Arab nationalism

Arab nationalism (Arabic: القومية العربية, romanized: al-qawmīya al-ʿarabīya) is a political ideology asserting that Arabs constitute a single nation. As a traditional nationalist ideology, it promotes Arab culture and civilization, celebrates Arab history, the Arabic language and Arabic literature. It often also calls for unification of Arab society.^[1] It bases itself on the premise that the people of the Arab world—from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea—constitute one nation bound together by a common identity: ethnicity, language, culture, history, geography, and politics.^[2][3]

One of the primary goals of modern Arab nationalism is ridding the Arab world of influence from the Western world, and the removal of those Arab governments that are considered to be dependent upon Western hegemony. This form of the ideology is rooted in the undesirable outcome of the Arab Revolt; in successfully achieving their primary goal of dissolving the Ottoman Empire, the Arab rebels simultaneously enabled the partitioning of their would-be unified Arab state by Western powers. Anti-Western sentiment grew as Arab nationalists centralized themselves around the newfound Palestine cause, promoting the view that Zionism posed an existential threat to the territorial integrity and political status quo of the entire region, and that the resulting Arab–Israeli conflict was directly linked to Western imperialism due to the Balfour Declaration.^[4][5] Arab unity was considered a necessary instrument to "restoring this lost part" of the nation, which in turn meant eliminating the "relics" of foreign colonialism.^[6] Arab nationalism emerged in the early 20th century as an opposition movement in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, later evolving into the overwhelmingly dominant ideological force in the Arab world.^[7] Its influence steadily expanded over subsequent years. By the 1950s and 1960s, the charismatic Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser championed Arab nationalism, and political parties like the Ba'ath Party and the Arab Nationalist Movement demonstrated remarkable capabilities for mobilization, organization, and clandestine activities. This ideology seemed to be on the rise across the independent Arab states.

Its influence began to wane in the following decades, with the rise of nation-state nationalism mostly promoted by each Arab state and the emergence of Islamic radicalism filling the perceived void.^[8] However, the ideology as a whole began to decline across the Arab world following the decisive Israeli victory in the Six-Day War.^[1][2] Although pan-Arab nationalism lost appeal by the 1990s, it continued to exercise an intellectual hegemony throughout the Arab world.^[9]

Notable personalities and groups that are associated with Arab nationalism include Hussein bin Ali, Faisal I of Iraq, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Yasser Arafat, George Habash, Michel Aflaq, Ahmed Ben Bella, Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, the Arab Nationalist Movement, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party.