Geographic Fragmentation and Demographic Fragmentation

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Fears are being voiced over the geographic fragmentation of the Arab homeland, and some media figures, intellectuals, and politicians say Sykes-Picot is raising its head once again to reshape Arab political geography anew, so that instead of twenty-two Arab states, the number could grow to around forty. Talk of fragmenting the already-fragmented has intensified, and fears are mounting over the emergence of new Arab fiefdoms, at the expense of the logic of Arab unity, both geographic and demographic.

These fears are real, because we do see some fragmentation on the ground, at least in three Arab states: Iraq, Yemen, and Libya. Iraq was part of the Sykes-Picot plan, and it is now returning to be divided again along ethnic lines. The Kurds in northern Iraq lead a near-independent political and economic life apart from the central government in Baghdad, while southern Yemen agitates for separation from central rule in Sanaa, with some calling for and insisting on that separation, and in Libya the old rift between East and West has never disappeared, and bloody friction between the Tripoli and Benghazi regions continues to claim Libyan lives and wreck public institutions.

The Western states are the first to be accused of seeking further division of the Arab homeland, the arrows pointed first at the United States, which, together with Israel, still dreams of establishing what has been called the “New Middle East.” What I see, though, is that further geographic division of the Arab homeland may not actually serve Western interests, given the possibility that new statelets might emerge that could ally with adversaries of the Western states in the region. For instance, America and the West have no interest in establishing an Alawite statelet in western rump Syria, or a Shiite statelet in eastern Arabia or Bahrain, or a Houthi fiefdom in northern Yemen.

Such statelets, if established, might ally with Hezbollah and Iran, bringing further trouble for the Western states and the Zionist entity. The Zionist entity and the Western states are concerned with weakening the Iran-Hezbollah camp, not with weakening the existing Arab nation-states, unless one of them sings outside the flock, as Syria has done. The Western states and the entity are concerned with preserving the Arab nation-state, because it has proven, over time, to be obedient to the Western states, posing no threat to the Zionist entity, and it has also proven that some of these nation-states cooperate with the Zionist entity against certain parties in the region, such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

There is another problem in this regard concerning the Hejaz. The Hejaz is a sacred center for all Muslims, and if the people of the West sought to establish a Hejazi state, that state could well become a major hub drawing in Sunnis, who might shift their political orientation from serving the Western states to opposing racism, occupation, and the states of capitalist exploitation. This means the matter carries a risk of great harm to Western and Zionist interests. Keeping the Saudi regime intact serves the people of the West and the Zionists better than the establishment of an Islamic state in the Hejaz.

What we observe across the Arab homeland is that the Western states are not, in fact, moving toward the geographic partition of the Arab states, but toward destroying these states so that they never return to the ordinary life they knew fifty years ago — the best guarantee for the continuation of these states’ influence and for the security of the Zionist entity. Enormous destruction has befallen Syria, Libya, and Yemen, and these states will need many long years to stand on their own feet again.

Supporting this is the fact that the Western states were not, from the outset, serious about containing the internal crises in Arab countries, and instead reinforced terrorist orientations within them, in cooperation with Arab states, to inflict further destruction and ruin on the Arab countries that witnessed unrest against their ruling regimes. Some Western minds may well have calculated that inflicting killing and ruin on the Arabs would prevent them from demanding, in the future, the establishment of democratic systems of government, since democracy, were it to be established among Arabs, would constitute a threat to Western interests. Democracy is expected to bring ruling systems disobedient to the Western states and the Zionist entity, so it is more convenient to preserve the existing ruling systems and destroy the states that give off the scent of rebellion against the West.

The division that actually exists across the broad Arab landscape, encompassing both the states that experienced unrest and those that did not, is demographic division. The population of the Arab homeland has fragmented along sectarian, religious, denominational, and ethnic lines. Over many long years, the Arab regimes manufactured rancor, animosity, and hatred among people, and so did the religious and ethnic upbringing the Arab person and those who share his geography were subjected to, with direct financial and military assistance from Arab and Western states, and hostile feelings were activated, bringing us to this flowing blood and enormous devastation. We Arabs have been exposed, over the years, to a deadly, poisonous injustice at the hands of the Arab regimes, and to a racist, fanatical, closed, obscurantist, exclusionary, negating religious and ethnic upbringing that nurtured within our souls a desire for vengeance, retaliation, and the negation of the other — an urge expressed with brutal simplicity during the Arab unraveling, deepening hatred through bloodshed, the demolition of homes, and the destruction of farms and property.

We take revenge on ourselves, tearing ourselves apart into warring sects, denominations, and ethnicities that have demolished the path toward establishing peace among us. This means the element of demographic division is embedded within our own souls, and all the people of the West and the Arab regimes have done is cultivate it, activate it, and stimulate it, until it became a new identity at the expense of both national and patriotic identity. And this is a fragmentation more convenient for the West than geographic fragmentation, because it guarantees the continuation of internal Arab quarrels over a long stretch of time, without the Zionists and Western interests ever becoming a heavy subject that must be confronted.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “التفتيت الجغرافي والتفتيت السكاني” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.