Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 28 Sep. - 4 Oct. 2000 Issue No. 501
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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The future of Nasserism

By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed

Contemplating the future of Nasserism brings us into unfamiliar terrain, which can be approached from a number of directions. This effort is an experimental venture into paradigmatic and systemic issues, and does not propose a specific scenario, but may serve to pave the way for future exploration into this realm.

Before I begin, however, I must stress that I am neither a Nasserist nor a sympathiser with Nasser's project, having been subjected to lengthy prison terms under the late president's rule. Nor did I have any personal contact with Nasser and his entourage, apart from a single occasion when I shook his hand during his visit to Al-Ahram in 1969.

That said, in this essay I will attempt to conceptualise the place of the Nasserist phenomenon in history, with particular attention to its projection into the future. Nasser's legacy will extend into the future; of that we can be certain. However, it is also true that the more remote the future, the more objective the perspective it will offer -- in contrast with today, when many of Nasser's contemporaries are still alive, and when subjective factors affecting both his supporters and detractors tend to dominate our analysis of Nasser and Nasserism.

CONSTANTS AND VARIABLES: What exactly is Nasserism? It has been described as many things, some good, some bad. But how can we determine which are intrinsic attributes and which merely incidental features?

This question, in turn, begs a number of others: What were the essential issues that preoccupied Abdel-Nasser? What were the constants and variables in his thinking? Was he an Egyptian first and an Arab second, or vice versa? Is the pan-Arabism he advocated an ideological constant? Is Nasserist thinking intrinsically bound to a specific moment in the history of the Egyptian or Arab liberation movement? To what extent has the confrontation with Israel shaped Nasserism and delineated its identity?

The identity of Nasserism may function on several planes. In The Philosophy of the Revolution, Nasser himself described Egypt as being located at the juncture of the Islamic, Arab and African "spheres," in which the common denominators are Egypt and membership in the Third World -- at that time, at least, for is the "Third World" valid as a term of reference today?

Egypt's multidimensional identity is a geo-strategic phenomenon with deep historical roots. Bonaparte fought the British here because Egypt was Britain's gateway to India. The Suez Canal, where three continents meet, links east with west and north with south. It has also been frequently asserted that one of the reasons for the implantation of Israel in the Middle East was to establish a strong Western presence in this vital outpost, where the imperial world ended and the world subjected to centuries of colonisation began. Clearly, therefore, Egypt is situated in an area that has been vulnerable to the most violent geo-political tremors the global political terrain has experienced.

Nasser had his victories and his defeats; that is indisputable. Still, is Nasserism to be identified solely with one man's accomplishments and victories? Such reasoning is teleological. Victories become apparent only after the fact, and therefore cannot serve to gauge whether or not the ideas or actions that triggered the event are Nasserist. It is important, therefore, to differentiate between the essential properties of Nasserism and its "triumphs," and, in general, to avoid such teleological standards as success or failure in our attempt to identify the constants.

To distinguish constants from variables, we must first establish the nature of our constants. Do they, for example, arise from a set of pre-existing causes? If variables are by definition incidental, previously defined premises cannot apply. Must we define as constants those tangible realities that perpetuate themselves during a specific period of history (and thus apply "objective" criteria, regardless of the leader's attitudes), or should we resort to subjective criteria and seek these constants in notions the leader himself outlined? Finally, did the victories or defeats attributed to Nasser emanate directly from these constants or, on the contrary, did they constitute anomalies?

Scrutiny of such questions also entails separating Nasser and his particular set of historical circumstances from Nasserism as a theory applicable under different historical conditions. What are the properties that will distinguish Nasserism under circumstances that are certain to differ markedly from those that existed in Nasser's time? For example, is non-alignment a feature of Nasserism? The rise of the Non-Aligned Movement was governed by specific circumstances generated by a bipolar global order. That order no longer exists. If we accept this, it is difficult to consider non-alignment as a constant of Nasserism that can extend into the future.

Is it possible, then, that certain Nasserist traits are unrelated to temporal specificity? If so, to what extent? Can Nasser even be said to have had an ideology, since he tended to operate on the basis of trial and error, and was loath to submit to ideological strictures? And if ideology is not a constant of Nasserism, what is?

I believe that we can consider the following premise as true, until proven otherwise. Nasser preferred action to reaction; he succeeded in asserting the political will to take decisions with global repercussions. His two most important decisions -- the nationalisation of the Suez Canal and the construction of the High Dam -- clearly suggest that among his most salient characteristics were an ability to challenge the international order and refusal to succumb to a fait accompli.

By extension, the constant that most typifies Nasser was his fight against the systems and mechanisms that promoted "hegemony" locally, regionally and internationally. Perhaps, too, we can add the sustained endeavour to "restructure the economic and social edifice in order to foster social justice and equal opportunity." In fact, we should also add another factor. When he was at the pinnacle of power, even during the bleakest moments of his defeats, he always enjoyed the confidence of the masses, which never lost the sense that Nasser was closer in his sympathies to them than to any other segment of society.

Nasser in Syria in 1960

NASSERISM AND REVOLUTIONARY ACTION: The future of Nasserism, thus, seems contingent on the need for comprehensive, radical transformation -- a revolutionary act. There is, furthermore, a dialectical relationship between movement and leader in Nasserism, which is identified with an individual, not an ideology. Nasserism is a movement founded around a charismatic leader who has come to lift society from the abyss. It is not a creed, but a process that has come to possess some of the qualities of a creed. Nasserism was never proposed as a creed; it became one following his death, in the mind of some who hoped to propagate the values they attributed to him.

The revolutionary act in question does not necessarily have to entail the involvement of a broad segment of the masses. It can also take the form of a coup or conspiracy. By "revolutionary," I mean that a dramatic backdrop is required as the appropriate environment for the emergence of a new Nasserism. The emergence of a new Nasserism, in short, is necessarily contingent upon a certain set of circumstances and the appearance of a leader capable of exploiting those circumstances.

No other Third World leader before or after Nasser scored successes with impact as wide-ranging as that of the High Dam or the nationalisation of the Suez Canal. In Iran, Mosadegh's attempt to nationalise the petroleum industry was thwarted by the CIA. Peron was often seen as a disciple of Nasser and 1960 was dubbed the year of African independence, but none of these events had earthshaking consequences.

THE REVIVAL OF NASSERISM: Nasserism was the product of the antagonism between traditional colonialism and national liberation movements, which supplied the dramatic confrontational backdrop for a "revolutionary situation." Today, we are supposedly living in a "globalised" world where, ostensibly, democratic mechanisms confer legitimacy upon change. On the other hand, we might ask what significance democracy has to countries in which it has not established firm and extensive roots, and which do not fit the codes of the "Western world."

The notion of a leader supported by 99 per cent of voters may be justified by certain "revolutionary" circumstances; however, it is entirely inconsistent with democracy as applied today. The 99 per cent victory rests on the assumption that a regime acquires its legitimacy and credibility from a vast and overwhelming mass movement, a monolithic entity that marginalises all opposition. This assumption applies to military regimes, but the phenomenon of a charismatic leader adds another dynamic, according to which a particular individual comes to embody the masses' hopes and aspirations.

NON-ALIGNMENT: Nasser and Nasserism were the products of an era dominated by conflict between two political poles, which subjugated the international community and its resources. Nasser confronted this mode of hegemony through non-alignment, a policy that enabled him to achieve a status no Third World leader had ever attained. How is it possible to speak of non-alignment in the unipolar world of today, a world no longer prey to the rivalry between the capitalist West and the socialist East?

Perhaps a Nasserist form of non-alignment under today's unipolar global order entails the drive to create a multipolar order and to supplant the "clash of civilisations" -- which favours the dominant civilisation -- with a "dialogue of civilisations." To do so, however, introduces the idea that the constants applicable under one set of historical circumstances can be modified to suit a different set. In other words, this suggests that such constants are in fact more akin to variables.

BIPOLARISM TO MULTIPOLARISM: The transformation of the world order presupposes the ultimate and conclusive triumph of unbridled liberal capitalism within a temporal-spatial matrix whose coordinates are the "end of history" and "globalisation."

Of course, the "end of history," as Francis Fukuyama himself states, does not mean the end of time. Rather, it refers to a point at which a political system has succeeded in transcending its "relative" position with respect to other universal ideological contenders to become the "absolute" and "perpetual" system around which everything else is ordered. Thus, according to Fukuyama, the laws of history have ordained that liberal capitalism, and not communism, or fascism, say, is the final ideological framework for human aspirations, the ultimate "global" reference point for all humanity.

Nasserism is the antithesis of this philosophy. It derives its impetus from within society and channels social energies toward resisting external prescriptions, whether dictated in the name of globalisation or in the context of an historical process that has purportedly reached its conclusion. Nasserism defies capitalist hegemony through its emphasis on "corrective" mechanisms to promote the "social dimension." It seeks to bend capitalism to the needs of society and the principle of equal opportunity, rather than bending society to the needs of capitalism. Nasserism holds that democratic rights can only advance in conjunction with social rights. Herein reside the elements of socialism attributed to Nasser. And, if contemporary circumstances dictate that a revived Nasserism cannot promote the cause of social democracy to the detriment of the formal democratic process, the institutionalised state and the sovereignty of law, it can still be a Nasserist goal to curb the growing disparity between rich and poor in the Arab world and to discover an appropriate formula for the redistribution of Arab national wealth.

Nasserism presupposes that history can have no "end;" that it is a perpetually regenerative process. It further holds that "globalism" -- as opposed to "globalisation" -- must foster principles of social equality and justice.

Humanity is in the process of becoming divided into a minority and majority under the laws of a new form of bipolarism. The minority, growing smaller and ever more prosperous, has crossed the threshold into the "advanced," "civilised," "democratic" world, known as the "global society." The majority has failed to cross that threshold and is increasingly vulnerable to marginalisation and, indeed, oblivion. The "superstratum" of humanity is that portion that enjoys the fruits of technological advances in an age when control of our planet has probed the infinite expanses of the universe and the infinite minuteness of the subatomic world, the age of the genome, a time when man has learned that he is no longer the centre of the universe.

The most salient aspect of Nasserism is that it champions the "substratum" of humanity. To this end, it posits a vision of Arab nationalism and Arab unity. Its corollary is the polarisation between Nasserists and those forces that revolve in the orbit of foreign colonialism under the rubric of globalisation. As such, Nasserism possesses a vision of class struggle.

This vision has a future. A unipolar order cannot obtain under the ever-increasing social disparities in the world today. By definition, a unipolar order cannot tolerate an antithesis; its legitimacy depends on branding the antithesis subversive and terrorist. Nasserism offers an alternative to this scenario. In its opposition to a unipolar order, it necessarily undermines such a portrayal of the antithetical pole.

THE FUTURE: If Nasserism has a future, what will it be? The future, for our purposes here, is not some endless, ambiguous, featureless expanse, but rather a concrete reality with specific properties. It is the extension of those realities that have come to epitomise the beginning of the 21st century and the threshold of the third millennium, and as such has particular symbolic significance. It is also an historical phase that possesses many qualities inimical to a Nasserist revival.

Nonetheless, Egypt's location at the juncture of numerous crossroads incessantly regenerates the possibility that it will find itself vulnerable to the ambitions of global forces. This very reality, however, also renews the prospect of subsequent historical phases in which Egypt struggles effectively to counter those pressures, thereby reconstituting its identity and implementing decisions with international ramifications on a scale far greater than Egypt's natural capacities. This process requires a "leader" capable of steering Egypt through its regeneration. That leader may or may not emerge, but there is always the possibility that he may, as well as the possibility that circumstances may change in a manner favourable to Egypt's resurgence. In this sense, too, Nasserism has a future.

The Nasserism of the future may differ radically from that of Nasser's day. As we have suggested above, the constants that prevailed during the Cold War era will not and cannot be those that govern the revival of the Nasserist spirit in a uni- or multipolar world. In that sense, Mohamed Ali, who defied Ottoman hegemony and threatened Western colonial expansion in the eastern Mediterranean, was a model of the Nasserism we are discussing, and it is possible that some leader in the future may continue this tradition of defiance.

The quest to liberate Egypt from a position of dependency is a continuous process that extends into both the past and the future. Mohamed Ali epitomised the phenomenon in the first half of the 19th century and Khedive Ismail embodied its opposite in the second half. In the mid-20th century Nasser brought the spirit of defiance to new heights while Sadat, again, epitomised the opposite. The cycle may well repeat itself in the future.

The Nasserism of the future, then, will not entail the resurgence of a specific ideological platform, policies or a mode of rule. Rather, it will emerge as a refusal to bend to decisions dictated from abroad by agents inimical to Egypt's independence.

The external challenge to Egyptian autonomy may, at any particular historical moment, manifest itself in a particular "adversary." In modern history, for example, Britain epitomised the external threat and Egypt's defiance adopted many forms. Today, given the current configuration of global relations, Israel has come to embody the challenge to Egypt, even in peace. Some believe that a declaration of peace against the backdrop of globalisation signifies the end of confrontation. This is not the case. The confrontation between Egypt and Israel will shift to rivalry over the future of the Middle East. The conflict is inevitable and will persist. The relationship between Egypt and Israel vividly embodies a rebuttal of the "end of history," since peace with Israel will not mark an end to the confrontation with Zionism. The confrontation will continue in the form of a clash of civilisations, as long as Israel continues to manifest the threat of external hegemony, against which Egypt must assert its political will. In this sense, too, Nasserism has a future.

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