What Is the Arab World - Essay Example

History: What is the Arab World? Introduction Most people usually confuse Arab to be a race which is not the case and a lot of arguments have ensued on this. It is essential to note that Arabs are connected through their history and the cultural practices as well as religion in some cases. Arabs have a range of physical features like ‘dark skin, blue eyes and red hairs’ with a majority having a moderate (not extremely dark or brown) skin colour. It is also vital to point out that most Arabs are Muslim although there are several of them who are into other religion such as Christianity. According to Rogan (2009:246), an Arab is defined as: “An Arab is a person whose language is Arabic, who lives in an Arab-speaking country, and who is in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arabic-speaking people.” This paper aims at discussing and unveiling the historical facts concerning Arab World so as to bring out a clear understanding of what Arab World and ‘Arabness’ is all about. Arabness is the feature to act, behave or possess characteristics of an Arab such as speaking the Arab language among others. The Arab World is a combination of 22 countries that are geographically located in Middle East and Africa on the Northern region that are in the territorial jurisdiction of the Arab League. Arab World member countries are Arab speaking countries that are also found within the Arab League hemisphere. Arab Nations/World is different from the Muslim World. Muslim world consist of all those states that recognise and host Muslims not necessarily Arabs which are joined together to form a world religious organisation. It has 55 states that are members currently bigger than the Arab World member states (World Book, 2007:654). Member Countries of Arab World Libya United Arabs Emirates Kuwait Bahrain Lebanon Tunisia Sudan Oman Qatar Egypt Saudi Arabia Djibouti Morocco Oman Somalia Jordan Mauritania Comoros Island Syria Algeria Yemen Palestine History and Origin of Arabs Origin of the Arabs can be traced back to their nomadic life in which they kept camel and experienced several battles against the enemies they had at Damascus. Arabs’ cradle land was Arabic Peninsula although they have expanded since then to gain dominance on a vast Middle East and Northern Africa through fights supported by Muslim armies. These fights were led by the then king of Assyria called Shalmanezer at a place known as Karkar. It led to recognition of the Arabs in the first instance. Since life of a nomad only depends on the belongings he/she had on his/her camel, this almost led to the loss of the Arab culture but the emergence of the Muslims preachers helped spread the culture every where they went retaining the identity of the Arab culture (Rogan, 2009:66). These Arabs also had special experts who developed and recited poems known as ‘Shairs’ which translates to a ‘seer’ one who has knowledge on a particular area of expertise. These poems were in two different divisions, one type being a short recitation that praised one’s ethnicity and at the same time mocked the enemy while the second division was a little bit longer and complex having four subsections. The initial first three subsections were stories that outlined the journey of the ‘Shair’ as he travelled through the desert losing his dear ones in the process while the last subsection was totally dedicated to praise their camel which played a great role in their nomadic life (Sabby, 2010:11). The great expansion of the Arab World and successful conquest of cities they went to was as a result of love for war that these communities exhibited. Islam spread like bushfire even after the death of Mohammed in 632, more than half of the regions in the Arabia land had being conquered with the religion, places like Syria and Mesopotamia were all brought under the new adoption. This can be attributed to the emergence of strong Muslim armies that were formed from the Arabs. Regions such as Palestine, Syria and Damascus that had great Christian dominance were changed to become Islamic states between 635 and 638. Islam replaced Judaism and Christianity and the spread of the faith became unstoppable in these regions. The conquest of the Arabs in many other regions coordinated by the Muslim armies progressed with regions such as Persia, Egypt, France, Spain and Greece feeling the absorption and assimilation of the Muslim-Arabic influence between 637 and751. Whenever they entered they could hardly fail to leave trademarks of their culture and this saw Islam and Arabic culture spread across these areas significantly. The expansion were not only on the Middle East and Africa but also spread and cut across through to some parts of the West such as France and Spain in which they engaged them in numerous fights to gain dominance (Mahajan, 2012:109). Initially, the Muslim army consisted only of the Arab fighters and no other person formed the army but as time went by, there was lack of adequate supply of the Arab fighters in the Muslim army. This was after Muslim had gained considerable dominance and many people including no-Arabs had been converted to the Islamic faith. They were therefore recruited into the Muslim army to fight against the non-Muslims and extend the spread of the religion. Berbers and the Persians are among those who were incorporated amidst tension and conflicts of mistreat of the non-Arabic Muslims who felt they never received the first priority in all activities because they were engaged in. Ottoman and Colonial Rule Mongol having invaded the Arab sect known as Abassid Caliphate brought its dominance to a halt. The Arab World was put under control and territorial rule by the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Egypt and Morocco were now under new dynasties; Turkic and Berber respectively. The fall of Ottoman Empire owing to World war saw the rise and independence of most of these Arab World countries. They were taken over by the colonial powers once the Ottoman Empire fell. Arab Nationalism /Pan-Arabism The rise of Pan-Arabism was inevitable as the Arab World countries sought to be united and fight in one voice with a political objective leading to the foundation of Arab League in 1945 and headquarter set in Cairo, Egypt although this was changed to Tunis, Tunisia after Egypt was ejected due to signing “Camp Davis Accords’’ in 1978. A need to have a broader agenda led to the changing of Pan-Arabism to Pan-Islam with Islamic and nationalism agendas, both at hand. Conflicts in the Modern Times Myriad of conflicts have erupted in many of the Arab World that have changed these countries in several ways. The need to unite Saudi Arabia brought about conflicts for 30 years and the emergence of a third Saudi Arabia state came up. Somalia also has been involved in a civil war since 1991 when the opposition drove out and ejected the ruling government leading to an uprising of several radical forces that have since fought the government. An example is the Alshabaab Militia group that has created a lot of problems for Somalia. Conflicts between Arabs and Israeli have hit headlines for quiet long due to geographical expansion issues leading to the signing of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israeli. Consequently, Iraq-Iran border wars have gone deep into the history of these to Arab World nations. Iraq invaded Iran taking advantage of the internal revolutionary conflicts in Iran so as to win the expansion of the geographical borders between them and neutralise the uprising of Islam among the Shia of Iraq who had been repress and smothered by the Iran’s revolution. This was lasted for about eight years, arguably the second longest war of the 1980s which eventually saw Iran recover and restore its dominance on the regions it had lost to Iraq. The war was known as ‘Gulf War’. A great catastrophic civil war was also witnessed in Lebanon which lasted for 15 years since 1975 and recorded deaths of over one hundred thousand people. The number of people injured went up to one million people and dislodging over seven hundred thousand people .The war was quiet disastrous and brought up a new turn up of things. Around the same period that Lebanon was involved in this civil war, Western Sahara and Morocco also got into war that lasted for 16 years. The Arab Spring, North Yemen and fight for petroleum control are some of the other wars and conflicts that have ensued in the 19th and 20th century. Islam as a Religion In the whole world Arabs take a 3 percent of the over 7 billion humans alive which translates to about 160 million. The most distinctive feature of Arab is the subscription to Islam as a religion that they adhere to more having about 93 percent of their (Arabs) population being Muslims while the remaining are majorly Christian Arabs. Muslim Arabs are in different families such as Shia, Sunni, zaidi and Alawi. Arabs are engrained deep into Islam religion because it was among them that prophet Mohammed made his sermonised his conceptions of Islam such as Islamic tenets and this has seen the spread of the religion from among the Arabs to the outside world including nations like Spain, Asia, Northern parts of Africa and East African coastlines, Persia, Afghanistan among other promoting the understanding of Allah in these regions by the people who came after him (Mohammed). There has been a great influence of the activities of these Islam preachers who absorbed and incorporated most of the people they came in contact with leading g to a major spread of not only Islam religion but also the Arab culture. The idea of joining together to form an Arab World dates but to the 19th Century when nationalist movements started to rise and in 1945, when need to commonly represent and air out the Arab’s grievances in unison was seen as the wittiest idea to address issues that affected them in the Ottoman Empire. This was known as Pan-Arabism. The concept of “Arab World” has been greatly resented by people who geographically live in Arab countries but deem themselves as non-Arabs; communities such a Berbers and Kurds. These communities claim to be the original inhabitants of Arab nations unlike the Arabs whose original home is Arabic Peninsula (Etheredge, 2012:89). This conflict has been evident between the Arabs and ‘indigenous Semitic minorities’ who traces Arabs to places like Northern Africa and Mesopotamia. It is possible for an individual to identify yourself with Arab even if one is not natives of it. There are nations within the Arabic world that do not directly speak Arabic; only authenticated by the government .In countries like Morocco and Tunisia, there are natives languages spoken but a lot of words and phrases are borrowed from other languages such as French. It is noteworthy to recognise that countries that are members of the Arabic League are members of the Arabic World by default. During the formation of the Arab World as aforementioned above, countries that had Arabic culture in terms of language (Arabic), religion (Islam), and other aspects were considered. Those that have absorbed deep Arabic culture influence were brought to board and included in the Arabic world. However, geographical location of the nations although it was a factor did not so much influence the incorporation. The fact that Arab World countries are recognised are and geographically mapped has enabled the Arabness to become salient in both cultural and social networks (Khalili, 2009:180). Language-Arabic Islam and Arabic are inseparable since the religion demands learning of Quran should be done. This has influenced both individuals from both the Arabic World countries and Muslims from other countries to learn Arabic. The beginning of Arabness is based language which acts as a unifying factor that instils the spirits of Arabness. Among the countries that have adopted Arabic language in a bid to remain Arabic include Tunisia, Morocco among others. This demystifies the misconception that only geographical location or the territorial placement defines Arabness. Among others, language plays vital role in identifying an Arab. Arab as Ethnos An ethnos simply refers an ethnic group which means a faction of individuals who commonly subscribe to a common culture and ethnic practice. Arab is a culture that Arabians (natives of the Arabic Peninsula) followed and practiced. People who speak Arab are diverse and this makes Arab be heterogeneous in nature that have diverse backgrounds and characteristics. What makes the Arabs stay together and identify them distinctly is the common cultural, political and language customs. According to Bickerton (2007:245), Arab identity is based on the genealogical (family life structure), cultural and linguistic grounds.” All these three aspects are what make up and distinguishes an Arab as they continually interact to bring out the Arabness in a person not necessarily based on his/her ancestral origin. Remapping the Arab World The need to remap and change the contours of the Arab World proved to be a game changer for the Arab World and this has restructured and re-written the history of the Arab World significantly. Since the inception of the initial history of Arab World, a lot of changes have occurred making Arab World record a totally different history (Bickerton, 2007:327). Conflicts and constant disputes have been the order of the day for most countries constituted in the Arab word such as Syria and this has altered the pre-war written histories that they had. America has played a bigger role in remapping the territory of the Arab World especially the Middle East countries. Most of these countries have been marred with constant chaos, wars and violence making the American to indulge as some of these violence are border disputes. Unlike it was mapped before in the initial history of Arab World, the landscape and boundaries have been modified and restructured hence changing the history. The war that ensued between United States of America and Iraq is one of the forces which has changed the Middle East completely from the one it used to be several decades ago. The West has been more concerned in reshaping and re-strategising the landscapes of these Middle East Arab countries that have been involved in wars. Through disguising as humanitarian/ peace-keeping missions, the West have conquered and modified the boundaries of the Arab countries. An example is the constant overthrowing or the Egypt leaders; Mohammed Ali, Ahmed Urabi among other have all become victims of this leading to them being ejected from office. According to Sowel (2004:34) , conflicts that the West and most Middle East in the Arab World have very little to do with production of weapons of mass destruction and danger to security but it is an activity to control, reshape and remap these countries and be in charge of resources. This remapping and reshaping has been achieved through a milestone of events. It started during the World War I, where after the war the European empires put the Arabs under a protectorate denying the Palestinians from accessing their legitimate lands. As it continued, World War II added misery to the Arabs as the raging conflicts between two superpowers determined the fate of the people. It emerged that Israel was created on the Palestinian land. Egypt as well suffered an invasion by the French and British forces later on as they challenged the geo-political emergence and emphasised on their supremacy and dominion in order to bring down Nasser thrown (Sowel, 2004:345). These were actions meant to reshape and remap the countries some few decades after the World War. Israel was also involved in this invasion although they were commanded out of Egypt by the super power. The invasion, through collaborated efforts that Israel conducted saw it remap the spheres of Syria, Egypt, Palestine and Jordan; all being Arab states. Nasserism which was aimed at bring together the Arab states was seen as a threat by the American and this put it into a lot of wars with the West. Lebanon is another victim of boundary reshaping as it was invaded by the Israeli forces supported by the US and the objectives of these invasions were to; obstruct the generation and creation of a strong Palestine state, to reshape the geo-political boundaries, and to condense and weaken Syria to a state that could be easily controlled. Although two out of the three of the Israeli goals were halted by the resistance from the Palestine, one actually succeeded. These have since ensued great rivalry between the Lebanon and the West leading to even more fights and unending battles in a bid to resist and rebel against these forces. The Re-Written recent History Due to the constant fights the Arab World have engaged in, their image has been tainted and their rulers or leaders are seen as dictators who do not provide a democratic space for their subjects in their respective countries. Only Comoros and Mauritania are considered to be democratic countries. Morocco, Kuwait and Lebanon are somewhat fairly democratic while the remaining Arabic World nations do not have any shred of democracy in them. The intra and inter-fights that the Arab World nations have been involved in have changed the face of the Arab World and restricted the relationship and interactions they have leading to a disintegration of the unity that existed when the Arab League, Pan-Arabism and Pan-Islamism were being formed. Some nations have joined coalitions that have condemned and opposed other and this is evident in the partnership or multi state alliance formed among Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia to repel against Iraq. This has seen Iraq as an enemy to fight against and has therefore limited any positive relationship between Iraq and other countries (Rutherford, 2008:327). It had been earlier on been established that non-democratic regimes be weakened and brought down but this has waited until just recently in the 21st century when it took effect. It was in place that those regimes that were authoritarian in nature be destroyed in the early 1950s but this objective was seen in the year 2003 when the US invaded Iraq and brought to an end the Sadam Hussein’s authoritarian regime. A revolutionary events have also emerged and dug roots in the Arab World where elite youths with the help of media and web access have risen up to bring up a new wave of change by introducing new third force alongside Pan-Arabism and Pan-Islamism which were the major forces during the 20th C. During 2000-2003, Syria and Egypt saw uprisings that were opposed to the dictatorial regimes which emerged specifically to oust the considered poor and bad regimes of the day. In 2000, movement (Damascus Spring) came up with a new wind of change that was meant to sweep out the ineffective regime and provide for a democratic space but it failed as the government of the day (Baadhist) were strong enough to be brought now hence the movement failed. In 2003, Egypt as well rose up to oust Hosni Mubarak’s rule through ‘Kefaya’ which was a democracy fighters. Its main aim was to introduce new democratic reforms and ensure rights of people are held by the government of the day (Chase, 2006:63). These many attempts and changes that have been battled over time have greatly modified the outlook of the Arab World. The fights that have ensued in and around the Arab World indicate how a cohesive union can be easily broken if conflicts, wars feuds and violence are involved. Without peace and stability cohesion and consolidation cannot be achieved. The aspect of Arabness has been shown in the modern world as conflict-based culture that is ever in wars, wars which have roots long before modernity. Significantly, the history of the turn of events has helped one be able to trace the wars and battles that we witness today in the Middle East, wars that started as border conflicts but gradually erupted as to be what they are today. Conclusion From the above discussion based on the in-depth critical analysis of the roots of the Arab World, a number of what issues and conflicts that we observe today can be contextualised and accurately be understood as most of them begun long way before the 21st Century. In today’s world, nations are still fight each other fiercely and one can wonder where all these started. Through the essay, the need to conquer and control resources, expand the boarders among others are reasons why the conflicts begun and have progressed over a long time. The reality is that countries like Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Somalia and other Arab World countries are engrained in serious fights for reasons that have well been unfolded. References Bickerton, I.J. & Klausner, C.L. (2007) A history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Upper Saddle River, N.J., Pearson Prentice Hall. Briggs, A. (2008) A history of Longmans and their books, 1724-1990: longevity in publishing, London, British Library. Caetani, L. 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