No Arab Bolivars: As Region Implodes, Arab Socialism Fizzles Out | Ramzy Baroud

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Ramzy Baroud -- World News Trust

April 29, 2015

A student group recently asked me to address socialism in the Arab world, with the assumption that there is indeed such a movement that is capable of overhauling inherently incompetent and utterly corrupt regimes, across the region.

But of course, no such group, or configuration of socialist groups exist today, but in name.

I recall a talk I delivered in London soon after Hamas was placed under siege in Gaza in 2007. “Hamas is the largest and most effective socialist movement in Palestine,” I said to the surprise of some and the agreeing nods of others. Of course, I was not referring to Hamas’ adherence to Marxist theory but to the fact that it was the only operating grassroots political movement that had, in some ways, succeeded in lessening the gap between various social and economic classes, all united by a radical political agenda.

Moreover, it was a movement largely made of Palestine’s fellahin (peasants) and workers who were mostly centered in refugee camps. Compare to the detached, elitist, largely urban-based “socialist” movements in Palestine, the mass of Islamists in the occupied territories is as socialist as a movement can be under the circumstances.

But what do I tell the student group, made of young, enthusiastic socialists who are eager to see the rise of the proletariat?

A starting point would be that there is a difference between western socialism, and “Arab socialism,” a reference coined by Arab nationalists in the early 1950s, as a merger between nationalist and socialist movements began to take hold, ultimately leading to the formation of the Ba’ath parties of Syria and Iraq. The idea was originally framed by Salah al-Din al-Bitar and Michel Aflaq, founders of the Ba'ath Party.

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