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Hanibaal Khaddam -> RE: Antoun Saadeh (3/2/2007 6:00:19 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: azinorum You are referring to the Syrian of the early 1900’s, a golden Era for Syria when it controlled Jordan and Israel (Palestine) but things have changed somewhat since then. There was no real Syrian Nation, Arab Nation or any other Nation for that matter. Arabs of Christian and Muslims faiths have too strong and separate identities to have ever become a one nation. These regional aspirations are totally unrealistic in today’s world and always appear to have ulterior sinister motives? I don’t have enough independent background info on Saadeh or his party to pass judgment and I do see how attractive some of Social Nationalist doctrine can be to Iraqis in today’s climate. There are certain points that I strongly believe in such as separation of religion from the State and debarring the clergy from interference in national political and judicial matters. These are very worthwhile initiatives for Iraq at the moment. But it’s the fundamental premise that Syria should be an all encompassing Arab nation doesn't’t sit well with me. It gives the impression that SN actually does believe that Syrian Arabs are held in higher regard than Iraqi Arabs for example. Our histories differ, as does our social and ethnic mix. We are simply not the same and failure to recognize this is the first mistake. I believe Iraq has to move away from this type of Nationalism and find its own identity and we can't achieve this until we recognize,understand and respect our differences. Democracy is the only way to achieve unity. Don't judge democracy by what is happening in Iraq today. It just came too early for us and its initial failure doesn't mean it can't succeed eventually. Nationalism is a step backward and we've come too far and lost too much to sink into that trap again. I will however make it a point to look further into SN just out of interest. I would like to clear up some misconceptions here. First, nationalism, to us, is not contradictory to democracy. Nationalism is merely the awareness of one's national identity. So by being a Syrian nationalist, I am merely displaying my consciousness of my Syrian national identity. Once we become aware of our national identity, then we can move forward and act in furtherance of our national interest. As such, we would build a democratic state, whereby the interest of the nation as a whole would be protected. Let us not forget that the great democracies of today are indeed nationalistic, in that their people are conscious of their national identity, and view all members of their society as equal members of a single nation. Second, regarding our identity as Syrians, this does not merely go back to the early 1900's when Syria had not yet been divided into the entities we have today. Rather, this has to do with our reality as a society, which developed through thousands of years of social interaction across this single piece of geographic territory historically referred to as Syria, and named by the Arabs "The Fertile Crescent". What differentiates Saadeh from other nationalist thinkers in our nation is that he studied and came up with a scientific definition of a nation before determining what national identity his people were. To Saadeh, a nation is a group of people who, after a period of social interaction and intermixing on a particular piece of land, and through a process of evolution develops characteristics differentiating it from other groups. Then, applying this definition to our region, Saadeh found that the people of the "Fertile Crescent" form a single socio-economic unity. That is, historically, the people inhabiting this region naturally moved back and forth across it and engaged in interaction and intermixing with each other (horizontal interaction), as well as interaction with the land on which they lived (vertical interaction), until they formed a single distinct character. For this reason, we see that the people of this land continually had identical religions, an identical literary heritage, various unifying political entities, and a general unity of life, manifested in our social and economic life-cycle, which included uninhibited movement of products and the common use of natural resources in our industries. In addition, our unifying political entities tended, historically, to expand to the natural boundaries of the Syrian homeland and stop there, such as under the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires. And when they did move beyond those borders, they would naturally return to them once the state lost its power, such as under the Syrian Seleucid State. On a more practical level, if you look at our homeland today, you tend to see a clear manifestation of a socio-economic unity, regardless of how much we deny it. As I said before, my father, who is from Al-Qamishli in today's SAR, displays no different characteristics from his friend who is from Mosul, Iraq. My fiancee, who is from Mashta el-7elou in SAR displays no different characteristics from my sister's husband who is just across the border in Lebanon. Moreover, we continually witness a natural movement of people back and forth across our borders even today. What we intend is to strengthen this national unity we have in order to serve our interest. Our lack of national consciousness has led us from one disaster to another. It is crucial that we stop undermining our national unity. This does not mean that we should now form a single political entity across the region. Rather, it means that we should remove the barriers we have placed between us and benefit from our single life-cycle. We can begin by opening up to each other and creating an economic unity across this land, which will be of tremendous benefit to all our people and immediately boost our economic strength. This is what we mean when we speak of Syrian nationalism and not a preference for "Syrian Arabs," as you say. In fact, the name Syria originates from Assyria and is used by us to refer to our entire homeland and to all our people without any discrimination whatsoever against any group.
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