Arab Nationalism

Arab Nationalism asserts that Arabs are one nation, bound by a common language, religion and culture, and should unite. Its heyday was the 1960s when Arab nationalists overthrew the corrupt monarchies of the Middle East, but its popularity waned after their defeat in the Six Days War.

Key figures: Gamel Abdel Nasser, Yasser Ararat, Muammar Gaddafi, Hafez al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad, Saddam Hussein

Tenets: Republicanism, secularism, anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism, socialism and pan-Arabism

Like Islamic fundamentalists, Arab nationalists seek to reclaim the glory of ages past and defy the Western powers who stand before that dream. Unlike Islamic fundamentalists, Arab nationalists are secular. Islam may be important, but Arab identity is the ultimate guiding principle – transcending differences between Sunni, Shia and Christian. Its colours are red, black, white and green.

The Ottoman Turks ruled the Arab world until 1918. The British and French who defeated them drew up the new borders. Rather than granting a single state, they split up the Arab territories into borders that suited their interests and appointed pro-Western kings out of touch with the people they ruled. Of particular frustration was the creation of Israel – a Jewish state on Arab land.

In 1951, Colonel Gamel Abdel Nasser and a group of like-minded young officers overthrew King Farouk of Egypt. Charismatic and driven, Nasser dreamed of uniting the Arab world into one state. Ending British and French influence and reclaiming Palestine from the Israelis required Arab unity. In 1956, Nasser nationalised the Suez Canel and defied the Anglo-French-Israeli force who tried to reclaim it, instantly becoming the hero of the Arab nationalist cause.

Nasser’s triumph inspired nationalist coups in Iraq (1963), Algeria (1963), Libya (1969) and Sudan (1969). Arab nationalists established presidential dictatorships based on socialist principles and aligned with the Soviet Union against Israel and the West. In 1958, Syria and Egypt united into a single country – the United Arab Republic – until Syria seceded in 1961.

Baathism is a form of Arab Nationalism which grew out of the Palestinian struggle and Syrian intellectual circles that favoured a strong vanguard party. Syria under Hafez Al-Assad and Iraq under Saddam Hussein were Baathist states.

Arab Nationalism failed to catch on in the oil-rich nations of the Persian Gulf. To this day, most remain in the hands of pro-Western monarchies.

The Six Days War of 1967 crushed the pan-Arab dream. Israel defeated Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan and ended hopes of a united front. Nasser died of a heart attack in 1970, and the movement split between different factions. Local rulers gave up on pan-Arabism and focused on maintaining power. In 1977, Nasser’s successor Anwar Sadat made peace with Israel. Many Arab nationalists and their successors ruled until the Arab Spring of 2011.

The Saudis had rejected the socialist and revolutionary aspects of Arab nationalism and championed Islamic fundamentalism instead. From the 1980s onwards, Jihad took over as the main ideological struggle against Israel and the West. Fatah, who rules the Palestinian West Bank, is an Arab nationalist movement, while Hamas, who rules the Gaza Strip, is fundamentalist.

2018 Predictions Reviewed

One year ago I made ten predictions for 2018. This is how they turned out.

1. The Democrats will win a senate majority in the 2018 midterms

The Democrats did well, but not as well as I expected. The Republican Party maintained a majority in the Senate but lost the House of Representatives. Wrong.

2. Bitcoin will suppress 20,000 USD

Oh how I was wrong about this one!! The Cryptocurrency market crashed hard in 2018. Instead of growing to 20,000 Bitcoin, which peaked at $10,000 in December 2017, plummeted to 3,200 in December, dragging most other cryptocurrencies down with it. The market has yet to recover. Wrong.

3. The USA will suffer its largest mass shooting in history.

The US suffered a horrifying 323 mass shootings in 2018. Parkland, which took 17 lives, overtook Columbine as the deadliest high school shooting in US history, but did not surpass the 2019 Las Vegas Shooting in deaths. Wrong.

4. New Caledonia will vote no to Independence

 In November the French Pacific colony of New Caledonia voted against independence 56-44. Right

5.Vladimir Putin will win the Russian Election

This one wasn’t much of a prediction. Authoritarian strongman Vladimir Putin won his second consecutive term (and fourth overall) with 77% of the vote. Whether or not the Russian system is truly democratic, no one could have filled his shoes. Right.

6. The Social Democrats will win the Brazillian Election

Not even close. Jair Bolsanaro, the so called Trump of the Tropics’ and his Social Liberal Party won with 50% of the popular vote. The Social Democrats came a distant 5^th place. Given the global slide to right wing populism I should have seen this coming – looks like I didn’t do enough research! Wrong.

7. Artificial meat will be available in supermarkets

Cultured meat made leaps and bounds in 2018 but is yet to be commercially available. 20 companies are manufacturing their own cultured meat, which may appear in supermarkets over the next couple of years. Wrong.

8. Bashar al Assad will win the Syrian Civil War.

Not quite. ISIS is all but defeated but regime forces are still fighting rebel groups in Idlib province while Kurdish led militias control the northeast. Wrong.

9. The Islamic State will launch an insurrection in Southeast Asia

Thankfully this did not happen. Philippines forces clashed with Islamist militants in July and an ISIS affiliated faction killed 28 in a church bombing in Surabaya, Indonesia in May. There was, nothing, however,  to the scale of the 2017 Battle for Marawi. Wrong.

10. Bangladesh will declare war on Burma

Though Burma’s genocide against the Rohingya Muslims continues no foreign power has intervened. Wrong.

Only two of my ten predictions were correct. Looks like a career in soothsaying is not for me!

See Also:

• 2018 Predictions
• Stormclouds over Idlib

From the Parapet Turns One

I started this blog one year ago. This unfortunate date, I must add, was not by design but an unobserved coincidence – shame on me! I shan’t venture into cliché territory and say I’m honored or amazed at how far I’ve come, but I will settle on happily chuffed.

When it comes to creative projects, I rarely finish anything. A weekly blog however, provides enough gratification to keep me going, so for that I’m glad. One post a week is not a lofty goal, but it sure adds up over a year.

I don’t blog to make money. Sure, a little revenue would be nice, but if that were my aim, I would have given up long ago. For me, this blog serves as a way to write regularly and record topics of interest. Hence I avoid clickbait or a specific ‘niche’. Developing a skill takes work. 10,000 hours and all that. This blog ensures my writing is held accountable.

My audience isn’t big, but grows every month. I still use the free version of WordPress which, though not allowing in depth analytics or SEO, will tell you your number of readers and where from where in the world they come.

WordPress ‘likes’ are a bad gauge of interest. They only tell you what WordPress users like and most of my views come from Google, not the WordPress Reader. My most ‘liked’ post, for example – ‘2018 Blogging Goals’ – is not even in the top ten for most viewed. It’s only liked most because it’s about blogging – a topic WordPress users are interested in by default.

Most of my readers are from the United States, followed by the UK and Australia. I also get a fair smattering of views from around the world, as you can see from the map above. This month I’ve had 77 from Ecuador alone!

My most popular posts:

1. The Caliphate of Cordoba
2. Clairvius Narcisse and the Zombies of Haiti
3. The Moor’s Last Sigh
4. The Historical Babylon
5. Green Eyed Devils

Originally I assumed my political posts would be the most popular. My real life circles prefer such discussions to history, after all, and political commentary on WordPress and Youtube is thriving . For this blog it’s not the case. My history posts get far more hits.

Maybe the market is saturated; maybe my political views are too vanilla. Successful youtubers and bloggers present controversial and/or nuanced opinions – that’s what makes them interesting. Now I understand  regurgitating news reports without a clear bias lacks appeal. If people want a pseudo objective  take on current events, they will read the news.

Political posts aren’t evergreen, historical ones are. My post on the Battle for Idlib, for example, will only be relevant for a couple of weeks at most. After this the news report will be dated and irrelevant. Posts on the past, however, stay the same, and are far more likely to be searched on Google months later.

Blogging is a fulfilling hobby and I would urge anyone who is interested to give it a go. I’ve still got a lot to learn, but am happy with my progress so far. Hopefully I’ll still be posting one year from now!

See Also:

• My first post
• My 2018 Blogging Goals

Conservatism and Age

I recently had some colleagues over for drinks. Ultimately overshadowing the entire evening was a heated debate over race, immigration, welfare, drug legalisation and homosexuality in modern day America, which proved nonetheless entertaining.  Dominating one side was an ex-navy, straight laced baby boomer (we’ll call him Frank) on the other a younger art teacher with two tattooed sleeves (we’ll call him Tom).

Frank argued their differing outlooks were primarily generational. He argued that, as you get older, the circle of people you generally care about gets smaller, and that having a family ‘changes everything’, the well being of your flesh and blood being of ultimate importance over everything else.  Whilst I agreed more with Tom over Frank on the topics we discussed, he did raise a few good points.

I have since done my own research.

As people age, the more conservative they become. 60% of British over 50 voted for Brexit in 2016, compared to the 75% of 18-24 year olds who voted Remain. Last year in the USA 36% percent of Baby Boomers, and 49% of the Silent Generation identified as conservative republicans. . The bulk of the staunchly pro-Republican Fox News’s audience too, are over 50. Meanwhile, more millennials voted for Bernie Sanders in the primaries than Trump or Hillary combined

As a point of comparison the Baby Boomers, in their prime, were the most liberal generation the Western World had seen, spearheading the sexual revolution, civil rights and anti-war movements. Now over fifties lean conservative. So what happened? Risqué, drug taking hippies were more likely to die off before their more conservative peers,  but elections since the ’60s show that baby boomers as a whole are consistently sliding to the right.

Disillusioned with the Ford Presidency’s economic malaise, Boomers in the eighties turned to Ronald Reagan, who sought to end the perceived excesses of affirmative action, Carter’s unpopular policies and the Democrats’ welfare system. The shift of support of boomers was a key factor in his 1980 landslide. Many Reagan voters had previously been enthusiastic supporters of the 1960s zeitgeist.

Obviously there are, and have always been, young conservatives and older progressives, at all times and across all generational cohorts, but the generational trends are undeniable.

Peoples’ views of the world become less rose tinted and idealistic as they age.  The longer you’ve been around, the more comfortable you become with the status quo. Social change is risky at best, outright dangerous at worst.   Psychological studies show older people become more reliant on maintaining, rather than increasing, knowledge and are less induced to innovation and taking risks, than folk in their 20s.

These younger folk on the other hand, are more likely to possess university degrees, and degree holders lean liberal as they did in the 60s. Lower incomes and rates of cohabitation make the younger less ‘settled’ and hungry for change. This adds to existing conditions of creativity and intellectual curiosity.  The older one is, the less adaptable one is to change.

A frequently used, but widely misquoted, adage (most likely from Anselme Batbie or Edmund Burke), proves insightful:

“If you are not a liberal at 25, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at 35 you have no brain.”

Sources:

•  Yougov Exit Poll, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/20/a-wider-partisan-and-ideological-gap-between-younger-older-generations/
• https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mr-personality/201410/why-are-older-people-more-conservative
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/20/more-young-people-voted-for-bernie-sanders-than-trump-and-clinton-combined-by-a-lot/?utm_term=.78913fd95ed5

Robert Mugabe

Robert Gabriel Mugabe (1924-) is the founding father of Zimbabwe and a dictator of 37 years. At age 93, he was, until very recently, the world’s oldest serving head of state.  A champion of Black Nationalism against white minority rule Mugabe was once a glimmering hope for post-colonial Africa. Nearly four decades later and he has left a nation plagued by corruption and tyranny.

The former schoolteacher was a hero in 1980, fiercely popular within Zimbabwe and without. He had led the insurrection against Rhodesia’s white minority government and won the following election in a landslide. Like Nelson Mandela, he was a Marxist, a revolutionary, an intellectual, a political prisoner for over a decade and a relentless crusader against minority government and Apartheid. At the official independence ceremony, Bob Marley played his ‘Zimbabwe’ to a jubilant crowd in Mugabe’s honour. Mugabe was lauded by both his Communist backers and the western left. The US gave 25 million dollars in aid to his nascent regime.

Mugabe had been born in 1924 in Southern Rhodesia, a British settler colony named for Cecil Rhodes, the famed British imperialist, diamond magnate and De Beers founder. Three ethnic groups called Rhodesia home: the majority Shona, a Bantu speaking people, the Ndebele, a Zulu offshoot comprising 20% of the population, and a minority of white British settlers.  The latter ruled the greater black population as a ‘subject race’, exploiting the nation’s rich mineral reserves and owning the vast majority of its arable land.  In 1964 Rhodesia gained independence but under a white ruled government. Mugabe was Shona and Catholic.

Two parties led the liberation movement. Fighting alongside his Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) party, who were largely Shona and backed by China, were the Ndebele led, Soviet backed ZAPU party of Joshua Nkomo. Mistrusting his former ally and fearing a power grab from ZAPU, Mugabe dispatched the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade into the Ndebele homeland of Matabeleland. Suspected Ndebele malcontents and ZAPU members were summarily executed in the ‘Gukurahundi’, ‘the rain that washes away the chaf before spring’. Ndebele men of fighting age were forced to dig their own graves before execution. Others were herded into their houses and burned alive. Genocide watch estimates Mugabe’s government killed 20,000 Ndebele from 1983-1987.

Though the 80s saw substantial improvements in Zimbabwe’s literacy and standard of living, Mugabe’s rule became increasingly tyrannical and corrupt. By the 90s the economy was faltering. The now president’s dubious human rights record and electoral fraud soured western opinion. In 1997 Tony Blair rescinded on Britain’s pledge to compensate the new government and froze Zimbabwean assets.

In 2000 Mugabe violently appropriated white-owned farms, parcelling out the vast estates to landless blacks and political favourites. The new owners, however, had no experience as commercial farmers and the resulting mismanagement, white exodus and foreign sanctions drove Zimbabwe’s once-prosperous economy to ruin.

By now Mugabe’s dictatorship was entrenched in mismanagement and cronyism. Zimbabwe’s vast mineral wealth found itself in the pockets of Mugabe and his followers while the common people starved. In 2016 Reuters estimated over a billion USD a year had been lost to corruption.  To afford foreign imports after the 2000 land reforms Mugabe’s Central Bank printed extra money. Incredible hyperinflation resulted: when Zimbabwe abandoned its currency in 2015 the exchange rate was 35,000,000,000,000 ZWD to 1 USD. Unemployment reached 95%.

On November 14th, 2017, a 93 year old President Mugabe was arrested and expelled from his own party in a bloodless coup. Emmerson Mnangagwa, Mugabe’s right hand man, orchestrated the takeover to ensure his succession on Mugabe’s death. He had been fired from the vice presidency eight days earlier. On the 22nd of November the president officially resigned. The leadership has reshuffled, but Mugabe’s party remains in control, and Zimbabwe must  now face the dismal legacy he has left behind.

Update 7/09/19: Robert Mugabe dies age 95.

2017 Warsaw March

On  November 11^th 2017, 60,000 demonstrators celebrated Poland’s 99th Independence Day in Warsaw in a bout of flag-waving nationalist frenzy.  It was Europe’s largest public demonstration in recent years and the biggest gathering of its kind this century. Activists, some wearing balaclavas and displaying fascist insignia, marched for Catholic identity and ethnic nationalism, chanting against Jews, Muslims, gays, liberals and the EU.

At first glance, the Independence Day March seems innocent enough. Poland, its rough history considered, has a right to feel patriotic. The rhetoric surrounding this demonstration, however, was especially disturbing.

Notable chants and slogans included:

• ‘We Want God’ (references Donald Trump’s 2017 Warsaw speech)
• ‘Catholic Poland, not Secular”
• “Refugees get out!”
• “White Europe of Brotherly Nations”
• “Clean Blood”
• “White Poland, Pure Poland”
• “Pure Poland, Jew Free Poland”
• “Death to Enemies of the Homeland”
• “Pray for an Islamic Holocaust”

The march attracted far right activists from across Europe, including Britain’s Tommy Robinson, a former EDL leader. Richard Spencer, the leading American white nationalist, was invited but denied a visa.

I did an earlier post on the Charlottesville Riot and the shared ultra-conservative and xenophobic messages of both events calls for comparisons. The Warsaw March was something the American far-right could only dream of. Saturday’s marchers waved red flares, not tiki torches but their message was similar: nativism, white nationalism and bigotry. Their numbers were greater than a meagre 2,000.

Like Charlottesville, counter protesters opposed the march though they numbered only 5,000. They were organised by Antifa Warsaw. Unlike Charlottesville, the Right had the obvious upper hand: ethnic nationalism is a far stronger force in Poland than the US, and in a region feeling the brunt of the Syrian refugee crisis and the rise of Russia, far more significant.

In the past police have clashed with protesters on these Independence Day Marches, but since the ascendance of the far-right Law and Justice Party in 2015, which embraces the politics of conservative nationalism, the demonstrations have largely been encouraged. Only 45 were arrested on Saturday, all of whom were leftist counter-demonstrators. No injuries or deaths occurred.

It is worth noting these elements did not represent the march as a whole. According to the BBC, a demonstrator claimed only 30% were committed neo-fascists. Nevertheless, 18,000 fascists parading is still unsettling.

Extremist elements were condemned by possible sympathisers. President Andrzej Duda, of eurosceptic Law and Justice Party, said xenophobia, anti-Semitism and violence have ‘no place in Poland.’  Duda has accepted 0 refugees since the crisis began and previously claimed ‘the affirmation of homosexuality will be the downfall of civilization’.

Breitbart News, the self-described ‘platform for the alt-right’ described the march as ‘hijacked by white nationalists’ while downplaying its significance by stating xenophobia is commonplace across the world.

I was most surprised to find Sputnik, the mouthpiece of the Putin Administration, condemned the march, describing it as ‘the largest gathering of bigots in Europe and perhaps the world’. Russia has previously encouraged the resurgence of nationalism in Europe as a means to weaken the European Union.

After centuries of domination by foreign powers, Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany, who committed their most atrocious evils on Polish soil, followed by over half a century of Soviet backed totalitarian socialism. Their common enemy shaped a cohesive national identity based on the Catholic faith and Polish identity. Religion, like race, is exploited as an identity marker to differentiate native Poles from outsiders.  As of 2017 Poland is arguably the most right-wing state in Europe.

Sources: Al Jazeera, The Guardian, New York Times, Foreign Policy, Politico, BBC, Breitbart News, Sputnik International

See also:

• One Month On: Assessing Charlottesville
• Turanism

Taking the Plunge

I’ve been wrestling with the blog idea for some time.

Psychologists say you retain 10% of what you read, but 90% of what you teach to others. Now, for the first time in my life, I’m no longer learning every day. What you learn in high school, or even university will likely be forgotten, or simply outdated, in ten years’ time. So why stop learning? The world isn’t going to wait.

Last month kicked me into action.  Maniacs with missiles, race hate, and an ever deepening political divide have become motifs on the TV screen. With our world order hurdling, the future will be determined by the actions of women and men today. I wanted my voice to be heard.

From the Parapet will discuss politics – I’m sure my personal views will become increasingly clear – but this is not a political blog. History and current events will be my focus: I intend to present the modern world through the lens of the past. That, or share any knowledge I feel like sharing.  If you’d prefer a specifically political blog, there are a thousand others out there.  If you are a looking for the biweekly musings of would-be erudite, you have come to the right place.

Next post will be up in a few days.