Internationalism in the Twentieth-Century Arab World
Panel 047, 2010 Annual Meeting
On Friday, November 19 at 11:00 am
Panel Description
Histories of internationalism rarely consider the Middle East. Nevertheless, various concepts of internationalism provoked intense debate throughout the Arab world during the twentieth century, and helped to shape Arab perceptions about their newly minted nation-states' identifications and roles within the international community. This panel seeks to investigate the intellectual history and the political impact of ideas of internationalism in the Arab world, from the inception of the League of Nations in 1919 through the end of the twentieth century.
The region's introduction to formal internationalism - its subjugation to the European powers under the supervision of the newly formed League of Nations - provoked a wide range of reactions, from decrying the League as a tool of imperialism to viewing it as a potential defender of the national rights of the Kurds and Assyrians. The Arab world's relationship with the institutions of internationalism during the interwar period frequently revolved around issues of borders, citizenship and statelessness; attitudes towards internationalism thus helped to define the bounds of national identities and the position of ethnic and religious minorities in places like Lebanon, Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Simultaneously, a radically different concept of internationalism looked to decolonizing states in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Indian subcontinent to create new forms of global non-Western economic and political cooperation based on anti-imperial ideologies. After 1945, Arab states participated in the newly formed United Nations with a degree of skepticism; their commitment to the internationalist principles represented by the UN was tempered by that body's continued inability to solve the ongoing problem of Palestine, as well as by its inevitable focus on Cold War alignments. During the 1950s and 1960s, regionalism replaced internationalism as a topic of serious political debate in the Arab world, even as the Arab states continued to declare their participation in the international community through enthusiastic participation in internationalist events like the Olympics. In the post-Cold War era, new concepts of Islamic internationalism emerged which envisioned linking the Arab world to Central Asia and Indonesia through new forms of political and economic collaboration.
This panel will explore the shifting attitudes of the Arab world towards concepts and structures of internationalism over the course of the twentieth century. In the process, it will begin to elucidate how doctrines of internationalism helped shape national, ideological, ethnic and religious corporate identities both within the region and in a broader global order.
Immediately upon the creation of the League of Nations in 1919, the new organization became a primary target of petitions, protests and proposals of all kinds from the newly colonized Arab populations of the Mashriq. This paper uses the archives of the League of Nations and the Arabic press to investigate how the Arab encounter with the new League of Nations impacted the expression and development of nationalist rhetoric and organization in Syria, Palestine and Lebanon from the inception of the League in 1919 to its dissolution in 1946.
Although infuriated by the imposition of European control over the Middle East, some Arab leaders in Syria and Palestine initially considered the League a potential ally in the war against imperialism, and some leading nationalists made early attempts to negotiate with the League for political rights against the colonizing powers. Similarly, minority groups in the Arab world initially tended to view the League of Nations as a possible creator of a particular vision of regional order in which they would have a defined, protected place within a post-colonial system of nation-states; Assyrian, Kurdish and Armenian communities scattered throughout the region of greater Syria all appealed to the League during its first two decades, seeing it as a potential reshaper of borders and nations.
As the interwar period wore on and anti-colonial feeling escalated, however, Arab nationalism took on a new attitude to the League of Nations, one of fury and betrayal. In the 1930s, Palestinian Arab newspapers imprecated against what they had come to see as the League's quiet support for the European imperial project and its rather more vocal backing of European Zionist settlement. Around the same time, nationalist leaders in Syria were involved in a renegotiation of the terms of the mandate and the French administrative division of Syria into "statelets," with the League as arbiter of the dispute - a debate that produced furious anti-League rhetoric in Syrian nationalist newspapers and in popular political discourse.
This history of the Arab relationship with the League of Nations demonstrates a shift from an initial wary interest in the League's principles to a permanent distrust of Western internationalist institutions. It also suggests some of the ways that the encounters of Arab political elites with the League helped to shape and sharpen national and ethnic corporate identities in the interwar Mashriq.
In recent years observers have considered the parallels between South Africa's former Apartheid regime and Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967. Seemingly forgotten in this discussion is the fact that Palestinians have long theorized and tried to cultivate international support on the basis of their shared ties with colonized and other disenfranchised peoples around the world. My paper sheds light on one aspect of this history by focusing on the Palestinian citizens of Israel, who lived under a military regime from 1948 to 1967 that segregated them from Jewish citizens, dispossessed them of much of their land, restricted their political activity, and deprived them of meaningful education and work. Drawn largely from the Arabic press, I trace two themes: a) the connections that Arab (and sympathetic Jewish) intellectuals and activists made between their status in Israel and that of Algerians under French rule, Africans under white minority rule, and blacks in the American South; and b) the lessons they drew from decolonization, UN resolutions against colonialism and racism, and the twin struggles against Apartheid and Jim Crow.
Israel's political establishment and media responded even to the suggestion of the colonial analogy as evidence of disloyalty and subversion. But other problems, stemming partly from the UN's respect for state sovereignty and its focus on individual rights, would also plague Palestinian activists who hoped to bring international attention to their plight. In analytical terms, how could they convince the world that they were colonized if they were also voting citizens of the state? On a practical level, how would international leaders reconcile the principle of decolonization with their tacit approval of Israel's 1949 armistice lines and its non-return policy toward the 750,000 Palestinian refugees? Arab leaders, for their part, were unwilling to allow such questions to threaten their budding alliances within the emerging Afro-Asian bloc. Global inaction, alongside Israeli authorities' growing harassment of anyone who expressed solidarity with the Algerian Revolution, led many Palestinians to embrace the US civil rights movement as an alternative model for resistance to military rule. While the struggle for civil equality inside Israel was a safer political strategy, and to a limited extent it succeeded, it also rendered activists unable to address the broader (and still unresolved) questions of land, sovereignty, and the refugees. Overall, I highlight the promise and peril that the politics of internationalism offered Palestinians in the postwar era.
One year after the French withdrawal from Lebanon, Gabriel Gemayel founded the country's National Olympic Committee (NOC). Gabriel Gemayel, like his brother Pierre a strong advocate of organized youth sports, joined the IOC as a member in 1952, serving several terms while remaining president of Lebanon's NOC until his death in 1987. Under him, the NOC promoted Lebanon's participation in the Olympics to the international community, promoted Lebanon to the IOC as the Phoenician ancestor and possible original host of the ancient Olympics, and promoted Lebanon to its neighbors as a leader in sport through competitions like the Arab Games and Mediterranean Games.
While Gemayel played a founding role in Lebanon's Olympic participation, one man could not have generated the commitment necessary to keep Lebanon's NOC active throughout the Civil War. These efforts began with the 1976 Olympics, for which a largely blockaded Lebanon recruited expatriates for the national team, and continued through the end of the war. More recently, the Olympics entered domestic politics through debates over former President Emile Lahoud, who competed as a swimmer at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
Although Lebanon has won only four Olympic medals (two silvers and two bronzes, for men's wrestling and weight-lifting), it has fielded a team for every Olympic competition except 1956, when Lebanon joined Egypt and Iraq in a boycott over the Suez crisis. This paper uses the archives and official publications of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Lebanese press to examine how the internationalist structure of the Olympics has and continues to serve primarily as a vehicle for Lebanon to promote itself as a global and regional player, domestically and abroad. It charts how the NOC under Gemayel advocated a prominent position for Lebanon in the Olympic community, translating this into regional prominence as founder and host of regional sports competitions. It also considers the meanings produced by Lebanon's continued Olympic participation during the Civil War, focusing on press coverage as indicating the national importance that Lebanese assigned these international events. When Lebanon's status as a nation-state was most in question, the Olympics provided a mirror through which the country could reflect a coherent image of itself to the international community and to its own citizens. Finally, it examines the politicization of Lahoud's Olympic participation following the Hariri assassination and the final part of his extended presidency, considering whether Lebanon's primary Olympic audience is now domestic.
