Word: ismael
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Left," Ismael says, emerged as a response to the failure of pro-Palestinian forces in 1967 to wage war successfully against Israel and the forces of world (mostly U.S.) imperialism which she represents to the "New Left." While the roots--and, indeed, the actual formation--of various leftist groups had become implanted in the Arab world a decade before the June 1967 War, the failure of those groups to clearly define and/or implement their ideology had generated political weakness and ideological dissatisfaction...
...organizations like the Ba'ath and the Arab Nationalist Movement, which had tried to embrace all manner of political belief under their own banners, split under the pressures of new demands, new political methods, and an increasing attention to stricter ideological definition. Thus, the "New Arab Left," which Ismael finally defines as "those new parties and/or organizations that publicly and unequivocally declare adherence to Marxism-Leninism" is the offspring of political events and older organizations which intensified dissatisfaction with the status quo, rather than quelling...
...well-developed institutional or ideological bases, political formations in the Arab world have frequently depended on personalities. Much of recent political formation in the Arab world has been a response towards or away from the actions and words of Gamal Abdel Nasser. The chapter on Nasserism (written by Jacqueline Ismael) gives another focus to the subject. That movement exemplified the complex and often vaguely-defined nature of political alliances in the Arab world, for "while Nasser lived, Nasserism meant most directly the leadership of Nasser. As an ideology, it remained incoherent, as a movement, unorganized." The survival of such groups...
Thorough documentation of Arabic sources and frequent quotations from the political broadsheets of each organization has enhanced Ismael's effort to communicate the shades of tone and policy among and within diverse organs of the Left. In addition, the Appendices--translations of the Ba'ath Constitution and excerpts from manifestos of other groups--are useful source material, much of it never before available in English. Ismael's book is thus both a solid source guide to the development of certain leftist political organizations in the Arab world and a concise, not too formidable, introduction to a confusing subject...
POLITICAL ANALYSIS frequently seems out of touch with events in time. But, while the business of ideological pronouncements and shifting alliances among radicalized elements in the Arab world seems by its very complexity to preoccupy its adherents, paradoxically choking effective action, Ismael would have us believe (and rightly so) that the flowering of such groups carries a message which ought to shake the Western Powers out of complacency, compelling them to reexamine their own alliances and operational stances. "In a word, if the sufferings of the Arab masses are not alleviated and if the basic aspirations of these masses...