The Middle East, the land containing oil, has been burning with war from the past to the present, five Middle East wars, Palestinian-Israeli conflicts, Iraq wars, Yemen conflicts, Arab Spring, Syrian wars, all kinds of wars, killings, violent incidents, clashes of faith have broken out here in turn, as if the war in this land will never be extinguished. This is not to say, of course, that there is no hope in the Middle East, and as long as the Arab world is united, then it is possible for them to extinguish the raging flames of war, which requires their adherence to pan-Arabism.
This statement may make many people wonder, pan-Arabism is nationalism, the already extreme Middle East to engage in nationalism, to form a pan-Arab camp, is not a loss of wisdom? It is true that many people from our standpoint will not understand it at all, but the truth is here that pan-Arabism is already the last hope of the Middle East, and there is no other possibility.
There is a question about pan-Arabism, and we have to start with its rise and development. Pan-Arabism originated in the 16th century, when the main goal of pan-Arabism was to oppose the Ottoman Empire. Although the Ottomans ruled the Middle East at the time and The Arab countries generally embraced Islam, they did not buy much from the Ottomans. At that time, the Arabs put forward the political proposition of establishing a unified Arab state against Ottoman rule based on factors such as common language, culture, religious beliefs and customs, which was the prototype of pan-Arabism.
In the history of the Arab world, the formation of pan-Arabism was progressive, and for the first time the idea of uniting the fragmented Arab nations and states was proposed, which provided the guiding ideology for future resistance to Ottoman rule. With the decline of the Ottomans and the entry of Western powers in the second half of the 19th century, the Arab nation had to face oppression and aggression from Western imperialism. It was also during this period that pan-Arabism developed considerably, and a group of Arab thinkers and anti-colonial activists were determined to revitalize the Arab nation, and most of the resistance movements in the Arab world were carried out under the guidance of pan-Arabism.
We should also make a distinction here, which is that pan-Arabism is not the same as religiousism. Looking at the sages of the modern Arab world, we will find that they did not give high priority to religion in their struggle for national independence, but claimed that the unity and strength of the country were higher than religion. In fact, it is not difficult to understand that pan-Arabism was first used to oppose the theocratic Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Empire relied on the traditional Eastist clerical society, its despotism and exploitation were not much better than the colonizers, and the first Awakened Arab sages naturally could not become a new ecclesiastical dictator themselves in order to overthrow the Ottomans.
The most intuitive example here is Egypt, where there are three important figures in the history of the Egyptian independence movement, Abdul Rahman Kawakbi, Mustafa Kamil, and Assad Zakalul, all of whom relied on pan-Arabism. The ideas of the three of them combine liberalism and nationalism from the West and combine them with the cultural traditions of the Arab nation, but have you ever heard of any Islamic fundamentalism advocated by these sages? Of course not, the reason why progressives are progressive is that they will not go backwards in history, and the theocratic society is not suitable for the Arab world, and they naturally will not pursue it.
Some may wonder why, now that it is already a progressive idea, why should it rely on the traditional culture of the Arab world and add a factor of faith? Isn't that an uncontrollable hidden danger? The reason is simple, that is, the Arab peoples have been believing in Islam for some time, and their beliefs have finally evolved into Arab culture, shaping their writing, customs, festivals, and so on. If you want to build a unified Arab nation, then you can't get around these things, and if you're going to uproot these and adopt foreign cultures outright, then you won't get the support of the people, so you have to take these traditional cultural elements with you when shaping pan-Arabism.
Of course, it is impossible to say that pan-Arabism is not in turmoil in the course of its development, and the typical example of this is the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood formed by Hassan Banner is the kind of Islamic fundamentalists who have an abnormal brain, the kind that wants to turn history back a thousand years with one foot on the gas pedal, but every normal person looks at them as disgusted with dogs. However, this group of things is very good at packaging themselves, often under some seemingly no problem slogans, quietly began to engage in fundamentalism, belonging to the typical black sheep.
There are many such black sheep as the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East, many under the banner of pan-Arabism. But even so, pan-Arabism is irreplaceable for the Arab nation, because what else can you do in this land? The Arab countries are fragmented with each other, and because of the "arbitrary" territorial division of the colonizers, they have fabricated a large number of ethnic contradictions out of thin air, and if they want to unite the fragmented Arab nation, they must have a concept that everyone can recognize, and pan-Arabism is the most acceptable one.
Whether or not a doctrine can be popularized is not how well it is said, but whether it can be accepted. If everyone can accept it, then this doctrine can be popularized, and if everyone says that they can't accept it, then you are saying that no one is willing to pay attention to you. In Arab countries where education is generally low, it is certainly not okay for you to talk to them about liberal democracy, they can't understand this stuff at all, but what they can understand is what they are familiar with. It is the culture, customs, writings, beliefs, and so on that have been carved into every aspect of their lives.
Fortunately, in the process of the Arab nation's struggle for independence, pan-Arabism has been developed and perfected, of which the Egyptian leader Nasser has made a particularly significant contribution to pan-Arabism, and his Nasserism is essentially the sublimation and extension of pan-Arabism. Nasser's doctrine is based on the teachings of Islam and pan-Arabism, proposing to closely unite the Arab nation, and although he claims to maintain the faith of Islam, it is not a wrong decision from the perspective of cultural identity, because in the Arab world, and even in most parts of Africa, The beliefs and cultures of Islam are more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and it is necessary to build a cultural identity based on the Islamic faith, and finally to build a national identity belonging to the Arab world.
It is not difficult to see that the birth and development of pan-Arabism has its epochal and regional characteristics, and without the category and loss of control of the Arab states, pan-Arabism has become an anachronistic existence, but as long as it is properly utilized, pan-Arabism will become an important force uniting arab countries, as proved by the Arab coalition forces in the Fourth Middle East War. Of course, today,000, pan-Arabism has entered a trough, and in many Middle Eastern countries, there has even been a regression due to the intervention of Western countries and the atrocities of extreme Muslims, but with the improvement of the situation in the Middle East, especially the changes in the situation in Syria, I believe that the Arab countries will once again usher in their unity in the future.