As region implodes, Arab socialism fizzles out

A student group asked me to address socialism in the Arab world, with the assumption that there is indeed such a movement that would be capable of overhauling the many incompetent and corrupt regimes across the region. But of course, no such groups exist today, but in name. 

I recall a talk I delivered in London soon after Hamas was placed under siege in Gaza in 2007.

“Hamas is the largest and most effective socialist movement in Palestine,” I said to the surprise of some and the agreeing nods of others.

Of course, I was not referring to Hamas’ adherence to Marxist theory, but to the fact that it was the only operating grassroots political movement that had, in some ways, succeeded in lessening the gap between various social and economic classes, all united by a radical political agenda.

Moreover, it was a movement largely made of Palestine’s fellahin (peasants) and workers who were mostly centred in refugee camps. Compare to the detached, elitist, largely urban-based “socialist” movements in Palestine, the mass of Islamists in the occupied territories is as socialist as a movement can be under the circumstances.

But what do I tell the student group, made of young, enthusiastic socialists who are eager to see the rise of the proletariat?

A starting point would be that there is a difference between Western socialism, and “Arab socialism”, a reference coined by Arab nationalists in the early 1950s as a merger between nationalist and socialist movement that began to take hold, ultimately leading to the formation of the Baath parties of Syria and Iraq.

The idea was originally framed by Salah Al Din Al Bitar and Michel Aflaq, founders of the Baath Party.

Socialism in its Western forms seemed unappealing to many Arab nationalists. Not only was it intellectually removed from the cultural and socio-economic contexts of the Arab peoples, it was also politically unpromising if not altogether chauvinistic. 

Many Western socialists romanticised the creation and meaning of Israel, a colonial implant that has united colonial and neocolonial forces against Arab aspirations for many decades.

But Arab nationalism also failed, for it neither offered a compelling alternative nor had practically championed a serious paradigm shift. 

Aside from some land reforms in Egypt after the 1952 revolt against the king, among other gestures, Arab socialism could not break free from the confines of good-sounding ideals or from outside influences that vied to control, influence or crush these movements.

Later, that failure became even more pronounced as the Soviet Union’s influence began to wane in the late 1980s, until its complete collapse in the early 90s.

Arab socialists, whether governments that adopted that slogan or organisations that revolved around Soviet agendas, were too dependent on that relationship. 

In the absence of the Soviets from the scene, they had little chance to survive the rising dominance of the United States.

However, that failure was not just the outcome of the socialist bloc’s crumpling geopolitical regional models, but also of the fact that Middle Eastern countries (also under the influence of or due to pressure from Western hegemons) were experiencing a rethink.

That was the time of the rise of the Islamist alternative, which was partly a genuine attempt at galvanising the region’s intellectual resources and partly steered by funds coming from rich Arab Gulf countries to regulate the rise of the Islamic tide.

That was the time when the slogan “Islam is the solution” became quite dominant. That new slogan pierced through the collective psyche of various Arab Muslim intellectual groups throughout the Middle East and beyond, specifically because it seemed to be an attempt at tapping into the region’s own historical and cultural references.

The general argument was that both US-Western and Soviet models failed or were failing, along with their client regimes, and there was an urgent need for alternative.

Still, Arab socialism would have survived if it had indeed been predicated on strong social platforms, propelled by wide popular support and grassroots movement.

That, however, was not the case. 

If I must generalise, in the Arab world, there was a relatively strong intellectual component of the left. But the intellectual left hardly ever managed to cross the divide between the world of theories and ideas — which was available to the educated classes — into the work place, the peasants and the average man and woman in the street. 

Without mobilising workers, peasants and the oppressed masses, the Arab left had little to offer but rhetoric that was largely devoid of practical experience.

Of course, there were exceptions in every Arab country. Palestine’s early socialist movements had strong presence in the refugee camps. 

They were pioneers in all forms of popular resistance, but that can be explained by the uniqueness of the Palestinian situation, as opposed to reflecting a large trend throughout the entire region.

Another important note is that oppression tends to unite oppressed groups, no matter how seemingly insurmountable their ideological differences may be. In fact, because of that shared oppression between political Islam and radical left, there was a degree of affinity between activists from both groups, as they shared prison cells, were tortured and humiliated together.

The turning point, however, could arguably be the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed.

That freed much political space while oil money continued to pour in.

Many Islamic universities opened up all over the world, and thousands of students from the Gulf and the rest of the Middle East received high degrees in various fields, from Islamic Sharia to engineering.

The exclusive access to education was largely broken.

Look at Hamas in Gaza. Many of their leaders and members have high degrees, in engineering and medicine. And that has become common among all Islamic groups supporters in Palestine, in Egypt, in Morocco, and so forth.

So the hegemony over education and over the articulation of political discourses was no longer in the hands of the political or intellectual elite, and a political agenda that was predicated on Islamic ideals was born.

With time, socialists were faced with stark choices: either live on the margins of the society — imagine the stereotypical maverick communist intellectual sitting in a coffee shop in Cairo theorising about everything — or join NGOs, official or semi-official institutions, to remain financially afloat or at all relevant.

Those who opted for the latter, needed to compromise to the extent that some of them are now mouthpieces for the very regimes they once fought.

As a result, the thrust of the socialists’ political power as a group diminished greatly throughout the years.

Being more institutionalised, they became more inclusive, further removed from the masses in whose name they continued to speak.

Once can hardly think of one powerful leftist organisation that operates in Egypt, for example. There are “leftists” but they hardly register as movers and shakers of the current political landscape.

Wishful thinking alone will hardly revive the socialist tide in the Arab world.

There are few signs that the decline will be soon reversed, or that a homegrown interpretation of socialism — think the relatively successful Bolivarian movement of Latin America — will mould together nationalistic priorities and socialist ideals into a workable mix.

But, of course, the Middle East is experiencing its greatest political upheaval and socialist influx in a hundred years. New variables are added to the multifarious equation on regular basis.

While the present remains grim, the future seems pregnant with possibilities.

The writer, www.ramzybaroud.net, is an internationally syndicated columnist, a media consultant, author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London). He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.