Arab Union against European Union

I recently asked how to change the linguistic map of the world and that has led me to another thought. The existence of 30 different varieties of Arabic, don´t you think that stops a unifying process between the different nations having this language as an official? In fact, I believe that unifying processes should begin to see the light in different parts of the world. Spanish America should start a unifying process. The existence of a single language should facilitate this and allow when this process begins that it could be faster than the European,because I think the great slow and difficult process unifying Europe is the existence of very different languages. I believe also that the existence of a unique language in France, the Iberian peninsula and Italy could have allowed the reappearance of a Roman superpower in this area.
So I think I might ask about the Arab issue. With the title of this thread I don´t seek a confrontation, but rather a reaction. The European Union could serve as a counterweight to the power that now holds U.S. and China and the URRS in the past. Why the Arab states couldn´t respond the same way? How do we get a unifying process similar to the European Union?
 
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yourworstnightmare

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Get rid of the magnificent bastards who rule the Arab countries as personal domains. Since none of them want to lose any power, there'll be no unification process as long as they're in charge.
 
I doubt that the arab nations will ever unify in the way you are suggesting, certainly not in the near future! Yes a single language could help that along, but there are far to many other factors that would hinder it.

One of the reasons why places like France, UK, Germany and other countries are unified is that at a point in time in the past someone came along and forced them to unite. The constant wars and conflicts that raged for centuries helped to forge a national identity (either by recognised self interest or by forced conversion) and broke down the old Clan or tribe based loyalty system that was in place, the people werent given a choice.
Many of the arab nations dont have this history, and clan and tribe loyalty system is still very much the norm. Just look at whats happening in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to this day, family loyalty is still primary for many of the people with national loyalty a poor second place.

With this tangled loyalty still existing, then its going to be very hard (near impossible) to convince them that they should undergo any kind of unification, single language or not. Sad fact is that they wont want to do it as they will assume that their own tribe will suffer because of it.

Now, take this same issue and make it bigger and then you see the real impedement to a unified europe, replace clan loyalty with country loyalty and its essentially the same situation. Many people dont want to give up control of their country, they are afraid that their national identity will suffer if such an act was done. And quite rightly too, because this would happen. The thought that they will loose control of their laws, their government, their taxes (and by extension their money) will scare a great many people and make them resist.

Right now there are no clear and obvious benefits to having a unified europe so there is no way to convince all these people to embrace the changes. What we do have is clear evidence that there would be negative effects and that serves to encourage people to resist any changes. How significant these negative effects would be is debatable, but thats not the point, the perception is that they are bad
Single language or not, in the modern day world or democracy there needs to be a demonstrated rational for making any changes or you will never convince them to go for it, the days of forcing people to do it are long gone.

Unlike you I dont see the possibility of any real unification efforts anywhere in the world. A shared single language will make communications and relationships easier, so what other incentive is there to make the next step? Simple answer, there isnt one!
 
The only way to do it would have to be through some extreme event. The European Union only went into existence after an event that threatened or effected the lives of nearly every person in Europe. The reason behind unifaction was obvious, to stop this threat from ever happening again.

Humanity only ever forget their differences when they are faced with a threat.

I can see a few possible points for this, the one I think you might be looking for is the crusades. Instead of just armies of fanatics, the whole of Christendom marched on the Middle east. For this to happen one of the reasons behind the crusades would have to be changed, instead of a holy mission to recapture Jerusalem it would have to be a holy mission to wipe out all those that don't believe in Christianity.


Still it would have to be before 1900. I can't thin of any moment since then that an Arab union could have been formed.
 
Pan-Arabism...on paper it looks so obvious. You're surprised it hasn't happened already.
Yet whenever it is tried...it doesn't exactly work out.


The problem with a future EUesque Arab union is its too based on a people and a language whilst the EU is solidly based on geography.
Sure, a Algerian and a Saudi may have more in common than a Swede and a Spaniard but they're a lot further away from each other and they have different local commitments. To the Algerian Spain is a very important neighbour, West Africa is an important area. The Saudi looks more at Iran and Eastern Africa.
Europe is just more compact
 
Pan-Arabism...on paper it looks so obvious. You're surprised it hasn't happened already.
Yet whenever it is tried...it doesn't exactly work out.


The problem with a future EUesque Arab union is its too based on a people and a language whilst the EU is solidly based on geography.
Sure, a Algerian and a Saudi may have more in common than a Swede and a Spaniard but they're a lot further away from each other and they have different local commitments. To the Algerian Spain is a very important neighbour, West Africa is an important area. The Saudi looks more at Iran and Eastern Africa.
Europe is just more compact
Europe is not compact. Geography is what has facilitated the emergence of strong regionalisms and even when the geography could have helped in the case of French and German, well...

We´ve got sixty years of a unifying process to a state that we have barely begun to glimpse. Europe is a young and very fragile embryo and that is surviving the current economic crisis miraculously. A process that is tiring because of this, because we haven´t much in common. Until a few decades even we were fighting each other.

Republican states such as Spanish America ones, with the same culture and language, I'm sure they would take much easy unifying process,and I also think that the American process would be shorter in time. It even seems incredible that only nation hadn´t been born of independence in the early nineteenth century.

It is more interesting and complicated the arabic issue arabe because ultimately, and I'm no expert, when we talk about Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Libya (yeah, I know, the farther, more different are), we talk about the same people but at the same time they seem very far apart. I don´t know, should we need a trigger to a Union like that of the europeans, well, why not the easiest one, why not Israel?
 
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