Pan-Arab Movement 2.0

One of the most hardy recurrent failures in modern history has been the movement for a pan-Arab super-state.  The most dynamic proponent of this notion--One Big Tent For All Arabs--was Abdul Nasser of Egypt.  When he was not  trying to be the Pharaoh of the Non-Aligned Movement, the colonel who made himself dictator of Egypt was plumping for his vision of an Arab super-state--under Egypt's leadership, of course.  Nasser's dream including its real world expression, the United Arab Republic, foundered on the rock of nationalism.

The zombie may be lurching back from the tomb.  Under a different guise and with a different ideological core, but with the same goal.  This time around it is the Muslim Brotherhood which is testing the wind.  Admittedly the Brotherhood is speaking cautiously even in Arab media but the presence of recurrent references to a pan-Arab aspirations of MB founder Hassan al-Banna make it clear that the Egyptian Brotherhood seeks to succeed where Nasser failed.

The vision of pan-Arabism riffs off the key idea within Islam, the idea of the One Community, the Ummah.  Insofar as the core of Islam is Arab it stands to reason (at least in the MB understanding) that the creation of an authentic Arab super-state would constitute the necessary first step toward making the ummah a reality rather than a pleasant abstract.

In recent interviews published by a pan-Arab oriented daily, al-Sharq al-Awsat, a heavyweight of the Brotherhood, Dr Kamal al-Helbawi, makes strong noises concerning the desirability, the necessity and even the virtual inevitability of the Brotherhood forming a pan-national entity in which one "Amir" would guide the many different national "voices" of the Arab nation.  That the Brotherhood does not now have such an international organization, Dr al-Helbawi maintains, is the result of the repressive actions of authoritarian states, particularly Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Of course the repressive authoritarian regimes are gone now in Egypt and Iraq as is the one in Tunisia.  Anti-Brotherhood governments in Syria and Libya are under severe and ongoing attack.  There is no doubt but Dr al-Helbawi and others of his ideology are tempted to see the will of the deity at work to the ultimate advantage of the Brotherhood.

Leaving aside the ministrations of a benevolently inclined deity it is true that the Brotherhood is the largest and best organized movement in Egypt with a political agenda in play.  In Syria the Brotherhood has been cautiously emerging from the deep shadows where it has survived since Assad, fils obliterated its ill-timed and worse planned uprising nearly thirty years ago.  The (comparatively) minor political demonstrations in Jordan have featured the MB in a front and center role.  With respect to Tunisia the any manifestation of significant differences between the Renaissance Party and the Brotherhood are more apparent than real.

In short, while it may lack presently any sort of international organization the Brotherhood exists everywhere in the Arab states, the tumultuous as well as the quiet, the authoritarian as well as the "democratic."  The foundations of a multi-national movement exist.  The only question is whether or not a superstructure can be erected on these.

For the moment the question of how to build an international organization is premature.  Arguably it is premature for the Brotherhood under whatsoever name to seek power in any of the states presently going through the painful process of reinvention.  Nowhere is this more true than in Egypt.

Egypt is the key.  The Muslim Brotherhood must ultimately succeed in Egypt if it is to have any potential as the instrument of Pan-Arabism.  But, to succeed the Brotherhood must stand back, avoid governmental responsibilities and allow other parties, other ideologies to fail in office.

"Winning" in the Egyptian political game is predicated on every other competitor failing.  The Brotherhood must stand unpolluted by failure as the last, best hope for Egyptians and their financial well being.

In Egyptian politics "it's the economy, stupid!"  Bill Clinton's slogan of twenty years ago applies to Egypt with a power far surpassing its relevance to the long ago election of the Boy Wonder of Whitewater.  A recent US government poll of Egyptian attitudes confirmed what the Geek and a few other observers argued months ago, the nitty-gritty of the uprising which ended an era was and is economic not political.  There was no great and unsatisfied thirst for democracy just a very real, very painful hunger for real jobs with real paychecks.  Four out of every five Egyptians who supported the "Lotus Revolution" did so out of personal economic motivations.

Considering that the Egyptian economy is far worse now than before the revolution and giving proper weight to the unrealistic expectations of the average man on the street in Cairo, the next government, the purported product of pure democracy in action will have the most impossible of missions: impossible.

The Egyptian public will expect an economic millennium, the instant arrival of a whole new day of prosperity, a new dawn without the sullying clouds of cronyism and corruption.  A fresh era of equitably distributed wealth, low food prices, cheap gas, almost free electricity.  A paradise on Earth where the grapes are fresh and juicy, the pomegranates plump and low on the bush while the streams run sparkling with not just cool, clear water but wine which neither befuddles or brings hangovers in its wake.  Maybe even seventy-two raisins as well.

The Egyptian people will be disappointed.  There is not going to be a whole new day of prosperity and headache free wine.  Not even the international welfare program already announced by the US and others is going to bring about the desired outcome of endless and equitably distributed wealth.  Disappointment brings anger in its wake.

With a sort of we-did-it-before-and-we-can-do-it-again mood the mobs will take to the streets one more time.  Well, more likely many more times.  Push will go to shove and shove will move to shoot.  Either the army or the Brotherhood will be the eventual knight on a white horse.  In all probability the army will defer to the Brotherhood, staying in the background as the final guarantor of sovereignty.

When all other parties and ideologies have been tried and have failed, the Brotherhood will come to the fore.  At this point the spirit of desperation will be pervasive and deep.  The MB will be seen as a savior and so hailed.

Under whatsoever name the Brotherhood's political arm will focus on a message of Give the Koran a Chance.  It will invoke Shariah to the max.  In keeping with the Islamic fear of division (fitna) the army will support the Brotherhood's demand for unanimity and suppress dissent to a degree far surpassing anything ever contemplated by the ancien regime.  If the combination of repression and Shariah works to any extent at all or if the religious passions unleashed by the interaction of financial suffering and the exhortations of preachers are strong enough, Egypt will become Ground Zero in the emergence of a new form of Pan-Arabism.

In a way the MB and its kindred adherents of political Islam cannot lose.  After other, less religiously predicated political parties fail to bring promised prosperity, the MB will either succeed where the others have failed (unlikely) or will be able to motivate more commitment by more Egyptians to an austere form of militant Islam by claiming that when and only when the Egyptians and other Arabs prove themselves to be deserving of the deity's favor will that favor be bestowed (quite likely.)

The MB, if it moves cautiously for a few more months, maybe a year at most, and lets everyone else try, get elected and fail, it will be in a classic "heads I win; tails you lose" dynamic.  Either foreign (infidel) governments will have to support the MB dominated regime for fear of unleashing one more terror based war or the MB will call for jihad as the best way to prove obedience to the will of the deity so as to gain the deity's favor and attendant rewards.

Either avenue leads to pan-Arabism with Egypt at the center.  Either route will allow the Brotherhood to succeed where the secular socialist Nasser failed.  Best of all either approach requires nothing beyond what the Brotherhood already possesses in abundance: an ideological agenda, patience and the willingness to preach a very basic, quite pure form of Islam.

Or, the capo di tutti capi, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence might have been right when he stated the Brotherhood was a deeply divided bunch of secular quasi-politicians.  Well, the Geek won't bet his ranch on that thought.