Anyone know of anarchist books/thinkers in arabic?

Well Mohamed Sail was from a Kabylie region in Algeria and was clearly an Algerian nationalist, so it's unsurprising that he'd be against "arabishness". I, myself, have tended to support Nasserists and Baathists, although I think both movements have been tainted by their authoritarianism. I think a new pan-Arab platform needs to emerge that rejects these two currents and resets pan-Arabism within a non-authoritarian socialist framework.

Mazen Almaz though is a good find. I'll check out his writings

@Leo, yes I am. Have you not met any Arab nationalists before? It's quite common...

If you look at large-scale opinion polls such as this one conducted of 14 Arab countries (>21,000 ppl) by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, you'll see that 79% of respondents answered that "Arab countries are one nation". 44% said "they are separated by artificial borders". This shows that the attitude is very prevalent across the region, it simply isn't represented politically for obvious reasons - no one in power wants to share power with anyone else. You'd never get results that strong for the EU in a million years

@Entdinglichung, how is it different than the EU? Or the US? Or India? Or China? These are all very diverse groupings. Arab nations share common historical, cultural, and linguistic characteristics from Morocco to Iraq. It's very natural for them to be federated into a union of some sort. Certainly every Arab nation has more in common than Finland and Italy or Spain and Sweden, etc.

I'm personally against flag-waving nationalism and song-singing. But anyone who has even the faintest knowledge of modern Middle East history will know that the modern Arab nation states are colonial-era jokes. It makes zero sense to be nationalistic about Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Saudi, etc. I would much rather see the region split up into local regions federated with one another

As for it being sunni supremacism, that depends on the individual. There are many kinds of arab nationalism and certainly one kind has always been driven by Rashidun-style takeover of non-believers... but this is increasingly overshadowed by socialist pan-arabism that has learned from the mistakes of Nasser and Baath.

@Battlescarred,

Thanks for the Guerin book. That's very helpful. Although we should oppose the use of the term "فوضوية". It's a piss-poor term for anarchism that just means "anarchy-ism". I prefer اللاسلطوية or مجلسية or تحررية or some such term that accurately describes the ideology

Anarchism and communism are inherently federalist. I use the terms nation and nationalism loosely, as no communes exist in the area. According to polls pan-arab feeling is very high in Kuwait for example. That doesn't mean that Kuwaitis want to get rid of the idea of Kuwait altogether. What term should I be using to describe Arab states and pan-Arabism? I use these terms because they are the most commonly used terms. I didn't think I needed to clarify that I'm not talking about a union like the United States with a central government.

How exactly am I conflating capitalist institutions with cultural institutions and traditions?
I specifically stated that Arab states share common cultural characteristics, language, and history, and most importantly, share a common sense that their current nations are flawed colonial creations. Pan-Arabism is inherently anti-nationalist, much the same as pan-Islamism, in that they both desire to remove the current formation of states created in the last 100 years. What form would follow in the future depends on the ideology of the person. I'm aware that most pan-arabist socialists favour the creation of a centralized state. I stated clearly that I favour the federation and unionization of the region into small local areas according to the people's choosing. This is what I meant by people having learned the lessons of Nasser and Baath.

Arab is not a racial term. Go find out what it is first if you're going to call me a racist populist. Arabs are multi-racial. This is the most elementary topic that any Arab person can tell you about

Oh wow, amazing. Now you're comparing me to apartheid South Africa? This is hilarious. I specifically stated several times: a federation of small local regions. If I'm a racist arab nationalist, then what ethnic groups am I proposing to put into these regions in my apartheid worldview? And are you also denying that anarchism and communism are inherently federalist?

"self-organization" doesn't automatically mean zero distinctions between communities or ethnic groups or religions just so you're aware. People will always divide themselves into such groupings. Again, this does not mean that they are not self-organized or that there is a hierarchy. The IWA is currently split into smaller groups based on their location and country of origin, such as the Confederação Operária Brasileira, the Norsk Syndikalistisk Forbund, etc. Any syndicate will be split into similar groupings.

Your comment about my federalism is empty because I wouldn't be on this board if I didn't believe in working class oriented non-hierarchical organization. I didn't think I'd need to specify on libcom that I don't want to segregate people by their ethnicity. But it seems that you're a particularly combative person who enjoys throwing about accusations and calling people racists on a libertarian forum.

Your comment on nationalism is incorrect since I stated I am not a nationalist. Pan-Arabism is not always equal to Arab nationalism. I do believe that people organize themselves according shared cultural and linguistic characteristics, which is why I pointed out the IWA affiliates.

Wrong. IWA affiliates are currently organized by industry, geography, and perceived nationhood. If it was industry and geography alone then you wouldn't have separate organizations for France, Italy, Spain and Germany. Nor Argentinian and Chilean and Brazilian. Tell me what geographic regions these are representing. And how exactly does my own proposal differ from a German or French syndicalist ogranization given that "German" and "French" have far more ethnic connotations than the word "Arab", which is, as you now know, a pan-ethnic term.

And then I qualified that statement by explaining it. You cut that quote short. This is precisely why I mentioned Nasserism and Baathism multiple times. You don't seem to know what Nasserism and Baathism are, which is probably why you missed the reference entirely and called me a racist. I assumed I was talking to people who understood the reference.

Seems like an odd way to destroy the nation-state by adhering to it to identify yourself. If syndicalist organizations wanted to destroy all aspects of nationhood then they should be organizing by actual geographic regions and not by countries.

Realistically speaking, anarchist organizations will organize themselves into such regions, and will likely be subdivided according to language and ideology. A council/assemby of Islington will send a delegate to the commune of London, which will send a delegate to the confederal council of southern England (or something), which will send a delegate to the confederal council of the British Isles. This confederation would then send delegates to a larger regional confederation such as a European confederation, or western European federation or something similar. This makes particular sense since we already have the EU, and any future body would likely be some sort of descendent of the EU. On an economic level, industrial syndicates would be organized in a similar fashion.

"future social organisation must be made solely from the bottom upwards, by the free association or federation of workers, firstly in their unions, then in communes, regions, nations and finally in a great federation, international and universal." In other words, "the federative Alliance of all working men's associations . . . will constitute the commune."
- Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 206 and p. 170

The objective obviously is to avoid nation-states or their descendants competing with one another for resources and land. I always supposed that this would not be a problem if these groups were organized in certain ways, with local assemblies given the choice to which commune they belong and send delegates, whilst industrial unions are pan-regional. Realistically speaking, I expect that there would be communes organized by religion. I don't think in the near future that people will stop identifying as Shia or Sunni, for example. I think you can convince people of the merits of direct democracy and organization from below. But it will take several centuries/millennia more to get rid of any religious or national or ethnic identity in many people.

Because I stated that I supported a socialist pan-arabism "that has learned from the mistakes of Nasser and Baath." And I assumed that was enough for an audience on libcom that knows what Nasserism and Baath represented. I also stated that they were tainted by their authoritarianism and mentioned a federated region of local areas.

If you do not think that there will be any federations or confederations created by people that resemble or are contiguous with current nation-states, then please take a moment from calling me a racist supremacist to explain how exactly you expect a future society to look like.

I speculated on how I think a future society would be organized. From Islington>London>southern England>British Isles>Europe>International

If you do not agree, then please explain how you think areas will be organized.
I think that anarchism will not be achieved all over the world overnight, and that the future will likely look like a mixture of capitalist states, social democracies, fascist states, etc. With hopefully some areas that are organized from the bottom up. There will probably even be regions within anarchist areas that voluntarily choose to be capitalist/fascist/whatever. I expect anarchist confederations to be made up of bodies descended from nation-states, just like the IWA is today. This doesn't preclude some sort of allegiance between anarchist regions, for example, an anarchist region in Iraq may "join" an anarchist region of Turkey for self-protection. However - I still see them broken down by language and culture, language being the most important factor.

I asked you a specific question and you linked me to the preamble of the IWW?

How helpful and patronizing

And btw, the statutes of the IWA mention national organizations repeatedly.

You have also neglected to explain why the IWA affiliates are organized by their countries of origin instead of by regions or any other method. You claimed they were organized by "industry and geography" which is patently not the case.

If you want to learn about Nasserism then check the wikipedia page on Nasserism.
If you want to learn about Baathism then check out the wikipedia page on Baathism.

Then I'll be sure not to quote Bakunin ever again, as it was purely to gain "wisdom points" and not because I thought it may be relevant to the conversation. Quoting important theoreticians is always a sign that someone's a snob, after all.

Thanks. A++ response.

This thread wasn't about that. It got derailed. You can readily observe that by reading the title of the thread as well as the comments. Good luck