Nationalism And Nationhood In The United Arab Emirates

This book shows how an encounter with everyday nationhood in the northern United Arab Emirates can make us revisit the classics of sociology as continuous analytical world-views. Through the textual universe of Georg Simmel, and in particular his analysis of modern life as the feeling of dualism, the project reflects about how seemingly crucial challenges to the national – the forces of globalization and the wish to be unique – are drawn together with the formation of nationhood in everyday life. It does so not least by attending to the instances of everyday nationhood – like fashion and car-driving – that are at the same time central ways of embodying the modern. This volume appeals to students of nationalism, classical sociology, and the modern Arab Gulf.

Principles related to identity vary to a great extent between the states of the Arab world in particular and the Islamic world in general. While this differentiation is widely acknowledged, much of the recent debate on contemporary Islamic identity has focused on specific concepts. But the way in which the national identity of the UAE has emerged demonstrates the impediments that such limited definitions might impose. The prevailing concepts of the self and of national identity in the UAE are not represented in the Western media. Since the birth of the Federation in 1971, the UAE has developed within an Arab-Islamic framework, aiming towards progress, characterized as well by unique attributes that defy rigid stereotypes. While the UAE has committed to seek the attainment of concrete Islamic and Arab unity, it succeeded, at the same time, in establishing national perception and awareness in marked harmony with the state's commitments. The UAE has developed its own solutions to face the challenges of globalization and nationalization. This modern national state maintains powerful elements of traditional conservatism, while, simultaneously, making technical progress. The state responds to imported knowledge while trying, at the same time, to maintain the authenticity of its local culture. Due to the existence of a social infrastructure that depends, to a significant degree, on natural resources, state investment activities extend vigorously to include industrial development zones and enterprises for stock companies and establishments. This study discusses the extent to which the general observations of modern religious and national identities correspond with the collective identity of the UAE state. To achieve this aim, a general survey was carried out in order to identify, experimentally, the impact of various components of identity (e.g., religion, language, regionalism, Arabism). The research concludes that the collective identity of the UAE state is, in fact, a positive cohesive force generally not based on the contrarian model that characterizes modern national and cultural trends.

December 2, 1971 ushered the United Arab Emirates into existence and marked the end of one hundred fifty years of British protection of the Arab states of the Gulf. Today, the UAE projects an image of modernity and prosperity; but before its formation, the emirates endured poverty and political upheaval while the rulers and people navigated the transition from autonomous city-states to modern nation states under informal British rule. This book shows how the Trucial States came to form a sovereign federation, paying particular attention to the role of nationalism and anti-imperialism. Kristi Barnwell demonstrates that the ruling sheikhs of the Gulf Arab rulers in the Gulf strove to create their new state with close ties to Great Britain, which provided technical, military and administrative assistance to the emirates, while also publicly embracing the popular ideologies of anti-imperialism and Arab socialism that were still dominating the political discourse in the Arab world. In the process, she situates the Emirates' modern history in the broader narratives of the history of the Middle East. The research draws on primary source materials from British and American government archives, speeches, and government publications from the Arab Emirates, as well as memoirs and secondary sources.

The fourteen original essays in this volume explore the psychological, political, and cultural bases of Arab nationalism since World War I and are arranged around broad themes of study: academic constructions of nationalist history, nationalist presentations of Arab histories, conflict among competing nationalist visions, and more.

The Construction of Nationhood, first published in 1997, is a thorough re-analysis of both nationalism and nations. In particular it challenges the current 'modernist' orthodoxies of such writers as Eric Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner, and it offers a systematic critique of Hobsbawm's best-selling Nations and Nationalism since 1780. In opposition to a historiography which limits nations and nationalism to the eighteenth century and after, as an aspect of 'modernisation', Professor Hastings argues for a medieval origin to both, dependent upon biblical religion and the development of vernacular literatures. While theorists of nationhood have paid mostly scant attention to England, the development of the nation-state is seen here as central to the subject, but the analysis is carried forward to embrace many other examples, including Ireland, the South Slavs and modern Africa, before concluding with an overview of the impact of religion, contrasting Islam with Christianity, while evaluating the ability of each to support supra-national political communities.

During the crucial decade of the 1950s in Egypt, both Gamal Abdel Nasser and the idea of Arab nationalism were assuming more and more influence in Egypt and the greater Arab world. Exploring this phenomenon, James Jankowski also offers important insights into the political context in which Nasser maneuvered. Jankowski focuses on the period from the 1952 Revolution in Egypt to the dissolution of the short-lived union of Egypt and Syria in 1961 - and on the outlook and actions of Nasser, the dominant figure in Egypt's new revolutionary regime. Concisely and convincingly, he identifies the unique blend of ideological and practical considerations that led Egypt to a progressively deeper involvement in Arab nationalism. He draws on newly available materials from the U.S. and British archives and on the memoir literature now available in Arabic to present a detailed reconstruction of this formative period in Egyptian political history. Jankowski traces Egypt's - and Nasser's - movement from a peripheral to a central position in Arab nationalist politics.