A Search for Common Ground - Disparity With & Within the Arab League

Abstract

The Arab League is an International Organization that is not unifying the Arab Community. There are many reasons for this. It has many incongruences in what is necessary to have a unified and successful regional body. Some are infrastructural, some are cultural, some are behavioral, and some are a combination. Most notably the lack of commonality is a key issue especially in the face of a proclaimed Arab identity. That problem is further exacerbated by the polemic rather than academic nature of discourse on Arabism, Islam and the region. Another key problem faced in the region is the multitude of wars. The many wars have created instability, chaos, and an inability to move forward in the region often due to their cyclical nature. There is nothing uniting the region as a whole, although arab and islamic movements have tried. Nationalism has prevailed as the cohesive unit in the region. In that regard, the nation is the only structure in place to deal with the many crises that the region continues to face. There is no umma and what is more there is no concrete arab identity, it is only based on history. Though there are societal customs and institutions inherited from that history, one of which is the emphasis on honor over acquisition (though not absolute in the region). This makes the pursuit of a union of...