Arab Nationalist Movement
From Freepedia
The Arab Nationalist Movement (Harakat al-Qawmiyyin al-Arabiyyin), also known as the Movement of Arab Nationalists and the Harakiyyin, is a radical pan-Arab nationalist organization. Founded in Lebanon in the 1950s as an intellectual vanguard group, it became an influential movement in Syrian and Iraqi politics in the 1960s while its Palestinian members formed two of the most important groups within the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
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Origins
The Arab Nationalist Movement had its origins in a student group led by George Habash at the American University of Beirut which emerged in the late 1940s. In the mid-1950s Habash and his followers joined a larger student group led by Constantin Zureiq. The group's ideology owed much to Zureiq's thinking: it was revolutionary and pan-Arabist. It placed emphasis on the formation of a nationally conscious intellectual elite which would play a vanguard role in a revolution of Arab consciousness, leading to Arab unity and social progress.
Expansion
The group formed branches in various Arab states, and adopted the name Arab Nationalist Movement in 1958. Some political divergence arose within the movement, as many, especially in Syria and Iraq, became close to local Nasserist movements, while a more radical element moved towards Marxism, including Habash and Nayef Hawatme.
In 1962 the Syrian branch, until then a small group of intellectuals almost all of whom were Palestinian, reacted to the break-up of the United Arab Republic by establishing a mass-movement calling for immediate re-unification with Egypt. Membership quickly surged to several thousand, and the leadership participated in the first Ba'thist-led government established after the coup of 8 March 1963.
Similiar events led to the growth of the ANM in Iraq, where in the aftermath of the overthrow of Abd al-Karim Qasim in 1963, the Ba'th Party had established a government which collapsed in disorder and was replaced in November that year by a more broadly-based pan-Arab government under Abd al-Salam Arif. The ANM again played a major role in Iraqi politics, close to the Nasserist elements in Arif's government. After the Nasserists lost influence and withdrew from the government in July 1964, the ANM continued to collaborate with them and in September that year attempted a coup.
In Egypt the ANM branch merged into Nasser's Arab Socialist Union, but they were later depoliticized after an internal purge.
Role in the Palestinian struggle
The Marxist elements in the ANM reconstituted its Palestinian branch in the mid-1960s as the National Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In December 1967 NFLP unified with two other Palestinian factions, Heroes of Return and the Palestine Liberation Front. Together they formed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. But the Hawatme leftist faction broke away from PFLP in early 1968 and formed the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The left-right split cut across most of the ANM branches, and led to the disintegration of the movement. This was a development partially propelled by the defeat of Egypt in the 1967, which had led to the discreditation of Nasserism and provoked the ANM to play down its pan-Arab character.
The ANM in Arabia
In 1964 the local ANM branch in Oman participated in the formation of the National Liberation Front of Dhofar. The ANM as a whole supported the Dhofar struggle. NLFD later emerged into the Peoples Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arab Gulf, later the Peoples Front for the Liberation of Oman.
In South Yemen the local ANM branc was instrumental in forming the National Liberation Front which would later become the Yemeni Socialist Party, the leading political party in the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen.
Later developments
In Iraq the ANM branch had merged into the Arab Socialist Union in 1964, but a section later broke away to form the Arab Socialist Movement. Likewise in Syria, ANM had entered the Arab Socialist Union, but both the Hawatme and Habash loyalists later reconstituted themselves as independent parties.
In Lebanon the Hawatme wing (which has in majority in the Lebanon branch) reconstituted itself as the Organisation of Lebanese Socialists in 1968, and in later merged with Socialist Lebanon to form the Communist Action Organization. The Habash loyalist worked under the name of Socialist Labour Party for a while.
In Kuwait the ANM branch was reconstituted as the Progressive Democrats, a political party still in existence.
The Saudi branch gave birth to the Communist Party of Saudi Arabia and the Arab Socialist Action Party.
Current position
The PFLP and DFLP are still extremely active in Palestinian politics and both played a military role in the Al-Aqsa Intifada. However, their political support is rather reduced, especially within the occupied territories. In addition to the decline of the Arab left in general, a trend related to changes in Arab political culture but also to the fall of the Soviet Union, in the specific circumstances of the occupied territories the two Fronts are squeezed between the radical Islamist opposition of Hamas and the patronage resources available to Fatah through its control of the Palestinian Authority.
