Afrasianet - Ilhami El Meligy - Is the Arab League a burden on what remains of the Arab dream? Or is the historical moment, though let down, still holding within it the possibility of resurrection?
Eighty years have passed since the founding of the Arab League, and between cradle and old age, the nation has crossed from the dream of liberation to the nightmare of disintegration, and from the voice of the "Khartoum Summit" to the silence of the "Baghdad Summit". On the eightieth anniversary, we are not celebrating an institutional achievement, but rather a funeral scene in which enemy shells on Gaza intersect with courtesy statements in air-conditioned halls.
At a time when geography is being tarnished and symbols are empty of their meaning, the inevitable question becomes: Has the Arab League become a burden on what remains of the Arab dream? Or is the historical moment, though failed, still holding within it the possibility of resurrection? This article is an attempt to understand whether we write a death certificate... Or are we looking for a new birth certificate?
Paradoxes of Arab pain
On the eightieth anniversary of the founding of the Arab League, as Arab leaders prepared for a group shoot at the Baghdad summit, Zionist planes were claiming the lives of children and women in the Gaza Strip, in one of the most intense and brutal days of aggression. Two parallel scenes do not meet: an official image smiling at the cameras, and blood flowing on the edges of Arab memory.
The irony was even more painful when the representation of many Gulf countries at the summit was weak and cold, just days after they participated at the highest level in an unprecedented celebration of the return of Donald Trump, the US president, who did not hide his absolute support for the aggression on Gaza, nor his desire to support policies to displace our people from their land. It is the same one who received trillions of dollars from some Gulf capitals in the form of investments and alliances, in a scene that clearly reveals the transition of decision-making centers from the arenas of Arab solidarity to Axes of international power. By what right do we call it an Arab "university" if it does not bring us together at our most demanding moment of cohesion?
As expected, the last Arab summit – or something similar to it – came out with a final statement that seemed to accurately diagnose the crises that ravage the body of the nation, but it quickly lost weight when it lacked the mechanisms and lacked the pressure tools that give it the ability to act. The statement did not include concrete steps, timetables, or even implementable proposals, to remain merely a rumination of what we know, without promise or commitment. While Gaza was burning, the people found nothing in the statement to inspire hope or It reminds her that the university has power or influence. It is as if the words were written not to be applied, but to be forgotten.
This emaciation did not surprise anyone, but confirmed a bitter truth: that the Arab League, in its current form, has become more representative of the wills of regimes than it reflects the pulse of peoples. It is no longer a platform to face crucial challenges, but rather an arena for formulating statements that are consumed by news bulletins and do not touch the conscience of the masses.
An idea in the process of liquidation
For years, there have been timid attempts to replace the Arab League with a new framework called the Middle East Organization, in which Israel is given a permanent seat and guaranteed status, Arab relations are reformulated on the basis of interest rather than principle, normalization rather than liberation, while Palestine is left to a fate redrawn by tanks and planes.
This perception does not come from a vacuum, but stems from an old and renewed colonial narrative that sees Arabism as a debilitating project, and considers that regional security can only be built in partnership with Tel Aviv, even if at the expense of historical right and Arab blood.
The recent summits are irrefutable evidence of this decline: structural statements in the face of the Yemeni disaster, hesitant positions in the face of the Syrian and Libyan tragedy, and deafening silence in the face of the impulse of normalization, until it seemed that the League was voluntarily abandoning the last crumbs of its role, not only by coercion, but under the weight of a collapse in political will.
What is meant to be obliterated by the name
It is true that there are those who propose symbolic changes, such as removing the word "Arabic" from the names of some countries, under the pretext of "renewing identity" or "keeping pace with the new regional reality", but the danger lies not in the names, but in what is intended to be hidden behind these names.
The name is only the cover, while the content is a gradual erasure of an extended political memory, and a systematic strike at the framework that, despite its faltering, carried the dreams of generations of unity, liberation and sovereignty. We are not facing a mere cosmetic modification, but a project that seeks to transform belonging from a cultural and historical bond into a regional function without depth or roots. When names are touched, the meaning is targeted... When meaning is targeted, the idea is threatened.
When the university was a title for rejection
Suffice it to recall the Khartoum summit in 1967, which came after the defeat of June, to declare a position that is unforgettable in Arab history: "No reconciliation, no recognition, no negotiation" with the Zionist enemy.
When this university expressed a militant will, it was capable of establishing an inclusive political position, even in times of defeat. Today, even symbolic attitudes are cherished, and the voice of the university is hardly heard.
In this context, we are reminded of the words of the great thinker Jamal Hamdan when he said: "The real danger is that the Arabs will suffer from the loss of historical immunity... to be swallowed while standing on their feet," he said, an apparent reference to the disintegration not only in geography, but in spirit and meaning.
As Edward Said wrote: "Identity is not only what we inherit, but what we defend and create despite the noses of attempts to obliterate," and this collective identity is the target in essence.
In the face of this deconstructive project, we must also recall the words of Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi: "Tyranny corrupts the mind, corrupts religion, corrupts morals, and corrupts society"... Isn't the Arab League, as they wanted it today, the fruit of chronic Arab tyranny, which normalizes, pacifies, and then justifies defeat as wisdom?
Hope in the people
Despite all this regression, the Arab peoples have not yet signed the university's death certificate. In the fields of popular anger, the seasons of solidarity with Palestine, and the waves of rejection of all tyranny, there are vivid signs that peoples do not die... And if you keep silent sometimes.
There is still a yearning in the conscience of the nation for an entity that expresses it, which does not dwarf it within the boundaries of geography, does not turn it into figures in official reports, but sees it as it is: a nation with memory, truth and mission.
The hope that the university or something similar to it will be resurrected, not as a closed "club of regimes", but as an open space for the will of peoples, the justice of causes, and the integration of destiny. A project that is not only built on the rubble of failure, but also fueled by its criticism, and based on the belief that our future is being made on the street, not in the corridors of sterile diplomacy.
When survival is threatened... and tests meaning
The Baghdad summit will not be the last summit, but if the Arab League continues on this lackluster approach, it is steadily moving towards losing its remaining symbolic and historical legitimacy. It is no longer a question of reforming an institution, but of its existence and usefulness at a time when umbrella frameworks are collapsing and maps are being redrawn according to the strongest, not the fittest.
They may change names, repaint signs, and put Israel at the heart of a new regional order... But what we should not allow is the liquidation of the idea that created this common space despite the storms: the idea of conscious, inclusive Arabism, transcending regulations, flags and borders.
Arabism, as Jamal Hamdan wrote about it, is not a political slogan, but "a historical and geographical ability, if absent from the Arabs, absent from the world and history." It is not an institution that disintegrates in closed rooms, but a living conscience that is resurrected whenever peoples call, elite is met, and consciousness awakens.