The Arab Spring and the Absence of Anti-American Rhetoric By: Abdelmalek EL KADOUSSI Researcher in communication and media

studies at Moulay Ismail University, Meknes Morocco (email: maleknet69@hotmail.com)

This essay is a discussion of Dr. Hajjis Ten Reasons Why Anti-US Rhetoric and Flag Burning Did Not Blot the Arab Spring

The absence of anti-American rhetoric and American flag-burning during the Arab spring invites observers to critically immerse into the symbolic, discursive, political,

philosophical, and ideological implications of the Arab spring on international relations in general and American public diplomacy in particular. Whether the recent absence of antiAmericanism in the Arab streets is the fruit of effective America foreign diplomacy and public relations in the region, or the translation of a new Arab public consciousness (youth in particular) that rejects the frames of the past and looks forward to a new conceptualization of international relations based on empathy and respect rather than apathy and disrespect, the issue is worth meticulous scrutiny. This essay reviews Dr. Hajjis Ten Reasons Why AntiUS Rhetoric and Flag Burning Did Not Blot the Arab Spring, discusses some of the projected reasons and furthers other angles of vision. Hajji provides a systematic and meticulous analysis of the issue and constellates ten reasons underpinning the disappearance of American flag-burning and Anti-American slogans from the demonstrations reverberating across North African and Middle Eastern streets. Starting from the American side of the continuum, Hajji introduces the Obama factor that, albeit the considerable face-losing stances pertaining to the Palestinian-Israeli issue, still embeds a soothing effect on the Arab popular psyche, ensuing into a more realistic US

foreign policy towards the Middle East, a policy that, despite the American veto, manages to deviate from Israels frames of the premises of the six-decade conflict. He then labels the third factor US support to the Arab spring, referring to Obamas speech and his genuine comprehension of and backing to the Arab youths yearn for change, a support, though stuttering and scrupulous at the start, remains primordial for the dissent since it emanates from a superpower. The fourth factor the fall of the myth of Islamist threat to the westapproaches to the center of the continuum and refers to political Islam in Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and other Arab nations as a new trend of Islamism that is less dogmatic and more pragmatic, less ideological and more operational, less fanatic and more open to the west. Hajjis fifth reason pertains to the burial of the ideology of pan-Arabism and the resurgence of a novel Arab youth identity politics that is, despite the identical patterns of the movements and the slogans, purely nationalistic in scope and ambivalent in texture. The end of anti-war zeal is remembered as a sixth reason for no flag-burning in the Arab liberation squares, as the tendency is towards short run troop retreat from the Iraqi and Afghani fronts. More effective PR initiatives in the region takes the seventh position in Hajjis continuum. It is true US public relations has to function at multiple levels: fix the US selfimage, build new channels for more effective communication, and maintain the goodwill of the Arab public. Either by supporting and boosting less privileged groups, or hiring media experts from the region, funding their projects, and providing them with a platform for endorsement, or by thinking globally and acting locally, as the inception of Arabic speaking media outlets bears witness to. The home economic crisis and its repercussions on the American superpower legend is evoked as the eight factor underpinning the disappearance of anti-American slogans from the Arab spring. Towards the end of the continuum, Hajji mentions the Arab regimes refraining from anti-American rhetoric as a ninth factor, to

finally end the trajectory by the social media as a central factor without which the Arab spring would not look the way it does. Hajjis vision this time is less downbeat than the one he projects in his previous article on the reasons why Obama lost the goodwill of the Arabs. Arguably, he is inspired by E. Saids humanism and moral realism as he finally locates the absence of anti-Americanism from Arab rhetoric within the macro-cultural picture and presents it as an icon of moderation, empathy and acceptance, a lesson which westerners have to learn from the Arab spring. Perhaps for a simple observer of the Arab spring, the idea of no US flag-burning and no anti-US rhetoric would not mean much, and accordingly one would immediately wonder as one reads Hajjis title: what does American flag burning have to do with the Arab revolutions? These are no anti-war rallies, these are anti-dictatorship uprisings, the enemy here is not the US, the enemy is Arab tyranny and totalitarianism. The article ingeniously explains why the issue matters and bears strong implications and meaningful messages for international relations in general and Arab-US relations in particular. It is true that anti-US discourse took steady and momentous aspects over the last two decades, precisely on the aftermath of the first invasion of Iraq (1991), through the fall of Bagdad (2003), to the war on Lebanon (2006), and ending with the siege and war on Gaza (2008). Israeli and American flag-burning and discursive indignation and massive wrath manifested both in the Arab dissidents slogans and placards and in the bulletins and talk shows of Arabic news outlets like Aljazeera. They constituted an integral part of the Arab anti-war ritual. It is true as well that since the new American administration took over, such a discourse has soothed down. In addition to Hajjis ten factors underpinning this new discursive dimension of Arab-US relations, a few other explanations are proposed. The first relates to the fact that US

flag-burning over the last twenty years bore an instantaneous reactive dimension that was immediately geared and fueled by the American flagrant implication in events, stances, or declarations detrimental to Arabs. A second reason, related to the first, is the idea that the ritual held a symbolic rather than an operational dimension. No matter how strong and provocative, as the recent US move toward its illegalization testifies, flag-burning remains a weapon of the weak. The momentous Arab streets arguably tend to transcend mere symbolism to sheer activism. The historic amplitude and enormity of the events is an index to a much more mature Arab youth consciousness that goes beyond anti-Americanism to anti-totalitarianism. They seek the deconstruction and undermining of the disabled political stronghold of the Arab aging and corrupt elites, and the reconstruction of effective governance and equity. They by and large compel everyone, including the Americans, to pack for the new journey. Western support to the Arab spring was unsurprisingly not unwavering during the two first uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. America and Europe were caught by surprise by the enormity of the Arab dissent, they had not seen it coming, and when it did they stuttered and lost control before they shyly declared an ambiguous support which they did not out of goodwill and genuine conviction but out of necessity as they had to follow their interest-oriented instincts. It is true that, mainly in Libya, western engagement was quick and decisive. But notice how Europe, France and England in particular, was more actively engaged than the US as the latters support was more rhetorical than logistical. Perhaps, learning from the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, the US administration opted for a more realistic approach that saved it supplementary logistical expenses which a sick economy could not have afforded and human losses which a war-sick citizenry would by no means accept. More importantly, the American approach avoided Arab apathy and subversive rhetoric.

The Arab demonstrators refute the old Oriontalist clichs that have, throughout history, described Arabs with pernicious metaphors and encapsulated them as irrational antiwestern mobs. Frames like violent Arabs or terrorist Islam have been dismantled and elegantly debunked by the unparalleled self-disciplined, civilized, peaceful dissidents despite repeated provocations from the authorities and the paid hooligans. The myth that the Arab youths are either completely passive and carefree or tiny-minded and totally apolitical is also refuted. The whole political dynamics are youth-based from the start. It was the ingenious creativity of the young Arabs who have excelled in the manipulation of high technological tools and social networks that sketched , instigated and managed the

movements in the Arab streets, the same young Arabs who have strengthened the ties among the complex sectors of the Arab society, watched the revolutions and ensured their success (as the case of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya demonstrate), and demonstrated an elevated configuration of political consciousness and a genuine sense of belonging that transcends geography-bound nationalism to a more open transnational political mindset. Talking about nationalism, Hajji mentions, among the reasons behind the absence of anti-Americanism during the Arab spring, the fall of the myth of pan-Arabism. He is probably very right in the sense that the spring of the Arabs has undermined pan-Arabism in its ideological dimension, but not in its operational one. The leftist and transnational slogans that remind us of the sixties and seventies of the last century which were subsequent to Middle Eastern successive coups dtats, like any other form of political, ethnic, or religious doctrinism did not find room in the Arab spring. It was neither Islamism, nor ethnic fanaticism, nor pure Arabism, nor limited nationalism that pushed millions to the streets to seek change. It was a new sense of belonging, a new identity politics, and a new collective

consciousness that transcended religion, ethnicity, class, race, gender, or any ideology.

Therefore, contrary to the prevailing assumption of the Arabs as fanatic and dogmatic, the Arab street speaks a secular language that puts change and empathy above all other isms. Perhaps pan-Arabism did not die because it had never been. It was arguably a simple dogma and a slogan inscribed by the old generation of politicians to legitimize their smear whims for lifelong power, and rehearsed by the illiterate and idealistic masses who believed in utopia. The spirit of the Arab revolutions however is likely to be presenting novel grounds for a more mature pan-Arabism, pan-Arabism as an efficient ritual installed by the will of the people, not as a dogma instilled by the whims of the rulers. Revolutions, though distant in terms of geography, speak the same language, the same frustrations, and the same aspirations for genuine institutionalization of sociopolitical life and effective governance. What is more unifying in the Arab spring than the reverberating squares and streets crammed with millions of bare-chested but strong-willed and self-conscious Arabs who have broken up with the decades of silence and shattered down the walls of fear which their autocratic rulers have cemented with coercion and oppression? After all, the absence of flag-burning and anti-American rhetoric from the Arab streets does not strictly imply that the Arabs have finally made it up with the American diplomacy as much as it denotes their high profile consciousness which is anchored in profound knowledge of their immediate needs and their witty implementation if the respective appropriate tactics and measures to attain them.