc). [...]

[...] The disappointment is big for those who had bet on the Arab integration through the League. Moreover, the theories of the Arab nationalism developed the idea that Arabism was founded on a double reality. Anouar Abdel-Malek explains that there is a two-level nation : "Egypt will not bring an end to what it constitutes, that is to say, the first nation in all history endowed with a centralized State. But nothing prevails over the fact that Egypt, since 1940, is an Arab state, the center of the modern Arab culture. [...]