[PDF] Nationalism And Nationhood In The United Arab Emirates eBook
Nationalism And Nationhood In The United Arab Emirates Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of Nationalism And Nationhood In The United Arab Emirates book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.
This book shows how an encounter with everyday nationhood in the northern United Arab Emirates can make us revisit the classics of sociology as continuous analytical world-views. Through the textual universe of Georg Simmel, and in particular his analysis of modern life as the feeling of dualism, the project reflects about how seemingly crucial challenges to the national – the forces of globalization and the wish to be unique – are drawn together with the formation of nationhood in everyday life. It does so not least by attending to the instances of everyday nationhood – like fashion and car-driving – that are at the same time central ways of embodying the modern. This volume appeals to students of nationalism, classical sociology, and the modern Arab Gulf.
Radical Arab nationalism emerged in the modern era as a response to European political and cultural domination, culminating in a series of military coups in the mid-20th century in Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya. This movement heralded the dawn of modern, independent nations that would close the economic, social, scientific, and military gaps with the West while building a unity of Arab nations. But this dream failed. In fact, radical Arab nationalism became a barrier to civil peace and national cohesion, most tragically demonstrated in the case of Syria, for two reasons: 1) national armies militarized nationalism and its political objectives; 2) these nations did not keep pace with the intellectual and political and cultural and social progress of European nations that offered, for example, freedom of speech and thought. It was the failure of radical Arab nationalism, Addi contends, that made the more recent political Islam so popular. But if radical nationalism militarized politics, the Islamists politicized religion. Today, the prevailing medieval interpretation of Islam, defended by the Islamists, prevents these nations from making progress and achieving the kind of social justice that radical Arab nationalism once promised. Will political Islam fail, too? Can nations ruled by political Islam accommodate modernity? Their success or failure, Addi writes, depends upon this question.
Principles related to identity vary to a great extent between the states of the Arab world in particular and the Islamic world in general. While this differentiation is widely acknowledged, much of the recent debate on contemporary Islamic identity has focused on specific concepts. But the way in which the national identity of the UAE has emerged demonstrates the impediments that such limited definitions might impose. The prevailing concepts of the self and of national identity in the UAE are not represented in the Western media. Since the birth of the Federation in 1971, the UAE has developed within an Arab-Islamic framework, aiming towards progress, characterized as well by unique attributes that defy rigid stereotypes. While the UAE has committed to seek the attainment of concrete Islamic and Arab unity, it succeeded, at the same time, in establishing national perception and awareness in marked harmony with the state's commitments. The UAE has developed its own solutions to face the challenges of globalization and nationalization. This modern national state maintains powerful elements of traditional conservatism, while, simultaneously, making technical progress. The state responds to imported knowledge while trying, at the same time, to maintain the authenticity of its local culture. Due to the existence of a social infrastructure that depends, to a significant degree, on natural resources, state investment activities extend vigorously to include industrial development zones and enterprises for stock companies and establishments. This study discusses the extent to which the general observations of modern religious and national identities correspond with the collective identity of the UAE state. To achieve this aim, a general survey was carried out in order to identify, experimentally, the impact of various components of identity (e.g., religion, language, regionalism, Arabism). The research concludes that the collective identity of the UAE state is, in fact, a positive cohesive force generally not based on the contrarian model that characterizes modern national and cultural trends.
Malešević shows how the recent escalation of populist nationalism is not an anomaly, but the result of globalisation and nationalism developing together through modern history.
This edited volume investigates place, product, and personal branding in the Middle East and North Africa, including some studies from adjacent regions and the wider Islamicate world. Going beyond simply presenting logos and slogans, it critically analyses processes of strategic communication and image building under general conditions of globalisation, neoliberalisation, and postmodernisation and, in a regional perspective, of lasting authoritarian rule and increased endeavours for "worlding." In particular, it looks at the multiple actors involved in branding activities, their interests and motives, and investigates tools, channels, and forms of branding. A major interest exists in the entanglements of different spatial scales and in the (in)consistencies of communication measures. Attention is paid to reconfigurations of certain images over time and to the positioning of objects of branding in time and space. Historical case studies supplement the focus on contemporary branding efforts. While branding in the Western world and many emerging economies has been meticulously analysed, this edited volume fills an important gap in the research on MENA countries.