Arab Identity and Democracy

From Azmi Bishara, writing in Al Ahram Weekly:

...What makes it easy for outside powers to neutralise Arab identity is that each regime has its own direct and unmediated link with American hegemony. This phenomenon is reflected in the way in which every Arab nation gives priority to its bilateral relations with the US and European countries over its relations with other Arab nations. It is also reflected in their readiness to improve relations with Israel, whenever circumstances permit, by ironing out their differences with Israel as if these differences had somehow sprung from their Arab identity.

Arab identity, here, is neither a cause nor an effect. It is a phenomenon associated with ruling elites and their policies. But there is no reason why it should not be asserted, as long as people realise that it does not hold all the solutions. Nationalism, as an ideology, has always been the property of right-wing movements, which take nationalism as a guise for identity politics, often of a fascistic bent, the most extreme examples of which could be seen in many European countries in the 20th century. However, nationalism is the framework for an affiliation that transcends local organic affiliations, and in the context of democratic thought there is scope for asserting national identity, so long as such confirmation promotes the processes of modernisation and democratisation and helps resistance against Western domination. There is nothing wrong, then, if an advocate of democracy and social justice in the Arab world appeals to Arab identity, for this helps create a climate inimical to American hegemony, as well as a climate obstructive to the fundamentalist anti-American response which emanates from an antagonism to modernism itself....