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The need for a central state in countries whose borders were drawn up at foreign behest might be coming to an end. (photo by iStock via Foreign Policy)
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By: Talal Salman
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Lebanon, the country without a state, is no longer in a unique situation in the eastern part of the Arab world. It is no longer the sole exemplar of a state that has abdicated its normal functions and responsibilities; of a government whose constitutionally mandated institutions are absent or not functioning, where the government can resign and no new government is formed to replace it; of a parliament that extends its own term in office, but refrains or is prevented from making decisions, disrupting the state’s continued operation. Such behavior hollows out the state’s institutions, even if their leaders continue to enjoy their inflated titles.
The entire eastern part of the Arab world has all but lost any effective government.
The state in Syria is falling to pieces in the midst of a civil and regional war that has no clear end in sight and no defined objective. No one can predict the nature of conditions in Syria after this unprecedented war comes to end. Syria is divided into regions dominated by armed groups mostly imported from abroad. As for the “local” armed groups, one cannot be sure of their existence until they have secured “patronage” from foreign countries. That, at any rate, is how the landscape appears for “the beating heart of Arabism.”
Syria’s fate in general has become a matter to be decided by fire, which sometimes engulfs the entire land, and diplomatic maneuvers carried out in distant capitals. This reality is barely altered by the persistence of the facade of “the state,” as well as its institutions and ministries. These continue to function when possible, but the situation is very different from before, when Syria was a country held in high esteem by the people of the region, who termed it “the beating heart of Arabism.”
Matters are hardly different in Iraq, albeit somewhat bleaker and harsher. The Iraqi state is obsessed with the prospect of partition, the people suffer from a schism that widens with every passing day. Different sects, faiths and even regions that have been divided on a racial basis grow further apart. Moreover, the absence of a strong central state tempts different “demographics” to go their separate way, in accordance with foreign interests — and how disparate those interests can be!
In Yemen, which was unified territorially by force, artificial disputes between different segments of the population have undermined the country’s unity. These have been given new life by the revolution that brought to an end the era of myths and legendary leaders.
The same could be said about Libya. Moammar Gadhafi negated the state on the assumption that his revolution did not need a state, but could be managed by “committees” which he formed, dissolved and then re-formed. Gadhafi made a mockery of the state and its bureaucratic apparatus, which he deemed remote from the spirit of the people and their demands.
This is before one even begins to speak of “states” like Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, which were born in the international equivalent of a cesarean section, by gathering some tribes and clans to form the social base of a monarchy, the danger of which its subjects still do not grasp. Nor have we spoken of the Zionist entity, which was established on Palestinian land by force and conquest. Nor have we drawn attention to the danger posed by the oil hoarded by the Gulf in obscene quantities, along with the gas that has cemented the existence of a new state.
Some recall now that the Sykes-Picot agreement, a pillar of the colonialist partition of the Arab world into states that lack the fundamental capacities to prepare them for political life. These countries have subsequently shown that they paved the way for the establishment of Israel, which might become the “central state” in a region stripped of its Arab identity and forced to subsist with a merely geographic designation: “the Middle East.” It is as if patriotic and national identity are based on the four cardinal directions. Moreover, we do not know how and what mediates this “East,” and how it became the identity of the Arabs alone. It is as if it was meant to blur their original identity — which is mainly tied to history and only thereafter to geography — along with everything else Arab. But if you notice, all this was a necessary condition for Israel’s becoming this region’s only real state.
Let us return to Lebanon and its absentee state. No, it is more than that: in Lebanon the state has been “disappeared” without any official, or even ordinary citizen, sensing the gravity of the problem and the danger in this tiny country being left to flutter in the wind, its fate decided by others. And all this through a course of events in its wider region that is buffeting the country in this moment with the volcanic force of repeated bombings. They appear to be motivated by sectarianism, but in actuality they are the ingredients of a political situation that might be embodied in a re-drawing of the region’s borders so as to create new entities for “people.” No doubt “pioneers” and “men of religion” will argue that they were not actually members of a single people at all, but are instead many peoples. Indeed, they are the mixed residue and remains of peoples that passed through this region or lived in it for some time and then all but went extinct. They will be reduced to agglomerations of minorities, devoid of any shared, unifying identity. They will have no shared past so that they might have a single or shared present. And as for the future, well, it is in God’s hands …
According to this reasoning, there is no longer a need for a central state in any of these countries whose borders were drawn up at foreign behest. On the contrary, these sub-states can have their borders drawn anew at the behest of foreign diktats more suited to today’s day and age. Every sect can have its own country, as can every doctrinal variant, and every one of the country’s minorities. The numbers of “the people” don’t matter; what matters — what may matter most — is that every group will someday feel itself to be free, detached from these countries that arose from the needs of foreign interests. The circumstances have changed, and so modifications must be made to the map so that it aligns with the new balance of forces among nations and sects in the region. … And Israel must be made the central state of this land that was and will remain Arab — unless its people can be made to renounce their unifying Arab identity.
Lebanon long since grew accustomed to being a pioneer and a model for the people of this Arab land. Or perhaps, that was simply the way others wanted it to be.
Perhaps the Lebanese experiment as a unified entity, embracing many religions, sects and schools of thought has exhausted its purpose, especially once it became a regional model spreading far and wide … without it even needing to exist at all!
The entire eastern part of the Arab world has all but lost any effective government.
The state in Syria is falling to pieces in the midst of a civil and regional war that has no clear end in sight and no defined objective. No one can predict the nature of conditions in Syria after this unprecedented war comes to end. Syria is divided into regions dominated by armed groups mostly imported from abroad. As for the “local” armed groups, one cannot be sure of their existence until they have secured “patronage” from foreign countries. That, at any rate, is how the landscape appears for “the beating heart of Arabism.”
Syria’s fate in general has become a matter to be decided by fire, which sometimes engulfs the entire land, and diplomatic maneuvers carried out in distant capitals. This reality is barely altered by the persistence of the facade of “the state,” as well as its institutions and ministries. These continue to function when possible, but the situation is very different from before, when Syria was a country held in high esteem by the people of the region, who termed it “the beating heart of Arabism.”
Matters are hardly different in Iraq, albeit somewhat bleaker and harsher. The Iraqi state is obsessed with the prospect of partition, the people suffer from a schism that widens with every passing day. Different sects, faiths and even regions that have been divided on a racial basis grow further apart. Moreover, the absence of a strong central state tempts different “demographics” to go their separate way, in accordance with foreign interests — and how disparate those interests can be!
In Yemen, which was unified territorially by force, artificial disputes between different segments of the population have undermined the country’s unity. These have been given new life by the revolution that brought to an end the era of myths and legendary leaders.
The same could be said about Libya. Moammar Gadhafi negated the state on the assumption that his revolution did not need a state, but could be managed by “committees” which he formed, dissolved and then re-formed. Gadhafi made a mockery of the state and its bureaucratic apparatus, which he deemed remote from the spirit of the people and their demands.
This is before one even begins to speak of “states” like Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, which were born in the international equivalent of a cesarean section, by gathering some tribes and clans to form the social base of a monarchy, the danger of which its subjects still do not grasp. Nor have we spoken of the Zionist entity, which was established on Palestinian land by force and conquest. Nor have we drawn attention to the danger posed by the oil hoarded by the Gulf in obscene quantities, along with the gas that has cemented the existence of a new state.
Some recall now that the Sykes-Picot agreement, a pillar of the colonialist partition of the Arab world into states that lack the fundamental capacities to prepare them for political life. These countries have subsequently shown that they paved the way for the establishment of Israel, which might become the “central state” in a region stripped of its Arab identity and forced to subsist with a merely geographic designation: “the Middle East.” It is as if patriotic and national identity are based on the four cardinal directions. Moreover, we do not know how and what mediates this “East,” and how it became the identity of the Arabs alone. It is as if it was meant to blur their original identity — which is mainly tied to history and only thereafter to geography — along with everything else Arab. But if you notice, all this was a necessary condition for Israel’s becoming this region’s only real state.
Let us return to Lebanon and its absentee state. No, it is more than that: in Lebanon the state has been “disappeared” without any official, or even ordinary citizen, sensing the gravity of the problem and the danger in this tiny country being left to flutter in the wind, its fate decided by others. And all this through a course of events in its wider region that is buffeting the country in this moment with the volcanic force of repeated bombings. They appear to be motivated by sectarianism, but in actuality they are the ingredients of a political situation that might be embodied in a re-drawing of the region’s borders so as to create new entities for “people.” No doubt “pioneers” and “men of religion” will argue that they were not actually members of a single people at all, but are instead many peoples. Indeed, they are the mixed residue and remains of peoples that passed through this region or lived in it for some time and then all but went extinct. They will be reduced to agglomerations of minorities, devoid of any shared, unifying identity. They will have no shared past so that they might have a single or shared present. And as for the future, well, it is in God’s hands …
According to this reasoning, there is no longer a need for a central state in any of these countries whose borders were drawn up at foreign behest. On the contrary, these sub-states can have their borders drawn anew at the behest of foreign diktats more suited to today’s day and age. Every sect can have its own country, as can every doctrinal variant, and every one of the country’s minorities. The numbers of “the people” don’t matter; what matters — what may matter most — is that every group will someday feel itself to be free, detached from these countries that arose from the needs of foreign interests. The circumstances have changed, and so modifications must be made to the map so that it aligns with the new balance of forces among nations and sects in the region. … And Israel must be made the central state of this land that was and will remain Arab — unless its people can be made to renounce their unifying Arab identity.
Lebanon long since grew accustomed to being a pioneer and a model for the people of this Arab land. Or perhaps, that was simply the way others wanted it to be.
Perhaps the Lebanese experiment as a unified entity, embracing many religions, sects and schools of thought has exhausted its purpose, especially once it became a regional model spreading far and wide … without it even needing to exist at all!
