Beyond the nation-state

The writing is on the wall and troubling signs are looming in the horizon. The soft collapse of central governments is triggering sectarian, ethnic and tribal tensions across the globe, but particularly in the Middle East.

Are we witnessing the premature warning signals of the tumbling of nation states across our region? And if that concept is obsolete, what will replace it?

When the US Senate voted recently to adopt a non-binding resolution calling for the partitioning of Iraq into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish enclaves, nationalists, Islamists and even politically indifferent citizens huffed and puffed and warned of a grand American-Israeli conspiracy to divide and rule the Arab world.

But the Senate was merely suggesting a pragmatic approach to contain the disastrous situation in occupied Iraq, where violent sectarian and ethnic struggle is shattering the country.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq had fractured the foundations of a strong central government and destroyed its institutions.

The L. Paul Bremer effect on the quick dissolution of the Iraqi state will be studied for decades. But that is not to say that the seeds of sectarian and ethnic discontent did not exist in Saddam Hussain's Iraq.

Regardless of how the Baath party and previous governments had dealt with such challenges, the state prevailed and with it the sense of a common identity and diverse culture.

Iraq provides a unique case study of post-colonial making and breaking up of a modern Arab nation-state. Direct military intervention had terminally interrupted the evolution of the Iraqi state as we had known for more than 80 years.

The deconstruction of modern Iraq by the United States is unparalleled in modern history, well not since the end of the Second World War. The future of Iraq is uncertain; a geopolitical challenge both to its people and the country that now controls it.

Catastrophic effects

But in contrast to Iraq, central governments in other regions have also shown signs of malfunction and progressive weariness. A combination of political, economic and social paralysis is crippling governments in Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Pakistan and others.

In Somalia a central government has been absent for decades and a reality of pre-nation-state conditions has taken over with catastrophic effects on the population.

Despite having a strong military, Pakistan has been unable to crush rebel bands in Waziristan province, while civil unrest is spreading across the country.

Whether the latest power-sharing deal between Gen Pervez Musharraf and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto will save the day remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the instruments of civil society in that country have given way to the rising influence of tribes, fanning the embers of sectarian and ethnic strife. As civil and constitutional institutions stumble, radical, fundamentalist and subversive factions rise.

Lebanon is another example where a strong central government is swiftly dissolving. The constitutional stand-off, which has been dragging on since the end of the one-month war between Hezbollah and Israel last year, has exerted an exorbitant price on Lebanon's civil society and democratic traditions and institutions.

Sectarian fissures run deep in that small and diverse country and the spectre of the civil war that almost destroyed it more than two decades ago hovers closely.

The Palestinians, who never had their own state, are experiencing the horrific consequences of internecine fighting, political squabbling, rampant corruption and decline of democratic institutions.

Until recently the Palestinians celebrated their democratic traditions, which they managed to keep alive even in the diaspora. But today their legislature has broken down and a state of lawlessness has taken over.

Like Iraq, occupation and foreign intervention cannot be exonerated from being directly linked to the unravelling of Palestinian institutions, and like Lebanon, a stand-off between competing forces is pushing all towards anarchy.

Darfur is threatening to be Sudan's Achilles' heel and it underlines the growing ethnic and tribal challenges that the Khartoum government faces in the largest country in Africa.

Such challenges have triggered civil wars in many African countries, such as Nigeria and Rwanda, with horrendous consequences and atrocities towards civilians.

When central governments wane, the elements of disunity embedded in almost every society in this region are awakened. But in the absence of direct foreign intervention that eventually derails institutions and shatters nation-states, why do governments eventually lose grip over their domain?

Political and economic undercurrents in today's globalised world tend to shake governments that until recently believed they were immune. Democracies tend to adapt and fare much better than less democratised societies.

Military controlled governments have a much harder time maintaining an iron fist over a society in transition - as the junta in Myanmar is finding out.

Economic challenges, the communications revolution and higher literacy rates will subsequently erode the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes.

As we witness the slow shrinking of the influence of central governments, we cannot but associate that phenomenon with the overall failing of nation-states.

Future geopolitical conflicts will give rise to ethnic, tribal and sectarian crises within political borderlines and beyond. Such pre-nation-state disputes in a post-modern world will excrete a new set of challenges to regional and international stability.

Central governments and the nation-state can only preserve themselves if they evolve from the current level. In fact what is needed is a mutation that leaps forward in order to stem the erosion process.

Democracy, public accountability, citizenship associated with secular frameworks and equality before the law, will slowly blur ethnic, sectarian and tribal dividing lines in favour of a common national trait.

That is the only practical path away from the mentality of obsessive entrenchment that is now taking over.

Osama Al Sharif is a Jordanian journalist based in Amman.