Is the solution to pan-Arabism simply to rethink our concept of borders?

In light of the failed Arab Spring, Geneive Abdo is among the scholars now tackling a subject that many Western liberals see as the elephant in the room: The senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution seeks to confront the complex relationship between religion and politics in the Arab world, where sectarianism is rapidly on the rise.

“Sectarianism in the Muslim world is so intractable and it will unfortunately plague the Middle East for years to come,” Abdo writes in her latest book, “The New Sectarianism: The Arab Uprisings and the Rebirth of the Shi’a – Sunni Divide.” Abdo’s other books include the 2000 “No God But God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam” and “Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America After 9/11” from 2006.

“While the conflict [between Sunnis and Shia Muslims] is centuries old, Arabs identify more with their religion now than they did in the past,” Abdo explains from her office in Washington, DC.

Born in 1957 in Texas to a Lebanese Maronite family, Abdo lives and works in Washington, DC, but travels to the Middle East several times a year as part of her ongoing research, documenting the changing nature of politics in the Muslim world.

Her journalism work — which predominantly focuses on political Islam and religious identities — has appeared in numerous US newspapers, journals and websites, such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Abdo previously wrote for The Guardian when she was based in Tehran, becoming the first American journalist to be based in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Presently, she also co-chairs a program on Iran in conjunction with the Heinrich Böll Foundation North America.

Abdo has also previously worked at the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations — a project created under former UN secretary general Kofi Annan aimed at defusing tension between Western and Islamic societies.

Published in December, the central focus of Abdo’s new book is to illustrate the suspicion with which Shia and Sunni Muslims now view one another, especially after the Arab Spring.

Many in the West initially believed the revolts of the Arab Spring would result in most Arab countries transforming — almost overnight — into model nation states.

As Abdo’s latest book points out, a quick look at the rather complex history of the region proves this assumption to be naïve.

What happened instead was that the region’s religious identity exploded, expressing itself either through the rise of Islamist political power, or through the emergence of the Salafists and other such sectarian phenomena.

Abdo posits that downplaying or ignoring the religious aspects of the conflicts gripping the Middle East today may muddle Western understanding of politics across the region even more.

The greatest recent political development in the Middle East has been threefold, says Abdo: “The diffusion of Islamism, the rise of many [non state] actors, and the disagreement over how Islam should be practiced.”

‘While the conflict is centuries old, Arabs identify more with their religion now than they did in the past’

Recent estimates put the population of Muslims across the globe at about 1.6 billion. Shia Muslims represent approximately just 10 to 13% of that figure. In fact, Iran — and to a lesser degree, Iraq — are the only two modern states in which Shia political power dominates.

The profound challenges facing Shia Muslims were documented in a Pew poll in 2012 which showed that there was a widespread belief in most Arab countries that the Shia are not “real Muslims.”

This stark division between Sunni and the Shia could see countries in the region shifting their borders along sectarian lines, says Abdo.

Potentially, it could even end in a partitioned Iraq and Syria, with Shia and Sunni Muslims living separately; an even more divided Syria than exists today; an increasingly polarized Lebanon; and the further marginalization of the Shia in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, where confinement to their own communities in both countries would be the stark reality.

After the Arab uprisings in 2011, nationalism in some countries became less important, Abdo explains. Meanwhile, sect, gender and identity all became much more prominent.

As these religious revivals gathered momentum, the efforts by Arab states to invent a nationalist tradition to secure the idea of a nationhood began to collide with societies’ growing Islamism, says Abdo.

And, over time, this battle between the old pan-Arab nationalist model and Islamism evolved, the journalist and scholar explains.

“This battle between Islamism and nationalism has a different form now,” says Abdo.

Back in the 1990s, for instance, there were two extremes, Abdo recalls — the authoritarian state and the Islamists. This was particularly true in Egypt, she says. And each side benefited by putting themselves forward as the better option.

Abdo cites former Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, as someone who played this Machiavellian political game much of the time to his advantage.

“The decline in nationalism and the rise of Islamism in many forms — first extremism, and then more [democratic forms] such as the [election of the] Muslim Brotherhood — created more instability because Islamism was democratized,” says Abdo.

‘Salafists have been around for centuries, but what has changed is their entry into politics’

“There are now many interpretations and many messengers of Islam who consider themselves arbiters of the faith,” she adds.

Abdo claims Salafists are popular now in Egypt for much of the same reasons.

“Salafists have been around for centuries, but what has changed is their entry into politics,” says Abdo.

In Egypt, the Salafists directly entered politics after Mohamed Morsi was sworn in as the country’s first democratically elected president in 2012. Morsi’s government was then overthrown by the military in a coup d’état just a year later.

Salafist discourse is based on a fundamental belief that the Shia are not real Muslims.

“Salafists appeal to those who wish for a more traditional and socially conservative Islamic practice,” Abdo says. “But all Islamists are popular now.”

One striking marker of just how deep this realignment has been within Arab societies across the Middle East, Abdo claims, is the fact that resistance to Israel’s occupation of Palestine now has far less currency in the Arab world than it once did.

“The Arab uprisings have critically inhibited the Palestinian cause,” says Abdo. “It’s no longer a priority for other Arabs.”

“[Sunni Muslims] have their own concerns. For them Iran is now considered a greater threat than Israel,” she adds.

It’s also worth noting, says Abdo, that the rhetoric of most militant Sunni movements such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State reserve at least as much venom for the Shia as they do for the United States and its allies.

 

 

The most pressing problem concerning the Shia-Sunni conflict, Abdo claims, is that it’s a fundamental difference of belief between two interpretations of Islam.

“The conflict is fundamental because it is how Muslims identify their tradition and belief system,” says Abdo.

And the tension, therefore, cannot be bridged or hindered, because too much is at stake. Abdo says that “Who rules the state, and who controls religious interpretation both hang in the balance.”

Following Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, a theocratic state may have once seemed like a viable, albeit imperfect alternative for some Muslims across the Middle East. This was especially true in comparison to Western style secular nationalism, which usually took the form of the autocratic, undemocratic, and authoritarian regimes that were on offer to Muslim countries at the time.

However, as Abdo’s book argues in some detail — in the eyes of the Sunni majority of Muslims at least — the Shia are now viewed as an untrustworthy, unstable, and dangerous element of Muslims.

“This view primarily has arisen because of Iran’s long history in the region,” says Abdo.

‘The Sunnis conflate Shiism with Iran’

“The Sunnis conflate Shiism with Iran. Now, after the Arab uprisings and the Iran nuclear deal, there is a profound anxiety among Sunnis that Iran will only grow more powerful in the Arab world,” Abdo adds.

Although Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei, often speaks publicly about the need to unite all Muslims across the Middle East — especially in their opposition to Israel — the Sunnis, Abdo reiterates, believe Iran has expansionist ambitions based on its activity in Iraq and Syria, where Tehran is heavily involved.

Furthermore, Abdo points out that Iran and Saudi Arabia, and other states in the region — including Bahrain, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates — continually encourage Shia-Sunni animosity, mainly to advance their own geopolitical aims.

Many Western politicos — particularly among the more conservative Washington consensus — still see the nation state as the preferred frame through which to view the conflicts across the Middle East.

But Abdo warns that this is a crucial mistake, claiming it will just lead to further myopia from Western politicians who wish to fully understand how to deal with this rapid change currently taking place from both state and non-state actors across the Arab world today.

“The outside world will never understand Arab societies until there is a recognition that states are far less relevant than they were,” says Abdo.