The Arabic Language And National Identity: A Study In Ideology

286 Pages·2002·6.852 MB·

by  Yasir Suleiman

The Arabic Language and
National Identity
A Study in Ideology
YASIR SULEIMAN
EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS
For Tamir and Sinan
© Yasir Suleiman, 2003
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
Typeset in Goudy by
Koinonia, Manchester, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
The Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wilts
A CIP Record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7486 1707 8 (paperback)
The right of Yasir Suleiman to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright» Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
1 The Arabic Language and National Identity: Aims and Scope
1 Aims of the Study: The Disciplinary Context 1
2 What is National Identity? 4
3 Theoretical and Empirical Scope 9
4 Organization of this Book 12
2 Setting die Scene
1 Definition: The Achilles Heel 16
2 Two Modes of Defining the Nation 20
fj) Two Types of Nation, Two Types of Nationalism 23
(^Language and National Identity 27
5 Conclusion 33
3 The Past Lives On
1 Introduction 38
2 In Praise of Arabic 42
3 Hikmat al''Arab: Wisdom of the Arabs 47
4 Lahn: Solecism 49
^Ï^A jam and 'Arab 55
6 The Arabs as a Nation (umma): Further Evidence 64
7 Conclusion 66
4 The Arabic Language Unites Us
1 Introduction 69
2 From Ottomanism to Turkism: The Turkification of the Ottoman Turks 70
3 From Ottomanism to Arabism: Preliminary Remarks 79
3.1 The Placards 82
3.2 Resisting Linguistic Turkification 85
3.3 The Intellectuals Speak 89
CONTENTS
4 Ibrahim al-Yaziji: From Immediate Aims to Underlying Motives 96
5 Conclusion 109
5 Arabic» First and Foremost
1 Introduction 113
2 Under the Banner of Arabic 117
3 Sati' al-Husri: Arabic, First and Foremost 126
3.1 Populism: A Question of Style 126
3.2 Nation, Language and Education 128
3.3 Defining the Arab Nation 131
3.4 Arab Nationalism and the Ideologization of Language 134
3.5 Nation, Language and Religion 140
3.6 Between the Standard and the Dialects: The Case for
Linguistic Reforms 142
4 Zaki al-Arsuzi: The Genius of the Arab Nation Inheres in its
Language 146
5 Conclusion 158
6 The Arabic Language and Territorial Nationalism
1 Introduction 162
2 The Arabic Language and Territorial Nationalism:
An tun Sa'ada and Regional Syrian Nationalism 164
3 The Arabic Language and Egyptian Nationalism:
Early Beginnings 169
4 The Arabic Language and Egyptian Nationalism:
Full Elaboration 174
4.1 The Arabic Language and Egyptian Nationalism:
Salama Musa 180
4.2 The Arabic Language and Egyptian Nationalism:
Taha Husayn 190
4.3 The Arabic Language and Egyptian Nationalism:
Luwis 'Awad 197
'he Arabic Language and Lebanese Nationalism:
. General Introduction 204
5.1 The Arabic Language and Lebanese Nationalism:
'Abdalla Lahhud 207
5.2 The Arabic Language and Lebanese Nationalism:
Kamal Yusuf al'Hajj 210
6 Conclusion 219
CONTENTS
7 Conclusion: Looking Back» Looking Forward
1 The Arabic Language and National Identity: Looking Back 224
2 The Arabic Language and National Identity: Looking Forward 228
Notes 232
Bibliography
Works in Arabic Cited in the Text 249
Works in Other Languages Cited in the Text 260
Index 270
Acknowledgements
This book builds on research I have carried out over the past decade. Many
people have helped me during this period, not all of whom 1 can acknowledge
here. I would however like to express my thanks to Ramzi Baalbaki, Youssef
Choueiri, Rachid El-Enany, Ronak Husni, Emad Saleh, Muhammad Shaheen
and Iman Soliman for their help in securing some of the works upon which this
book is based. Ramzi Baalbaki’s help in securing some of Kamal Yusuf al-Hajj’s
publications was crucial in expanding my discussion of Lebanese nationalism. I
am particularly grateful to him.
I am also grateful to Bill Donaldson, Carole Hillenbrand, Ibrahim Muhawi
and Bill Roff for reading the entire manuscript and making many valuable
comments. Their perceptive remarks have improved the manuscript on all
fronts. 1 am also indebted to Ivor Normand, my copy-editor, for his meticulous
reading of the text. Needless to say, the responsibility for any remaining errors is
entirely mine.
In carrying out the research for this book, I have benefited from a number of
small grants from the British Academy, the Carnegie Trust for the Universities
of Scotland and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. I am grateful for this financial
assistance, which enabled me to visit a number of libraries in the Middle East
and elsewhere.
I cannot fully acknowledge the contribution of my family to this project. As
usual, Shahla has been a tower of strength. She pursued references for me on her
trips to the Middle East. She has also ensured that our two sons, Tamir and
Sinan, were kept busy. Her computing expertise got me out of trouble on several
occasions. For all this, I want to thank her.
Finally, Tamir and Sinan were the real power behind this book. Their interest
in it was enormous. They asked the real questions: What is nationalism? What
has language got to do with nationalism? And why is nationalism so important
as to make a father devote so much time away from his family to studying it? To
them, I owe a debt of gratitude for showing understanding and patience.
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1
The Arabic Language and National Identity:
Aims and Scope
I. AIMS OF THE STUDY: THE DISCIPLINARY CONTEXT
Nationalism is a thriving field of study in which a variety of disciplines partici-
pate. Historians, political scientists, sociologists, social anthropologists, social
psychologists, political geographers and others have all delved into different
aspects of this field. This reflects the complexity and the elasticity of the pheno­
mena of nationalism and of the durability of the interests they generate across
disciplinary boundaries. It must, however, be said that this multiplicity of theor- \
etical perspectives has generated a corresponding multiplicity of discourses, .
j
none of which can claim the prerequisite universality necessary to allow us to
talk about a theory of nationalism with any confidence. Broadly speaking, what
we have so far are two types of study. First, there are those that seek to generalize
out of a limited evidential base by proposing a set of explanatory ideas which
can then be tested against further data outside the base in question. These studies
are then refined, extended or restricted both empirically and theoretically, but
they can never completely escape the limitations inherent in their empirical
sources or the theoretical perspectives which inform them. And there is no
reason why they should. What we have here, therefore, are restricted approaches
to the study of nationalism, not a theory of nationalism or theories of national­
ism, although the term utheoryn is used in this sense from time to time. A
paradigm example of this is Gellner’s modernist or functionalist approach,
which is best suited to the study of the rise and development of nationalism in
industrialized societies, or, it may be argued, just to a sub-set of these societies.
The present study of the Arabic language and national identity does not belong
to this genre in the study of nationalism.
The second type of approach is restricted to a particular nationalism, dealing
with it in isolation or in relation to other interacting or comparable
nationalisms. The study of Arab, Turkish, Greek or other named nationalisms
exemplifies this approach. The interest of the researcher here is to describe and
explain the observed phenomena by utilizing the insights of studies of the first
type. Additionally, studies of this second type may serve as test cases for the
insights generated by general approaches. They define the empirical limits of
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THE ARABIC LANGUAGE AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
these general studies or circumscribe their excessive explanatory claims.
Progress in the study of nationalism requires the two types of study. It is
impossible to imagine that general approaches to the study of nationalism can
be conducted in an empirical vacuum, or that studies of specific nationalisms
can proceed without any recourse to theoretical insights. The present study
belongs to the second type of approach. It aims to provide a reading of a limited
site of nationalist discourse - that pertaining to the Arabic language and national
identity - as a contribution towards a general understanding of the pheno­
menon of nationalism in the Arab Middle East. This study will also contribute
to the understanding of the phenomenon of nationalism in its language-related
dimension. A prime example of this kind of study is Joshua Fishman’s pioneer­
ing monograph Lmgua^ejmd Nationalism (1972) which, unfortunately, hardly
figures in standard works on nationalism even when language is directly invoked.
The study of nationalism in the Arab Middle East has made great strides in
the last few decades. First, advocacy in favour of a particular nationalism or the
apologetic defence of it gave way to a more objective outlook. This danger of
confusing the subjective with the objective is particularly present when the
nationalist turns into a student of nationalism, thus producing a discourse which
aims to (1) valorize the status quo, (2) sanction and instigate a particular brand
of nationalist behaviour, or (3) convert the decision-makers in a centre of
political power to a particular nationalist cause. Second, description in the
'study of the topic under investigation has increasingly given way to a more
analytical and explanatory orientation. This has in turn led to an increased
sophistication in the standard of argumentation and counter-argumentation. It
has also led to the development of a sharper interest in cross-cultural compari­
sons, at least in the regional context. Third, the study of nationalism in the
Arab Middle East has sought to extend its disciplinary scope beyond its
traditional domain of history and politics, although it continues to be domin­
ated by historians and political scientists. Anthropologists and sociologists have
participated from the edges in a way which has enhanced our understanding of
the social processes involved in the internalization, negotiation and contes­
tation of national identities. Fourth, some students of nationalism in the Middle
East have sought to widen the kinds of data which can be subjected to study and
analysis. The call to use newspaper articles and other kinds of non-orthodox
materials, for example graffiti, in the study of nationalism represents a bold
attempt at trying to reshape the scope within which this enterprise has hitherto
been conducted.
' But there are also glaring weaknesses, the most prominent of which is the
reluctance to take the study of nationalism in the Arab Middle East into the
wider cultural arena of literary production, the arts, film, music, sports, tourism,
festivals, school textbooks, architectural styles, naming practices, maps, stamps
AIMS AND SCOPE
and other media of symbolic expression. There is perhaps a feeling among
historians and political scientists that data from these domains are fickle and
subject to deliberate manipulation. Moreover, scholarly tradition considers the
above media of symbolic expression to fall at the margin of the scope of history
and politics, which thus far have dominated the study of nationalism in the
Arab Middle East. This problem, however, is not entirely the making of the
historians or the political scientists. It is also partly the responsibility of
specialists in the above domains of inquiry, who have done very little to show
how their disciplines can inform the study of nationalism. Considerations of
academic worth are central here. For example, it is unlikely that any serious
literary critic would consider the study of the interaction between nationalism
and literature to be the kind of material from which scholarly reputations are
made. A study of this kind would be considered more relevant to an under*
standing of social and political history than to the study of literature in its
creative mode. The same ethos may also apply in art history, architecture, music
and film studies. Falling between disciplines with different intellectual agendas,
some nationalist phenomena in the Arab Middle East have been left out of
consideration, thus curtailing our understanding of nationalism in this impor*
tant part of the world.
Another glaring gap in the study of nationalism in the Arab Middle East is
the absence of a serious study of the most important of all systems of functional
and symbolic expression: language. It is indeed remarkable that, to the best of
my knowledge, a study of this kind has not been produced, not even in Arabic,
although limited studies touching on aspects of language and nationalism do
exist (see Bengio 1998, Chejne 1969, Holes 1993, Mazraani 1997 and Suleiman
1993, 1994,1996b, 1997, 1999b, 1999d). I say this because of the centrality of
language in articulations of nationalism in the Arab Middle East. This is true of
Arab nationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is also true of
Egyptian and Lebanese nationalism in the first half of the twentieth century and
beyond (see below). This lacuna is all the more glaring because, when set in a
comparative regional context, the study of language and nationalism in the
Arab Middle East deserves greater attention. Witness the enormous interest in
this subject in Turkish nationalism and Hebrew nationalism, which have
succeeded in promoting themselves as paradigm cases against which other
nationalisms may be judged.
The responsibility for this lacuna does not belong to the historians or
political scientists alone, although so far they are the ones who have dominated
the study of nationalism in the Arab Middle East. A historian or political
scientist is aware of the functional and symbolic roles of language, but does not
usually study language per se or in any of its hyphenated modes. In a world of
disciplinary specialization, this is regarded as the task of the linguist. But
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THE ARABIC LANGUAGE AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
linguists are hemmed in by the imperatives of their discipline. They tend to
be interested in the theoretical foundations of linguistics or the generation
of descriptive studies for individual languages or portions of languages.
Hyphenated approaches such as psycho-linguistics or socio-linguistics (henceforth
“sociolinguistics”) answer to two masters, which tend to pull them in different
directions and, more often than not, assign those who profess expertise in them
to the margins of the parent disciplines.
The closest approach to a linguistics-related field of study which can
investigate the question of language and national identity is sociolinguistics,
provided we conceive of this discipline as being “essentially about identity, its
formation, presentation and maintenance” (Edwards 1988:3). But this discipline
is handicapped in a number of ways in its treatment of Arabic. First, Arabic
sociolinguistics tends to be interested in the functional capacity of the language
rather than in its symbolic connotations. By treating the language as a means of
communication fust and foremost, Arabic sociolinguistics misses the opportun­
ity to tap into a layer of meanings and symbolic values that may otherwise be
available to the researcher. Second, the interest in quantitatively based analyses
in Arabic sociolinguistics (and in sociolinguistics generally; see Cameron 1997)
creates a bias, driven by logico-positivist impulses, against studies which do not
rely on this mode of investigation. Studies of this kind can therefore be easily
dismissed as “unscientific” or “pseudo-scientific”. Third, Arabic sociolinguistics
in its quantitative mode is handicapped by the invisibility of national identity as
a prominent factor in the theoretical impulses which historically informed this
discipline (Labov 1966,1972). Arabic sociolinguistics of the 1970s and 1980s in
particular created aspects of the Arabic language situation - particularly dialectal
and sociolectal variation - in the image of the urban-based, North American
model on which it relied for its inspiration (see Walters 2002). This was under­
standable at the time when the thrust of this research was to test the
applicability of the Labovian model outside its original context.
The primary aim of the present research is therefore to fill the above gap,
thus contributing to the study of nationalism in the Middle East from a cross-
disciplinary perspective. Another aim of this study is to encourage Arabic
sociolinguists to delve into other aspects of language and national identity from
a qualitative perspective. Finally, it is hoped that this work will highlight the
importance of symbolic meaning in the study of nationalism.
2. WHAT IS NATIONAL IDENTITY?
There is nothing novel in saying that identities are complex, variable, elastic
and subject to manipulation (cf. Maalouf 2000). This is the position in all the
disciplines which deal with identity, whether as a collective or personal unit of
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