ABSTRACT
The Arab world constitutes a particular regional system. Interactions between its components, whether cooperative or conflictual, have therefore a special and peculiar set of dynamics. Arab nationalism means different things to different groups: it is by no means a simple movement. Pan-Arabism has many facets, and Arab nationalism has assumed three principal forms, which partly or entirely exclude each other.” Local nationalisms and pan-Arabism were pursuing the same objective: independence. To prove the demise of pan-Arabism, F. Ajami argues that the evolution of Arab states since the colonial mandates has been characterized by the emergence of local nationalisms around bureaucratic interests. Ajami considers Egypt’s defection from the Arab system a nationalist move. The struggle against the Ottoman Empire, then against the colonial powers, embodied the objective of local nationalisms and pan-Arabism alike: independence. The struggle for independence was not simply a struggle for physical elimination of the military occupation.
