The Unmaking of Arab Socialism

Front Cover
Anthem Press, Oct 1, 2016 - Political Science - 332 pages

Conditions of malnutrition, conflict, or a combination of both characterize many Arab countries, but this was not always so. As in much of the developing world, the immediate post-independence period was an age of hope and relative prosperity. But imperialism did not sleep while these countries developed, and it soon intervened to destroy these post-independence achievements.

The two principal defeats and losses of territory to Israel in 1967 and 1973, as well as the others that followed, left in their wake more than the destruction of assets and the loss of human lives: the Arab world lost its ideology of resistance. The reversal in economic and social performance between then and now requires an even-handed and theoretically coherent explanation that steers clear of the hallucinatory constructs of individual freedom and choice. Considering such choices is utterly superfluous in a situation where the important choice is often a single one—that is, no choice at all—imposed by the power of history on the unfree majority.

The Unmaking of Arab Socialism is an attempt to understand the perplexing reasons for the Arab world's developmental descent—its de-development—from the pinnacle of Arab socialism to its present desolate condition.Kadri focuses on the concept of Arab socialism in general and its application to Iraq, Syria and Egypt as he explores the deleterious effects of redundant labour expelled by dispossessions in the hinterland and the persistence of permanent war.

 

Contents

The Politics
Arab Socialism in Retrospect
The Devastation of Peace in Egypt
The Infeasibility of Revolution in Syria
Iraq Then and
The Perverse Transformation
Permanent War in the Arab World
Bibliography
Index
Copyright

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About the author (2016)

Ali Kadri is a Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore and has been a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics (LSE) and Head of the Economic Analysis Section at the United Nations regional office for Western Asia.