Territorial Nationalism in the Middle East

Middle Eastern Studies

Volumn 26, Issue 4, 1990, Pages 425-448

  Baram, Amatzia ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84972920609     PISSN: 00263206     EISSN: 17437881     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00263209008700830     Document Type: Article

References (73)

1. For the motivation for this campaign and for more details see, Amatzia Baram ‘Qawmiyya and Wataniyya in Ba'thi Iraq: The Search for New Balance’, reprinted from Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 19, no. 2 (April 1983).
2. Amatzia Baram, ‘Mesopotamian Identity in Ba'thi Iraq’, Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 19, no. 4 (Oct. 1983), pp. 426–56.
3. ‘Culture in the Service of Wataniyya: The Treatment of Mesopotamian-Inspired Art in Ba'thi Iraq’, in Asian and African Studies, vol. 17, (fall 1983), pp. 265–313.
4. Culture, History and Ideology in the Formation of Ba'thist Iraq, 1968–1989, (due for publication in 1990 by Macmillan-London and St. Antony's College-Oxford). And see conclusion.
5. Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London, Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 351–55.
6. The Turkish state continued its archeological thrust after Ataturk. By the early 1980s there were no less than 100 local museums spread all over the country mostly near important archeological sites that were thoroughly excavated. And while in recent writings the explicit claim that Hittites were, in fact, Turks, does not appear, there is still much emphasis on the important role of Anatolia as ‘the oldest and most important [meeting point].… between East and West’, that is, Ionia being the link between Egypt and Mesopotamia on the one hand and ancient Greece on the other, and Miletus, in particular, being the place where the sciences of philosophy, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy had begun. (See The Council of Europe, 18th European Art Exhibition, Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, The Anatolian Civilizations (Istanbul, May 22-Oct. 30, 1983), pp. 11–12.
7. Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet (London, 1986), pp. 313–14.
8. For an examination of such rites and iconography on postage stamps and bank notes in the Arab world see Emanuel Sivan, ‘The Arab Nation State in Search of Usable Past’, Middle East Review, spring 1987, pp. 21–30. And the author's private collection of bank notes. Territorial themes, fairly widespread in Lebanon's Christian-Maronite community, are not discussed here. The local pre-Islamic and pre-Arab heritage is favored by this community in its endeavor to enhance the non-Muslim (and, as many Maronites see it: non-Arab) local identity. Being free of the oscillation between Arabism, Islam and local patriotism, thus, the Maronite community is not typical of the bulk of the Arab world.
9. Sivan, p. 28.
10. See, for example, President Bakr on Army Day, Masirat al-thawra ft khutab wa tasrihat al-ra'is (Baghdad, 1971), pp. 63, 95.
11. Khaldun Sati' al-Husri (ed.), Mudhakkirat Taha al-Hashimi (Beirut, 1967), pp. 254–59.
12. Sivan, p. 28.
13. Sivan, pp. 21–25. In post-Nasirite Egypt this phenomenon became more prominent. Thus, for example, the five-and ten-piaster coins, last to be changed due to their longer life span, bearing the ‘Arab Eagle’ since the 1950s, were replaced in 1989 by coins bearing the pyramids and Muhammad Ali's Mosque in Cairo (Laurie Mylroie Ha-Aretz, 6 Oct. 1989).
14. Israel Gershoni, James P. Jankowski, Egypt, Islam and the Arabs, The Search for Egyptian Nationhood 1900–1930 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 1986), pp. 168–69.
15. Gershoni and Jankowski, ibid, pp. 186–88.
16. Ibid, pp. 96–116.
17. Ibid, p. 116.
18. See Mustafa M. Badawi, Modern Arabic Drama in Egypt (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 63–5, 207–14.
19. See, for example, the fate of Sa'd Zaghlul's Pharaonic-style mausoleum and statutes, Ibid, pp. 188–90.
20. In Search of Identity (London, 1978), p. 2ff.
21. For al-Sadat's idealized approach to the Egyptian village, ‘The Nucleus of Our Egyptian People’ and the ‘fountain of a lofty values … that should be guiding us on our way’, see, for example, his speech to parliament in May 1971, ‘Ala tariq al-mustaqbal (Cairo, May 1972), pp. 57, 64.
22. Anwar al-Sadat, Wasiyati (Cairo, Jan. 1982), pp. 7–9. See also pp. 11, 14, 33, 40, 41, 45, 85, 103.
23. See, for example, ibid, p. 10.
24. The most famous work discussing the development of the Egyptian personality in the Nile valley through history in what may be termed ‘environmental determinism’ is Jamal Hamdans monumental Shakhsiyyat misr fi'abqariyyat al-makan (Cairo, 1970).
25. Nadia Hasan Salem, al-Mustaqbal al-'Arabi, no. 51, May 1983, p. 59. See also pp. 61–2.
26. Ghalib Kayali, Hafiz al-Asad, qa'id wa risala (Damascus, 1977), p. 31.
27. Tishrin (Damascus), Jan. 8, 10, 1978.
28. as quoted in Moshe Maóz, Asad, the Sphinx of Damascus (London, 1988), p. 109.
29. Patrick Seale, Asad, the Struggle for the Middle East (London, 1988), pp. 268–69.
30. Moshe Maóz, ibid, p. 113; and other sources.
31. Maóz, p. 116.
32. see also Seale, p. 349.
33. Interviews with Lebanese intellectuals in South Lebanon in 1983. There are more indications of changes in the party's platform; young members of the SSNP gave interviews to the Syrian TV before committing suicide attacks on Israeli targets in Lebanon. In these interviews they not only deified Asad personally, but also implied acceptance of his most central ideals. This subject, however, deserves thorough study.
34. Maóz, p. 106.
35. Maóz, p. 112.
36. quoting Ghalib Kayali, Hafiz al-Asad, qaid wa risala (Damascus, 1977), pp. 31–3.
37. for Asad's statement in the Congress see Seale, p. 349.
38. Seale, p. 349.
39. Maóz, pp. 113–14.
40. Maóz, p. 114.
41. Seale, a truncated quotation, p. 349.
42. Jaysh al-Sha'b (Damascus), 28 Aug. 1973.
43. Khutab wa Kalimat wa tasrihat al-sayyid al-ra'is Hafiz al-Asad (Damascus, 1982), p. 95.
44. The Syrian Navy Days and the Battle of the Masts were mentioned above. For a Syrian school textbook issued in 1980, discussing bilad al-sham in an old and modern context, see Maóz, pp. 113–14.
45. For the oil painting of the battle of Hittin on Asad's office wall and for President Jimmy Carter's conviction after his meeting with Asad in 1984, that Asad sees himself as ‘a modern Saladin’ see Maóz, pp. 43–5.
46. See there also for state-sponsored ceremonies on Salah al-Din's tomb in Damascus, and the renaming of a Crusader's Zion Castle near Asad's birthplace, Salah al-Din Castle. (As will be recalled, in the early 1970s the province where Saddam Husayn's and President Bakr's birthplaces are was renamed Salah al-Din). For the attitude of Syrian historians to the Umayad period see Werner Ende, Arabische Nation und Islamische Gerchiete (Beirut, 1977).
47. For example the festival commemorating Abu Abdalla ibn Jabir ibn Sinan al-Battani (855–925 ad), who built an observatory in Raqqa, on the Euphrates in NE Syria, Seale, pp. 459–60.
48. Seale, p. 460.
49. In the 1980s the Figurine of Inana, the Sumerian Goddess of the ever-flowing water from Mari, and the sculpture of Palas-Athena-Minerva, found in Busra, appeared on Syrian money notes, alongside with the portrait of Salah al-Din. For the Congress and the museums see al-Ba'th, Feb. 2, 1986.
50. Arthur Segal, The Planning of the Cities along the Via Traiana Nova in the Roman Period (a. Ph.D. thesis, The Hebrew University, 1975), pp. 69–70, 79–80; and plates 95, 125, 126, 127, 129.
51. al-Ba'th (Damascus), 11 Sept. 1978, p. 6. The Minister was wrong to assume that the theater served for gladiators’ fights and sports championships. This, usually, was the function of amphitheaters, not theaters, and there are no such in the east, not even in Greece. And see on Busra in a similar vein, a praise to ‘the [archeological] presence … in our great country’, al-Ba'th, 26 Sept. 1984. And see the opening speech in al-Ba'th, 16 Sept. 1984.
52. The 14th Antiquities Congress, al-Ba'th, 2 Feb. 1986; the fifth Conference on Human Traces in bilad al-sham, Tishrin, 18 Sept. 1986; and opening the 700 years old Bayt al-Zahrawi in Homs as a folklore museum Tishrin, 16 April 1986.
53. In 1984 there was an attempt to imply vaguely that the theater was Arab. See al-Ba'th, 30 Sept. 1984; and see ibid 4 Sept. 1980. But these attempts are very hesitant and implied. The Syrians never tried to elaborate on Syria's (and the Arabs’) contribution to Rome. They could, at least, have mentioned the Horan-born, 3rd century ad Roman Emperor Philip the Arab (Marcus Julius Philippus, ruled 244–249 ad), who established Philippopolis in Syria. For details of his career, and of other Arab connections at the Roman court, see, Irfan Shahid, Rome and the Arabs, a Prolegomenon to the Study of Bizantium and the Arabs (Washington DC, 1984).
54. al-Dustur (Amman), 17 July 1988.
55. Dr. Adnan Hadidi, Director of Antiquities (ed.) Studies in the History and Archeology of Jordan (Amman, Department of Antiquities, 1982), p. 11.
56. Dr. Adnan Hadidi, Director of Antiquities (ed.) Studies in the History and Archeology of Jordan (Amman, Department of Antiquities, 1982), pp. 8–10.
57. Ibid, pp. 8–10.
58. Rami Khouri, Jerash, a Frontier City of the Roman East (London and NY, 1986), pp. 8, 19, 25–26.
59. For example, al-Dustur (Amman), July 8, 16, 19, 25, 26, 1984.
60. al-Dustur, July 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 28, 1988.
61. al-Dustur, Jordan TV, 16 Nov. 1987.
62. BBC-SWB, The Middle East, 9 Nov. 1988, p.A1–2. Author's underlining. Jugurtha is connected to ancient Berber history. See below.
63. See, for example, al-Dustur (Amman), 7 July 1986.
64. for details of the impressive Roman remains at el-Djem and Carthage see, for example, Susan Raven, Rome in Africa, (London, NY, 1984), p. 119.
65. B.H. Warmington, Carthage (London, 1969).
66. Gunter Schon, World Coin Catalogue, Twentieth Century (London, 1987), pp. 1495–4500. Depicting a renowned Christian theologian is further evidence of Tunisia's unique secular approach.
67. for detail on the Roman ruins at Sufetula see Noel Duval, Francois Baratte, Les Ruines de Sufetula-Sbeitla (Tunis, 1973). For detail on the aforementioned aspects of North African history from the Phoenician settlement (Princess Dido, c.814 Bc, if the myth has a grain of truth, or the 8th century Bc, to judge by the earliest archeological evidence) through the Roman period see, for example.
68. For description of the sites see Susan Raven, pp. 79, 111.
69. R. Romanelli, Topografia e Archeologia dell' Africa Romana (Torino, Enciclopedia Classica 1970), pp. 153–69, 586, 588–9; 598–9;.
70. Jean Lassus, Visite a Timgad (Alger, Ministère de l'Education Nationale, 1969), passim.
71. For this campaign see, for instance, Rachid Tlemçani, ‘Chadli's Perestroika’, Middle East Report, no. 163, March–April 1990, p. 17.
72. Jordanian Television, May 22, 1990.
73. al-Taqrir al-markazi lil-mutamar al-qutri al-tasi (Baghdad, January 1983), pp. 323–5.