Arab socialism
Gale Encyclopedia of the Mideast & N. Africa:
Top
Arab Socialism
Political philosophy advocating governmental and collective ownership of the means of production and distribution.
Arab socialism emerged as a result of colonialism in the Middle East coupled with the corruption and underdevelopment characteristic of Arab societies at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was not until the late 1940s that Arab thinkers began writing about the socialist option. Among the major parties and movements that emerged as a result of this effort were the Arab Renaissance Socialist party (al-Baʿth) and the movement called the Free Officers, led by President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. The aims of Arab socialism were to free the Arab world from Western colonial rule, to establish pride and social justice within Arab societies, and to unify the Arab world.
Arab socialism emerged at a time when liberation movements were sweeping developing countries, so self-determination and tight controls against multinational corporations and their exploitation of local resources became a major priority. Arab socialism rejected Marxism and class struggle as basic tenets; it promoted cooperation between classes for the welfare of the entire community, based on the principles of justice and the equal distribution of wealth, with government provisions for the poor and underprivileged.
Agrarian reform and land redistribution were important goals. The nationalization of industries provided the government with funds, but some forms of private property were retained if they were in the national interest. In Egypt, under the radical economic policies adopted by Nasser, nationalization hit French and British economic interests first. Then, in 1960, banks, newspapers, most foreign assets, industrial and mining industries, and export-import businesses were all nationalized. The land reform promulgated in 1952 had set limits on land ownership, and in 1960 these were cut in half, to 100 feddan. These same nationalization policies were also applied in Algeria, Libya, and Iraq, with tighter government control of the petroleum and gas industries. In the 1990s, several Arab regimes whose economic policies had been inspired by Arab socialism attempted to liberalize some sectors of their economies. These efforts were not always successful and faced stiff resistance from the bureaucracy.
In foreign policy, Arab socialism advocated a constant struggle against imperialism and Zionism. Support for the Palestinians' cause became a major issue, especially for Nasser. He and other Arab revolutionary leaders used the Palestinian issue to enhance their own power and legitimacy. Non-alignment and support for liberation movements were also goals of Arab socialist regimes. After the defeat of Arab armies by Israel in 1967, after Nasser's death in 1970, and after a bitter rivalry between the two sections of the Baʿth Party - one in Syria and the other in Iraq - Arab socialism lost much of its appeal. Lack of democracy, corrupt and huge bureaucracies, and the emergence of a new class composed of bureaucrats and army officers all contributed to the end of Arab socialism.
In the Middle East, a few political parties and regimes still claim inspiration by Arab socialism. These are the Arab Socialist Union in Egypt; the Sudanese Socialist Union in Sudan; the People's General Congress of the Socialist Jamahiriya of Libya; the National Liberation Front of Algeria; the Baʿth Party in Syria; the Revolutionary Socialist Party in Somalia; the socialist parties of Yemen, including the People's Socialist Party; and the Des-tour Party of Tunisia.
Bibliography
Brynen, Rex; Korany, Bahgat; and Noble, Paul, eds. Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World, 2 volumes. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995.
Goode, Stephen. Prophet and the Revolutionary: Arab Socialism in the Modern Middle East. New York: Watts, 1975.
Hopwood, Derek. Egypt: Politics and Society 1945 - 1984. Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1985.
El-Kikhia, Mansour O. Libya's Qaddafi: The Politics of Contradiction. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.
— GEORGE E. IRANI
Related Videos:
Top
Arab socialism
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Top
Arab socialism
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2008) |
| Arab League |
 This article is part of the series: |
|
Arab issues
|
Arab socialism (Arabic: الاشتراكية العربية, Al-Ishtirākīya Al-‘Arabīya) is a political ideology based on an amalgamation of Pan-Arabism and socialism. Arab socialism is distinct from the much broader tradition of socialist thought in the Arab world, which predates Arab socialism by as much as fifty years. The first book on socialism in Arabic, Al-Ishtirākiyya (The Socialism), was published in 1913 by the Coptic Egyptian journalist and reformer Salama Musa (1887–1958), and republished from 1962 onwards.[1] The term "Arab socialism" was coined by Michel Aflaq, the principal founder of ba'athism and the Ba'ath Party, in order to distinguish his version of socialist ideology from the internationalist Marxist socialism in Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia, and the social democracy in Western Europe.
Arab socialism represents a political trend in the Arab world. The intellectual and political influence of Arab socialism peaked during the 1950s and 60s, when it constituted the ideological basis of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, of the Arab Nationalist Movement and, to a lesser extent, of the Nasserist movement.
|
Contents
|
Ideology
For its adherents, Arab socialism was a necessary consequence of the quest for Arab unity and freedom, as only a socialist system of property and development would overcome the social and economic legacy of imperialism and colonialism. At the same time, Arab socialism widely differs from the Eastern Europe and Eastern Asian socialist movements, which were atheist. Unlike their Chinese counterparts, the basis of Arab nationalism is not ostensibly doctrinal, but cultural and spiritual. Thus, the "anti-spiritual" socialism of Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia was considered ill-adapted to the Arab World. As with socialist ideologies across the world, there has historically been a strong internationalist tendency in the Arab socialism; however, it was based primarily on anti-imperialism, and non-alignment, particularly during the Cold War.
Nasserist Arab socialism believes that socialism requires public control over the means of production but claims that public control does not necessarily require nationalization of all means of production nor the abolition of private property but that private property should always be subject to public control.[2]
While Arab socialism in its heyday endorsed much of the economic and social programme of Eastern European-style socialism, its divergent intellectual and spiritual foundations imposed some limits on its revolutionary potential: the ownership of the means of production was to be nationalized, but only within the constraints of traditional values such as private property, and inheritance. So-called primitive social structures, such as feudalism, nomadism, tribalism, religious factionalism, and the oppression of women, were to be overcome, but not at the cost of severing the social ties that constituted the Arab identity.
Arguably, the most notable economic manifestations of Arab socialism were the land reforms in Egypt (1952), Syria (1963), and Iraq (1970), and the nationalization of major industries and the banking systems in those countries. In Egypt and Syria, many of these policies were later reversed to some degree from the 1970s onwards. They were more successful in Iraq, possibly due to the country's oil wealth, until the beginning of the Iran–Iraq War in 1980.
Arab socialism and women
Socialism and socialist parties claim that they can bring the full emancipation of women. In socialist ideology and in its modernization theory there is a need to emancipate women in order to create social equality.[3]
Arab Socialism is different from the classical Marxism and Soviet socialism, and the term 'socialism' has been used as a regime consolidation in Arab Socialism. Rather than an ideological belief, ‘socialism’ was used to describe policies conducted out of nationalist and modernizing concerns in Arab socialism.[4] However, because of its affiliation to socialist and modernist ideologies, Arab socialism had a modernist and egalitarian perspective on gender issues, at least in rhetoric.
For instance, the Iraqi Ba’ath Party changed Iraq’s policies and rhetoric positively towards women in order to change economic, social, and political conditions in Iraq. By encouraging women to join the public sphere, especially in the educational system and labour force, the Ba’ath party made an impact on the change of relations between men and women in Iraq.[5]
The ideology or at least the rhetoric of Arab socialism can be understood from Saddam Hussein's words: The complete emancipation of women from the ties which held them back in the past, during the ages of despotism and ignorance, is a basic aim of the Party and the Revolution. Women make up one half of society. Our society will remain backward and in chains unless its women are liberated, enlightened and educated…(1981).[5]
List of Arab socialists
The following is a list of people who have been seen as adherents of Arab socialism, or have been influential within the Arab socialist school of thought, although some of them may not have used the term, or may even have opposed it.
|
Moroccans Socialists: Palestinian Socialists: Lebanese Socialists: |
Sudanese Socialists Syrian Socialists: Yemeni Socialists |
See also
- Arab Nationalism, more particularly Arab Nationalist Movement
- Ba'ath Party
- Islamic socialism
- Justicialism
- Nasserism
- Pan Arabism
References
- ^ Hanna, Sami A; Gardner, George H (1969). Arab socialism: a documentary survey. Brill Archive. p. 418. http://books.google.com/books?id=zsoUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA49.
- ^ Sami A. Hanna, George H. Gardner. Arab Socialism: A Documentary Survey. Leiden, Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1969. Pp. 117.
- ^ Young K., Wolkowitz C., McCullagh R., Of Marriage and the Market, 1984, London:CSE Books
- ^ Pratt, N., Democracy& Authoritarianism in the Arab World, 2007, Colorado:Lynne
- ^ a b Al-Ali, N. S.,Iraqi Women, 2007, London:Zedbooks
External links
Bibliography
- Maxime Rodinson, Marxism and the Muslim world, Zed Press, 1979, 229 pages, ISBN 978-0-905762-21-0 (transl. from the French reference book Maxime Rodinson, Marxisme et monde musulman, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1972, 698 pages)
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:
Copyrights:
Gale Encyclopedia of the Mideast & N. Africa
Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Read more
