EXPLORATIONS IN SOCIOLOGY #1: THE FASCINATING INTERSECTION WITH JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE BY MICHEL AFLAQ 

--- Walid Al Amriki, Public Relations Director of the North American Resistance Committee (NARC)

We are introducing the Explorations in Sociology corner to our digest, this time focusing on Michel Aflaq and his study of Johann Gottlieb Fichte. It is hoped that this brings about a spiritual awakening towards deep study by the youth and others who genuinely seek to advance revolutionary theory.

Anti-imperialist dialogue in the West has become increasingly archaic, boring, and fossilized. Ingroup polemics are often dogmatic bullhorns overly fascinated by themselves. The need to synthesize ideas across a vast spectrum of resistance and to genuinely study history freely has become central. 

Michel Aflaq, influenced heavily by both Marxism and the failure of Marxists to take principled positions in the Arab nation, was a Syrian-born founder of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. My introduction to Michel Aflaq came as a youth when wanting to better understand the Iraqi mujahideen resisting occupation from its origins.

Aflaq is responsible for a whole body of works related to Arabism, Islam, socialism, the Third World, anti-imperialism, and anti-Zionism. He also was a prolific organizer despite many setbacks.

I used to deeply enjoy reading Johann Gottlieb Fitche’s Addresses to the German Nation. My intersection with Fichte came from being around Palestinian revolutionaries who introduced me to Aflaq who introduced me to Fichte. Notice here how the pursuit of knowledge leads to greater and greater pursuits.

Fichte appealed to the German soul towards uniting its fragmented parts as Aflaq did the Arab one, both doing so creatively based upon the unique realities of their people. While some despicable level of German colonialism has occurred, actual German nationalists before Hitler were often very anti-imperialist. In discussing Fichte and Aflaq, one could see how the ideas of Kwame Nkrumah also come to mind.

German Nationalist geopolitics traditionally have three main enemies and two friends. The historic enemies of German Nationalism are the Jews, Atlanticism, namely imperialist Britain, and the Vatican as a continuation of the Germanic people’s legacy of fighting the Roman Empire. The historic friends of German Nationalism are its brothers Russia and Arabia. So while reading German thinkers may seem taboo today in the Judaized West, it is obvious why Aflaq could find affinity towards Fichte. 

Aflaq’s ideas directly understood the role of Islam in the Arab nation, even while he was a Greek Orthodox Christian. Fichte appealed to the very distinctly Germanic psychological qualities of his people, namely that of Germanic popular character and national identity. Both Fichte and ethno-Germanic frameworks have been bastardized by predatory racists, but neither should be seen as remotely representing such in their origins and pure essence. Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union often blind people today to the fact that German unitary parameters began as something revolutionary. Hence, Aflaq’s work towards uniting fragmented Arab states into one explored German and other frameworks towards his own pan-unitary project. This later involved a tremendous intersection between Pan-Africanism and Pan-Arabism, two brothers.

Today we need to study, study, and study if we are going to advance revolutionary ideas. This is less important for forces focused more on community organizing and localized efforts. However, wide arrays of study are vital for those who wish to understand complex geopolitics, advance correct historical narratives or develop anti-imperialist polemics and revolutionary theory with accuracy.