Socialism and Social Justice

While the Arab world was undergoing its Nahda, the ideal of justice was also being discussed in the West and a popular form of political organisation under discussion was socialism. Socialism (of a kind) was also a form of political organisation well known in Arab history and not necessarily anathema to Islam. A programme of socialism was advanced by a variety of major parties, once the Arab countries in the 20^th Century achieved a degree of independence, including the party of Nasser, the Syrian Nationalist Party and the Ba’th Party as well as a variety of Islamist parties.

Kawakibi was one of the earliest Nahda proponents of a social justice ideal and a socialist system as his solution to the problem of social injustice and economic tyranny (Istibdād).

The first words used to describe the mainly French and British ideas of socialism and socialist in Arabic were, respectively, Ishtirākiyya and Ishtirāki based on the Arabic word Ishtirāk (for sharing). In the early Arab Nahda period, Turkish and Arab thinkers both tended to simply transliterate from the European words and the Turks still use sosyalist to mean socialist.

Egyptian thinkers especially (including Syrian/Lebanese émigrés writing for the literary and cultural presses in Cairo such as Shibli Shumayyil (1860 - 1917)) began to debate the ideas of European socialism from the first decade of the 20^th Century. Shumayyil first advocated scientific rationalism, materialism and Darwinism. He then argued that the capitalist system imposed economic and social injustices based, as he saw it, in conflict and proposed state involvement in the economy and social development and state-operated social welfare programmes as good socialist remedies.

Naturally, as in Europe, the early discussion of socialism also concerned its relationship with various formal democratic values. Salama Musa (1887 – 1957) was apparently influenced by the ideas of British Fabian socialism. He saw what he called sosialiyya as producing economic liberation and equal job opportunities. In the meantime he saw training Egyptians in democratic values and socialism within the government system as important precursors to the wider acceptance of socialist values and the adoption of socialism.

When Egypt adopted a liberal democratic system, a Socialist Party of Workers was founded by Mahmud Husni al-‘Arabi in Alexandria in 1920 recognising the democratic process. He then formed a Communist Party there in 1922 (Communist parties also appeared in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq by the end of the decade).

Further more or less democratic socialist parties appeared in the Arab world in the decades beginning with the 1930s. Anton Sa’adeh formed the Syrian National Socialist Party in that decade, using ijtima’i for socialist; in Iraq, a major democratic socialist figure was Kamil al-Jadarji; and in Lebanon, Kamal Jumblatt established the Socialist Progressive Party now led by his son, Walid.

In the 1940s in Syria, Akram al-Hawrani formed the Arab Socialist Party that was later absorbed into the Arab Ba’th (Renaissance) Party, which was founded by Michel ‘Aflaq and Salah al-Bitar of Damascus, and thus it became the Arab Socialist Ba’th Party.

So the Arab Ba’th Socialist Party was founded in the 1940s and still exists in Syria as a governing party despite having been made illegal in neighbouring Iraq during the recent occupation administration. The ideology of the party requires that it control both economic and social policy and thus produce the redistribution of wealth and thereby social justice. Industries were thus nationalised and workers were given a degree of management control of enterprises. Limits were also placed on both land and industrial ownership while economic development was promoted.

The period 1954 to 1970 was the socialist reign of Gamal ‘Abdel Nasser in Egypt. In that period, Nasser attempted to bridge the class divide that had existed. Large enterprises (and many medium-size ones) were nationalised in this period in Egypt. This was accompanied by substantial agrarian reform, industrialisation programmes and the National Charter produced in 1962.

Today, thinkers in the Arab world tend to fall into socialist and anti-socialist camps. “Arab socialism” has always tended to adopt and blend ideas from Arab nationalism and socialism. The relationship between socialism and democracy has tended to be antagonistic and socialism has lost its appeal in this contest since the 1970s. There has also been an emerging consensus among secular Arab progressive thinkers developing that democracy and respect for human rights are in fact necessary for the revolution, for socialism and for the national unity and liberation to which they aspire. The debate has occurred in the context of a globalisation driven in part by the forces of capitalism and with the participation of female socialist thinkers and activists such as Nawal as-Sa’dawi.

Freedoms and Government (and Democracy?)

So clearly the valid nation discussed by the thinkers mentioned in the last post deserved freedom from oppression - both external and internal - or did it?

The Arab thinkers of the Nahda took up ancient ideas of freedom from despotism and tyranny in producing a new discourse of an independent Arab nation as well as Western ideals. The ideas of justice ('adl) versus oppression (zulm) being the outcomes of rule and constitutional rights were two ideas that were central to the overall debate concerning freedom/liberty (hurriyya) versus servitude (isti’bad) to despotism/tyranny (istibdad).

The first notable linkage between the ideal of Arab nationalism and the requirement of freedom made in the Nahda was made by Tahtawi. He spoke of the authority of the ruler to rule being subject to that rule being within the limits of moral norms and conforming to an ideal of moderation and justice (‘adl). He further explained that freedom (hurriyya) was necessary for the continuing strength of any patriotic national community and even its creation.

Following Tahtawi, Khayr ad-Din at-Tunisi (c. 1825 – 1889) and Butrus al-Bustani made further early contributions to the discussion of freedom. Tunisi discussed the institution of political institutions based on the concepts of justice and freedom in the context of Tunisian Islamic modernism and Bustani was especially concerned to discuss religious freedoms and equality. I mentioned Tunisi in my post on modernising wazirs as the founder of the constitution of Tunisia. In the context of the Arab world, it is significant that Bustani, a member of a minority religious and ethnic group in the Middle East at birth, raised especially issues of equality and religious freedom that naturally concern such groups in the context of the wider Arab world.

Late in the 19th Century, ‘Abd ar-Rahman al-Kawakibi (1854 - 1902) wrote Taba’i’ al-Istibdad (Characteristics (or Nature) of Tyranny/Despotism) to define and explore despotism and its relationship with freedom. Despotism consisted of autocratic rule, he wrote, and the arbitrariness of the powers of heads of religion, family and classes. It could also be imposed on the basis of disparities of religion, knowledge, education and wealth. Kawakibi opposed despotism in all its forms and argued for its removal.

Following Ottoman reforms in the early 20th Century and the 1908 Constitutional restoration, the freedom and justice debate continued especially among Arab intellectuals in modernising Egypt. One great participant and Egyptian Arab secular nationalist involved in that debate was Ahmad Lutfi as-Sayyid (1872 - 1963). He stressed the importance of individual freedom and the problematic of its relationship with the control of its freely constitutionally contracting citizens by the state. He opposed both despotism (istibdad) and servitude (isti’bad). He concluded that true government must spring from free agreement of citizens and their innate sense of justice.

In more recent times, intellectuals and creative writers have continued this discourse of freedom and oppression reflecting the realities of post-World War Two Arab political and cultural developments. The simultaneous existence of evident freedom/liberation of Arab nations (tahrir) from external oppression and continuing failure of internal freedom (hurriyya) from the ‘liberated’ state has needed explanation. While the real existence of national tahrir may still be questioned, the clearest examples of oppression do appear now to be internal. Critics have effectively requested the same sauce for the internal goose as for the external gander and the sexual element of that analogy is not entirely irrelevant when one considers the demands from Arab ‘feminists’ for freedom for women within this debate. The traditional Arab ‘obedience paradigm’ has been questioned and accused of being an obstacle to rightful freedoms. Taher Labib, a Tunisian sociologist, has spoken of an accumulation of tyrannical political practice occurring. Halim Barakat and Issa Boullata have also been prominent in the recent freedom/despotism debate.

A sense of disappointment has also pervaded some of the debate that parties seeking national liberation and ‘progressive’ parties have not also brought about the personal liberation of their peoples when in government. Several ostensibly progressive parties and ideologies are given particular attention such as the Ba’th party, the Communist parties of the Arab world, the parties of Nasser and others nationalists and the ideologies of those parties. Thinkers within the parties themselves have often considered these issues in some detail. So-called “Islamists” or at least traditional Islamic thinkers and ideologues also discussed what freedom means today and what freedoms should be promoted and foremost among these was the progressive Islamist thinker, Rashid Ghannoushi.

Some of the issues that have been considered have been proper restrictions on certain kinds of expression and communication versus complete freedom of expression and individual versus group freedom in an Arab world currently dominated by political elites with their various agendas. Various forms of economic dependency within the Arab world have also been discussed as significant inhibitors of political and cultural freedoms.

Democracy has not had a high priority in this Arab discourse until quite recently. Civil rights struggles likewise have a long way to go before freedoms and civil rights protections are regarded as absolutely necessary in Arab societies. A lot of this probably has to do with their association with the imperialism of the 'democratic' West. The Egyptian scholar Saad Eddin Ibrahim has been a major proponent of democratic and other 'freedom-related' reforms in the Arab world.

The history of the Arab world has produced a problem for freedom discussed in the works of Adonis (‘Ali Ahmad Said Asbar) (b. 1930), the Syrian poet and thinker, and especially in his study of Arab culture, The Permanent and the Changing: a Study of Arab Conformity and Creativity. Other poets, too, have discussed this issue. For example, Nizar Qabbani (or Kabbani) (1923 - 1998) also discusses the historical burden limiting the freedom of women and Muhammad al-Maghout (d. April 2006) discusses the burden restricting the freedom of the Arab “masses”. Durayd Lahham, also an artist, also made a contribution to this discussion. The innate links between freedom, knowledge and the status of women have been thus examined in detail in the Arab world.