The Erasure Of Arab Political Identity

This book explores the long history of the evolution of Arab political identity, which predates the time of the Prophet Muhammad and is characterized by tolerance, compassion, generosity, hospitality, self-control, correct behaviour, equality and consensus. The author argues that present-day struggles in many Arab countries to redefine polities and politics are related to the fact that the underlying political culture of the Arabs has been overridden for centuries by successive political regimes which have deviated from the original political culture that the Prophet adhered to. The book outlines the political culture that existed before Islam, examines how the Conquests and the rule of the early dynasties (Umayyad and Abbasid) of the Islamic world found it necessary to override it, and analyses the effect of rule by non-Arabs – successively Mamluks, Ottoman Turks and Western colonial powers. It discusses the impact of these distortions on present day politics in the Arab world, and concludes by appealing for a reawakening of, and respect for, the cultural elements underlying the origins of Arab political identity.

This book discusses the idea that Arab cultural and political identity has been suppressed by centuries of dominance by imperial outsiders and by religious and nationalist ideologies with the result that present day Arab societies are characterised by a crisis of identity where fundamentalism or chaos seem to be the only available choices. Tracing developments from pre-Islamic times through to the present, the book analyses the evolution of Arab political identity through a multi-layered lens, including memory and forgetting, social and cultural norms, local laws, poetry, dance, attitudes to women, foreigners and animals, ancient historical narratives and more. It argues that Arab societies have much to gain by recovering the "happy memory" of Arab culture as it was before being distorted.

Shibley Telhami and Michael Barnett, together with experts on Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, and Syria, explore how the formation and transformation of national and state identities affect the foreign policy behavior of Middle Eastern states.

This book examines Arab identity in the contemporary Middle East, and explains why that identity has been maintained alongside state and religious identities over the last 40 years.

"This work is brave and important. Dr. Khashan takes the necessary scholarly risk of saying things that are unpopular in many Arab circles. Calling on the Arabs to reexamine their identity is not an easy task for a resident of Beirut."--Jamal R. Nassar, Illinois State University In this provocative study, Hilal Khashan assesses Arab political experience during the 20th century. He examines the rise and fall of Arab hopes for founding a territorial entity based on a unified identity, focusing on important issues that contribute to the existing impasse that prevails in the Arab world. These issues include the concept of Arab nationalism; the seeming inability of Arab ruling elites to liberalize their societies, propel economic growth, and enfranchise the masses; and the growth of Islamic revival movements. Khashan dissects the components of the Arabs' political quagmire by recognizing the nature of their identity crisis, as well as its ramifications. In a departure from typical academic writing, he prescribes an agenda to help the Arabs deal better with the challenges of the 21st century, dwelling on the need for them to respect authority, reconsider their nationalistic identity, define and pursue realistic objectives, and commit themselves to political representation. In addition, his explanation of Iraq's motives when it triggered the two Gulf conflicts differs sharply from most Western accounts. Khashan articulates issues that the majority of writers on Arab affairs prefer to avoid. Arab intellectuals and scholars of the Middle East as well as journalists and politicians will be fascinated by this controversial book. Hilal Khashan, associate professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, is the author of Inside the Lebanese Confessional Mind and Partner or Pariah? Attitudes Toward Israel in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan and has published in such journals as Orbis, Middle East Quarterly, and Arab Studies Quarterly.

The first systematic comparative analysis of political behavior throughout the entire Arab world, from Morocco to Kuwait. In an attempt to explain why the Arab world remains in ferment, Hudson discusses such crucial factors as Arab and Islamic identity, ethnic and religious minorities, the crisis of authority, the effects of imperialism, and modernization. "An impressive work of scholarship on the political culture and changing society of the entire Arab World. The author gives us a good picture of each country as he pursues his general themes of legitimacy, nationalism, Arabism, and the inevitable 'modernization.'"-- Foreign Affairs "Hudson has succeeded brilliantly in surveying and analyzing the entire range of contemporary Arab politics."-- Library Journal "Here for the first time is a really good general textbook of Middle Eastern politics. . . . Hudson has managed to provide detailed information about each Arab country within a sophisticated overall analytical framework, which substantially explains the situation in each country."-- Malcolm H. Kerr, Middle Eastern Studies Association Bulletin "What can be said with certainty is that all those professionally concerned with the Middle East will have to cope with this book in one way or another. . . . What is outstanding is its combination of rigorous analysis and breadth of coverage. If the book's immediate concerns are those of the political scientist, its findings and implications are important to all of us."-- Alan W. Horton, The Middle East Journal

An examination of the Gulf's dynamic popular and political culture.

WINNER OF THE ARAB AMERICAN BOOK AWARD • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR The stunning debut of a brilliant nonfiction writer whose vivid account of his grandparents' lives in Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, and Los Angeles reclaims his family's Jewish Arab identity There was a time when being an "Arab" didn't mean you were necessarily Muslim. It was a time when Oscar Hayoun, a Jewish Arab, strode along the Nile in a fashionable suit, long before he and his father arrived at the port of Haifa to join the Zionist state only to find themselves hosed down with DDT and then left unemployed on the margins of society. In that time, Arabness was a mark of cosmopolitanism, of intellectualism. Today, in the age of the Likud and ISIS, Oscar's son, the Jewish Arab journalist Massoud Hayoun whom Oscar raised in Los Angeles, finds his voice by telling his family's story. To reclaim a worldly, nuanced Arab identity is, for Hayoun, part of the larger project to recall a time before ethnic identity was mangled for political ends. It is also a journey deep into a lost age of sophisticated innocence in the Arab world; an age that is now nearly lost. When We Were Arabs showcases the gorgeous prose of the Eppy Award–winning writer Massoud Hayoun, bringing the worlds of his grandparents alive, vividly shattering our contemporary understanding of what makes an Arab, what makes a Jew, and how we draw the lines over which we do battle.