The Iranians who took to the streets a few days ago called on their government to disengage from Syria and Lebanon, and to focus instead on Iran and her concerns. During the ‘Green Revolution', they had done something similar, when they insisted that their country should come first, rather than Gaza or Lebanon. Those Iranians reminded us hence that patriotic policies must be tailored to a specific country, and to its particular conditions and circumstances. Yet this is a tenet that is completely at odds with the political culture that has dominated the Arab region, where cross-border ideological causes have replaced the preexisting homelands. In this sense, patriotism is given a negative connotation, as rather than responding to the needs of a given country and the requirements of its progress, it takes on the form of, for example, a bid to oppose colonialism and imperialism. While the Arab-Israeli conflict proved to be the strongest pretext for the rise of this patriotism that is shorn of or is ‘above' a homeland, the slogans of ‘the Arab or Islamic Nation' also contributed to undermining the preexisting and only possible homelands, in favor of grandiose delusions that aspire to restoring imagined golden ages. Perhaps the most important feat of the Arab uprisings today therefore lies in the fact that they are vindicating these individual homelands, raising their flags and recalling the circumstances and narratives of their foundation, yet without this being tainted by any form of obtrusive or grim chauvinism. But truth be told, this is not the only upshot of these uprisings. For in addition, they seem to champion other aspirations, including some which are pettily local and narrow-minded, and others that remain ensnared by the outdated discourse and thinking of the notion of patriotism that goes beyond homelands. Regardless, giving precedence once again to respective countries, their issues, and their interests is the only progressive direction through which one may practice politics, and not the tricks that were hitherto played to circumvent politics in the name of sacred causes. Indeed, if this direction were to triumph, naturally after going through inevitable labor pains and controversies, then one could say that the uprisings had accomplished one of their most important missions. The signals that this is happening are varied and many. Nevertheless, they contend with other signals, in turn numerous, which serve the opposite. For instance, when Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi honors the late President Anwar Sadat, he is saying that it is the man who had recovered Egypt's occupied territories, that deserves to be honored. This is in contrast to the narrative that defames Sadat because “he had betrayed the Arab nation", and which is inclined instead to honor the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had lost Egyptian territory "as a sacrifice for the Arab nation." And when a revolution erupts in Syria against the self-styled pro-resistance regime, which had fled the concerns of its country by taking shelter in a broader cause, –and the domestic sphere by fleeing to the foreign one–, then this revolution is practically declaring that the interests and freedoms of the Syrian people are the touchstone of politics beyond which there is no other benchmark. What is significant and real is hence being redeemed, rather than the ideological hot air that serves no real purpose. Even the Islamists, who come from a background of transnational ideologies, being now in power, will have to deal with real issues, such as freedoms, education and the economy. They will have to adjust their view of the ‘blasphemous' rest of the world under the pressure of national needs that cannot be met with vague ideological stances. Will modern Arab history and political discourse, then, for the first time since the era of military coups, begin by tethering patriotism to real countries, as is the case in the rest of the world?
