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| Volume VIII, December 2001, Number 4 |
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| EXCERPT: Syria: Islam, Arab Nationalism and the Military |
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| Ghada Hashem Talhami |
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Dr. Talhami is D.K. Pearsons professor of politics at Lake Forest College. She is the author of Syria and the Palestinians: The Clash of Nationalisms (see review on page 164).
One of the Syrian Islamic
movement's most obvious
characteristics is its limited
impact on a populace obsessed with defining its national destiny. More than any other Arab country, Syria has always debated its future, its ideal political system and its national identity with great earnestness. Ever since the emergence of modern Syria with its current Western-imposed boundaries, Syrians have searched for a more palatable alternative national existence. This search has taken the form of a philosophical quest as well as a practical one. Moreover, modern Syria's truncated geography, which suffered the loss of the Lebanese mountains, the Turkish territories and Southern Syria (Palestine and Jordan) resulted in a determined effort to overcome the limitations of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. This quest continued even after independence, when the Sykes-Picot and San Remo boundaries hardened into the map of the modern Syrian state. Syrians found themselves torn between a commitment to republicanism and the lure of unification with contiguous monarchic regimes such as the Hashemites of Jordan and Iraq. The quest for an alternative national map, hence, was never free of its own risks and always generated intense political and ideological rivalries.
From the beginning, the Islamist role in this quest was a limited and isolated effort. The general acceptance of the basic premise of the Islamist position was always there, but in practical terms the movement often lacked relevance, as well as strategic allies. Additionally, when compared to other rival ideologies such as those of the Baath party or the Arab nationalist movement, political Islam paled in the richness of its thought and its originality. A derivative of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, Syrian Islamist thinking was often burdened with the legacy of that movement, particularly in its confrontation with Nasserism. Rather than draw some benefits from its association with the Arab world’s most illustrious and oldest Islamist movement, Syrian Islamic organizations were tainted with the failure of their ideological forebears. Thus Syrian political Islam faced more challenges and organizational obstacles than similar movements in predominantly Muslim countries.
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