Abstract
With the end of Soviet communism, liberalism triumphed, not only as political language, but also as a philosophy of history. The following chapter draws mainly on examples from Lebanon and Syria in order to show the multifaceted reactions of (former) Arab communists and Marxists to this challenge and to sketch their trajectories from the end of the 1960s to the present day. The central thesis is that Arab Marxists have increasingly adopted a liberal vocabulary and that, because Marxism has become marginalized in the political field, many former communist partisans have migrated not only to other political shores, but also to cultural activites.
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Notes
See, for example, Sami A. Hanna and George H. Gardner (eds.), Arab Socialism: A Documentary Survey (Leiden: Brill, 1969);
Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism 1860–1914 (Berkeley: California University Press, 2010);
Roel Meijer, The Quest for Modernity: Secular Liberal and Left-Wing Political Thought in Egypt 1945–1958 (London: Routledge Curzon, 2002);
Tareq Y. Ismael, The Communist Movement in the Arab World (London: Routledge Curzon, 2005).
Michaelle L. Browers, Political Ideology in the Arab World: Accommodation and Transformation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Stuart Sim, “Introduction: Spectres and Nostalgia: Post-Marxism/Post-Marxism,” in Post-Marxism: A Reader, ed. Stuart Sim (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), pp. 2, 5–8.
Lebanese Communist Party, “Nadwa fi sur hawla rahaniyyat mawaqif Mahdi ‘Amil fi mas’alat al-islah al-burjuwazi’ wa’l-taghyir al-manshud,” al-Nida’ 163 (June 10, 2011), pp. 30–31.
See Ellen Meiksins Wood, Democracy against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995).
Murqus had been excluded from the SCP because of his criticism of the French communists’ attitude toward Algeria and the Syrian communists’ reservation about Arab nationalism. Ilyas Murqus, al-Hizb al-shuyu’i al-faransi wa-qadiyat al-jaza’ir (Cairo: Dar al-Tali’a, 1959);
Ilyas Murqus and Muhammad ‘Ali Zarqa, Khiyanat Bakdash li’l-qawmiyya al-’arabiyya (Cairo: Dar al-Qawmiyya, 1959). Al-Hafiz had left the SCP for the Ba’th Party because of the communists’ critique of the Egyptian-Syrian unification (1958–61).
See Hazim Saghiya, al-Ba’th al-suri: ta’rikh mujaz (Beirut: Dar al-Saqi, 2012), p. 44. Murqus influenced al-Hafiz and the formation of the latter’s Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party (Hizb al-’Ummal al-Thawri al-Ishtiraki), which emerged from the Marxist faction inside the Ba’th Party after the 1967 defeat and Hafiz al-Asad’s rise to power in 1970. Examples for recent references are Mishil Kilu, “Thawra yuliyu: durus baqiya!” al-Quds al-’Arabi, August 3, 2010, p. 9; Samir Franjiyya, “‘An al-intifadat wa-Yasin Hafiz,” al-Hayat, November 18, 2011, available at http://www.daralhayat.com/print/329786 (accessed February 1, 2012).
Yasin al-Hafiz, al-Hazima wa’l-idiyulujiya al-mahzuma, 2nd ed. (Damascus: Dar al-Hasad, 1997), p. 27.
Ibid., p. 36. For his argument see esp. pp. 197–268 and Yasin al-Hafiz, al-La-’aqlaniyya fi’l-siyasa al-’arabiyya, 2nd ed. (Damascus: Dar al-Hasad, 1997), pp. 5–33.
Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” The National Interest 16 (Summer 1989), pp. 3–18;
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: The Free Press/Macmillan, 1992).
Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx, the State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 85.
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World War (New York: Simon &; Schuster, 1996).
Al-Fikr al-’Arabi al-Mu’asir 82/83 (1990), pp. 78–112; ibid., 100/101 (1993), pp. 4–77. See also Algerian philosopher ‘Abd Allah al-’Arawi, “Nihayat al-tar’ikh/bidayat al-ta’rikh: al-Idyulujiya al-’arabiyya ba’da azmat al-khalij — nazra ila al-mustaqbal,” al-Mustaqbal al-’Arabi 163 (September 1992), pp. 83–86,
and Syrian writer Ibrahim Mahmur, “Falsafat Nihayat al-ta’rikh’ al-amrikiyya,” al-Mustaqbal al-’Arabi 164 (October 1992), pp. 132–143.
Muta’ Safadi, “‘Nihayat al-ta’rikh’ bayan al-taymusiyya al-muzafara,” al-Fikr al-’Arabi al-Mu’asir 100/101 (1993), pp. 4–13.
Francis Fukuyama, “After Neoconservatism,” New York Times, February 19, 2006; Francis Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006).
See the critique by John Gray, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (New York: Farrar, Straus, &; Giroux, 2007).
Horst Heimann, “Marxismus als Fundamentalismus?” in Fundamentalismus in der modernen Welt: Die Internationale der Unvernunft, ed. Thomas Meyer (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989), pp. 213–230.
See, for example, ‘Ali Harb, “Sadiq Jalal al-’Azm: Iradat al-ma’rifa am iradat al-marksiyya?” al-Fikr al-’Arabi al-Mu’asir 82/83 (1990), pp. 113–123.
See, for example, Samir Amin, Fi naqd al-khitab al-’arabi al-rahin (Cairo: Dar al-’Ayn, 2010).
See, for example, Saudi novelist Turki al-Hamad, Min huna yabda’ al-taghyir (Beirut: Dar al-Saqi, 2009).
See also Lutz Rogler, “Kurswechsel: die kommunistische Zeitschrift al-Nahj vom Marxismus-Leninismus zu Aufklärung und Rationalismus (1983–1999)” (unpublished paper given at the 31st German Oriental Studies Conference in Marburg in 2010).
On the Damascus Spring, see, for example, Eyal Zisser, “A False Spring in Damascus,” Orient 44/1 (2003), pp. 39–61,
and Eyal Zisser, Commanding Syria: Bashar al-Asad and the First Years in Power (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007), pp. 77–124.
Fawwaz Tarabulsi, al-Dimuqratiyya thawra (Beirut: Riyad al-Rayyis, 2012).
Amaney Jamal and Mark Tessler, “The Democracy Barometers: Attitudes in the Arab World,” Journal of Democracy 19/1 (January 2008), pp. 97–110;
Ronald Inglehart et al. (eds.), Human Beliefs and Values: A Cross-Cultural Sourcebook Based on the 1999–2002 Values Surveys (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 2004).
See also Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976).
Faleh A. Jabar, “The Arab Communist Parties in Search of an Identity,” in Post-Marxism and the Middle East, ed. Faleh A. Jabar (London: Saqi Books, 1997), p. 103.
See Volker Perthes, The Political Economy of Syria under Asad (London: I. B. Tauris, 1997), p. 163. The Bakdash wing voted against the investment law of 1991, the Faysal wing for it.
Shawkat Ishtay, “al-Hizb al-shuyu’i al-lubnani al-mawruth thaqil wa’1-waqi’ alim wa-masar al-dimuqratiyya ‘asir,” in al-Ihtibas al-dimuqrati fi’l-ahzab al-lubnani-yya, ed. Paris Ishtay, Ahmad Jabir, and Shawkat Ishtay (Beirut: al-Furat, 2010), pp. 43–97; Shawkat Ishtay, al-Ahzab al-lubnaniyya: qira’a fi’l-tajriba (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Intishar al-’Arabi, 2004).
Muhammad ‘Ali Muqallid, al-Yasar bayna al-anqad wa’l-inqadh: qira’a naqdiyya min ajl tajdid al-yasar (Beirut: n.p., 2007).
Saghiya, al-Ba‘th al-suri, pp. 27, 51. The first communist to be elected to an Arab parliament was SCP secretary general Khalid Bakdash in 1954; see Tareq Y. Ismael and Jacqueline S. Ismael, The Communist Movement in Syria and Lebanon (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998), pp. 25–78.
The discussion is documented in SCP, Qadaya al-khilaf fi’l-hizb al-shuyu’i al-suri (Damascus: Dar Ibn Khaldun, 1972).
Hazim Nahar, “al-Mujtama’ al-madani fi suriya wa-dawruhu fi’l-taghyir,” in Ma’rakat al-islah fi suriya, ed. Ridwan Ziyada (Cairo: Markaz al-Qahirali-Dirasat Huquq al-Insan, 2006), pp. 207–209. The critic is a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party (founded by Yasin al-Hafiz).
Lu’ay Husayn (ed.), Hiwarat fi’l-wataniyya al-suriyya (Damascus: Batra, 2003), p. 20.
Marie al-Yas, “Hiwar Wannus ‘an kitabatihi al-jadida: li-awwal marra ash’ur bi’l-kitaba ka-hurriyya, li-awwal marra ash’ur anna al-kitaba mut’a,” al-Tariq 1/55 (February 1996), p. 99.
On him see Fadi A. Bardawil, “When All This Revolution Melts into Air: The Disenchantment of Levantine Marxist Intellectuals” (PhD thesis; New York: Columbia University, 2010).
Manfred Sing, “Brothers in Arms: How Palestinian Maoists Turned Islamic Jihadists,” Die Welt des Islam 51 (2011), pp. 1–44.
Miriam Younes and Manfred Sing, “Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Metapher: kommunistische Vergangenheiten und gegenwärtige Unbehaustheit in Maher Abi Samras Film We Were Communists,” in Jugoslawien-Libanon: Verhandlungen von Zugehörigkeit in den Künsten fragmentierter Gesellschaften, ed. Andreas Pflitsch and Miranda Jakiša (Berlin: Kadmos, 2012), pp. 101–118; Youssef Rakha, “Rashid al-Da’if: Writing to Yasurani,” al-Ahram 770, November 24–30, 2005, available at http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/770/profile.htm (accessed February 22,2012).
See, for example, Khalid Bakdash, Khalid Bakdash yatahaddath: hawla ba’d qadaya al-ta’rikh wa’l-fikr wa’l-siyasa wa’l-adab (Damascus: Dar al-Tali’a, 1993);
Fawwaz Tarabulsi, Surat al-fata bi’l-ahmar: ayyam fi’l-salam wa’l-harb (London: Riyad El-Rayyes, 1997);
Karim Muruwwa, Karim Muruwwa yatadhakkar fi ma yushbih al-sira (Damascus: Dar al-Mada, 2002);
Nasib Nimr, al-Rafiq al-saghir yatadhakkar: al-ta’rikh al-sirri li’l-hizb al-shuyu’i al-lubnani (Beirut: al-Sharara, 2004);
Yusuf Faysal, Dhikrayat wa-mawaqif (Damascus: Dar al-Takwin, 2006);
Daniyal Nu’ma, Jabhawiyat: al-hirak al-siyasifi suriya khilal nisf qarn 1955–2004 (Damascus: Dar al-Takwin, 2006);
Hazim Saghiya, Hadhihi laysat sira (Beirut: Dar al-Saqi, 2007).
For posthumous publications on Hawi see, for example, Jurj Hawi, Jurj Hawi yatadhakkar: al-harb wa’l-muqawama wa’l-hizb: hiwarat ma’a Ghassan Sharbal (Beirut: Dar al-Nahar, 2005);
Jurj Hawi, Jurj Hawi…shahidan al-bidayat 1938–1967, ed. Yusuf Murtada and Mustafa Ahmad (Beirut: Dar al-Farabi, 2006).
See, for example, the works by Elias Khouri such as al-Jabal al-saghir (1977, translated as Little Mountain) and Rihlat Gandhi al-saghir (1989, translated as The Journey of Little Gandhi), both published by Dar al-Adab (Beirut). See also works by former OCAL members such as Hasan Dawud, Binayat Matild (translated as The House of Mathilde) (Beirut: Dar Tanwir, 1983);
and Ahmad Baydun, Ma ‘alimtum wa-dhuqtum: masalik fi’l-harb al-lubnaniyya (Beirut: al-Marqaz al-Thaqafi al-’Arabi, 1990). Filmmaker and former Maoist Muhammad Suwayd produced two documentaries on the Maoist experience: Nightfall (‘Inda-ma ya’ti al-masa’, 2000) and My Heart Beats Only for Her (Ma hataftu li-ghayriha, 2008).
Michel Kilo, “Shahadat: Mishil Kilu,” al-Nahj 40 (1995), p. 118.
Fadilal-Rabi’i, “Sa’dallah Wannus ‘al-samittawilan’yakhruj bi-muraja’a shamila: al-manzar al-thaqafi al-’arabi fawda karnafaliyya…wa-ma ya’uzuna huwa al-jadhriyya!” al-Hurriyya 149 (1986), pp. 42–49; Yas, “Hiwar Wannus ‘an kitabatihi al-jadida.” On Wannous see Friederike Pannewick, “Historical Memory in Times of Decline: Saadallah Wannous and Rereading History,” in Arabic Literature: Postmodern Perspectives, ed. Angelika Neuwirth, Andreas Pflitsch, and Barbara Winckler (London: Saqi Books, 2010), pp. 97–109.
Sa’dallah Wannus, Munamnamat ta’rikhiyya (Beirut: Dar al-Adab, 1996).
Hazim Saghie, “Individualism in the Arab Middle East: An Overview,” in The Predicament of the Individual, ed. Hazim Saghie (London: Saqi Books, 2001), pp. 51–59.
Rashid al-Da’if, Azizi al-Sayyid Kawabata (Beirut: Dar Mukhtarat, 1995), trans. Paul Starkey as Dear Mr Kawabata (London: Quartet, 1999).
Samira Aghacy, “The Use of Autobiography in Rashid al-Da’if’s Dear Mr Kawabata,” in Writing the Self: Autobiographical Writing in Modern Arabic Literature, ed. Robin Ostle, Ed de Moor, and Stefan Wild (London: Saqi Books, 1998), pp. 217–228;
Paul Starkey, “Crisis and Memory in Rashid al-Daif’s Dear Mr Kawabata: An Essay in Narrative Disorder,” in Crisis and Memory: The Representation of Space in Modern Levantine Narrative, ed. Ken Seigneurie (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2003), pp. 115–130;
Ken Seigneurie, “The Importance of Being Kawabata: The Narratee in Today’s Literature of Commitment,” in Poetry’s Voice—Society’s Norms: Forms of Interaction between Middle Eastern Writers and Their Societies, ed. Andreas Pflitsch and Barbara Winckler (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2006), pp. 237–246;
Angelika Neuwirth, “Linguistic Temptations and Erotic Unveilings: Rashid al-Daif on Language, Love, War, and Martyrdom,” in Arabic Literature: Postmodern Perspectives, ed. Angelika Neuwirth, Andreas Pflitsch, and Barbara Winckler (London: Saqi Books, 2010), pp. 110–133.
For a general overview see Sune Haugbølle, “Imprisonment, Truth Telling and Historical Memory in Syria,” Mediterranean Politics 13/2 (July 2008), pp. 261–276.
For the ordeal of a poet close to the Communist Action Party, see Faraj Bayraqdar, Khiyanat al-lugha wa’l-samt: tajribati fi sujun al-mukhabarat al-suriyya (Beirut: al-Jadid, 2006);
about his 16 years in prison writes Yasin al-Hajj Salih, Bi’l-khalas ya shabab! 16 ‘amman fi’l-sujun al-suriyya (Beirut: Dar al-Saqi, 2012).
For the experiences of a Christian mistakenly imprisoned as a Muslim Brother and isolated among them, see Mustafa Khalifa, al-Qawqa’a: yawmiyyat mutalassis (Beirut: Dar al-Adab, 2008).
Souha Bechara, Resistance: My Life for Lebanon (New York: Soft Skull Press, 2003). Bechara tried to kill pro-Israeli militia commander Antoine Lahad in 1988 and was imprisoned until 1998.
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Sing, M. (2015). Arab Post-Marxists after Disillusionment: Between Liberal Newspeak and Revolution Reloaded. In: Hatina, M., Schumann, C. (eds) Arab Liberal Thought after 1967. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137551412_9
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