Europe’s influence on Arab radicalism

Radical movements in Europe were a source of inspiration for decision-makers in the Middle East

European radicalism has had a significant impact on Arab political thinking. After the First World War, German Nazism and Italian fascism appealed to Arabs, who were attracted to the discipline and organization of these movements and hoped they could help defeat their colonial rulers (i.e., the British and French).

Arabs celebrated the victories of European radicalism, which helped inspire the rise of autocratic systems and all-powerful leaders in the Arab world.

It’s not that these systems would have fared better without the surge of radical European political values; they would have suffered from tribal, regional, religious and ethnic divisions either way. But these movements made it possible for political opportunists in Arab nations to gain power and suppress their people.

Fascist Ideology

Many Turkish and Arab army officers received their military training in Germany after its unification in 1871. The Prussians educated the Turks and Arabs not only on advanced military techniques but also on the tenets of German nationalism, which, unlike liberal British and French nationalism, later became radicalized. Prussian Field Marshal Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz’s “The Nation in Arms,” which espoused German concepts of waging war, was required reading for Ottoman military instructors and cadets. Nationalist indoctrination gave cadets a sense of purpose, entrusting them with the duty of fulfilling their people’s national aspirations.

After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, Arab officers in Iraq established the illiberal features of Arab nationalism. In the 1930s, Iraq became known as the Arab Prussia thanks to its staunchly pan-Arab army committed to rallying and uniting the Arab world, just as Otto von Bismarck helped unify Germany in 1871.

German Nazism and Italian and Spanish fascism inspired political thinking throughout the Arab region. Their message of resurrecting past glory and national rebirth appealed to Arabs who took pride in Islam’s Golden Age, which spanned from the 8th to the 13th century. The vanguard of Arab modernization accepted totalitarian fascism without hesitation and used it to advance their nationalist aspirations. Fascism also resonated among tribal-minded Arabs, who were proud of their lineage and viewed themselves as superior to outsiders. They accepted fascist and Nazi violent struggle as a means of achieving nationalist glory, even at the expense of ethnic minorities, such as the Kurds, Amazigh and Christians.

The First World War ravaged Europe and devastated its economies. Italy and Germany were more vulnerable than Britain and France because they had not yet established democratic roots. Germany’s defeat worsened the impact of its economic collapse and paved the way for the rise of Nazism. In the Arab region, a new class of fascists driven by personal ambition supplanted the defunct Ottoman oligarchs. They quickly reached positions of authority and consolidated their regimes through scheming, arbitrary arrests, assassinations and police repression. Leaders of all stripes created militant versions of totalitarian nationalism based on various identities, including Arab, Syrian, Egyptian and Christian.

Parallels

Arab fascism camouflaged as nationalism operated in a politically underdeveloped social setting. Adherents to Arab fascism employed Nazi-type propaganda to attract the masses and justify oppressing ethnicreligious minorities who failed to accept the supremacy of Arab identity and refused to assimilate.

There are several parallels between Italian fascism, which aspired to reinvent the Roman Empire, and Islamic fascism, which attempted to reinstate caliphate rule. In 1937, Mussolini organized a public event in Libya to declare himself the defender of the Islamic world. Syria’s Arab Baath Party modeled itself after Mussolini’s Third Rome, which lasted from 1922 until 1943. The party, which entertained the idea of establishing an Arab state from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean, was also heavily influenced by Mussolini’s Mare Nostrum – i.e., his ambition to resurrect the Roman Empire to control the Mediterranean basin.

The party’s cofounder, Michel Aflaq, saw the Arabs as one nation destined to rise above their weaknesses and reach the pinnacle of success. The party adopted Nazi concepts about resurrecting the German nation by advocating for the rebirth of the

Arab people as one political entity. (In fact, the word “Baath” means renaissance in Arabic.) Its ideologues argued that the Arab nation was established with the rise of Islam in the 7th century but collapsed when nonArabs took the reins of the caliphate. In 1952, when the Soviet Union began to show interest in the newly emerging states in Asia and Africa, the party was renamed the Arab Socialist Baath Party.

Other Arab groups were also inspired by European fascism. In 1931, Antun Saade founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and fashioned it after the Nazi Party. He adopted the Nazi goose-step salute and chose a party emblem similar to the swastika. He also promoted the idea that the Syrian nation was superior to other ethnicities and identities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, Pierre Gemayel modeled the Phalangist Party after Spain’s Falange nationalist movement. He used the party to promote Lebanese Christian nationalism and denied any links between Lebanese Christians and Arabs.

Italian fascism also influenced the Young Egypt Party, which emerged in 1933. It promoted anti-Semitism and anticolonialism, and in 1940, it changed its name to the Nationalist Islamic Party, pledging to resist the British military presence in Egypt. Future Egyptian Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat joined the party before establishing the free officers’ movement, which staged the 1952 coup.

Arab Nationalism versus Islamic Extremism

Islamic extremism also uses a fascist approach, but it’s more complex than Arab nationalism because it incorporates Islamic concepts and assimilationist religious nationalism to appeal to a broader audience. The Islamic State, for example, claimed a monopoly over absolute truth and mercilessly fought to prove that it was superior to other radical Islamic movements. And it had some initial success, controlling a vast swath of territory in Syria and Iraq. It planned ultimately to establish a caliphal state stretching from West Africa to India.

The establishment in 1928 of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood by Hasan alBanna coincided with the rise of fascism in Europe. Al-Banna admired Mussolini and his emphasis on mobilizing the people for political action to achieve the National Fascist Party’s objectives and hoped to use these tactics in Egypt. He was also influenced by the Nazis and modeled the Brotherhood’s newspaper, al-Nafeer, after Hitler’s Volkischer Beobachter (The People’s Observer).

Arab interactions with post-World War I Europe have had lasting consequences. Radical European movements affected how Arab leaders think politically and treat their people.

The results have not been good. Arab leaders used revolutionary concepts to help maintain a tight grip on power. They constructed a deep state, making their removal from office exceedingly difficult, as the defeat of the Arab uprisings demonstrated.

Arab leaders won a new lease on life, and the goal of effecting change in Arab society continues to elude political activists in the region.