The Historical Background of Arab Nationalism

Abstract

Social change¹ in the Middle East may be explained in terms of acculturation theory, to the extent that the archaic-chiliastic and secular-nationalist variants of the literary and political renaissance which took place in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century were generated by forces from outside the area. However, this theory cannot be particularly fruitful if it implies a Euro-centric approach. Thus Behrendt devalues his otherwise useful explanation by claiming, as a European, that the ‘underdeveloped nations’ imitate all the achievements of Europe in a negative fashion² from a position of psychological weakness. von Grunebaum’s more sophisticated attempts to interpret Westernisation in the Islamic world are equally questionable. He sees it as a process which can only be understood in psychological terms: in other words ‘cultural change’ is seen in terms of psychologically-based American cultural anthropology.³