Creating Phantoms”

Zaki al-Arsuzi, the Alexandretta Crisis, and the Formation of Modern Arab Nationalism in Syria

Bibliographic Data

ID8969016
AuthorsKeith David Watenpaugh (0000-0001-6549-8522, University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author)
Year1996
Volume28
Issue3
Pages363-389
Publication date1996-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020743800063509
OpenAlexW2139118463
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited20

This quotation may be nothing more than a well-turned phrase by its author, Zaki al-Arsuzi. Nonetheless, it illustrates a dilemma that young men like him faced in the troubled years preceding Syrian independence: As French-educated young men, should they take their places as minor functionaries in the colonial machine and accept the promise of a comfortable and privileged life, or should they join the growing political and ideological struggle to found an independent, national statein Syria? Al-Arsuzi, who is venerated by the current regime in Damascus as the ideological father of Baʾthism, went on to answer this question by spending the next eight years in and out ofthe former Ottoman province of Alexandretta, working in support of the Arab-nationalist cause. Both his contemporary writings and later recollections of the period reveal a growing political consciousness and the formulation of a complex Arabism that was at odds with the dominant ideology emanating from the large cities of Syria. This ideology, as embodied by the National Bloc government in Damascus, was personality-based, hamstrung by European colonial interests, and unable to arouse any sustained political sensibility in the broader population; it centered its political legitimacy and parochial brand of nationalism on opposition to the French occupation. Al-Arsuzi and others, recognizing the weakness inherent in this form of nationalism, drew away from its leadership in the course of the 1930s and moved to create other, more radical and militant Pan-Arabist groups

Ideology · Legitimacy · Militant · National consciousness · Nationalism · Opposition (politics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Population · Royalist · Sociology · Gender Studies · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Middle East Politics and Society

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